Tim Comes Home

 CHAPTER 6

It was late spring. From the very first day, Tim (senior) loved his new job at Turling Park. The house itself was a large Victorian mansion which had had several dormitory blocks built on to it over the years, until it could accomodate over two hundred boys in draughty discomfort. The compensation was the magnificent grounds and facilities, with playing fields and acres of space, and the formal gardens that the boys were expected to work on under the direction of the head groundsman.

That wasn’t Tim. Tim provided the unskilled labour; he had to drive the big motorized lawn mower and keep the acres of grass trimmed, and was responsible for keeping the hedges and trees cut back. One of the things that made the work such a pleasure was that every afternoon a couple of boys would be assigned to him as his assistants.

Another pleasure was finally getting rid of his police uniform. He had hated the sweaty man-made fibre trousers and tunic which were unbearably hot in the summer, even though worn without underwear. He hated the belts that hung around his waist with walkie-talkie, handcuffs, plasticuffs, truncheon and half a dozen other impedimenta whose weight pulled down the waistband of his trousers and made them sag at the arse. He hated the helmet that looked like a tit, and made him feel like a tit. Now, especially in the summer, in the morning he could jump out of bed, into the shower, and just pull on a pair of footie shorts, and he was ready for work. That was all he needed until the evening when, if it got cool, he could add a t-shirt. In the winter, he could add a sweatshirt, but except for going to Mass, or special occasions, there was no reason, really, why he need ever wear trousers again.

He revelled in the fresh air and in the sunshine, in which he tanned a smooth golden-brown quickly. He loved the hard exercise that his job provided, and the beautiful grounds and surrounding countryside in which he could run to his heart’s content in the morning or when the day’s work was over. He loved the well-equipped gym that the regional authority provided, and he loved it that the boys used to ask him for help on their workouts, seeing him as a sort of unofficial expert coach. He loved the olympic-sized pool in which he could relax as an alternative, or in addition to the run, and in which he could race and play with the lads.

And he loved the little house that came with the job. For the first time since his divorce, he had a home with more than one room, and at first he found it difficult to fill up the space. But soon the boys discovered that he was good with his hands, and they brought to him their broken toys and then found out that he was equally good at dealing with broken hearts, and Tim found out that his loneliness had largely dissipated, and his life, as well as his house, was full.

The boys at Turling Park had a tough life. The principle was that if they were kept busy, they would have little time to brood on their unhappy backgrounds. So the place was run along the lines of a boot camp. They were woken by an electric bell at 6.15am, on hearing which they had five minutes to put on their shorts and trainers, and shirt if they wanted (which most eschewed), and report to the front of the school for their morning run for which they were given a time within which it had to be completed. They ran a mile for each year that they were there, beginning at the age of 11 with one mile, up to the big lads of seventeen and eighteen who were expected to run nearly eight miles. When they got back, there were press-ups and crunches and other exercises, and then showers, which, unlike those of earlier generations, were no longer cold, but as a concession to modern soft living, had plenty of hot water. They could then dress in the comfortable but drab uniform of navy nylon shorts (which doubled as underwear) under grey sweatpants and t-shirts under grey hooded sweatshirts which they would wear for the rest of the day. These clothes were not their own; when returned from laundry, the boys would simply help themselves to any of the identical garments in a size that fitted them. In fact, they had very few possessions of their own, just an occasional toy or photograph, and they received no money, for fear that they would be tempted to escape in order to spend it in unsuitable ways.

After their showers, beds were made, and breakfast was eaten in silence. Then the boys were left for half an hour to do whatever they needed, and classes began for the rest of the morning. Lunch was followed by a compulsory siesta, and then there was garden work, when the boys would strip to their shorts in fine weather and learn the management of land. There was ‘Trades’ after this, when the boys would learn computing, carpentry, metalwork, plumbing, electrics and other skills. Finally, they had an hour to do with as they wished, and it was then that there would be a well worn path trodden to the house of the junior groundsman by those privileged souls who had got to know him, to listen and talk and drink his hot chocolate, and feel for once that they were more than just a number on the college books.

If Turling Park excelled in its facilities, far beyond anything St Tarcisius’ Home could offer, what it lacked was the human dimension. The staff were not uncaring, just far too few and far too busy to provide what the too-many boys needed on the scale it was necessary. The only answer to their lack of human resources was regimentation, and so the boys were very tightly regimented indeed. Most of the staff were kindly intentioned, though harassed and overworked, and this meant that the boys were given very little liberty. Counsellors came in droves every day, but the boys rarely availed themselves willingly of their services. There was something too artificial, too contrived, about the soft lighting and fake plants and antiseptic atmosphere of the rooms, and the professional caring voices that were not even remotely a substitute for what the boys really needed; a loving family.

