We sat down again, one either side of the table. James dealt, and quickly went bust. I wondered if it was deliberate.
He stood again, and I watched as he carefully eased the briefs over his erection and testicles, down his slim thighs and calves and onto the floor. He stepped out of them and stood for a moment.
I just wanted to rush round the table and embrace him. He's got everything, I thought. An attractive, distinctive face with that grin, a slim, well proportioned chest, slim legs with just enough muscle, and that soft patch of hair just sprouting above his penis. And his penis…well. Nearly as long as mine, not as wide, though, smooth, and with a glans at the end that looked so shapely, all supported by a low hanging, bulging scrotum that left the young testicles very evident and inviting. I couldn't believe this was happening to me.
James sat down, carefully, and dealt again. Once again, he lost the hand, looked at me and said, rather shakily, I thought, "Forfeit?"
I looked at him. "If you're sure."
"I lost, didn't I?"
"Yes…but…All right, but tell me to stop if you want. Come here."
James crossed to me, and stood in front of me. His erection was now starting to subside, perhaps because of uncertainty of what I was going to do.
"You keep on about being awake when I put you to bed last night," I said. "Were you really?"
"You know I was. I just did what you did to me then."
"Well, I was awake that first night, when you felt me, too. And I was awake afterwards."
He looked at me, and his face went white. The excitement drained from his body.
"I…oh…oh shit…"
His mouth opened as if he was about to speak, but no words came from it. I let him go on as long as I could stand it, then rose and put my arms round the boy, looking him in the face. I felt my protruding organ touch James' limp one, and was happy to feel him press his belly towards me. Slowly, I kissed his forehead, then stopped and looked down at him. Shyly, it seemed to me, James lifted his face towards me and kissed me on the lips.
He still looked confused. He had just been told that I knew about his actions, and it hadn't seemed to strike him that they balanced out my own of the previous night.
We stayed like that for some time, and James seemed to accept my closeness.
"Aren't you disgusted with me?"
I just looked at him. "Why should I be?"
"Well, it's not right to…do that."
"Why not? We've talked about that anyway. And we did at Amberdale. And as to fondling you, I did last night, and you did it to me that first night. What's right for one is right for the other. Did you enjoy it?"
"Yes. I was sorry you stopped."
"If you want to know, I only stopped because I thought it wasn't right."
I gave him a bear hug, then broke away. He looked surprised and disappointed. "Is that it," he asked.
"Didn't you like it?"
"Yes." And James came back to me and put his arms round me, pushing his body close so that I could once again feeling the warm hardness of our touching penises. His was stiffening again, and its growth against my body was beautifully intimate. "But I thought there'd be something……more."
I looked at him in surprise. "I was anxious not to….do too much."
"I did more to you, just now. And that first night."
I looked at him again, entranced, and once again kissed him. My hand slipped down his back onto his bottom, and stroked his buttock gently. Drawing my head away, I looked at the boy, saw the smile on his face and the closing eyes, and checked the question I'd been going to ask. My other hand moved to the other side of his bottom, and stroked there too.
James thrust his hips forward so that he was leaning slightly back, bringing the length of his penis against mine. He was by now again fully erect. I could see his foreskin had started to ease back over the glans, and fluid was covering it. I could feel his wetness against my own erection, and eased a hand around between us. I held the tip of my own penis and then thought again.
"James," I whispered, "do you want to pull my foreskin back, too?"
James looked at me and smiled, moved his hand onto the tip of my penis and put a finger either side on the foreskin. He pulled gently downwards so that my foreskin expanded down the his swollen glans, and I gasped as it finally cleared the ridge at the bottom and settled beyond it. I grasped James', in turn, and gently eased it further back, expecting at any time to be told to stop. James said nothing, and I was surprised that the foreskin rode back so easily until it, too, lay behind the ridge of the glans.
