"What shall we do today, then?" The man's voice sounded loud in the quietness of the flat, even though he had always thought of himself as softly-spoken. No reply was forthcoming, not for the first time recently. The silences had been getting longer, the man thought, things were not going as well as they should.
"No need to decide now, the world is our oyster. Mind you, I never did like oysters!" The man laughed at his own joke, a genuine enough laugh superficially, but closer analysis might have revealed a slightly off-key note, a hint of forced jollity. There were things that needed to be done before there could be any thoughts of venturing out into the world. Breakfast to be prepared, washing to be collected, ready to be taken to the launderette, cleaning to be done. The flat was always immaculate, the man had no wish to live in squalor, even though visitors were few and far between. He didn't mind that he seemed to do everything himself, it at least gave him a sense of making a worthwhile contribution to the household. It would have been nice to have some help occasionally, he thought, but his moments of dissatisfaction were rare. As he transferred the contents of his laundry basket into the large holdall he used to take its contents the short distance to the launderette, he mused, not for the first time, that it would be nice to have a washing machine of his own, but he knew that there just wasn't enough room in his small one bedroom flat.
He gazed lovingly at the female clothing mixed in with his own - after all his years of living alone, he would never have expected, now that he was on the verge of middle age, to have found himself sharing his life with someone else. It had always been so hard for him, going right back to his childhood, to overcome his agonising shyness, the feeling that he was never worthy of anyone's friendship, much less love. His parents always tried their best to encourage him to come out of himself, find activities for him where he could mix with others, build his self-confidence, but it was a hopeless task, the feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness were so deep-seated as to be completely intractable. 'There's nothing wrong with you', his mother would often say, but, much as he loved her, he knew, from as far back as he could remember, that she was mistaken, there was something wrong with him. He was too clever, too introspective, too painfully aware of all his faults, those faults highlighted day in and day out by his schoolmates, the fact that he was overweight, the fact that his teeth weren't too straight, the fact that he always knew the right answer in class without even trying - 'Fatso', 'Dracula', 'Teacher's Pet' were names that followed him everywhere, haunting, taunting. There was an old churchyard next door to his school, the church long gone but the tombs and gravestones still remaining, and he spent most of his break times and lunchtimes there, whenever it wasn't too wet, sitting quietly reading amongst the memorials of lives come and gone, peaceful people who accepted him for who he was. Everyone expected him to go on to a good university when his school career was over, but he shocked his family and his teachers by finding himself a job, one which, when they thought about it, people had to admit, suited his meticulous, almost obsessive personality - he began training as an archivist. As soon as he was financially able to, he left home and rented a bedsit near to his work, then later, bought his flat, his little oasis, where he had now lived for over fifteen years. It was a 'bachelor pad', nothing more or less, but ideal for him, because he knew beyond all doubt that there would only ever be him living there.
Until last March. His work was usually solitary, studying, cataloguing, and, in recent years, digitising for distribution via the internet, the contents of the county archives. From time to time, though, and they were times he dreaded, he had to help scholars and genealogy enthusiasts who had applied to undertake research in the archives, and required his expertise to help them locate what they needed, and to make sure the materials were properly handled, where access to the originals was necessary. He normally had a few days' notice of any such impending visit, by way of an e-mail from the administration office, but on this Monday morning, as he checked his computer, he found a message which had been sent on the previous Friday lunchtime - 'S.Rowland requires access to 18th and 19th century property archive, appointment made for Monday March 8, 10:00.' March 8 - that was today, an hour from now! He felt panic pricking his chest, how could he be ready in an hour? Maybe Mr Rowland wouldn't turn up, broken appointments often happened, then he would be left to his reclusive devices, as usual. He began his day's work, but his sense of trepidation only strengthened as 10:00 approached, until the discreet bleep of his pager resounded in his ears like a cannon shot, startling him beyond all reason. He reluctantly read the message, which confirmed his fears. 'S.Rowland at reception'. He made his way along the corridor towards the foyer of the building, his nervousness building with every step. The receptionist greeted him cheerfully, as ever.
"Suzanna Rowland is here, Mr. Porter," the woman said, gesturing towards the two or three seats against the far wall. The man blanched, this was going to be even worse than he'd feared. Not just a new person to deal with, but a female. He was literally shaking with fright as he turned towards where the stranger awaited him.
"Good morning, Ms Rowland, I'm Jonathan Porter." It took every ounce of his willpower to speak. "I believe you'd like to see our property archive."
"Hello, Mr Porter." The young woman extended a hand towards him, which he shook tentatively, and returned to its owner. "I'm researching the history of my home village, and the families who have lived in the area for the last 200 years, your archive has been recommended to me as an excellent source of information as to the ownership of the property in and around the village. I'm hoping to write a small book, we're trying to raise funds to renovate the village hall."
"A worthy cause, I'm sure. If you'd like to follow me, we'll hopefully be able to find something useful to you."
The man's mind was only half engaged with what he was saying, something was nagging at the fringes of his memory, this young woman, pleasant-looking without straying towards the realms of 'beauty', in her mid-twenties, at a guess, conservatively dressed, seemed eerily familiar to him, but he couldn't understand why. The thought continued to grate, like a hum in his mind, as he pointed out this file and that to Suzanna, and she began to study the information, taking copious notes. It was a good hour before the connection was made in his head - he looked towards the woman, who looked up from her notebook, her shoulder-length dark hair framing her face, smiling slightly as she met his gaze, and the pieces fell into place with a click that the man thought almost audible. She looked just like 'that' girl, the one who had gone out of her way to make his life a misery at school, then had seemed to change her mind, to be warming towards him, asking him for help with her school work, and finally asking him, after a couple of weeks, if he was free on Saturday, could he meet her at the public library to help her with a project she had to have finished by Monday morning. His heart had lifted, maybe, just maybe, he was going to have...a girlfriend? He'd been there half an hour before the time they'd agreed to meet, waiting on the benches outside, but after 90 minutes had come and gone, he knew in his heart that she wasn't going to come, he'd been stood up. Then she appeared, around the corner of the building - but not alone. She was with three or four other members of her 'gang', and they were all giggling and pointing at him. He remembered every word she'd said, verbatim, even after nearly 30 years - 'You didn't really think I was interested in you, you fat loser. I'd have to have my brain removed before I went out with you!' They all fell about laughing, before ironically waving goodbye and heading off into the town centre, leaving him sitting there, humiliated, alone. He shed no tears, just locked the feelings inside, further proof, if any were needed, of his worthlessness. All this came back as he looked at the young woman in front of him, looked long enough to see the smile on her face begin to evaporate.
"Is something wrong, Mr Porter?"