But not every member of staff was good or was liked. Since caning or beating was as illegal at Turling Park as in any other school in Britain, it was very much down to the individual staff member to improvise his or her own methods of enforcing discipline. It was not easy, as the boys had few privileges that could be withdrawn, and the teacher would have to be imaginitive. The metalwork teacher, known to the boys simply as The Screw, due to his previous employment as a prison warder, was especially feared and loathed. He had lost his last job because of his brutality to the prisoners, but this was never made known to the authorities at Turling Park, in case it reflected badly on the Prison service, who were under scrutiny at that time by the Government. In his metalwork classroom, The Screw had made a number of sets of handcuffs, leg irons, heavy collars and other implements, which hung up on the walls. Any misdemeanour by one of the boys—and it seemed that The Screw’s list of punishable offences was longer than any one else’s—would see the lad have to strip to his shorts and be locked into one or more of these artefacts for as long as it pleased the teacher. It wasn’t so much the irons themselves that frightened the boys—that had a certain element of dressing up and showing off to it— as the intense look that came into The Screw’s piercing grey-blue eyes, and a certain menacing stillness. The older boys of seventeen or eighteen had also noticed that when they were stripped and locked into their irons, The Screw would develop a visible erection; the lads pretended to joke about it with each other, but secretly they deeply feared this man and what he might do, given the opportunity.

The staff were not fools, and most of them were genuinely good people; they could see that if The Screw was a little unhinged, Tim on the other hand was providing the boys with a more than special service, something they all knew was really lacking, and so they were all prepared to turn a blind eye when a distressed lad would flee his class or his tormentors and run to where the motorized lawn mower was turning round and round on the cricket pitch, because they would see the machine stop, and a tall, barechested man get off and hunker down by the lad. Sometimes, he would pick the lad up on his back, or if he was bigger, put an arm round his shoulder, and leaving the machine, would walk over to his house where they would chat for an hour or so. The lad would always come out looking much happier, and often with a toy or a sweet, or something else good. The head groundsman was annoyed at first, but soon realised that Tim made the time up later, and was such a good worker anyway that it was worth tolerating his eccentricities. The care staff were relieved that Tim would find time to provide what they could not.

Inevitably, in a place and at a time where Harry Potter was all the rage, Tim came to be known to both boys and staff as Hagrid.

The summer came, with its long lazy days, and the classes stopped. Many of the luckier boys were able to go for the summer to stay with relatives or friends, or good people who were prepared to take a boy for a few weeks in the holidays; lots of others joined the many summer programmes available around the country. The grass became scorched, and it was no longer necessary to cut it so frequently, and so by mutual agreement of care and grounds staff Tim was free far longer to mingle with the twenty or so unfortunate boys who remained, to find things for them to do in their copious free time. He took them swimming in the large ornamental lake, and went hiking with them on the Downs round about, where they would play wide games; hunt the flag, manhunts, bulldog and all those sorts of activities that would be considered too rough if they were played within sight of Turling Park. They would end each day around a bonfire not far from Tim’s cottage, where they would bake potatoes, and burn sausages and burgers, drinking copious quantities of drinking chocolate, as Tim sang to them and played his guitar and told them ghost stories in the firelight.

One day, they were joined by the Principal of St Tarcisius’ Home, Father Paul Topham, for a hike. Paul and Tim met infrequently these days, but had remained in close touch ever since their school days. As they walked along, keeping an eye on the kids, who were ever likely to get up to something, they caught up on everything that had happened to them since they had last met by Tim’s hospital bed. Paul said, after Tim had just stopped a lad falling over into a river,

‘Tim; I have never seen such a natural at this job. You are really wonderful with the boys. I am as furious as all hell that I didn’t think to get you for St Tar’s. Somehow, I never connected you with this sort of work. You’re wasted, cutting grass.’

‘To be honest, Paul, I never connected myself with it, either. I have a daughter of my own, but I haven’t seen her since she was a toddler.’

Tim had tried to go for his statutary visits, but Sylvia always found some excuse why it was not convenient, and eventually Tim realized it was useless, and stopped trying. He went on:

‘But then there was my mysterious visitor. That perhaps should have told me something sooner; I really connected with that lad, and both looking for him and my new interest in kids made me think of coming to work here.’

‘Oh yes; I’d forgotten about him. Did you find him here?’

‘No. There's nobody even like him, and believe me, I have looked… OY! YOU TWO! LEAVE JOEL ALONE!’

Tim yelled at two bigger boys who were throwing another little one between them, and he sprinted off to deal with it.

Paul stayed for the bonfire that night, and as Tim sang, he looked at the boys’ faces. It was like Christmas for them; from the age of eleven up to eighteen, the lads were all entranced. They would remember the happiness of this time for all their lives, Paul thought, and in his heart he blessed his friend Tim Sullivan for having brought joy to this unhappy place. He was clearly no longer a failure.

When the boys had been reluctantly seen off to their beds, Tim and Paul sat in the cottage talking over several large tumblers of whisky. It had been agreed that Paul was going to stay the night, and he had borrowed a pair of shorts from Tim (borrowing clothes was one of his favourite activities) and the two of them were sitting together companionably dressed only in their shorts. The whisky had relaxed many of their inhibitions, and they were in a very frank and confidential mood. Paul said;

‘Tim, I’ve been thinking, while watching you today. Have you ever thought of fostering somebody yourself?’

‘Well, only that lad I told you about whom I brought home that night. But I’m not really sure I’d be suitable. I’m a single man, for one thing. Isn’t that rather frowned upon? And I’m divorced. Wouldn’t that make me count as unstable?’

‘I very much doubt it. I know you very well, and can vouch for your stability, and I’m sure the staff here would be agree enthusiastically. Anyway, lots of single men are fostering. You must remember Johnny from the seminary: he’s fostered a smashing lad from St Tar’s.’

‘Johnny? Never!’