We stood like that for some moments, the wet glans of each resting on the other's. It'd been a long time since I'd felt so naked. I felt as though another layer of clothing had been stripped from me. Had it been anyone else apart from James — or Mark — that I was with, I'd never have allowed it. In fact I had never found anyone apart from those two who I wanted to be at all intimate with anyway. But I already knew him so well. It was as if five years had been stripped away between us and we could have been back in my hotel bedroom. Apart from the wonderful developments that had happened to his body, of course. And to mine to, I supposed. I was aware I'd not been very advanced at Amberdale. Certainly nothing like as advanced as this boy was. At last, emotion overcame me, and my body closed on James' to embrace him again. As I did so, his glans slipped from mine and hit the belly with a thump.
"Ow!" he said, backing off.
"What's the matter?" I asked, concerned that I'd hurt him.
"I hit it against you. It hurt."
"You're very sensitive there, I can see. Have you ever tried holding it there?"
"No. It hurts."
"Not so much when it's wet, like now. Try it."
"It hurt when it hit against you."
"Yes. That's a hit, not a touch."
"You do it for me."
I was beginning to think that nothing James could do or say would surprise me. But the trust the boy once again had for me flattered me greatly. How could he trust me not to hurt him when he was anxious about doing so himself?
I sat on the floor, and gently pulled James down beside me. "If I hurt you, or you want me to stop, just say so."
James just looked at me and closed his eyes. "I'm going to lie back, Martin," he said.
I made room for him, then sat at his side. I stroked James' shaft with my left hand, then squeezed he length of it. As a drop of fluid appeared at the end, I lightly smeared it around the top of the glans. He was producing a lot, so I hardly needed to squeeze it from him. Drop after drop appeared, and was gently stroked all over the glans until it was completely covered. James lay still, his body rigid as I circled my palm around the glans, touching it all over. He shuddered, and I expected him to tell me to stop. But he said nothing. I moved my hand gently up and down the wet organ, and James wriggled on the floor with the sensation, so like pain, yet so unlike it in its acceptability.
I continued for some minutes, James wriggling on his back as I did so, then brought my other hand up to massage his testicles. James moaned, and became still again. I looked at him. There was no sign he wanted me to stop. His body was still producing a flow of fluid, enough to lubricate the organ against friction. I continued this double handed treatment for him, conscious that my own erection was still very hard and wet.
James' breathing was becoming faster as I continued. Suddenly he gasped "Martin!", and arched his back as his penis ejaculated a stream of semen over my encircling hand and my arm. It was followed by another, and another……six in all, then he gradually subsided, his penis still jerking in my hand as his orgasm subsided.
"Shall I stop?" I asked, quietly.
James nodded, unable to speak. I did so, and lay by my friend's side as he rested, exhausted, his erection now also beginning to subside. I wondered whether to do the same for myself as I had for James, just to relieve the pressure of on me.
But James stretched his hand down to my penis, and stroked it gently. He looked at me and saw me watching him, tenderly. He sighed deeply and slowly closed and opened his eyes.
"Shall I do the same for you," he asked.
"Do you think you can, after that? Do you want to?"
"Yes." And he grasped my uncovered glans in his hand, rather rougher than I had done for him. I winced.
"Sorry," he said. "I forgot yours was back too. Pull it up if you'd rather."
"You trusted me not to hurt you James. I trust you to pull it back again without hurting me, if you want to."
"No, you'd better. Perhaps some other time…."
So I gripped my foreskin and manoeuvred it with some difficulty past the ridge. James took the end of my penis between three fingers and started to exercise the foreskin. With an effort he brought his other hand over to my testicles and gently cradled them, then let his hand wander under my legs, just as he'd done when he first explored my body. I was so ready for an orgasm that it was not long before I felt the familiar sensations starting deep within me. I gasped, and James's arm, in turn, received the streams of my semen as they burst from me. He continued his strokes and his fondling until my ejaculations stopped and my penis had finished jerking in his hand, and once again lay back next to me to rest, just as I was doing.
We rested for a short while, and I dropped off to sleep, as did he. When we woke we were cold, and, in some places, wet. I looked at him, suddenly anxious once again.
"Are you all right, James?"
"Yes. Very all right. That was wonderful."
