When we got out into the gym, Coach Mahoney gathered us into a group and called the roll. When that was done, he told us we were going to play volleyball. There were four nets set up across the gym and there were going to be eight teams with eight players on a team. There were 65 kids, so one team would have nine players. Coach explained the rules to us, then looked at his roll sheet and said the following kids should step forward, then called out eight names. Those kids were then told to take turns picking teammates.
The eight kids weren’t jocks or anything special. They were just kids the coach had picked at random. They were just ordinary freshmen kids; none of them was accustomed to being in the limelight, and I could tell having to pick other kids wasn’t something that came naturally to them. What I liked, however, was that one of the kids doing the selecting was Jed. I liked that because I was pretty sure I wouldn’t end up being picked last, or nearly last, as was usual for me. And indeed I wasn’t. I was his second pick, right after a kid named Randy Meyers, who was a really good athlete.
The picking of teams went very quickly because the coach wasn’t one to let the guys doing the picking fuss over their choices. He wanted this done quickly so the games could start, and so if someone paused, the coach made the selection for him, just pointing to some kid and saying, “You, over here.”
Rather quickly, we had eight teams and got started. On both teams, the problem of playing together was quickly apparent. The bigger or more aggressive kids immediately started trying to hit all the balls, sometimes actually bumping other kids out of the way who were in better position to hit the ball so they could make the plays themselves. And this wasn’t working because, even if these were good players doing this, they usually weren’t getting into the proper position quickly enough and so were fumbling half their hits.
I wasn’t much of an athlete, but I did have a confident manner and cocksure attitude. There was no shyness in me. Never had been. The way we were playing was pissing me off, and I quickly had enough. I called time out and gathered all our team together. I was the shortest kid on our team, but I got everyone assembled around me like it was an everyday occurrence. Funny how attitude and self-assured confidence works.
“Hey guys,” I said, “look, this isn’t working. We’re all out of position and falling all over the place. Why don’t we try just maintaining our position, only play the balls that are our own, and don’t try to hog everything? Randy’s our best player, so if the guy receiving the ball can hit it towards Randy, then either he can hit it over the net, or he can set someone else up for a winning shot. If we work together instead of just all trying to do everything all by ourselves, it’ll work better. Guys, let’s try it at least. It has to be better than what we have been doing.”
I’m not sure why they listened to me. It could have been because they were as frustrated as I was at the way the game was going, or maybe they recognized they needed some sort of leadership or organization, or maybe there was just something in the way I said what I did but, whatever it was, these kids all knew me and I guess they respected me enough to listen. They not only listened, they did what I suggested. When we were back playing again, everyone played their own positions and worked the ball when it came to them either to Randy or to someone else who then set up Randy. Not surprisingly, we started doing much better.
I found I was at least average in controlling the ball when it was hit to me, and I did like the others were now doing; I hit the ball to a teammate closer to the net or closer to Randy, and I found I was having fun. We were now functioning like a team instead of eight individuals all seeking individual glory but getting in each others’ way and it was amazing how much better that worked.
The team across the net from us didn’t have any organization at all. Their bigger kids kept trying to monopolize play and in doing so kept bumping into their own teammates and hitting awkwardly at the ball, often with just one hand. They started yelling at each other, and finally Coach Mahoney had to talk to a couple of them.
Our team members were all smiling at each other, slapping hands and encouraging each other. We were having fun!
When the game stopped due to the coach chewing out a couple of the guys on the other team, I took the opportunity to look around the gym. I knew most everyone there, the only strangers being new kids—and there weren’t many of those. A lot of the boys, however, I hadn’t seen over the summer, and at that age a lot of growing goes on, so I was seeing the kids I’d gone to school with last year who now were bigger. And some of them were also cuter. I spent time picking out the cute boys, as I’d been doing for years, and noticed four or five that really struck me as attractive. One in particular, Billy Cameron, was one I’d always liked looking at, and over the summer he’d become even better looking. He had very yellow blond hair that was long and soft-looking, cut in a way that had some layers and body, and I liked the way it surrounded his face. He had a good build, strikingly handsome features, a ready smile, and dark blue, mischievous eyes. I could look at Billy Cameron all day.
Coach Mahoney’s whistle brought me out of my reverie. “Ten more minutes, guys, then hit the showers,” he yelled out, and then we were back at our game. Even after the ass-chewing, the other team didn’t play like one and we did, and so it continued to be a rout, which we entirely enjoyed.