"No, no...I'm sorry, you reminded me of someone I knew at school, and it's taken me until now to place who it was I was thinking of. Memories fade with age, I'm afraid."
He assiduously avoided looking at her, unless it was unavoidable, for the remainder of the day, while still doing his best to help her research. As 4:30 approached, he spoke to her once again.
"I'm sorry, Ms Rowland, but I'm afraid the archive will be closing in a few minutes. If you need more time, I'm sure it will be possible for you to make an appointment to return on another day."
"Gosh, is it that time already? Can I just finish checking through this last document?"
"By all means, I'll be here for another half hour or so, but I will need to lock up and so on."
Fifteen minutes later, she handed him the document she'd been studying, and he returned it to its proper place. A place for everything in his life, he thought, except one thing.
"Thank you very much for all your help today, Mr.Porter, I've found masses of stuff I would never have thought of. I might well make another appointment, but it wouldn't be for a few weeks, I've got work commitments. Could I buy you a drink, you really have helped me so much today."
The man's mind reached for the stock response, 'Don't mention it, just doing my job, glad to have been of assistance, I need to get home', but something short-circuited the normal decision-making process, and he heard himself say, "Thank you, Ms Rowland, that would be very kind. Would you mind waiting for a few minutes while I finish here?"
Twenty minutes later, they were sitting in a quiet corner of the pub across the road from the archive building, chatting over glasses of red wine.
"I've taken quite an interest in local history myself over the years," the man said, "hardly surprising, you might say, given my job. I was born and brought up in the county, and I'm very fond of the area. I have a considerable collection of books on the subject at home, I don't know whether there might be anything of use to your research amongst them. I'm free most evenings and weekends, if you'd like to have a look."
So it was, that Suzanna found herself, later that evening, and after more than half of a shared bottle of wine, in the man's flat. How tidy, how orderly, she thought, just what you'd expect from an archivist. Nothing out of place, except...
The doorbell rang. The man stared at the blank back of the door, stunned. He didn't have visitors, ever...except once...
The bell rang again, insistently. The man slowly walked to the door, and slowly opened it. A youngish man, in a smart suit, was on the threshold. He presented his identification.
"Mr Porter?"
"Yes, I am he."
"Detective Constable Chappell, C.I.D. I'm investigating the disappearance of a young woman, we believe she had an appointment with you on the last day she was seen. Suzanna Rowland."
The man swallowed, cleared his throat.
"Yes, officer. She's here. Suzie, there's someone to see you."
The policeman, and a hitherto unseen colleague, made their way into the flat.
"She's in the bedroom," the man gasped, as his heart clenched agonisingly in his chest, taking his breath away.
D.C. Chappell pushed the door open, then flung a hand to his mouth in shock. His colleague started forward, then turned quickly as a loud thud sounded behind him. Jonathan Porter had collapsed to the floor, lifeless. As lifeless as the mutilated body of Suzanna Rowland, tied to a chair and wrapped in museum dust sheets, like some grim, shrink-wrapped simulacrum of a mummy. Jonathan Porter's only companion.
****
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
Saturday, 14 August 2010
Oneiros
Author's note: This story includes explicit sexual content, involving contact between an adult male and a boy below the age of consent. If you find this in any way offensive or distasteful, please read no further, and/or if it is illegal for you to read such material in your jurisdiction due to age or domicile, please read no further. The author does not condone or promote any illegal activity. This story is entirely a product of my imagination, no minors were involved in any way in its compilation, and the characters and actions portrayed are entirely fictitious. The characters in this story may not engage in safe sex, because, being fictitious, they don't need to. You, as a real person, do.
****
Shaun felt himself floating, seemingly unsupported, in mid-air. A momentary flicker of panic rose from the pit of his stomach, he was going to fall, but then he was calmed by a stronger, clearer thought, like words spoken by a solemn schoolmaster - 'You're dreaming'. He knew that thought must be correct, because the last thing he could remember before finding himself in this untenable position was going to bed in his flat, dog-tired after a long and busy day at work. He'd heard of lucid dreaming, and guessed that this must be what it was like, knowing you're dreaming while still within the dream, although it had never happened to him before. Having accepted the logic of the situation, he knew instinctively he could follow wherever the dream led, and he would be safe, because he was, in reality, just lying in his room, under a lightweight summer duvet. He continued to drift slowly downwards, with a movement which made him recall films he'd seen of airships landing, or docking, or whatever it was that airships did, manoeuvring, or being manoeuvred, gently, almost lazily on his intangible magic carpet. Finally, and just as lightly as a new-born infant being set in its crib, he felt his shoulders and back touch a surface, and his movement ceased.
Shaun looked around, curiously. He was in some kind of a room, but it was difficult to gauge its size, or even its height - all the walls and the ceiling, coloured cornflower blue, seemed strangely indeterminate, incorporeal, as though built of slabs of sky. The floor and the bed, or whatever it was, that he was lying on were white, but a rather matt shade, certainly not dazzling. That bed - it looked like marble, but rather than being cold and hard, it was slightly warm, and slightly yielding, just right for optimum comfort. When he swung his legs around and down, and his feet touched the floor, there was that same, uncanny perfection - whatever the material was, it had that slight internal warmth, and the feel of stepping onto a top of the range, deep pile carpet. He felt his clothing ripple around his body, and realised for the first time that he was wearing some kind of robe, about knee-length, made of a very fine silky material, but more than adequate given the warmth of the room that he was in.
Shaun was just starting to think about how realistic and lifelike were all of his sensations within this dream, when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye, to his left and almost behind his field of vision. He turned in that direction, and saw a figure moving towards him. Given the difficulty he'd had in assessing the size of the room, it was difficult initially to reliably tell how big or far away from him the person was, but his immediate impression was that it was someone smaller than himself, but dressed in a similar robe. After a second or two, it was apparent that Shaun's companion was a boy, around six inches shorter than himself, and with brown, tousled hair. As he looked more closely, his heart almost stopped. It wasn't just a boy, it was, to all appearances, the boy, the one he'd seen walking past his office window for the last four years, the one who had grown in that time from a pretty little boy in primary school uniform to a teenager on the very cusp of puberty, and, to Shaun's eyes, the most delightful creature he'd ever seen in his life. The boy stood and faced him, with a slight smile on his full lips.
"Hello, Shaun, welcome to Oneiros. You've only had a short journey, but it will probably seem to you to have been a long one, in terms of time and space. I know you're an intelligent man, so I'll explain to you in due course all the details of how and why you've come to be here. In the first place, though, you need to be aware of one main issue. The rules in this place are different from those you've been used to living with in your life to this point. The main practical difference that this will mean to you is that you don't need to hide your true feelings any longer. I can appreciate that this is a concept that will take some time for you to become accustomed to, so no pressure will be placed on you to change your behaviour, you can take as long as you need to get used to your new life."