‘Yeah, honestly. And he’s doing a really good job. The two of them are really happy together. I see a lot of them; Johnny and I have become close friends since we were ordained, and since you went your own way’.

‘But Johnny, he’s…… well,……. oh, never mind.’

‘What were you going to say?’ asked Paul, suspecting what was coming.

‘Well, when we were in the Sem, I used to see him… erm,…’

‘You mean he was perving on you? Did that bother you?’

‘Paul! Honestly! Great subtlety, Soldier! Eat your heart out, Shakespeare! But, yeah, that’s what I mean, though it’s your word, not mine. For instance, I used to catch him sometimes intently watching me when I was shirtless for any reason, not that I ever need much reason to be shirtless. And I remember he ‘perved’ on you too.’

‘Hm. That didn’t, and doesn’t, worry me at all. In fact, I was flattered! And I’d be flattered if I were you, as well.’

‘What the hell do you mean by that, Paul?’

‘Just what I said. Johnny’s very attractive: he’s handsome, a really great-looking guy, something of a hunk, and a really lovely person as well, don’t you think?’

Tim went red, then white with shock and then anger.

‘Handsome? Something of a hunk? What’s that supposed to mean? Are you trying to tell me that you, whom I have known almost all my life—or obviously not known all my life—and are now sitting drinking my whisky, are… are…’

‘Are what, Tim? Gay?’

But Tim was silent, his mind working furiously. So Paul continued

‘No, I’m not trying to tell you that. You could have worked that out for yourself if you had tried. In fact, I’m surprised you didn’t. No, what I’m asking you is whether you think that Johnny is a great-looking, handsome guy, and a lovely person.’

Tim spat out ‘God! You’re really in the mood for shooting from the hip tonight! But I suppose that’s always been your way. Shoot first and ask questions afterwards. Fuck, Paul, it’s just not good enough! And for your information, read my lips, no I don’t think that Johnny is really handsome. I don’t think he’s something of a hunk. I don’t think about it at all! Have some more whisky, and let’s change the subject, for Pete’s sake.’

There was silence for a while. Tim writhed uncomfortably in his chair, the horsehair bristles poking through the fabric and irritating his bare back and thighs. Paul watched him, an unfathomable sympathy in his eyes. Tim caught the look, and it held him, and as they looked at each other, tears began to well up in Tim’s eyes, and he began to weep. He had not cried properly in years, not even when Sylvia had betrayed him, but he cried now, like a little baby. No doubt the whisky had something to do with it. Paul rushed over to the other side of the room and drew his friend into a tight hug.

‘It’s okay, Tim, it’s okay’.

‘It’s not okay. I told you again and again, I have totally fucked up my own life. How can I possibly unfuck somebody else’s life, especially a child who’s already fucked up by life?’

‘Let’s not talk about all of this now.’

‘No, you don’t understand. I want to. The point is…’ and here Tim was sobbing hard, and had to try and master himself ‘…the point is, that I meant what I said, that Johnny is not in my opinion really handsome. In my… in my opinion…’ Tim pulled himself away from Paul’s grasp, stood up, and went to look out of the darkened window with his back to the room.

‘…In my opinion Johnny is drop dead fucking gorgeous! I have been so desperately in love with him since the Seminary, so hard that it hurts. All the time, all the fucking time……’ and he broke into sobs again.

He continued, when he had mastered himself, ‘I saw him draw close to you, Paul, I watched him watching you, and I hated you for it. I could see he found me attractive, but he adores you, Paul. I realized that only when I was a Deacon. I decided that I could never go through life like this, yearning after the unattainable, so I made the decision to turn myself into a man before it was too late, rather than a heartbroken castrate existence as a celibate, and what is worse, a faggoty castrate.’

Paul winced, but Tim continued,

‘Yes, a real man. I bought porn magazines with girls’ pictures and tried to masturbate, with some success, but hey, when you’re young even misshapen carrots turn you on. I went to the pub and got drunk till I puked. I went to football matches—I even supported Brighton and Hove Albion; there’s desperation for you—I learnt to strip an engine and put it back together again. I joined the police, one of the most macho jobs I could think of. I proposed to Sylvia and almost forced her to marry me. She was so slim, almost like a guy…… Oh God, I did a wicked thing to her. No wonder she found me unsatisfactory in bed. I’m almost certain my supposed daughter is not mine, because we hardly had sex after the marriage, let alone before it!

‘The divorce magistrate was right, you see. I’m a rascal and a loser. In everything I’ve done I’ve failed spectacularly! And I’m as much of a celibate as I would be if I had been ordained. And all this time, I’ve played the sympathy card with all of you for all it was worth. Poor Tim, abandoned by his tart of a wife, and shafted afterwards by her and her new boyfriend. You see: I’m a hypocrite, all along. And now you know that I’m a poof too. No, they would never trust me with a child to foster.’ And he sobbed again.

Paul got up and put his arms around his friend again, and held him until the sobs died down. He asked

‘Have you ever told anyone this before?’

‘Never, not even myself, really.’