I was rather embarrassed about all this, although pleased that I'd apparently done the right things for him and continued something else from the Amberdale holiday. We'd made each other come again. I had enjoyed his attentions more than I could say. "You're pretty good yourself," was all I could manage.
"Well I should be. You taught me!"
I looked sharply at him, then grinned. "I did, didn't I? But you must have had a lot of practice since then."
"Only on myself."
"Sure?"
"Yes! What d'you think I am? Anyway, what about you?"
"Nope."
"What about Mark?"
I was silent.
"Come on. You must have done. The more I thought about you two afterwards, how you were always with him when we were on the island, and how you ignored me when you were together…You must have had a crush on him."
I was still silent.
He looked at me, I suppose sensing there was something wrong. I don't know how my face appeared to him: I don't know what the expression on it said to him. What I do know is that he hoisted himself onto an elbow and wriggled towards me, then put an arm over my shoulder.
"You still love him, don't you? Go on, you can tell me and I'll understand. I'll be sorry, but I'll understand. But please…just be honest with me? Please?"
I still looked at him, and he went misty as the first of the tears filled my eyes. After all this time, and now, I was crying for Mark again. He held me, looking at me gravely, until eventually I regained control of myself.
"He's dead," I said at last.
He looked at me, aghast. "But he was only a year older than you!"
"I know," I sniffed like a child. "But it's not even as simple as that." And I launched into the full story of what happened to Mark.
When I had finally ended there was a long silence. Then:
"Oh christ," he said.
It took an age for the indignation, the fury, the injustice to register with him fully, and he said a lot, then, of what I had felt at the time. And more. For he ended by saying this:
"And all he did was to do exactly what you'd done for me."
I breathed a sigh. "Yes," I said. "And there is no way that either of us thought that was wrong at the time, and there is no way I feel it was wrong now. What do you think about it? Was I wrong to teach a nine year old how to wank?"
He thought.
"I never thought it was wrong at the time," he said slowly. "Since then I've heard people talk about wankers, and thought there might be something wrong. And then in church they said once that this guy Onan, who spilt his seed on the ground rather than let himself go with someone else's wife, was wrong. That made no sense to me. I looked in the dictionary and that describes it as being 'self-defilement'. So Onan, a biblical chracter, defiled himself, did he? Wrong — if he had, it'd not be in the Bible. Then I read a scientific report that said that almost every male does it, and that no bad effects come from it. And I thought, and wondered. And carried on doing it. And nothing bad happened. And I thought that if it was self defilement then ordinary sex must be defilement of somebody else, or by somebody else. And if that was wrong, then the whole thing about starting babies must be wrong too. And that didn't make sense. So I thought that if the world eventually made up its mind whether it was right or wrong then I'd take notice. But until it did, I'd enjoy myself."
There was another long silence. Then I kissed him.
We lay back for a few more moments, each busy with our own thoughts. I was the first to stir.
"I'm cold. And wet. I've go a mixture of yours and mine on me."
James sat up. "Oh…sorry," he said. "I wasn't exactly aiming!"
I smiled. "I don't mind. Want some back?"
"Not really. What I do want is a shower."
"So do I. Shall we have one together?"
James paused. All those showers we had taken together, I thought…The idea hadn't occurred to me until then.
"As if we'd never gone away from Amberdale."
"Yes. That really would be special"
"I hope so."
He reacted like a child of nine again, to my delight. Naked and wet with each others seed and sweat that we were, we walked into the cabin, at last once again completely unashamed, gathered our towels and went to the shower room. The first rush of water was cold, something James forgot as he stood under it. I was carefully out of the way. He gasped as the water hit him, and quickly dodged out of the flow. I laughed at him, just as he had laughed at me in the same circumstances five years previously. Used to seeing the boy's hair in its dry state, when the front was raised a little from the mane of thick, healthy hair, I was intrigued to see how much younger he looked when it was flattened by water.