Shaun heard the words, but they didn't initially penetrate his confused mind. He was still thinking of himself as being in a dream landscape, but the evidence of his senses seemed to be telling him that no dream, however vivid or lucid, could be this lifelike, this internally consistent. The boy hadn't moved, hadn't changed his expression, but, for all that, Shaun had the impression that his thoughts were being read like an open book. The boy spoke again, seeming to confirm that notion.
"Don't say anything yet, Shaun, you've arrived at a place beyond any of your previous experience. I'm not trying to patronise you, but just try to come to terms with one fact for the moment, and I can assure you that it is a fact - you're not dreaming. Perhaps this will help you."
The boy took a half step forward, reached up and tenderly put his arms around Shaun's neck before planting a gentle, melting, delightful kiss full on the man's lips. Shaun, like a condemned prisoner grasping at the last moments of his life, tried to let every millisecond of contact and sensation register, the yielding softness with hints of firmness beneath the boy's lips, the aroma of his skin, the very slight, subtle undertone of the mint taste of his lips and breath, the body warmth radiating across the few inches of air that separated their bodies, before the boy broke away from him and edged back to his former position, the faint smile still moulding the lower half of his face. Shaun was so enraptured, he almost forgot to breathe, until instinct took over, and a huge ragged sigh restarted the process. Questions began tumbling over each other in his head, all fighting for precedence, thrusting forward or dragging others back, which resulted in his being able to say nothing for long seconds, until the one question he really wanted the answer to, above all others, finally came to the fore.
"Are you...Josh?"
The last vestige of the smile on the boy's face faded, and he looked at Shaun gravely, as though he was a doctor about to deliver a worrying prognosis, to which he expected a strongly negative reaction.
"Shaun...it is so difficult to explain in terms that will make sense to you. As I said before, you are an intelligent man, and commendably open-minded, but you are not a quantum physicist, or, indeed, a scientist of any kind. Have you heard of ' the Everett interpretation'?"
Shaun shook his head. "The only Everett I've heard of," he smiled wanly, "is Rupert Everett, and I doubt you're talking about him!"
For the first time, the boy looked slightly nonplussed. "Who is Rupert Everett? Is he a friend of yours?"
No such luck, Shaun thought. "He's an actor, films mostly. Most of his stuff is probably a bit 'adult' for you - now I'm trying not to patronise!"
The boy regained his insouciant composure. "It's OK, I understand now. When did Rupert Everett become well-known on your br...in your life?"
"Early to mid-1980s, I guess - 'Another Country' was his first big hit, and that came out in about 1983 or 1984."
"I thought so - that explains why I haven't heard of him. The 'Everett interpretation' is a theory in quantum physics, which scientists here believe is correct, where there are an infinite number of parallel universes, making up a 'multiverse', and where, at each moment, new universes are born as quantum processes twist one way or another, unpredictably. Some of these universes are almost indistinguishable from each other, some are vastly different, and, with each passing moment, further quantum events happen which create new universes from the previous generation, and so on. It may not be immediately obvious to you, but the fact that there are an infinite number of universes means that anything not prohibited by the laws of physics not only can happen, but must happen. Each of these parallel universes is known to us as a 'branch', and on this branch, as you will have already guessed, certain things are substantially different from the branch that you are used to, while others are very similar. Which year were you born in?"
"1969" Shaun replied.
"That is another confirmation of what we believe about when our branch and yours diverged. It has proved to be impossible to pin these things down exactly, but the best evidence we have is that the 'bifurcation' - that is, the exact instant the paths divided, and one universe became two - occurred during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. I don't know how much you know about your family history, but as far as we can tell from the information we were able to obtain from your branch, your parents met at a Christmas party in that same year."
"I knew my parents met at a party, but I wouldn't have been able to tell you more than that."
The boy nodded. "On this branch, your parents apparently didn't meet, but between October and December 1962, things changed quite radically in some ways between your branch and ours. In terms of your existence, because your parents didn't meet, you, obviously, weren't born. If you had been, we would not have been able to bring you here - one of our most sacrosanct ethical principles is that we never allow a situation to arise where someone on this branch might meet a 'doppelganger', even if the resemblance is only minimal. In contrast to your situation, my parents did meet as they had on your branch, and I was born in the same year and with a very similar genetic makeup, but there are still differences from the 'Josh' that you knew. You've doubtless realised that my vocabulary is not what you might have expected from a 13 year old, which is a function of our completely different educational system - we learn things at what you would consider to be a primary school age that are on a similar level to an undergraduate on your branch. Also, my views on what you might call 'morality' are shaped by our values, and my upbringing within that ethos, and are, again, considerably different from your previous experience. Perhaps the kiss we shared might provide you with food for thought in that respect. And finally, my name - I am called Andrew on this branch."
There was a clashing of mental gears for Shaun, as he began, slowly, to come to terms with what Andrew had told him. He wasn't dreaming, Andrew had said, so he really was in a room, or whatever this place was, with the boy, or a very close equivalent of the boy, who had dominated his waking life and his dreams for so long, and, more than that, he'd been told that he didn't have to hide his feelings, and the boy had given him a mind-numbingly wonderful kiss. After all the years, a quarter of a century and more, of hiding, denial and rigorous self-control, could he allow himself to believe? Surely there had to be a catch somewhere, was this some kind of entrapment scheme, where as soon as he reached out towards Andrew, sirens would blare, lights flash and handcuffs click? Or had that part of the story already happened, and was he now in some kind of 'Ministry of Love'-style institution where his 'perversion' was going to be burnt out of him, by physical or mental torture?
He closed his eyes, and buried his face in his hands, staring into the sparkling darkness behind his eyelids for long moments while thinking of something, anything, to say.
"Come and sit down, Shaun. I can only imagine how difficult and strange all of this is for you - it would be the same for me, I would guess, if I'd been brought to your branch." The boy took Shaun's hand, and gently guided him back to the 'bed', which seemed to now have become transformed into a spacious two-seat sofa, or loveseat. They sat, side by side, close but not touching.
"Andrew...I can't think what to make of all this, it is so strange, as you said, and I'm full of a thousand questions at the moment. First of all, though, one question that's very important to me, coming from where I have and from what my life has been like, since I was your age, really. Are you here with me because you want to be?"