‘You poor, poor, lamb. Tim, you can’t spend your whole life yearning over the impossible. But there is lots of possible happiness for you. You are certainly suitable to foster; I know of no-one better, in fact. I know that this is a strange time to bring it up, but fostering has brought such joy to Johnny! Yes, you’re right, Johnny and I are very much in love. We’ve never said it to each other, and we probably never will; being faggoty castrates…

Tim interrupted ‘…I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean that to apply to you…’

‘…not at all. As you know, I approve of saying what you mean as directly as possible, and it is just a very direct way of saying celibate gays. And since we both love being priests, we are going to have to be very careful how much rein we give to our love. The love which I cannot express for Johnny, I lavish on my boys at St Tar’s. And Johnny lavishes love on his Tim. There never was a boy who was so loved.’

‘His Tim?’

‘His Tim. His foster son. By some weird coincidence, his foster son has the exact same name as you; he’s another Tim Sullivan, as if one wasn’t enough. Perhaps you are distantly related,’

‘That’s extraordinary! I’d love to meet him.’ Distracted for a minute, Tim began to cheer up.

‘And so you shall. But not for a while, because Tim is going away to summer camp with the other St Tarcisius lads; he begged and begged so hard to be allowed to go, in order to catch up with his friends, that we agreed. And as there was no way that Johnny could afford a holiday this year, it seemed a good solution. Besides, it’ll give me a little time to be with Johnny on our own.’

The normal talk had calmed Tim down, and he felt at last and suddenly supremely at his ease, as if a huge burden had lifted off his shoulders. Oddly, even talking about Johnny had not produced the same agonies of heart that it had done for so long, even as recently as twenty minutes ago. Tim felt waves of the deepest affection and gratitude to Paul for having given him this occasion to say what he needed to say at last.

‘Paul’ he began. ‘I can’t begin to thank you enough for helping me to discuss and accept this. Just talking about it in a normal way for the first time has been so amazing. I thought that if I told you the truth, you would hate me, I would lose my job and all my friends. But in your generosity you ‘came out’ to me first, so that I might have the courage to admit it to myself. Did you really know what was going on all along?

‘Oh yeah, Tim. It’s sad, really. In the seminary, you perved on Johnny, Johnny perved on me, and until I fell for Johnny myself, I perved on you, Tim. I’ve always had a thing for you, even at school. It was a sad little love triangle, with each person aware only of their own love, and watching their own love loving someone else.’

‘Bloody hell! Was everybody in the Sem a poofter?’

‘Not at all. Most weren’t. But I suspect that there were a larger proportion than in the general population. After all, if you are a devout Catholic, especially these days, you would find it very difficult to explain to your family and friends just why you are not bringing girlfriends home. A vocation to priesthood is an honourable way not to find girls attractive.

Paul went on,

‘But I think that in the case of each of the three of us, there was a real vocation.’

‘The three of us?’

‘Yes, you too, Timmy’.

‘Paul, I really have fucked up, haven’t I?’

‘Oh come here and give me a kiss, you great butch thing, you!’

By contrast, the following morning, Tim was in a buoyant mood. He had been thinking about a great deal of things after he went to bed, and he had an idea to propose to Paul. Over breakfast, they talked. Tim said

‘Paul, did I hear you say that you and Johnny can’t afford a holiday this year, and that this other Tim is going away with St Tar’s. Do I assume that you are not going to camp with them?

‘Spot on. I have them all year round; this is my holiday, too.’

‘So you and Johnny were just going to stay in the parish? Not much of a holiday for Johnny, then. Why don’t the two of you come here? The St Tar’s camp is for a month, isn’t it? Turling Park sends all the boys who remain here away to a boarding school in the highlands of Scotland for a fortnight during that period. I’m going, too. So why don’t the two of you come and use my cottage for as much of that month as you want. I’ll be here for part of it, but there’ll be two weeks when you’ll have the place to yourselves. What do you say?’

‘Tim, that would be just perfect. It’s really kind of you! I know that Johnny will be thrilled, not just at your offer, but at the chance to catch up with you again. Honestly, it’s time the three of us grew up, and found our friendship once more. It used to mean so much to us.’

And so it was arranged.

Tim Sullivan Junior was duly packed off to camp, too excited to eat his breakfast on the morning of departure. Johnny drove him to St Tarcisius’ Home, the place that Tim had previously hoped he would never have to see again, and there was a great reunion. He had a small bag with him with some old clothes; bizarrely, they were new old clothes, and had to be specially bought from Oxfam, as Tim’s own clothes were all new; Johnny had impressed on him how important it was not to make the other boys jealous, or feel second-rate. Tim began to climb onto the bus, and then it suddenly struck him that he would be leaving his new father for the first time. He suddenly felt insecure, and he panicked, running back to Johnny, and hugging him hard.

‘Dad, I’ve changed my mind; I don’t want to go!’

Johnny tugged him by the hair. ‘Listen, sunshine, you’ve got to learn to run on your own for a while. We’ve had a blast over the last few months. I’m going to miss you like crazy, but you’ll be fine with all your old friends. Go! go and have a wonderful time.’ He kissed the top of Tim’s head, and pushed him towards the bus, hoping that Tim would not see the tears in his own eyes, and hear what his heart was shouting ‘Tim, I don’t want you to go either!’

Johnny waved hard until the bus was out of sight. Then all the St Tar’s staff let out a huge cheer; “FREEDOM! YEAH!!” It was an annual custom, and Johnny was laughing hard, despite the sudden ache in his heart at the first departure of his son. They all went into the staff dining room to drink bucks fizz and let their hair down. By tradition, the staff party went on most of the day, and after an hour or two Johnny was already maudlin, missing Tim desperately. The rest of the party became increasingly difficult, and he was heartily glad when the last of the revellers went off home. Then he felt arms round him from behind, and a chin on his shoulder.

