To say I was dumbfounded was an understatement. I just looked at him, mouth drooping open like a bloodhound, for such a long time that he laughed. Then the tension, the wound spring of tension, released itself all in one go and I think I gave a shout that astonished him, for he stepped backwards in some sort of alarm. But I sat down in the shower tray because my legs wouldn't hold me up any more, and I just looked up at this little brother of mine with the boy's slim legs and thighs, the man's penis, the adolescent's belly and chest, the boy/girl face that I still recognised from all that time ago when it sat on top of a child's body…And the last vestiges of care that he might not want from me the love that I wanted from him slipped away. For as far ahead as I could see we were one. There was nothing I needed to hide from him now.
Seeing me sitting there he recovered his composure and crossed to me, and put his hands on my shoulders.
"Are you all right, Martin?"
I nodded, recovered my breath and started.
"James, if you knew what I'd been through this week, not wanting you to think that I… was anything except a friend to you, while all the time you felt about me like that, well… all I can say is that it's been hell. A wonderful hell because you're here, but an emotional hell all the same. I've stopped myself doing and saying all sorts of things that I wanted to, because I was scared I might frighten you off. That first night when you fondled me I didn't want to show I was awake because I thought I might end up doing something you might not want. Then went you went to the toilet and wanked, I wanted so much to be there with you that it hurt. And when, last night, I had the opportunity of going even further with you, I had to stop myself because it would have been rape, or molestation, if you hadn't wanted it.
"But now…oh hell, James. What are we going to do? Do you really feel the same about me?"
Another longish pause.
"I think I must. I mean, the last five years I've used you to size up others I've met, as I said. And all the time I've been wanting to contact you, write to you, or visit. But I couldn't. Then when Dad found your address I was impatient to write, but when I sat down with a bit of paper I realised you must be a man now, and you wouldn't want to have anything to do with me. I doubted you'd have a girlfriend, but couldn't be sure."
He stopped. I grinned.
"Then Dad said he was going to phone, and I asked if I could talk to you afterwards, and they said you'd just moved, and gave me your number. Dad told me to wait until you'd said yes to the canals, and that was the most nervous half hour or so of my life. Then I phoned you and heard your voice, and it was all I could do to make sense on the phone, hearing your voice, and how you were with me.
"And when I first saw you in the car park…I was sure I'd been right, knew that I wanted to get to know you properly again, really well as we knew each other at Amberdale, just as if there had been no time passing in the meantime. If you'd asked me to come into the shower with you that night I'd have thrown my clothes off and stood there for inspection before you showered me."
He stopped again and gulped. "Have I said too much?"
But I was near tears with emotion, and hoped he would think the glint in my eyes was due to no more than shower water..
I got up, and gently put my arms round him, and held him close. And there we stayed, until the draft from the window made us cold. I looked at him.
"Well? And where are you going to sleep tonight? With all these double beds free you can take your choice. You don't have to share with me any more."
He looked at me, astonished. Then slowly that grin unzipped, just as it used to, and I laughed with him.
"I suppose I could start off in Mum and Dad's room, and you could come and visit me there. Then I could go for sanctuary into your parents' room, but you might come and look for me there too. Then I might just give up and go into our own room, and have you really do all sorts of things to me there. But be careful, 'cos it just might not be one sided."
I laughed out loud. "I should hope it wouldn't. If it was, I'd think you didn't mean all those things you said."
He grew serious again. "You know those things that adults say about you being too young to know you're in love? Well, I'm not sure, but I think it's rubbish. I mean, you love your parents and you know it. Why aren't you meant to know when you love somebody else? Do parents get jealous? Or didn't they have a love when they were fourteen? If they didn't, that's tough, 'cos at the moment I feel happier than I've ever felt in my life."
Yet another pause. I was amazed at him yet again. "James, you really have worked all this out, haven't you? How come you've thought all this out at fourteen, when I didn't even know I was qu…homosexual at that age?"