"Of course! I was closely involved in the process that led to you being brought to Oneiros. Part of the way that our society is structured is that it is recognised that every individual has a perfect soulmate. That soulmate may not always actually exist on our branch, but because of our technological capabilities, we have the opportunity to cast the net more widely. There may be rare occasions when that perfect match cannot be made, even in the vastness of the multiverse, because there are limits to how far from this branch that our technology can reliably reach, or there may be an ethical bar to bringing someone's soulmate here - they may be too closely related to someone else here, or they may have commitments in their 'home' branch that we have no wish to disturb - but in my case, and yours, no such obstacles exist. You have no close family, or other personal responsibilities of that sort, and our matching processes have identified that not only are you my perfect partner, but that I am yours. You may well think that I, and my civilisation, are being ridiculously presumptuous in plucking you from home and hearth and bringing you to somewhere very different, but these things are never undertaken on a whim - this process has been ongoing for almost four years, and every possible criterion has been considered. This isn't some kind of hit-or-miss computer dating agency, it's a complete assessment of two individuals' intellect, instincts and personalities, which I have undergone just as thoroughly as you, the only difference being that I was aware of the process taking place, because it's part of everyone's life here, whereas you were being observed from a distance, as it were. You haven't been abducted - if you don't wish to remain here, there is no compulsion, you can be returned to the exact time and place on your branch from where we transferred you, with or without the memories of your time here, as you choose. I would be sad if you chose to return, because I've come to know you so well over the last few years, but my feelings are not important in this context, your freedom of choice is paramount. I would return to the search, either here or elsewhere - there are doubtless other 'nearly-Shauns' out there, and I would set about finding the next best option. And I would be happy, you need have no fear of 'ruining my life' if you want to return to your branch, you can be completely and utterly self-centred in your decision. Please let me say one thing to you, though, even if it's selfish on my part to say it - I love you, and I think you could come to love me."
Once again, Shaun was struck dumb, even the maelstrom of his thoughts was largely quenched - the only reverberations in his head were those three words 'I love you', over and over again, and his deep-rooted response 'It can't be true, these things don't happen in real life'. Andrew reached out and took Shaun's hand again, holding it lightly but, as Shaun somehow felt, decisively, using the physical contact to make a statement, rather than using words that might not have breached the wall of Shaun's confusion and disbelief.
"Shaun." The sound of his name didn't initially rouse the man from his introspection. "Shaun, I'd like to ask you a favour."
"Sorry, Andrew, I'm still having problems with this scenario. While I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that I appear to have been spirited away to a parallel universe, the boy of my dreams tells me he loves me, and I'm flung onto a whole new level of unreality. A favour, of course, anything I'm capable of."
"I'd like to be closer to you, can you swing your legs up onto the couch if I stand up for a moment?"
Shaun nodded, and shifted his position as the boy had asked. Andrew climbed astride his midriff, before laying on top of the man, putting his arms around Shaun's neck once again. Their faces were very close, so close it was hard for Shaun to focus his eyes properly on the boy, and he could sense the same, faint mint note as before emanating from Andrew's mouth. Once again, the boy's lips found their way to Shaun's, and the man shuddered as he was the recipient of another gut-wrenchingly sensuous kiss, then another. Even if his partner hadn't been who it was, the mere physical contact was almost overwhelming. Shaun had never been this close to a boy in his adult life, he'd always steered well clear of any such contact, knowing how he would react, but now, he'd gone from one extreme to the other, from nothing to everything all at once. He knew what was going to happen, but could do nothing to stop himself, the slight friction of the garment he was wearing was more than enough to set off the most explosive orgasm of the man's life, accompanied by a disembodied groan, almost inhuman sounding, dredged from deep within the darkest recesses of the self that had been hidden from his world for so long. On and on it echoed through his body, longer than he would ever have believed possible, but as the ecstasy ebbed away, torrents of guilt and shame rushed in to take its place, what had he done? Everything would be ruined, paradise lost before even being gained. The intensity of his emotions, of everything that had happened in the last few, short minutes engulfed his mind and he collapsed into wretched, gulping sobs, like a toddler, completely shorn of any self-control at all. Andrew gasped, sitting up and putting his hands on Shaun's shoulders, trying to begin to reassure the man that it was OK, it was all understandable, to calm down, this was Oneiros, not his world, it was what he, Andrew, really wanted, please calm down, everything is fine, I'm fine, I want you to be fine, too, don't cry, please don't cry....
There was no way of gauging the time, but Shaun thought later that it must have been at least fifteen minutes before he felt himself able to speak. Andrew had moved from the sofa to the floor, and had wrapped himself around Shaun from his right side, his arms around the man's shoulders, his lovely face resting against Shaun's cheek, whispering words of love and solace into the man's ear, lifting himself up from time to time to wipe away the tears that were still seeping, now soundlessly, from Shaun's eyes, although even the silky, gentle touch of Andrew's thumbs on his cheeks was enough, in his fragile state, to elicit another surge of lachrymose emotion from the man.
Andrew held his breath for a few moments, trying to work out if Shaun had calmed down enough for him to speak. He almost got to the point of being ready to talk to the man, but Shaun forestalled him.
"I'm sorry, Andrew...sorry for what happened, and sorry for how I reacted. It's just that I've been waiting for so long, held so much inside..."
"You've got nothing to be sorry for, Shaun. I'm the one who should be apologising, I was greedy, impatient - I've been waiting, too, but only for a little while, not half a lifetime and more, like you. I've made a big mistake, and I don't deserve you. I wouldn't blame you if you asked to go back to your branch right away."
The boy made to move away, but Shaun caught his arm, and gently drew him back into his body. "Don't go, darling boy, please...I just need a little more time, a little more acclimatisation, everything will be alright...I think." Shaun gave the boy a tiny, almost chaste peck on the cheek, born of deep affection rather than any kind of lust, and Andrew smiled broadly.
"I was right, Shaun...when we were finding out about you, I said I thought you were the nicest man in the multiverse, and I was right!"
****
Author's footnote: This story was going to be longer, but after last night's meltdown, I don't feel it's right to go on with it. The story is, in a way, part of the problem, because it's brought my most cherished fantasy out of its hiding place. Not just a boy, but the boy.
****
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Shaun looked around, curiously. He was in some kind of a room, but it was difficult to gauge its size, or even its height - all the walls and the ceiling, coloured cornflower blue, seemed strangely indeterminate, incorporeal, as though built of slabs of sky. The floor and the bed, or whatever it was, that he was lying on were white, but a rather matt shade, certainly not dazzling. That bed - it looked like marble, but rather than being cold and hard, it was slightly warm, and slightly yielding, just right for optimum comfort. When he swung his legs around and down, and his feet touched the floor, there was that same, uncanny perfection - whatever the material was, it had that slight internal warmth, and the feel of stepping onto a top of the range, deep pile carpet. He felt his clothing ripple around his body, and realised for the first time that he was wearing some kind of robe, about knee-length, made of a very fine silky material, but more than adequate given the warmth of the room that he was in.