‘Just you and me, now, for a whole month’.

‘Yeah, and Tim.’

‘Tim’s gone. He’s having a whale of a time on the bus with his friends, and he’s forgotten you exist already.’

‘No, not Tim Sullivan you silly bugger, but Tim Sullivan.’

‘Oh, that Tim Sullivan. Well, only for a week. And it’ll be fine, you’ll see.’

And so it was. Though Tim senior’s vigorous fitness regime was rather more energetic than either Johnny or Paul were prepared for.

Paul and Johnny arrived at Tim’s cottage that same afternoon in one car. Tim was out cutting grass, but he saw them and waved. He stopped the engine, and jumped off the machine, loping easily over the cricket field towards them, passing under the sprinklers as he ran. The water fell on his tanned and muscular torso, and glinted in the sun. Johnny had to swallow hard. This man, once a close friend, whom he had not seen for nearly ten years had become utterly gorgeous. Johnny gulped again.

‘Oh my! He’s stunning! A real running wet dream!’

Paul nudged him hard in the ribs. ‘Don’t you dare perv on him! You’re suppposed to perv on me, and anyway, Tim’s still very uneasy with all that sort of thing’.

The vision of beauty came near; though running, he was scarcely breathing any more heavily than normal. He went straight up to Paul and flung his arms around him, and kissed him full on the lips. Then he did the same to Johnny. Both men were flabbergasted.

Johnny looked at Paul as if to say ‘uneasy with all that sort of thing, eh?’

‘There!’ said Tim. ‘That’s just to get us off on the right foot. We’ll start as we mean to go on. No more angst! No more bloody nonsense from me! We are three mates, and we are going to have a real hoot this week! Come on in. Oh, there’s one problem; there’s only one bedroom, I’m afraid, so if you, Paul would kindly take your usual couch downstairs here…?’

‘Fine!’

‘…I’ll take Johnny upstairs to my room and fuck him silly, like I’ve been wanting to do for years!’

It took a moment for Johnny and Paul to realize that Tim was joking, but when it had sunk in, the three of them were crying with laughter. And the week got better from there. The boys had already left for their summer break in Scotland, and so the three men would have the run of the entire school and grounds, and have it all to themselves.

Tim tossed a coin for beds, and ended up with the couch himself. Paul and Johnny got the big bed upstairs between them, which both excited and rather alarmed them. They rather suspected that Tim had engineered the toss this way, and had done so to give them what he thought they needed, but without embarrassment to to the visitors for having pitched their host out of his own bed.

The first night, Tim built a big bonfire where he usually did for the boys, and the three friends cooked a sort of meal on it, and sat around until the small hours of the morning, drinking wine, reminiscing, and quickly rebuilding their relationship. Both Paul and Johnny realized how much they had missed Tim, and on his part he was thrilled to the marrow to have his closest friends back again. Above all, he now had two people with whom he could discuss the things that had been burdening him for so long. He, who was so good at helping other people through their difficulties, had had nobody to talk to about his own. But all that was changed now, and the deep loneliness he had borne for so many years was finally beginning to recede.

The three friends found their way somehow to bed that night and fell immediately asleep.

About eight o’clock in the morning, when Tim had been up and fretting around, bored, for two hours, he went up the stairs quietly to the bedroom. There he saw Paul and Johnny side by side on the bed, the sheets flung back because of the heat, they were not touching but lying on their backs, still fast asleep. And both of them were tenting out the fronts of their shorts with vast erections. Tim giggled quietly as an idea struck him. He tiptoed downstairs and filled a jug with ice from the freezer. Then returning to the room, he took a handful of ice in each hand and deftly pushed a hand down the front of each sleeper’s shorts. In a New York second, the air was blue with foul language, and a moment later there was a three-way wrestle on the bed going on, with each participant trying to stuff ice into the others’ various crevices. It was wonderful to be a kid again. When all the ice had melted, the three of them lay entangled in each others’ limbs, like so many puppies, laughing and enjoying the moment.

‘Paul’ said Tim.

‘Yeah?’

‘The bed’s wet’.

‘So it is. Who’s fault’s that, I wonder?’

Pause.

‘Tim’, said Johnny.

‘Yeah?’

‘When’s breakfast?’

‘Not for ages yet. Put your running shoes on, both of you.’

‘Why?’

‘Run first, then breakfast’.

‘Run? Me? Ooooooh, no. It’s a while since I swore off that sort of thing for life! I’m a born-again couch potato!’

‘No breakfast, then.’

‘Okay. Fine by me, we’ll just go back to sleep and get up for lunch.’

Pause.

‘I’m going to tickle you until you put your trainers on’

‘Fuck you!’

‘Right! You asked for it!’

Five minutes later, the three men were out of bed and jogging down the drive together.