"It just seemed something that I had to do. I did a lot of reading in reference libraries — I was even thrown out of one. The librarian said I was a filthy minded little sod when he looked over my shoulder and saw what I was reading. But almost every one of the books said something different. It's like the wanking bit. Old dictionaries say masturbation's disgusting, the little pamphlets that get sent out to parents about how to bring up their teenagers say it's natural and harmless. Should I believe modern thinking and what I feel in myself, or should I believe dictionaries which have repeated the same thing over the last fifty years?"
He stopped for breath. I waited.
"I decided that, if people who write things like that either can't agree, or else modern thinking is different from old thinking, then I'll go along with what makes most sense. And someone once wrote that being a homosexual isn't something you can choose, it's something that happens to you. I decided, whether I liked it or not, I had to accept what I was. And knowing - or believing — you were the same is the one thing that kept me going, and stopped me from giving up on everything."
At this I just held him tightly, and tears again came to my eyes. And not just because of him but because of Mark. And the knowledge that I'd been the one to give James support, to help him through, all the way between England and Canada and without doing anything! I didn't know what to say. But I think actions spoke louder than words, because he seemed comforted. Eventually he struggled a bit, so I let go.
"Sorry. I've got to go to the toilet. I'll see you in a few minutes, OK?"
"You don't want any help?"
He grinned again. "Not this time, thanks!"
So I went to our cabin. I felt like doing nothing except thinking. And the more I thought, the more it seemed that what was happening was right, for all the reasons we had told each other. But I also knew that I was having an affair with a boy of fourteen, and I was only nineteen myself. If we had any sex at all it would be illegal for us both. But then, in a way, we already had.
When he returned I was on my back, staring at the ceiling. He came and knelt on the floor by my side, and as if he was adult brought his hand up to stroke my brow. I turned my head to look at him.
"You know all this is illegal, don't you? You're too young by seven years and I'm too young by two."
"I don't see anybody else in the room."
"What?"
"Well, I'm not going to say anything to anyone, and I suppose you're not."
"Certainly not! But it's still illegal."
"Does it feel wrong?"
"No! It feels absolutely right, and you know it does 'cos you've said so."
"Then what's the problem?"
"I know, I know. And I know you're going to come to bed with me, and I hope we're going to be giving each other love and pleasure, and I know that it will be what each of us wants, just like the mutual comfort that we both wanted all that time ago." I turned back to look at the ceiling. His face came nearer to mine, lifted, and kissed my forehead.
I was still in something of a cleft stick. I wanted him so badly, I loved him. He loved me, he was anxious, he was available. And we were both under the age for homosexual relations, which an idiot government had set at twenty-one.
"It's wrong, James."
"Oh, Martin, you are silly at times. If it doesn't feel wrong, then it isn't. We aren't offending anybody. What we're likely to do won't damage either of us. If our parents were here — well, we're meant to be sleeping in the same bed, aren't we? And what's 'sex between consenting adults' anyway? What does it mean. I mean actual actions? We're not going to fuck each other's arses, are we? 'Cos if we are, count me out. If sex means kissing, then half the women in the world are illegal 'cos they kiss each other. If sleeping together's illegal, then our parents are encouraging us. If feeling your body's illegal, then how can anything that feels so good and makes me so happy be wrong or illegal? And why should my taking your willy in my mouth be any different from sucking your finger or your toe?"
I did my best to digest all this. It's very difficult when the one person in the world who you love is a disembodied head a few inches away from your ear, when you know that any minute he's going to leap into bed beside you, and you want him to do so so badly that it hurts. I said nothing. He watched me for ages, it seemed. Then he made an impatient noise, rose slowly to his feet, so giving me a close up of every slim inch of his body, cocked a leg over my prone form, knelt, and lowered his buttocks so that each one was resting on one of my thighs.
He looked at me, and that grin slowly unzipped itself, just like the first ever time, until it threatened to bisect his head.
A hand went on each of my shoulders. The knees slid slowly backwards, the legs aligned with mine, the chest came down on mine, and the face dropped gently towards mine. Oh, and his penis was resting against mine. I was supporting his full weight. As I let him lie there I could feel changes alongside my own penis, and the realisation that he was becoming erect caused mine do the same, not the normal sort of slow erection but a sudden rush of blood into it. In fact, it happened just like at Amberdale when I was myself fourteen. To allow each of us to maintain comfort he lifted his middle a bit occasionally, until each organ lay parallel to the other. His nose touched mine, and from the distance of two inches he looked into my eyes.