Shaun was just starting to think about how realistic and lifelike were all of his sensations within this dream, when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye, to his left and almost behind his field of vision. He turned in that direction, and saw a figure moving towards him. Given the difficulty he'd had in assessing the size of the room, it was difficult initially to reliably tell how big or far away from him the person was, but his immediate impression was that it was someone smaller than himself, but dressed in a similar robe. After a second or two, it was apparent that Shaun's companion was a boy, around six inches shorter than himself, and with brown, tousled hair. As he looked more closely, his heart almost stopped. It wasn't just a boy, it was, to all appearances, the boy, the one he'd seen walking past his office window for the last four years, the one who had grown in that time from a pretty little boy in primary school uniform to a teenager on the very cusp of puberty, and, to Shaun's eyes, the most delightful creature he'd ever seen in his life. The boy stood and faced him, with a slight smile on his full lips.
"Hello, Shaun, welcome to Oneiros. You've only had a short journey, but it will probably seem to you to have been a long one, in terms of time and space. I know you're an intelligent man, so I'll explain to you in due course all the details of how and why you've come to be here. In the first place, though, you need to be aware of one main issue. The rules in this place are different from those you've been used to living with in your life to this point. The main practical difference that this will mean to you is that you don't need to hide your true feelings any longer. I can appreciate that this is a concept that will take some time for you to become accustomed to, so no pressure will be placed on you to change your behaviour, you can take as long as you need to get used to your new life."
Shaun heard the words, but they didn't initially penetrate his confused mind. He was still thinking of himself as being in a dream landscape, but the evidence of his senses seemed to be telling him that no dream, however vivid or lucid, could be this lifelike, this internally consistent. The boy hadn't moved, hadn't changed his expression, but, for all that, Shaun had the impression that his thoughts were being read like an open book. The boy spoke again, seeming to confirm that notion.
"Don't say anything yet, Shaun, you've arrived at a place beyond any of your previous experience. I'm not trying to patronise you, but just try to come to terms with one fact for the moment, and I can assure you that it is a fact - you're not dreaming. Perhaps this will help you."
The boy took a half step forward, reached up and tenderly put his arms around Shaun's neck before planting a gentle, melting, delightful kiss full on the man's lips. Shaun, like a condemned prisoner grasping at the last moments of his life, tried to let every millisecond of contact and sensation register, the yielding softness with hints of firmness beneath the boy's lips, the aroma of his skin, the very slight, subtle undertone of the mint taste of his lips and breath, the body warmth radiating across the few inches of air that separated their bodies, before the boy broke away from him and edged back to his former position, the faint smile still moulding the lower half of his face. Shaun was so enraptured, he almost forgot to breathe, until instinct took over, and a huge ragged sigh restarted the process. Questions began tumbling over each other in his head, all fighting for precedence, thrusting forward or dragging others back, which resulted in his being able to say nothing for long seconds, until the one question he really wanted the answer to, above all others, finally came to the fore.
"Are you...Josh?"
The last vestige of the smile on the boy's face faded, and he looked at Shaun gravely, as though he was a doctor about to deliver a worrying prognosis, to which he expected a strongly negative reaction.
"Shaun...it is so difficult to explain in terms that will make sense to you. As I said before, you are an intelligent man, and commendably open-minded, but you are not a quantum physicist, or, indeed, a scientist of any kind. Have you heard of ' the Everett interpretation'?"
Shaun shook his head. "The only Everett I've heard of," he smiled wanly, "is Rupert Everett, and I doubt you're talking about him!"
For the first time, the boy looked slightly nonplussed. "Who is Rupert Everett? Is he a friend of yours?"
No such luck, Shaun thought. "He's an actor, films mostly. Most of his stuff is probably a bit 'adult' for you - now I'm trying not to patronise!"
The boy regained his insouciant composure. "It's OK, I understand now. When did Rupert Everett become well-known on your br...in your life?"
"Early to mid-1980s, I guess - 'Another Country' was his first big hit, and that came out in about 1983 or 1984."
"I thought so - that explains why I haven't heard of him. The 'Everett interpretation' is a theory in quantum physics, which scientists here believe is correct, where there are an infinite number of parallel universes, making up a 'multiverse', and where, at each moment, new universes are born as quantum processes twist one way or another, unpredictably. Some of these universes are almost indistinguishable from each other, some are vastly different, and, with each passing moment, further quantum events happen which create new universes from the previous generation, and so on. It may not be immediately obvious to you, but the fact that there are an infinite number of universes means that anything not prohibited by the laws of physics not only can happen, but must happen. Each of these parallel universes is known to us as a 'branch', and on this branch, as you will have already guessed, certain things are substantially different from the branch that you are used to, while others are very similar. Which year were you born in?"
"1969" Shaun replied.
"That is another confirmation of what we believe about when our branch and yours diverged. It has proved to be impossible to pin these things down exactly, but the best evidence we have is that the 'bifurcation' - that is, the exact instant the paths divided, and one universe became two - occurred during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. I don't know how much you know about your family history, but as far as we can tell from the information we were able to obtain from your branch, your parents met at a Christmas party in that same year."
"I knew my parents met at a party, but I wouldn't have been able to tell you more than that."
The boy nodded. "On this branch, your parents apparently didn't meet, but between October and December 1962, things changed quite radically in some ways between your branch and ours. In terms of your existence, because your parents didn't meet, you, obviously, weren't born. If you had been, we would not have been able to bring you here - one of our most sacrosanct ethical principles is that we never allow a situation to arise where someone on this branch might meet a 'doppelganger', even if the resemblance is only minimal. In contrast to your situation, my parents did meet as they had on your branch, and I was born in the same year and with a very similar genetic makeup, but there are still differences from the 'Josh' that you knew. You've doubtless realised that my vocabulary is not what you might have expected from a 13 year old, which is a function of our completely different educational system - we learn things at what you would consider to be a primary school age that are on a similar level to an undergraduate on your branch. Also, my views on what you might call 'morality' are shaped by our values, and my upbringing within that ethos, and are, again, considerably different from your previous experience. Perhaps the kiss we shared might provide you with food for thought in that respect. And finally, my name - I am called Andrew on this branch."
There was a clashing of mental gears for Shaun, as he began, slowly, to come to terms with what Andrew had told him. He wasn't dreaming, Andrew had said, so he really was in a room, or whatever this place was, with the boy, or a very close equivalent of the boy, who had dominated his waking life and his dreams for so long, and, more than that, he'd been told that he didn't have to hide his feelings, and the boy had given him a mind-numbingly wonderful kiss. After all the years, a quarter of a century and more, of hiding, denial and rigorous self-control, could he allow himself to believe? Surely there had to be a catch somewhere, was this some kind of entrapment scheme, where as soon as he reached out towards Andrew, sirens would blare, lights flash and handcuffs click? Or had that part of the story already happened, and was he now in some kind of 'Ministry of Love'-style institution where his 'perversion' was going to be burnt out of him, by physical or mental torture?