Despite their protests for Tim’s benefit, neither Johnny nor Paul were as unfit as they alleged, but they were certainly not nearly as fit as their host. He made allowances for them, and set a gentle pace, so that they could talk as they ran. While they trotted past a lake and waterfall, Paul said quietly;

‘This seems almost too simple, and at the same time, too good to be true. My life normally seems so complicated, and yet here I am running through this wonderful scenery, accompanied by this wonderful scenery’ —he looked at Tim and Johnny and smiled—‘and I’m far happier than I was in my complex own life. I have just rolled out of bed, and thrown on a pair of trainers, and am now out and about in the same pair of shorts I slept in and nothing else. And I feel wonderful. Does life get any better than this?’

‘Yes, it does.’ said Tim gravely. ‘It gets better every day now, I find’.

They ran for about eight miles, and then returned to Turling Park. However, Tim would not let them rest, but pushed them through a series of gruelling physical exercises until every muscle group had, in Tim’s case, received a good workout, and in the others’ cases caused what was beginning to hint at some serious aches later. But Tim jumped up and jogged lightly off again, and the others had no choice but, groaning, to follow him. However, he didn’t go far before he entered a big building and jogged down a tiled corridor to a set of double doors.

‘This’, he said, ‘is one of the biggest pleasures of this place’. It was a vast shower room, with about twenty heads, so that the whole room would fill with hot spray. ‘It’s made to take fifty boys at a time. Kick your trainers off,’ he said, setting the example, and throwing them outside the door. He suddenly threw a switch, and the room was filled with freezing rain. The three of them gasped with shock, but the water could not be escaped. Slowly it warmed up until the temperature was almost as high as they could bear. They took soap from the wall dispensers, and washed themselves, both their bodies and their shorts.

‘Simplicity.’ said Tim, ‘This way you only need one pair of shorts; you keep them clean all the time. And if the shorts are nylon, as all mine are, they dry in no time’.

By common consent, they stood washing themselves close together far longer than was necessary, drinking in the sight of each others’ hands caressing their own bodies, disappearing below the wet shiny shorts and washing below in the secret areas. Then, at some unspoken moment, they started washing each other slowly and tenderly. None of them could by this stage have said which of the other two he loved more; every sense was straining to suck in every detail of the others standing so close. The atmosphere between them was electric; the sexual tension zinged in the tropical downpour as by common consent they each pushed their neighbour’s shorts to the floor and kicked them away. They stood there in the steamy rain of the showers, standing still, fascinated at what was before their eyes. They had never before seen each other completely naked, and they just wanted to experience the moment, wishing that it would last forever. They gently began to touch and run their hands over each others’ bodies; their palms felt the hard ridges of each others’ abdomens and their fingers brushed their pectoral muscles and nipples until their penises strained and strained for release. That release would certainly have come quickly had not the hot water run out, and they were all suddenly drenched and deflated by an icy downpour. The tension of the moment relaxed, and they waited together, their hands in each others’ hair, laughing with laddish and rather foolish joy until they had accustomed themselves to the cold, and were enjoying its refreshing vigour.

‘You’re going to ache so badly later’ said Tim, turning the water off. ‘We’d better give you a massage’. And on the benches in the changing room they took turns kneading each others’ limbs and torsos until each felt utterly relaxed. Finally, they pulled on their wet clammy shorts and went to dry off in the sunshine and eat breakfast.

They wandered around the grounds after breakfast, and talked of their lives. They swam naked in the lake later on; Tim said that he had always wanted to do that, but with the boys around it was not a good idea. Then they lunched lightly with a bottle of white wine. After a siesta, Tim woke them again and took them to the gym, where they worked out under his direction for an hour, followed by another swim, this time in the pool. Then the three of them lay in the afternoon sun; the priests prayed their breviaries while they tanned, and then they talked and talked. At sunset they lit the bonfire. Tim sang to them with a passion that he had never felt before, and in the circle of the firelight their love blossomed and grew strong.

They were all exhausted by eleven o’clock, and went indoors. Tim turned to go to the sofa as on the night before, but by one consent Johnny and Paul each took a hand and led him upstairs, where the three fell onto the (now dry) bed. The three of them wrapped their arms around each other, and relaxed into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Each day the week following was like this, and both Paul and Johnny grew visibly younger-looking. Their waistlines tightened, their tans deepened, and they grew clearly more relaxed. The love that the three felt often came to the surface, but one of them would usually head off the passion with a funny remark or a practical joke. As the end of the first week drew near, they began to sadden, as Tim prepared to go away to join the Turling Park boys in Scotland. Not that the packing took long. As Tim said:

‘For the journey, shorts, t-shirt, trainers. For changing into, another pair of shorts, another t-shirt. Plus, wallet, sunglasses, toothbrush, towel, rosary. I think that’s all I’ll need for a fortnight.’

‘The simple life’ said Johnny admiringly.

Tim gave them no warning of his departure; he simply left early one morning while the others still slept, leaving a note on the kitchen table.

At first, Paul and Johnny were lost without Tim, and rather depressed. But their joy at their good fortune at being where they were soon reasserted itself, and they resumed the vigorous regime that Tim had bullied them into. He had left his school keys for them, and they were able to continue to use the gym, pool and showers as before. In return, they were supposed to keep an eye on the buildings and drive the lawn mower around the cricket pitch once or twice.

Paul was amused. ‘How many businesses would employ the managing director of their rival to look after their property in their absence?’ But he took the opportunity to look over the wonderful facilities at Turling Park and plan how to persuade the diocese to invest more in St Tarcisius’ Home.