All my resolve not to break the law by 'having sex' with a fourteen year old, all my good intentions, just vanished. The most powerful, overriding thought or emotion was that here was my love, my only love, merging with my mind and spirit and body, and it was right, and it was good, and he needed my reassurance.
So I just gathered him into my arms with a small moan, moved my nose out of the way, and once again kissed him.
When it got uncomfortable, about half an hour later, he slid off and lay at my side, and I turned to face him. We had only a few days left, I knew, and if he wasn't dreading the thought of our parting on Saturday, I already was. I didn't want to lose a moment of looking at him. He lay there looking at me, and I discovered later that the same thought was in his mind too. And surprisingly, in this way, not even touching each other, we drifted off to sleep.
I woke later to find that I was freezing cold. We'd forgotten about bedclothes, and we were still looking into each other's eyes except that his were shut. I reached down and pulled the covers over us, then snuggled up to him as close as I could get. He moaned something and put his arm over my waist. I did the same, and, warmer now, went back to sleep.
Once again I woke, when the sky was that blue-grey colour that precedes dawn. He was looking at me. For the second time since I'd known him he had a Mona Lisa smile on his face: not the usual unzipped grin, but a gentle, tender, curve to the lips, and over it the eyes were sleepy and somehow smiling too. And the love radiated from him. And his hand was once again covering my penis. Not doing anything, just resting there.
So I looked at him again, this time with the love and the passion welling into my heart again, and the blood welling into the part of me that he was holding. I put my hand on his own manhood. Together we explored each other, there, on the belly, on the testicles, under the testicles, and now it was all without the hindrance of having to wonder if the other one wanted it. We knew.
We played, and felt, and gently squeezed, and fondled, and tickled, and laughed, and grew silent. Excitement grew between us and at last I started to kiss his chest, his nipples, his belly-button…and down to the still silky hair above his excitement where my hand still roamed. And I kissed him there, and underneath so that he moaned and wriggled in ecstasy at the unknown sensation. I kissed him everywhere my hand had been, to the accompaniment of the occasional moans from him and little gasps at unexpected sensations. I drank in his smell: the musk of a night's sleep, and along with it the young smell, the smell of young boyhood, but tinged with the sharp edges of the approaching manhood. And I revelled in it.
At last I kissed from the root of his member to the tip, then with my tongue I licked up it too, and this time didn't stop when I arrived at the tip, but drew my tongue over his half-exposed glans, tasting the fluid that had been gathering there. He gasped: his head came up to look at me, then flopped back on the pillow again.
A strangled voice said: "Martin…What are you going to do?"
"Everything that you'll like, and nothing you won't. Just relax. I promise I'm not going to hurt or harm you in any way."
"Sure?"
"Absolutely."
I waited until I could feel his muscles soften into repose, then, as softly as I knew how, brought a hand up to cradle, to caress, his testicles.
"Mmmm," he said.
I brought my mouth slowly down onto the penis head, I licked at it, made sure my lips covered my teeth, and gripped them over the foreskin to pull it back.
"Ohhhh."
And then I just kept going until the glans just reached the back of my throat. And time and time again I pulled my head off, swept down on him again, off and down, fondling his testicles as I did so. The moans in his reedy, young boy/man's voice came to my ears as music. His soft hairs that were starting to decorate the belly over his penis tickled my nose each time I went down and told me that here was a real boy, my love who was experiencing this attention for the first ever time. I wanted our expression of our love to be for him as good as I could possibly make it and wanted to go on like this for ever.
But of course no one can.
I felt him tense once again as the magic of the orgasm started to take hold.
"M..m..martin……I'm gonna…I…OHH……shit…Ahhh……oh…martin…sorry…I'm so…oh…" And he trailed off into silence. I kept working on him, having swallowed his first gift to me, until he became limp. I gently cleaned up his penis as it left my mouth, then moved up the bed to lie beside him.
He was crying.