Another whistle announced the end of the game. We all yelled and high-fived each other, grins on all faces. I was surprised when Randy came up to me and clapped me on the back. “Great move, Tim,” he said. “You taking charge out there made us a team.” He smiled at me, then several of the other guys made complimentary comments as they began leaving the court.
That made me proud, things being said like that by all these guys, and especially from a popular guy like Randy. I thanked them all. I’d been so busy playing I hadn’t given a thought to showers, but now, as we all trooped towards the locker room, the awareness came back in a rush.
I made my way to my locker. I was removing my shoes when Jed arrived. He was talking to a kid who’d been on a team farther down the gym. “How’d you guys do?” he asked him.
“We sucked big time. Joe and Evan tried to hog all the balls. How ’bout you?”
“Kicked ass and took names, after Tim got us organized. It was great.”
By then, my shoes and socks and shirt were all off. This was the moment I’d been thinking about since Coach told us the shower rules yesterday. My imagination made it too clear: after getting undressed, we had to walk naked to the shower. We only got the towel after we showered, so we had to walk from the locker to the shower in the altogether. I stood up at my locker, then waited till Jed was ready. When we’d both reached the point of no return, I slipped down my shorts and jock, he did the same, and then we walked together toward the showers.
The room was full of naked boys. It was something, looking at them. No one had a towel, no one had anything to cover himself with other than his hands. Many guys did that, and I saw right away how silly and awkward that looked. Jed wasn’t doing that, and so I didn’t either. That took some courage, but I managed.
More amazing than the sight of all those naked boys was the fact that most of us didn’t know what to do with our eyes. We all wanted to look at all those naked bodies, all those round, tight butts and hanging dicks and nuts, we all wanted to see what everyone else looked like and how we compared, but we knew other boys were watching us—watching our eyes just as we were watching theirs—and we were all afraid to look down. The only way we could do that was quickly and casually and surreptitiously; certainly no one could stare, could make it known he was checking anyone out. I was one who would have loved to have looked but didn’t have the guts. My frustration level was about what it would have been if I’d been playing pick-up-sticks and been told I had to wear mittens.
The noise, steamy setting, the problem I was having keeping my eyes up instead of letting them roam to illicit places, my nervousness, all contributed to not getting excited where I didn’t want to. Jed and I joined the crowd and reached the showers, on the way passing by Mr. Mahoney, whose presence helped keep a damper on any monkey business or wayward remarks. The shower was a large, tiled, misty room with showerheads on opposite walls, probably twenty to a wall. This meant about a third of us had to wait. Some boys were slow getting there, maybe on purpose because they were reluctant to start that naked walk with so many other boys around them. Some took really quick showers, so there weren’t a lot of boys just standing waiting. There were a lot of nervous boys, however, and I found myself enjoying watching their body language.
There was a lot of covering up with hands, a lot of blushing and giggles, and almost no one looking down at anything but themselves. Jed and I got showers without waiting. Being next to him calmed me and gave me a feeling of reassurance. Maybe it worked both ways; maybe I did the same for him. We both took showers that lasted long enough for us to soap ourselves and rinse off, and neither of us got hard.
Billy Cameron wasn’t that lucky. He was in a small bunch waiting for a showerhead to come open, and I was glancing at him as I’d been doing for three years. My eyes found him in a crowd with no trouble at all. The only trouble was keeping it so no one noticed me looking at him. This time, when I spotted him in the crowd, I saw he had a problem. He had his hands over his boy parts, both together, and he was blushing big time. His eyes were big and frightened. The boy standing next to him looked down, and a big grin appeared on his face.
Jody Hobart was one of the boys who fit the description the coach had rattled off yesterday, not too bright and a little primitive. He was a farm boy, one of the kids who didn’t live in town, and was big, strong and always on the edge of failing all his classes every year. He wasn’t mean or unlikable at all, but he was rough around the edges. Now, he was looking down at Billy’s discomfort and starting to grin. Big time.
Something about the way Jody moved must have taken Billy’s attention away from his growing problem for a second, because Billy looked at Jody, and horror appeared in his eyes. I could immediately tell, Billy knew Jody was going to say something, probably loudly, too, such that everyone could hear. And then they’d look.
Billy and Jody were only a few feet away from me. Without thinking about it, I quickly stepped over to them, and before Jody could utter a word, I said to him, “Jody, remember what the coach said yesterday? Any sort of personal remarks, you’ll be running laps till Christmas. You might best be real cautious here. I’d also think about hurting someone’s feelings. Billy’s a nice guy. I know you wouldn’t want to embarrass him.”