Once the water was temperate I beckoned him under the flow. We entered it together, and I once again put my arms round him, and he did the same to me. We looked at each other's eyes like lovers, each trying to fathom what the other was thinking. I remember doing the same with Mark, a lifetime ago, and it suddenly struck me that, had James been fourteen at the time, and like this, poor old Mark wouldn't have got a look in. The idea made me feel even closer to James than I had thought.
"Martin…"
"Yes?"
"Why did you like me, back then?"
I paused before answering.
"Dunno. It started off with the fact that you were always there. Then it was the way you took to sailing. Then it was the way you trusted me. Then it was the way you came to me for help in that storm. And it sort of went on from there."
"How about now?"
What do I say? Do I tell him that I fancy him like hell, that I want him in my arms for ever? And he'll say he doesn't like queers, and that'll be that.
"I need notice of that," I said, and laughed. "Am I doing you first?" Anything to alter the subject.
"If you like."
"Right. Get yourself wet, then turn round with your back to me. I'll do that first."
James did so, without hesitation, and stood facing the wall. I soaped my hands, and wash his back from hairline to waist. Then I turned my attention to his chest, and paid special attention to the sticky areas where his semen had landed. My hands resoaped, I progressed slowly down his belly, noticing the erection start again as I entered the pubic hair and started to soap his genitals. Soon the erection was complete, and I soaped him there again and again. Suddenly James gasped, and turned back into the flow of water, his hands on his penis.
"What's up?"
"Got soap inside the foreskin. Hurts," he bubbled from under the water. He pulled back his foreskin, yelped again as the force of the water played on his uncovered glans, and dodged out of the flow again.
"Wait a minute," I said. "I'll see if the spray alters." I twisted at the shower head, and produced a much softer spray which I held under James' smarting penis.
"That's better," he said, as I turned the spray this way and that, rinsing the soap from his organ.
"Sorry, I should have thought before I put so much on you. It's my fault."
"No, I should have thought myself. But it felt so nice, and you were obviously enjoying yourself.. I didn't like to stop you!"
"Very considerate. Do you want me to continue?"
"Yes, but no more on that, please. Round about it, yes, but not on it."
So I soaped my hands once again and re-established James' erection by soaping over his testicles and half way up the shaft of his penis, then under his legs and up between his buttocks. He squirmed in front of me as my soapy hand washed deep inside the cleft.
"Didn't you like that?"
"Don't know. It's strange."
"Shall I do it again?"
"Um. Yes, but I may ask you to stop."
So I again soaped my hand, put it between James' legs to feel his testicles again, then slowly brought it back under the legs and deep inside the cleft. I stopped there and slowly worked the hand up and down. James wriggled again.
"No, stop it please. It sort of tickles, but it's……funny. Like it's so close to me that it's dangerous."
I thought I knew what he meant. I withdrew my hand and rinsed it, then held the boy's buttocks cheeks apart to rinse out the soap.
"Martin….that feels the same."
"Do you want to do it?"
"Yes."
So James took over rinsing his bottom, doing just what I had done, as I told him.
"Yes, but that's different. I don't know. Perhaps I'll get used to it."
"Only from me, please James. Remember what I said."
"I know, I know. You don't need to worry about that!"
Feeling rather as if I'd been warned off massaging him any further, I swiftly washed his thighs, then knelt to do his calves and feet. At last I looked up, rewarded by the nearness of James' manhood to my face. The temptation to take him into my mouth was almost overpowering, but I controlled myself with difficulty and stood up.
"There. That's you done."
"Okay. Let me rinse the soap off, then it's your turn. Do you want me to do that to you?"
"Do what you want." I hoped it hadn't sounded like a dismissal.
So he stood at my back, washing my back and chest and stomach. I could feel his penis against my buttocks. Then he came round the front and washed down my belly and came to the mounting erection. I was pleased to be massaged there just as I had done to him. He washed underneath me gently as I separated my legs, and started to delve into my cleft, then paused.
"Sure?"
"Yes. It's nice."
And James spent quite a few moments slowly ploughing between my buttocks, then reached round the front of me again and moved his body closer. I could feel his warmth close to my cleft, and wondered what the boy was going to do. I felt the tip of his erection touch me high on the cleft, then the rest of his shaft pressed against it, as James pushed his body close to mine. His hands massaged my genitals again.