I was astonished, and kissed him. His eyes looked into mine, wide open.
"Aren't you disgusted with me?" he whimpered.
I looked at him, suddenly understanding. And hugged him.
"James…how can I be disgusted that you gave me the greatest gift that any man can give another? Do you think that I don't love you enough not to want to share everything, everything with you that you want me to? Whatever you do alone, if you wanted me to share it, I'd share it. And it would be you, a part of you, and I'd love it."
He looked wonderingly at me, but the tears stopped and he lay back in the bed.
"I thought…I thought you'd be so disgusted that you'd just go and be sick," he said.
"Never." Would he ever think he could take me down that way? I hoped so. We lay there for ages, embracing.
"Martin…" hesitantly. "Will you roll onto your back, please?" I looked at him. What did he want to do? Silently I did so.
He traced his way down my chest and stomach, pausing to play briefly — too briefly! — with my nipples, until he reached the thick pubic hair which my body had sprouted in the year or so after the Amberdale holiday. This fascinated him, and he combed it through his fingers for some time. My body was by this time at full stretch, but I wasn't relaxed because I wanted to watch this beautiful love of mine at work on me, exploring me.
His hands traced sown by the sides of my scrotum, underneath it and ended cradling it as I had his. Then as I watched his head hovered over my penis, the tongue came out, and there was a tentative lick…
Very slowly, carefully as I had done, he enveloped me, and the soft warmth of his mouth finally made me relax, lie back on the pillows and trust him completely.
He did to me everything that I did to him, except that he didn't know to try and swallow so as to allow the full length of me into his mouth. And, before too long, yet not long enough for me, I could feel IT approaching.
"James…I'm going to…now…oh, yes…"
But he never stopped his rhythm. As I had done, he did. I could sense him swallowing as the orgasm took me. And, as I had done, he continued to hold me inside him as I came down and lay on the bed, at peace, sweating, breathing deeply, but still conscious that he was holding me in his mouth, gently now, just holding.
"Oh, James!" I said, when I could. At that he left my penis and crawled up beside me, looking serious.
"Did I do it right?"
"Did you…come here." And once again we engaged in a long embrace, during which I more or less recovered.
At last I answered his question. "It wouldn't matter, I couldn't care less, whether you did it right or wrong. You showed me, gave me, your love, that's enough. If you'd decided not to, that would still have been wonderful. If all you wanted to do was to lie here next to me and hug me from time to time, then that'd be just as wonderful to me.
"But what you did then was right, yes; stupendous even. But it's only good if you enjoy doing it too. Promise me that if you don't want to do anything with me, or have me do whatever it is, then you'll say so."
"I can't see that happening. If you do something to me then I should be able to do it to you. The…"
I interrupted. "I'm not doing anything to you. If I were to, it'd be like rape. We're doing things with each other, together. If it isn't together then it's not fulfilling us both."
He digested that. "The only thing I'm really not…I mean I don't think I'd want, is to do the thing that queers are meant to do to each other all the time. You know, up into the bum. That's why I stopped you when you put your fingers there in the shower."
"I've never done that. I don't know if I'd like it. But the fact that you don't is enough for me. I'm not going to force anything on you, as I said. I don't think you'll force me to do anything, either."
"No."
"Then we've got nothing to worry about, either of us, have we?"
He looked at me again, and I was rewarded by that Mona Lisa half-smile of love again.
"Nothing in the world."
We held each other close again, full of each other's taste, our sweat making contact sticky, and at last I covered us up again, and we drifted off to sleep.
I remember wishing someone would turn the light off. And I wished I could work out how to go to the toilet 'cos I was sure I needed to go 'cos my willy felt wet. And why was my nose so warm when my back was cold?
My eyes opened sluggishly and I blinked stupidly. Two things became immediately obvious. Immediately before my eyes was the most perfect set of young male genital organs in the world, and my own erect penis was being caressed by a soft, persistent mouth. I moaned. The sensations stopped.
"Don't," I muttered.
"Sorry," came a voice.
"Don't stop," I said.