He closed his eyes, and buried his face in his hands, staring into the sparkling darkness behind his eyelids for long moments while thinking of something, anything, to say.
"Come and sit down, Shaun. I can only imagine how difficult and strange all of this is for you - it would be the same for me, I would guess, if I'd been brought to your branch." The boy took Shaun's hand, and gently guided him back to the 'bed', which seemed to now have become transformed into a spacious two-seat sofa, or loveseat. They sat, side by side, close but not touching.
"Andrew...I can't think what to make of all this, it is so strange, as you said, and I'm full of a thousand questions at the moment. First of all, though, one question that's very important to me, coming from where I have and from what my life has been like, since I was your age, really. Are you here with me because you want to be?"
"Of course! I was closely involved in the process that led to you being brought to Oneiros. Part of the way that our society is structured is that it is recognised that every individual has a perfect soulmate. That soulmate may not always actually exist on our branch, but because of our technological capabilities, we have the opportunity to cast the net more widely. There may be rare occasions when that perfect match cannot be made, even in the vastness of the multiverse, because there are limits to how far from this branch that our technology can reliably reach, or there may be an ethical bar to bringing someone's soulmate here - they may be too closely related to someone else here, or they may have commitments in their 'home' branch that we have no wish to disturb - but in my case, and yours, no such obstacles exist. You have no close family, or other personal responsibilities of that sort, and our matching processes have identified that not only are you my perfect partner, but that I am yours. You may well think that I, and my civilisation, are being ridiculously presumptuous in plucking you from home and hearth and bringing you to somewhere very different, but these things are never undertaken on a whim - this process has been ongoing for almost four years, and every possible criterion has been considered. This isn't some kind of hit-or-miss computer dating agency, it's a complete assessment of two individuals' intellect, instincts and personalities, which I have undergone just as thoroughly as you, the only difference being that I was aware of the process taking place, because it's part of everyone's life here, whereas you were being observed from a distance, as it were. You haven't been abducted - if you don't wish to remain here, there is no compulsion, you can be returned to the exact time and place on your branch from where we transferred you, with or without the memories of your time here, as you choose. I would be sad if you chose to return, because I've come to know you so well over the last few years, but my feelings are not important in this context, your freedom of choice is paramount. I would return to the search, either here or elsewhere - there are doubtless other 'nearly-Shauns' out there, and I would set about finding the next best option. And I would be happy, you need have no fear of 'ruining my life' if you want to return to your branch, you can be completely and utterly self-centred in your decision. Please let me say one thing to you, though, even if it's selfish on my part to say it - I love you, and I think you could come to love me."
Once again, Shaun was struck dumb, even the maelstrom of his thoughts was largely quenched - the only reverberations in his head were those three words 'I love you', over and over again, and his deep-rooted response 'It can't be true, these things don't happen in real life'. Andrew reached out and took Shaun's hand again, holding it lightly but, as Shaun somehow felt, decisively, using the physical contact to make a statement, rather than using words that might not have breached the wall of Shaun's confusion and disbelief.
"Shaun." The sound of his name didn't initially rouse the man from his introspection. "Shaun, I'd like to ask you a favour."
"Sorry, Andrew, I'm still having problems with this scenario. While I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that I appear to have been spirited away to a parallel universe, the boy of my dreams tells me he loves me, and I'm flung onto a whole new level of unreality. A favour, of course, anything I'm capable of."
"I'd like to be closer to you, can you swing your legs up onto the couch if I stand up for a moment?"
Shaun nodded, and shifted his position as the boy had asked. Andrew climbed astride his midriff, before laying on top of the man, putting his arms around Shaun's neck once again. Their faces were very close, so close it was hard for Shaun to focus his eyes properly on the boy, and he could sense the same, faint mint note as before emanating from Andrew's mouth. Once again, the boy's lips found their way to Shaun's, and the man shuddered as he was the recipient of another gut-wrenchingly sensuous kiss, then another. Even if his partner hadn't been who it was, the mere physical contact was almost overwhelming. Shaun had never been this close to a boy in his adult life, he'd always steered well clear of any such contact, knowing how he would react, but now, he'd gone from one extreme to the other, from nothing to everything all at once. He knew what was going to happen, but could do nothing to stop himself, the slight friction of the garment he was wearing was more than enough to set off the most explosive orgasm of the man's life, accompanied by a disembodied groan, almost inhuman sounding, dredged from deep within the darkest recesses of the self that had been hidden from his world for so long. On and on it echoed through his body, longer than he would ever have believed possible, but as the ecstasy ebbed away, torrents of guilt and shame rushed in to take its place, what had he done? Everything would be ruined, paradise lost before even being gained. The intensity of his emotions, of everything that had happened in the last few, short minutes engulfed his mind and he collapsed into wretched, gulping sobs, like a toddler, completely shorn of any self-control at all. Andrew gasped, sitting up and putting his hands on Shaun's shoulders, trying to begin to reassure the man that it was OK, it was all understandable, to calm down, this was Oneiros, not his world, it was what he, Andrew, really wanted, please calm down, everything is fine, I'm fine, I want you to be fine, too, don't cry, please don't cry....
There was no way of gauging the time, but Shaun thought later that it must have been at least fifteen minutes before he felt himself able to speak. Andrew had moved from the sofa to the floor, and had wrapped himself around Shaun from his right side, his arms around the man's shoulders, his lovely face resting against Shaun's cheek, whispering words of love and solace into the man's ear, lifting himself up from time to time to wipe away the tears that were still seeping, now soundlessly, from Shaun's eyes, although even the silky, gentle touch of Andrew's thumbs on his cheeks was enough, in his fragile state, to elicit another surge of lachrymose emotion from the man.
Andrew held his breath for a few moments, trying to work out if Shaun had calmed down enough for him to speak. He almost got to the point of being ready to talk to the man, but Shaun forestalled him.
"I'm sorry, Andrew...sorry for what happened, and sorry for how I reacted. It's just that I've been waiting for so long, held so much inside..."
"You've got nothing to be sorry for, Shaun. I'm the one who should be apologising, I was greedy, impatient - I've been waiting, too, but only for a little while, not half a lifetime and more, like you. I've made a big mistake, and I don't deserve you. I wouldn't blame you if you asked to go back to your branch right away."