I was almost beside myself with pleasure. James had done something, given me a sensation I had never experienced before. Once again I wanted to tell him that I loved him, that I wanted to share his life with him…but I realised with a shock that was impossible. The boy was only fourteen years old; his parents were looking after him and doubtless wanted to continue doing so; they certainly wouldn't let James go and a live with a man because that man happened to love him. I doubted whether James would want that kind of life anyway. Faced with reality, my euphoria almost collapsed.
He may have felt there was something wrong, for he stopped the treatment, turned me round and, in his turn, knelt to concentrate on my legs and feet. As happened to me, when he finished he found himself at eye level with my genitals. He paused, half glanced up at me, then slowly brought his mouth forward and upward until it was directly over the penis, which by now was only half erect.
My entranced state deepened again, my penis reacted as it best knew how, and, as James' mouth stayed there, it rose to touch his lips and then to pass through them into the boy's mouth. James moved his head downward, feeling the shaft travel slowly through his mouth and touch the back of his throat. The words 'deep throat' that I'd heard at school went through my head. He hesitated, possibly wondering what to do next. As the organ pushed at him, it made up his mind for him. He swallowed, and immediately found he couldn't breathe. He pulled away slightly, took a few deep breaths and swallowed again, this time letting the shaft go down his throat until his lips were against my pubic hair. His hand came up to my testicles which were just underneath his lip, and he managed to put out his tongue to massage them and brought his other hand high inside my thighs.
He was able to keep this up for a moment or so, then withdrew with a gasp and knelt there panting. He stood, and met my eyes, and if he didn't see a look of ecstasy, and love, and tenderness in them then he couldn't read human emotion. Any comment he could have made was frozen on his lips. Momentarily we stood there again, each just looking at the other, then he stood and hesitantly embraced me, and kissed me again full on the lips, a lingering embrace that seemed to last minutes. I pulled away, at last, my heart full, but knowing that this wonderful thing there was between us would once again end when the holiday did, or soon after. Glad that the shower was washing away the emotion in my eyes, I stopped, my hands on his shoulders.
"What do I say now?" I wondered out loud.
James just gazed at me, saying nothing for a long time.
He was the first to speak, though, and then he was hesitant. "I don't know if that was….going too far….if it was, I'm sorry. It felt that's what I should do at the time. What I do know is that……you're special to me." He stopped, embarrassed, unsure of himself.
"Oh, James. What the hell do you think I feel?" I burst out. "Why do you think I couldn't speak just then? I love you……" I stopped, scared stiff by my own recklessness: waiting for the laughter, the ridicule, the rejection I was so scared of.
But James said nothing, but turned off the shower.
"I think I must love you, too," he said quietly. "I don't know, because it's never really happened before. At Amberdale I loved you as a brother, and I still do. But there's more. There may have been more then. But I'm glad…so glad…we're back together. And this time I'm not going to let go. I'm going to be visiting you whenever I can after this, and when I can leave school I'm coming to live with you…"
It was his turn to stop, embarrassed. But I was full, spiritually. Absolutely complete. Astonished, and yes, relieved; but complete. I was as happy as I ever was with my poor Mark, and a bit more because this was my little brother grown big, the one who had come to me for help, who had been my bedfellow, my confidant, my pupil. And now he wanted to be my love.
But there was one more thing. The last barrier.
"James, do you really know what you're saying? Do you know what that means you'll be called if we do?"
"What d'you mean? It's not if I do, it's when I do. Unless you don't want me."
I just gathered his dripping body to me and held it. "Don't even think it. I want that more than you can know. But you do know what it means, don't you?"
"What, that we're both queer?" he said quietly. "I knew you were at Amberdale. I knew I was when I realised eventually that you were all I could think of to compare other boys to, and none of them ever measured up. But don't give anything away to my parents, or yours, please. And exactly how we're going play it after the holiday's over, I don't know."