So he didn't. I pushed forward and took him in my mouth and performed the same service. My hand came up, almost of its own volition, to massage those deep hanging testicles, gently, gently so as to give the most sensation to their owner, my love. He moaned softly, and the vibration of his throat tickled my glans.
From sleep to orgasm via heaven: how else can I describe it? Heaven lasted about five minutes for me, and the higher heaven of the orgasm itself about thirty seconds. But an only-just-less heaven continued after that as I knew that the previous night had been no dream, no will o'the wisp, no hopeful imagining. I was in love with my first real friend. And if he was still my brother too, well, it wasn't incest.
Once again I felt complete. And all this was going on in my brain as I nursed his youth's manhood in my mouth until, with a crescendo of moans and a soft shout from his mouth, his seed hit the back of my throat in a strong stream once, twice, three, four times: and his own high heaven caused him to spasm more times in my mouth as I continued to caress him. At last he was spent, and we lay, each staring at the ceiling, each temporarily unable to communicate.
After a time I put an arm over his hips and buried my nose in that soft pubic hair of his, breathing in his scent and kissing the beautiful part of him that I had taught him to exercise half a lifetime ago. After a pause he did the same for me. But soon we knew that the pressures of life were on us, and each rolled over.
"That was the nicest way I've ever been woken up," I told him. "Can you do that when I'm at University? Act as my alarm clock?"
Silence. From a point level with my bottom he was looking at me.
"I shan't be able to come back with you. I shan't see you for ages."
He was almost whining. I knew. It had been a tactless joke on my part as I knew as soon as I said the words and felt the dagger enter my own heart.
"I know, I know. But I wish you were. You'll have to come up at half term, and I'll come to you at weekends when I can, and this week…this week we're going to make the most of that we can."
A pause. Then, more positively: "We certainly are. Every moment of it. Here. Together."
"Mmmm. But right now, I need a pee."
"So do I. Badly."
"Come on then."
"What?"
"I held it for you the other night. Remember?"
He laughed softly. "And I was drunk, you thought!"
"Weren't you?"
"A bit," he admitted. "But not as much as you thought I was. And I knew then that anyone who was willing to hold it while I pissed was a real friend!"
I could find nothing to say to this, so I just squeezed it and he squealed.
"Rat! Now I've got to go."
"Wait for me."
And so, just like two nine year olds, we stood at the toilet, pointing. He pushed my hand away, nearly causing me to miss, and held it for me. I did the same for him.
It was an odd sensation, directing somebody else's penis, and not made any easier by the fact that his was becoming unruly and I had to make sure it was being pushed down. I knew mine was reacting the same way. Despite the difficulties we played death rays, aiming for each other's streams and causing much splashing. And mirth.
We had to take turns to wash. The area by the basin wasn't big enough for two to stand abreast.
"Are we going to bother to dress?" he asked when we were done.
"I'm not steering the boat in the nude, and if you do I'm disowning you."
"Have we got to move?"
"We've got to get to Birmingham."
"Oh. Then does it matter that it's eleven o'clock?"
"What? Let me see that clock…Oh gawd, we're late. That alarm clock of yours was effective but not early enough."
"What alarm clock?"
"This one."
And before he could move I was down on my knees at his penis, taking it into my mouth with my tongue, then sucking it all in and moving further down to his testicles to suck them in as well. Reluctantly I let him go as I remembered the clock and our need to press on.
"Why can't we stay here? Just for a bit longer?"
"You wait 'til we're round the corner!"
We dried, dressed and then cast off and turned onto the short connecting arm leading to the Stratford canal, then navigated the connecting lock. As we turned into the Northern Stratford there was another lock, a bridge, four more locks, another two bridges, and then he gasped as the main part of the Lapworth flight appeared above us. His muscles were fully aware that they'd been working the previous six locks, not to mention certain unusual postures they had been engaged in over the hours of darkness, so the idea of another seven locks, with more to come after that, was quite daunting.
"Pub!" he shouted, as we passed the Boot Inn.
"No money!" I shouted back.
"I can take a cheque!" shouted a man standing in front of the building, watching us.