Jody’s expression changed from glee to confusion to understanding and then even to compassion. He looked at Billy and said, “Sorry, Billy.” Then he saw my open showerhead and walked to it, leaving me alone with Billy.
Billy was looking at me with something like awe in his eyes. “Gosh, thanks, Tim,” he said to me, a little breathlessly, and then blushed deeply. “I think you just saved my life there.”
He still had his hands in front of his privates. I’d have dearly loved to see what he was hiding, but I didn’t dare look down. But, with that thought, it suddenly occurred to me I was standing next to a naked—a totally naked and probably erect—Billy Cameron, the boy I’d been sighing over and dreaming about for the past three years! And, I was as naked as he was.
Luckily, we were near the shower doorway, close to the table with the towels on it. I quickly grabbed one, hoping I wasn’t being too obvious but not really caring if I was. I had an immediate need to get covered, and I did so.
Once I was safely wrapped, I turned back to Billy, still in the shower area, and said, “That’s okay, Billy, and don’t worry about it. It happens to all of us. I’m just glad I was able to help. The right place at the right time, that’s all.”
“Still, you did help. I appreciate it, Tim.” He was looking at me with eyes filled with thanks, and I was getting very uncomfortable, meaning I was well on the way to being very hard, and it was only my lack of size behind that towel that kept it from being obvious. I just smiled at him, waved, and walked back to my locker, grabbing a second towel as I passed the table and draping that one casually over my shoulder as I walked.
I sat down, then wondered how I was going to get dressed. Sometimes my boners could last up to an hour, and the situation here, with young naked boys wandering around and the fact I was already excited, wasn’t going to provide any relief. This was going to be difficult.
At that point Jed walked up, his towel around his middle. “Hey, what was all that with Billy?” he asked.
“He looked like he was springing a hard-on and Jody was about to say something, so I sort of stopped him.”
“Really? Did you see? How big is he? What did it look like?”
I laughed at his enthusiasm. But maybe we were all like that at this age. “No,” I said, “he was covering it and I couldn’t really look down, you know? But, watching both of them, I knew what was happening. But Jed, now I have a problem.” I pointed to my crotch, moved the second towel, and he could see the one wrapped around me tented up in the middle, just not very high.
“Oops! Yes, I see you do! What are you going to do?”
“That’s what I was wondering. Maybe if you sort of shield me, I can get my boxers on. OK?”
He nodded. I dried myself sitting down, then stood up and half faced his locker. He moved closer to me, his towel hanging from his hand. I stepped into my boxers which I’d laid on the floor, then quickly dropped the towel and yanked up the underwear. Casually glancing around afterward, I didn’t see anyone looking my way. I grinned at Jed and thanked him.
At home that night, Dad asked how the day had gone. I told Dad a lot, but some things I just didn’t. Some things were personal. Like sex things. I told him we had to take showers after gym and he wanted details about that, but the details I told him were far different from the ones I’m sure he’d have liked me to tell him. I don’t care how tight you are with your dad, you don’t talk about boys you think are cute and have been perving on for several years. Nor do you mention anything about anyone getting boners and what came of that. You especially avoid telling him that you had that problem, too.
As the days and weeks went by, seeing other naked boys in the locker room and showers became routine. It was still exciting but something that was now just an everyday occurrence, and you went along with it. I’d learned how to look at the other boys without them knowing, or at least without them or anyone else saying anything. We were now all a little less intimidated by Coach Mahoney, so some personal remarks were slipping out, but they weren’t said loud enough where everyone could hear and there wasn’t any outright, vicious bullying in the locker room. I was thankful for that. Being small and perhaps the smallest where it mattered, I could easily have been the butt of some unpleasant digs. While it was quite possible people thought about my underdevelopment, maybe even spoke to each other about it as Jed and I discussed the size and shape and specifics of a lot of the boys when we were alone together, I wasn’t ever put in the position of defending myself or being embarrassed in the locker room. This allowed my natural cockiness and my overall assertive nature to continue to define my personality.
At home, Mom and Shawn continued their church attendance and activities. Shawn was in a youth group, Mom was now an important figure and had become an assistant of sorts to Reverend Elliston. She was spending more and more time at church, less and less at home. When she was home, she was a little different from the mom I’d grown up with. Many of her thoughts now seemed to have churchy overtones accompanying them. She talked a lot about sin and salvation, and Jesus was mentioned frequently enough that he seemed to be a fifth member of the family. Dad tended to get a sour look on his face sometimes when she got started. I didn’t see them talking to each other about personal stuff as much, and overall, Dad didn’t seem as happy as he’d been in the past. The family vibe was different.