The boy made to move away, but Shaun caught his arm, and gently drew him back into his body. "Don't go, darling boy, please...I just need a little more time, a little more acclimatisation, everything will be alright...I think." Shaun gave the boy a tiny, almost chaste peck on the cheek, born of deep affection rather than any kind of lust, and Andrew smiled broadly.
"I was right, Shaun...when we were finding out about you, I said I thought you were the nicest man in the multiverse, and I was right!"
****
Author's footnote: This story was going to be longer, but after last night's meltdown, I don't feel it's right to go on with it. The story is, in a way, part of the problem, because it's brought my most cherished fantasy out of its hiding place. Not just a boy, but the boy.
****
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Saturday, 31 July 2010
Eyes
Eyes in a crowd, laughing eyes, brown eyes.
Eyes meet, souls meld, our eyes fuse in time and space.
Eyes that paint you with their gaze, my eyes worship.
Eyes occluded, lids shut out the world, hold rapture within.
Eyes reopened, wide with wonder, now see what was once imagined.
Eyes damp, glistening diamonds, my eyes melting into you.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Eyes meet, souls meld, our eyes fuse in time and space.
Eyes that paint you with their gaze, my eyes worship.
Eyes occluded, lids shut out the world, hold rapture within.
Eyes reopened, wide with wonder, now see what was once imagined.
Eyes damp, glistening diamonds, my eyes melting into you.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Monday, 26 July 2010
Fiction
It was all starting to unravel. How, why, had his deception been uncovered - he had racked his brain for hours to try to remember where the mistake had been made, where the persona he had so painstakingly invented and developed had proved to be flawed. Hours, days, weeks had been devoted to checking and cross-checking every detail, it had become an obsession that had come to dominate most of his waking life.
It had begun as a joke, almost - he'd read a few anguished comments about a blogger in the States who'd been exposed as an adult posing as a gay teen, read the blog, saw it was so full of inconsistencies and nonsequiturs that anyone with half a brain should've been able to see through it, but, he thought, there were obviously a lot of people out there who were either daft enough or desperate enough to want to believe this kind of thing. He thought - no, he knew - that he was far cleverer than that, he could easily pretend to be someone else, and keep up the act indefinitely. After all, he had little else to do. Since that day...his mind shied away from thinking about that day, as always...since that day, he hadn't been able to work, he subsisted on the pittance that the state deigned to give him, and a little money that was left after virtually all of the inheritance from his parents had been spent on the lease for basement flat where he now eked out his existence. His world consisted of the flat, the few hundred yards between his front door and the mini-supermarket which marked the furthest he could walk, with the aid of his sticks, without inducing appalling muscle spasms in his lower back and legs that even the powerful prescription-only painkillers that were delivered every eight weeks could barely contain, and...the internet. On the net, he could go anywhere, see anything, and, he decided, be anyone.
So he came to be 'Alfie', supposedly 14 years old when he first appeared in Blogland as a commenter on various blogs of others of around that age, and on one or two discussion forums that he'd learned about where teenagers who were uncertain about their sexual orientation went to discuss issues in their lives - 'Am I gay?', 'Should I come out?', 'Will my parents kill me?' and the rest, all so stereotypical, he thought, so easy, with his extra life experience, to become the leader of the little pack by imperceptible steps, always having the ready answer to his cyber-friends' problems, and the vocabulary to express his thoughts. 'Why don't you start your own blog?' they asked him, you could help so many people like us, you're so cool. His vanity was massaged by such things, though he played 'hard-to-get' for a while, quite a few months actually, long enough, he thought, to give the impression of genuinely not wanting to put himself 'out there', what if my real-life friends, my family see my blog, I'll be toast, before 'reluctantly' allowing himself to be persuaded. 'Alfie's Den' was born, and soon hoovered up dozens of followers, all wanting to read about the life, adventures and crushes of 'Alfie', the maybe gay, maybe bi, ultra-cool teen who seemed to be able to have everything his followers wanted, loads of friends, a little 'experimentation' on a sleepover or two, parents who loved him and kept him well supplied with the latest fashions and gadgets, even good grades at school. After a few weeks, he decided that he would throw a few more sprats to the assembled shoal, and started posting a photo or two, of 'his school', 'his house', 'his dad's car', all good quality pictures of good quality places and things, all found online, and, in terms of his life, completely fictitious.
Then came the fateful day, although he didn't know it at the time. His followers had been plaguing him, on the blog, and on IM, for a picture of himself. Again, he portrayed himself as reticent, 'if anyone I know finds this, I'm history'. He'd already got a photograph lined up, but he didn't want to post anything that could be found on an online image search, so he scanned a picture into his computer that he knew for certain wasn't in cyberspace - he knew, because he had the only copy of it, taken on his own camera a quarter of a century earlier, a picture of...again, his mind rebelled against any thought which took him back to that darkness that pervaded every minute of every day, consciously or unconsciously. It was a picture of a handsome, shirtless mid-teenage boy, taken against the backdrop of a beautifully sunny day in the Lake District, Wastwater in all its glory in the background. A picture of a happy time, an Outward Bound course where he had shared a tent with...the person in the photo. He didn't post the picture on his blog, though, he e-mailed it to a select group of his most loyal acolytes, who'd followed him from the forum to the blog, and had, by all appearances, hung on every word he had written. 'Dane11', 'Boy In Limbo', 'Cammy', 'Whisper', 'Next Big Star', three or four others, beatified by his munificence - 'I wouldn't do this for anyone, you're special, guys, don't spread it around.'
Everything continued as before for some weeks, 'Alfie's Den' in full flow, almost daily posts of a completely imaginary teenage life, progressing to 'Alfie's' fifteenth birthday. And then the bombshell. A late night post detailing a 'well brilliant' birthday party, the regular commenters saying how much they wished they'd been there, then -
'Anonymous said...
I'd wish you a happy birthday, except it isn't your birthday, is it, Stuart?"
He deleted the comment as soon as he saw it, less than 10 minutes after it had been posted, but the sight of his real name had made his guts dissolve. He felt sick, panicked, empty, nothing had made him feel this way since that day, when his father had come into his hospital room, and said "I'm so sorry, but I've got some bad news."
It was the middle of the school term, there was no way that 'Alfie' could suddenly 'disappear' for no reason, so he carried on with the charade for a few more days, doing his best to make the posts as upbeat as ever, but it all felt hollow, meaningless, especially when the 'Anonymous' comments appeared every time, full of irony and cynicism, and with his name, always in bold type, there to taunt him. He felt he could hardly sleep, eat or leave the flat, in case another comment appeared when he was away from the computer. He didn't want to change to a 'pre-approval' style of comment moderation, because he was afraid it would be obvious that something was amiss with the blog, paranoia was the watchword of the week. Then the comments stopped, as suddenly as they'd started. He maintained his obsessive vigil over the computer for another couple of days, before, very gradually, starting to unwind a little. The school half-term holidays were approaching, he began a thread of the story where 'Alfie' was going to be away on a camping trip for a few days, no internet access or mobile phone coverage, so 'no posts, guys, sorry'.