We moored. He served us. He was the Landlord. We spent far longer in there than we intended, and the Landlord was very chatty. He asked us a lot of questions about the boat, and wouldn't our parents be coming in, and before long we were talking back as if we'd known him for ages and telling him how we were taking her through to meet up with them in Birmingham.
"Pity I've got to be here tonight, serving," he said. "I'd have taken you out for a decent meal and you could have slept in a decent bed for a change."
"Oh, there's nothing wrong with ours," said James without thinking. "It's big enough."
"Sharing, are you?"
"I think he means the boat's big enough," I answered quickly. "Big enough to have beds for all of us."
"Ah, that'll be it," said the man, but I knew there was something else on his mind.
The conversation went on, and he hardly stopped even when he was serving other people. Eventually we said that we had to be going.
"Coming back tonight, are you?" he asked.
"Not really," I answered. "We've got to be on our way to Brum."
"Well, if you change your mind, I'll be glad to see you," he said. "And if you want a change of company tonight, young man…" — this was to me — "…then give me a call on this number and I'll come and fetch you. OK?"
"OK," I said. "Bye."
When we were outside I was silent. Not so James.
"Funny man! Why did he want you to call him if you wanted a change of company? You don't, do you?" I couldn't believe he'd even think it. But something else was worrying me. The man had propositioned me, as good as, and I didn't know why. Did I suddenly look as though I would welcome it? Did I look like a queer? I stopped suddenly. The alcohol made me ask a question that I wouldn't normally.
"James…" He stopped and did an about-face. "James, do I look queer?"
He stared at me, seriously at first as the question sank in, then with more and more spirit in his expression.
"Well…now you mention it…um…your left ear is lower than your right."
"WHAT?"
"One ear is lower than the other."
"It was a serious question."
"It's a serious answer. But I know the cure."
I fell for it.
"What cure?"
"Tilt your head the other way. Or better, hold it straight. That'll cure it."
I made a rush for him but he was ready for me and sprinted off to the boat. He'd dived into the toilet by the time I reached the door, and I went out to start the engine. The Landlord was watching us.
James was surprised not to be attacked when he returned. He must have sensed my mood, because he slipped an arm through mine, out of sight of the bank, and looked up at me.
"What's up?"
"I just want to know how that Landlord knew I was queer."
"Did he? How d'you know?"
"You were there. He wanted me to come back tonight and 'keep him company', whatever that means. He must have known."
"Perhaps he's lonely."
"Well, he can stay lonely. I don't fancy him."
"Good. Does that mean you might sleep with me?"
"If you want. But James…do I look queer to you?"
"I didn't realise you were seriously worried. No.. You don't. You didn't then either."
"Then how did he know?"
"Did he know? Or was he just trying his luck?"
"Dunno."
"Well, stop talking about it, or I'll get jealous. Perhaps I could surprise him by going back myself to give him his change of company."
There was no answer to that, so we chugged on toward the next lock in silence.
It was hard work, and slow. One person on the boat and one working the locks is all right, but you know you've been working. By the time we reached Hockley Heath we were both exhausted despite having taken turns at the tiller.
The pub was shut. James made some drinks, and we pressed on to the next, which was also shut. But it looked inviting.
I discovered that I'd misread the canal map, and we actually had far less to travel than I thought.
"We could moor here and have a rest," I said.
"What sort of rest?"
"How many are there?"
"Oh, lots. There's the one when you just sit down, the one you use in snooker, there's the musical one, and I've got a different one in the boat we could use."
"What different one?"
"I'd have to show you. I can't describe it."
"I don't know what you're talking about. You've unpacked your cases — there's nothing left I haven't seen."
"Look, just moor, will you?"
"OK, ok, keep your hair on."
So we moored where it was shady and I turned to follow him down into the boat. "No, you stay up here for a moment. I'll get my rest out and then you can come down so it's more of a surprise."
I shrugged and looked about while he presumably went looking for what ever it was.
Then the call came.
He wasn't in the living area, he wasn't in the kitchen. Our bedroom door was shut, but then so were the others.
"Where are you?" I called, rather irritated by now.
"In here," came his voice from our room. I went back and opened the door, and stared.