Shawn was at the church a lot. He’d take part in all the youth activities and it seemed to me he was there even when those kinds of activities weren’t scheduled. I knew that some kids liked to play basketball in the church parking lot, so figured maybe that was the reason. We didn’t talk to each other much anymore. He just seemed to look through me, and sometimes didn’t even answer when I asked him something. When we were younger we were more like typical brothers, fighting and playing and being family. Now, he was pensive, a little withdrawn, a little quiet; he mostly ignored me. I got used to it and didn’t bother much with him as he didn’t bother with me. A three year age difference when you’re just entering your teens, as I was, and you’re entangled fully in high school, as he was, makes for a lot of separation.
And I wasn’t the only one with sibling problems. Jed’s sister, Missy, was much more of a thorn in Jed’s side than Shawn was in mine. Shawn simply ignored my existence. Missy took great delight in making Jed’s life a living hell. She was a bitch of the first order; she knew how to get under his skin, and unfortunately, Mrs. Tuckman didn’t seem to see anything wrong with having a ratfink squealer living in the house with them. Anything Jed did that might be construed to be wrong in any way, anything he said that someone could find fault with, was promptly reported by his sister to his mother. As a result, Jed was frequently in trouble, and we didn’t have as many sleepovers as I’d have liked.
One of the problems was Missy was clever, devious and nasty. Unfortunately, she was also a fair degree smarter than Jed. And she liked getting him in trouble. At least Shawn didn’t do that with me. Jed and I spent some time every week talking about Missy, what grief she’d caused him that week, and what could be done about it. The trouble was, she was a couple of years older than we were, her mother thought her faultless, and we weren’t able to come up with anything that seemed suitable revenge for all the misery she caused Jed.
It was the next year, when we were all a year older, that an event occurred that I think of as the beginning of our problems. I was now 13. That’s a pretty lusty year for a boy. By now, I was in puberty, had some hair at long last where I was expected to have it, was starting not to look like a five-year-old down there any longer, and was mature enough that I no longer was even excited by being in the locker room. It was old business. Well, okay, that’s not really true. I must admit, I still liked being there and liked looking at everyone in my own surreptitious way, but the excitement and fear and anticipation that I’d experienced during the first year had mostly evaporated with the daily routine of the event. Getting hard there was very seldom an issue for me. I was still short—no growth spurt for me yet, if ever, I thought—but I was developing a little musculature. I felt good about myself.
One reason for that was jerking off. I’d just recently started shooting, and man, what a kick that was! Jed had been doing it for some time, having begun puberty long before I did, but better late than never, for me, and I was having a blast. It was a rare day I didn’t practice my new art at least three times: morning, after school and at night. I’d look forward to my afternoon session while I was in gym, knowing I’d be getting off soon. Wonderful anticipation.
This day had been ordinary in most regards, although I seemed hornier than usual and in gym, thinking ahead, I’d had a hard time controlling my enthusiasm. The occasional woody was sprung in that room, with the usual embarrassment, but it had never happened to me and I didn’t want to start now. I got through gym soft, barely, and eventually was home.
I went quickly to my room, shutting my door as usual and getting rid of my clothes as fast as I could. Some days, I just took it out and stroked, some days I got all the way naked. That was a naked day: I was horny as hell and wanted to have all the fun I could. It seemed like I’d been waiting for hours.
I lay down on my bed and began rubbing myself all over, touching and stroking the skin on my body, letting my mind wander. I thought of Jed, naked. I thought of Billy Cameron, naked. I thought of the three of us together, doing wonderful, exciting, dirty things. My arousal was very strong.
I began slowly stroking my erection, then stopping and rubbing something else, like my chest or thighs. Then a few more strokes on my raging hard-on. My eyes were closed, trying to make my thoughts as real as possible. Soon, too soon, I began stroking my member without stopping continually but slowly, gradually letting the feelings build. My other hand slipped to my testicles, just handling them as I pleased my rod, tugging at them to tighten the skin on my boner.
The feelings of urgency for release began to build. The delicious feeling of building pressure took over. I kept my pace slow and steady. I didn’t want to rush. It was best if I let the buildup take as long as possible.
The end was inevitably nearing, however. The wonderful end, the volcanic release. I worked for it, urging it on, felt the explosion coming nearer to it, anticipating, cuddling my balls, stroking faster.
Which was when Shawn walked in.