And he and Johnny found after all that the absence of either of the Tims was no brake at all on their fun. They regressed to childhood; they grew daring, scampering naked up and down the corridors of the college, playing hide and seek in the empty classrooms. They found the school uniform store, and tried on the drab uniforms, grimacing at the scratchy rough nylon of the boys’ shorts. They climbed the climbing frames in the gym and swung from the ropes, doing Tarzan impressions. They had fun in the chemistry labs, trying to remember from their schooldays what made things go bang. They made rude pots in the pottery room, and, giggling, hid them among the prize exhibits on display, with false names attached. They found the headmaster’s study and, dressed only in school shorts and his academic gowns, sat at his desk drinking his sherry.

And then they found the metalwork classroom, with its bizarre display of fetters, yokes, collars and handcuffs hanging on the walls. They shouted with laughter, thinking the dungeon ironmongery was hugely camp, and assumed that the teacher responsible was both gay and quite self-mocking. They found the keys to the locks in the teacher’s desk drawer, and tried on the various fetters and collars, photographing each other. Paul hung Johnny on the wall in manacles from a hook, Johnny locked Paul into a sort of yoke that held his hands out on either side of his neck.

‘If we took our shorts off, we could sell these photographs for a fortune on the internet’ Paul joked.

‘It’s no joke’ said Johnny, yanking down Paul’s shorts, and taking a snap. ‘I’ve got my retirement to save for’.

Five minutes later, with a pair of handcuffs on his wrists, Johnny suddenly went quiet.

‘What’s up, Johnners?’ said Paul, concerned that he had fastened them too tight.

‘Paul, there’s blood on these cuffs’.

‘Shit’. Suddenly the two of them shivered, and unlocked all the irons they had put on each other. They hung them back on the wall and went to put the keys in the drawer. Their mood was broken. As Paul pulled the drawer out he caught sight of a photograph. He took it out and looked at it, turning white. It was a boy, an adolescent, fourteen or fifteen years old, dressed only in school shorts and wearing presumably the same yoke that Paul had worn. The boy had fetters on his ankles too, and he looked the picture of misery. A short search revealed half a dozen similar pictures. Suddenly the two men wanted to get out of the room. They felt sick.

For the first time in a fortnight, Johnny and Paul went back to the cottage and dressed properly in shirts and trousers. The naughtiness of playing in the school had somehow lost its appeal.

‘You know,’ said Paul, ‘St Tar’s boys call this place Alcatraz. They don’t seem to be far off the mark’.

The following day, the friends resumed their active regime, though they confined their visits to the school to the gym, the pool and the showers. They simply did a routine patrol through the other corridors to check on security.

‘There is one thing we haven’t done, though’ said Paul, one afternoon.

‘What’s that?’

‘Gone through Tim’s clothes and tried them on!’

‘You’re awful! Paul, you are such a fabric queen! Does it really turn you on to wear other people’s clothes?’

‘You have no idea! Particularly when they are as gorgeous as you or Tim.’

‘Well there’s one thing, at any rate. It won’t take long. Something tells me that Tim’s wardrobe is not going to give you a lot of scope’.

But Johnny was wrong. Tim’s collection of sportsgear, especially shiny nylon shorts, was extensive.

‘A little bit of a fetish here, I think,’ said Paul, gleefully. ‘I’m really disappointed I didn’t find this little hoard sooner; it’d be fun to go running in a different pair each day’. But he tried them all on, anyway, and then insisted that the reluctant Johnny do the same. Another cupboard turned out to be full of uniforms. That was a real surprise. There were Tim’s old police uniforms, but also an imposing collection of military ones. Since Tim and both Paul and Johnny were slim and fit, the uniforms looked magnificent on them, and the camera came out again.

Then there were suits; about five really good suits, hardly worn, and three new pairs of leather trousers. But no underwear, anywhere.

‘Why three identical pairs of leather trousers?’ said Paul. ‘What a lot you can learn from a guy’s wardrobe!’

‘What a lot you can learn from watching a guy learning from another guy’s wardrobe’ said Johnny, highly amused. ‘Look, Paul, what is it, this underwear thing? What have you got against it?’

‘Nothing at all’ he replied. ‘Underwear is very useful if you’ve got a hernia, or you are incontinent, or unhygienic, or you want to kill off your sperm, or you’re so impossibly hugely endowed that you can’t even carry your own weight’.

Look,’ he went on. ‘Tim and I went to the same school, as you know. In fact, we were really close friends, and we were both what the Americans call ‘jocks’; Tim has carried all that on, but I’ve let it slide, rather. At school I used to be even fitter than he was. Our school used to insist that none of us ever wore anything under our sports kit; they said it was unhygienic, with all the sweating going on. Dead right, I think. But it was the jock thing to do; it was manly and virile, the badge of our status, to do without underwear all the time, particularly when we heard that Mohammed Ali never wore it. Both Tim and I swore off underwear at fourteen, and have never changed our minds, nor have had cause to regret it. And others at our school who admired us did the same. By that age, both Tim and I were doing our own washing, so our families never knew. Happy now?’

‘Well, I understand a bit better, but I still don’t get why everyone I love seems to feel the need to go without!’