His fourteen year old body was lying in an X shape face upwards in the middle of the double bed. And what is more, it had nothing covering it at all. It looked very peaceful, apart from one particular central area which was standing to attention.
"Bloody hell, James!" I said, but very gently, as if to a frightened animal.
"Please will you make love to me?"
"James…"
"I'm sorry, but I just want you to be with me properly again. Last night was so good and I can't remember now just how good it was."
"James…"
"Or do you want to go back to that landlord?"
I shut the door after me and went over to stand looking down at his nakedness. He held my eyes without flinching, even when I brought my head down to his to give him that first kiss to tell him that it was all right.
When we disengaged, he started with his hand on my flies, and pulled slowly down. Soon I was as exposed as him, and just as erect, and we tilted our pelvises towards each other. The ends of our penises touched, and we moved about so as to bring them together all over, sometimes with some force. He pushed me over onto my back and climbed on top of me, his smaller fourteen year old erection against mine, and did his best to push inside my trousers.
A combination of rubbing together, against my clothing and particularly my underpants, aroused us both and made a rather wet patch there. He was just lying and we were slowly wriggling together — no more than that. And the knowledge that we were each happy doing something so comforting, simple, understated if you like, brought me to feel as if I didn't have to put on a show for him, or try hard to do anything, or prove anything. What we were doing was natural and made each of us happy with the other one and with ourselves. I found after a bit that he was looking at me, Mona Lisa — like again, so I kissed him.
He rolled off me at last, and lay by my side. I turned to him. "How do you want me to do this?"
"Dunno. Feels strange, now."
"Don't you want me to?"
"Dunno."
I sat up and removed my shirt, then stood and took off everything else. He watched me. I lay back down, next to him and put my arm out so it could go round his shoulders. He looked at me.
"Martin…I'm sorry…It just seems so false."
"What? That we're in love?"
"No. That I'm just asking you to do this. It should just happen."
"It can happen either way, surely?"
"It should, I suppose, but why does this feel as if I've rigged it?"
"You felt randy, I suppose. And you wanted me to give you release."
"Release?"
"Yeah. Make you come. And now we've gone some of the way you've gone off the boil. It happens."
"Why?"
"I don't know. Do you want me to give you an orgasm?"
"Dunno."
I gently put out my hands and started massaging his testicles and the nearly soft organ atop them. Before long he was erect again and seemed to be going along with what I was doing. I didn't use my mouth. It didn't sound as if he'd welcome it at the time.
It took him a long time but at last there was a gasp and his semen shot up over his belly and my arms. I took him to the conclusion, and wasn't surprised when he just lay there, leaving my erection alone.
"Am I being stupid?" he asked, out of the blue, when he had recovered.
"I don't think so, far from it. How? Why?"
"This isn't going to last, is it?"
I was alarmed. "Why not? Do you think you're going to go off me?"
"No. But you're just going to University. I'm stuck at school for the next god knows how long. When are we going to see each other?"
"Well, you could come up to me until you have to go back. Then there's weekends, half terms, Christmas holidays…"
"But it's not the same as being together all the time, is it?"
"No. It's not. But like everything, we have to start somewhere. And if that's the best we can manage then it'll have to do."
"But what happens when I go to University and you're at work?"
"Who knows if I'll be able to complete the course? Who knows if you'll get A-levels? Who knows whether I'll be able to get a job wherever it is that you're at University?"
He looked at me, and a spark came to his eyes. "Would you do that? Would you really do that?"
"If it meant us living together, then yes."
"Do you want to?"
"Don't you want me to?"
"Yes! Yes! Of course I do. But it's such a long time to wait. What happens if someone else turns up in the meantime?"
"Then I hope you'll just refuse him, and tell him you're already spoken for."
He looked at me, then grinned faintly for the first time in minutes. "Not me, idiot. You."
"Ah, well I've been celibate, apart from with my right hand, for the last five years. I can refuse offers too, you know"
"Even for a fourteen year old?"
"For someone who I know is doing the same for me, and who I love. And whether he's fourteen, fifteen, sixteen or whatever. But don't forget it's you who's going to do most of the character changing. I've done most of mine."
"Some things don't change."
I hoped he was right.