We lit our evening bonfire as usual, and we lay together with a bottle of wine, each of us wearing a pair of Tim’s leather trousers (and nothing underneath, at Paul’s insistence), looking at each other in the light of the flames, and watching the flickering light playing on our bare torsos. We drank each other in more greedily than the wine; there was no need for words. We moved closer together; I lay against the scratchy trunk of a tree, my legs wide apart and Paul came to lie with his back against my chest. I folded my legs around his waist and pulled him to me with my arms around his torso. His hand began running up and down my leathered thigh, while I let my hands roam over his smooth chest. I leant my head over his shoulder and began to blow gently in his ear. I explored its whorls and cavities with my tongue, while he gasped. I wanted to taste every inch of this man I loved. I clenched my hands hard on his pectorals as I bit gently on his earlobe. I could see his hard cock straining against the leather, and the sweat running down his beautiful chest, catching the firelight, as he writhed ecstatically in my grasp. The same writhing had made me painfully erect, my cock trapped in the tight leather as Paul frotted and rubbed at my groin with the waistband of his trousers. The sensation, at once painful and so very sweet made me clench my teeth on his earlobe and crush his nipples in my fists. Together we cried out and came at the same moment, subsiding into each other’s arms in ecstasy.

After a minute or two, Paul turned in my arms and began to kiss me passionately. We rolled on the grass there in the firelight, trying to suck the life out of each other—or was it trying to give each other our own life? We paused for breath, me underneath, and Paul on top, his beloved handsome face only a couple of inches from my own. I gazed at him, my chest suddenly constricting as I felt a rush of the most ardent emotion.

‘Oh Paul’, I began, ‘I lo……’ but he covered my mouth with his own.

When we separated again, he said,

‘Don’t say it. Don’t say the L word. There’s still too much at stake.’

I was saddened, but agreed. We got up and went hand-in-hand to Tim’s cottage, stripped off the leather trousers, peeling them away from our caked privates (ow!) and tried to clean them up as best we could. Then we got into Tim’s tiny shower together, and washed each other tenderly.

We each put on a pair of Tim’s shorts and went to bed, holding hands, lying and looking at each other until we could keep awake no more.

The following morning, we ran as usual; this time Paul insisted that we ran wearing the official school shorts ‘out of solidarity for the poor bastards who have to wear them all the time’. By this time much fitter, we were really able to speed along, and there was no breath for talking. So when we reached the waterfall, I took Paul’s arm.

‘Paul, I want to talk a minute.’

‘Anything you want, baby. And I mean anything’. He smiled wickedly. ‘But I’m only too glad to stop, because these rough shorts are giving my tender bits no end of gyp. Why don’t they just make them of sandpaper? It would surely be kinder. Poor bloody sods here at the school have nothing else to wear, ever. Perhaps they are designed to cool their adolescent ardour!’

But I was serious.

‘Paul, up to this point, it’s all been fun. But last night we crossed a barrier. Things are different now. We may not have said the L word, but we have had orgasm together, and taken physical, sexual pleasure in a way that is different from what was before. We could kid ourselves before that we were playing. But last night was not playing.

‘I certainly enjoyed myself!’

‘Paul, be serious for a minute! Do you think we actually did the deed?’

‘The big nasty? Well we didn’t bugger each other, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Did we have sex?’

Paul sighed. ‘Well, sort of. If you’re splitting hairs, we helped each other to achieve orgasm. But it wasn’t directly intended. I wasn’t directly trying to make you cum, and I suppose you weren’t directly trying to make me cum. It just happened, though you might fairly say that our activities made it pretty inevitable. Don’t worry about it, darling, just enjoy the memory. I certainly do!’

And Paul laid a gentle kiss on my forehead, kissing away the worry lines he saw there. He added, smiling:

‘And don’t ask me to hear your confession, because if I absolve an accomplice, we’ll both be excommunicated.’

‘Let’s swim under the waterfall.’

So we kicked off our trainers, and jumped in the water, and frolicked for a while before running back to the cottage.

Tim returned a few days later. We had frantically tidied everything up, and put everything back in its place, as well as we could remember, but we still felt anxious that he might detect that we had been on the rampage. He came breezing in looking the picture of health and fitness. Bitch. He floored us with his first sentence.

‘I hope you girls had fun with all those uniforms while I was away!’

We didn’t know what to say.

‘Well I certainly hope so: I was having no end of fantasies imagining you in all the various outfits! I can see you both in the leather trousers, now.’

We must have looked guilty, for Tim gave a wicked laugh.

‘Well, we’ve only got two full days before the horrors return from Scotland, and a week before you go, so we’d better make the most of it’.

He had us into all the uniforms again, until he decided that we were all best in the leather trousers. And that was that for the evening, all three of us. I wonder now if Tim hadn’t bought three pairs in anticipation of our coming. No pun intended. In some ways wearing them that evening desentitized us to that particular garment, for Tim kept chattering merrily in a way that kept any sexual tension out of our interaction.

It also gave us an opportunity to bring up what we had found in the metalwork room. Tim looked grim.

‘Thompson. The boys call him “The Screw”, and they’re all scared of him. He certainly gives me the creeps, but as far as I know, he’s never laid a finger on a boy in a sexual way; he has only used those irons as short-term punishment. But he uses them too frequently, and now that you have told me about the pictures, I’ll keep my eyes and ears open. It ought to be stopped in any event. It’s pretty seedy.’

At the end of the week, we went home. Paul had to prepare for the new term at St Tarcisius, and I couldn’t wait any longer to see my beloved son home again.