The first day of the school holiday arrived, and he felt that he could finally relax, and think about how he was going to extricate himself from his predicament. An idea was beginning to form in his head, it would take a few months to come to fruition, 'Dad's been promoted, but we've got to move to the Gulf, I don't know whether I'll be able to keep the blog going, I'll still be around for another few months, though, guys'. Give them enough time, do it gradually, and they'll take it in, they always do. He began to feel rather better with life, give it until the Christmas holidays, and 'Alfie' will be no more.
Then the doorbell rang. He started, he wasn't used to visitors, apart from the prescription deliveries, but he knew that wasn't due for another couple of weeks. Ignore it, they'll soon go away. The bell rang again, longer this time, plangent in the otherwise quiet flat. Then a third time. And a fourth. Confusion filled his mind. It seemed like someone knew he was there, and was willing to wait until he answered the door, but who, why?
Another long, shrill clangour, like tinnitus, speared his auditory nerve and finally broke down his resistance - whoever it was would get a hearty piece of his mind, he thought, as he limped to the front door. He opened the door as brusquely as he could manage, and glared at what he expected to be eye level, only to see the top of a tousled head. He shifted his gaze downwards, and froze. On his doorstep was a boy, five foot nothing, seven stone wringing wet, at a guess, with a look of utter hatred in his eyes and a...large gun in his right hand.
"Get inside, Stuart."
He stepped back instinctively, the boy quickly slipped through the door and pushed it closed behind him.
"Get in the front room."
"What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" Stuart stammered out.
"You've ruined my life, so I'm going to end yours," the boy spat out. "Sit in that chair." He motioned towards the computer chair. Stuart sat, hesitantly, his eyes never leaving the weapon, so obscenely huge in the small hand.
"What are you talking about, ruined your life, I've never even met you..."
"You can call me 'Whisper'...'Alfie'," he sneered.
Stuart's stomach clenched on itself, he'd been talking to this boy on forum, blog and IM for almost a year, almost every day, all the while pretending to be his own age, giving him spurious encouragement and advice, toying with him. Now the boy was here, in his flat, filled with rage and armed with a deadly weapon, and not in any mood for conciliation, apparently.
"I came out because of you, and ever since, my life has been misery, my mum and dad hardly speak to me, my so-called friends won't have anything to do with me, I've been beaten up at school, I might as well be dead. So I'm going to be, and so are you." He waved the gun menacingly. Stuart's eyes followed, like a rabbit hypnotised by a cobra.
"Whisper...Whisper, please be careful with that gun, please let me explain."
"EXPLAIN," the boy yelled, making Stuart flinch back into the chair, as though he was trying to percolate into its structure. "Explain, you've got to be joking. All you can do is beg, and even then I'll ignore you."
"I can explain, not excuse, but explain. No-one knows this story, and if you're serious about killing us both, no-one will. But I want to tell the story anyway, if you're willing to listen." The boy said nothing, but didn't give any sign that he wouldn't hear Stuart out. "The picture I sent you, and the others, you know it's not a picture of me, but it's a real picture of someone I..." He almost said 'know', "knew. It's a picture of the only person I've ever loved, and the only person who ever loved me back. And he's not here anymore, because of me. That picture was taken when we were both 15, 25 years ago, and we were happy together, we were going to spend our whole lives together. We got all the bad things that have happened to you, and more, but it was all going to be worth it, once we left school, left home, we were going to come to London and live happily ever after. But I..." Stuart's voice cracked with emotion, "I killed him, it was all my fault. I'd just passed my driving test, I thought I was the best driver in the world, I was going much too fast on this country road, I....I crashed into a tree. I woke up in hospital, my dad came in to my room a few hours later, he told me...told me...Ash was dead, he never regained consciousness. I've never been able to walk properly since, never been able...to do anything much, except spend my time on computers, and dream of escaping from being me, from the pain in my body, and the pain in my mind. I just thought I was so clever, when I invented 'Alfie', I'd found a way of being someone else, someone who a few people liked - people like you, Whisper. I know my apologies are not going to fix anything, it's too late for that, but I really am sorry you've been hurt, and all the more sorry you've been hurt by me trying to blot out my pain - I see now how selfish I've been. I deserve to die."
There was a thud which once again made Stuart shudder, but after a split second, he realised that the sound was the gun dropping from the boy's hand to the floor. Their eyes met, both glittering with unshed tears, before Stuart glanced nervously to where the firearm had fallen.
"It's OK, it's a fake, my dad collects them. I just wanted to frighten you. And my name's Craig."
Stuart gasped. "You succeeded. I really thought you were going to kill me."
"I felt like I wanted to. I spent all that time thinking you were like a cooler version of me, only to find that you were a fat bloke, as old as my dad."
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want, but how did you find out? I spent hours and hours trying to make sure I kept the story consistent. I didn't think I'd made any mistakes, but I must've done."
Craig smiled a brief, wan smile. "I should leave you wondering, so you're not tempted to do it again, but I won't - you didn't make any mistakes in the blog, not that I noticed, anyway, your only mistake was to have your postman's son as one of your followers. I sometimes walk with my dad, we walk the dog while he's doing his round, and I deliver some of the letters for him. I delivered one to you, and saw your computer on through a crack in the curtains - I could see that you were on Blogger, that's what I use, so I looked again, closer, and saw that you were writing 'Alfie's Den'. I remembered your name from the letter I'd delivered, so I set up a new ID and started leaving those 'Anonymous' comments. I was really angry, I really thought you were a kid like me, then I told a couple of the others on IM, they knew my dad collected the replica guns, so we came up with this plan to scare you. But it looks to me like you've just done it because you're sad and lonely, so I'll forgive you. I don't know if the others will, though."
"Craig...I know there's not much I can say, but I will tell everyone the truth now, and make my apologies. Like you say, it's up to the individuals whether they can forgive me. Would you be willing to shake my hand?"
The boy looked intently at Stuart for a moment, then slowly raised his right hand, the one that had clasped that horrifying weapon so recently. They shook hands, briefly.
"Thank you, Craig. I've got a lot of amends to make, I'd better start soon."
****
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
It had begun as a joke, almost - he'd read a few anguished comments about a blogger in the States who'd been exposed as an adult posing as a gay teen, read the blog, saw it was so full of inconsistencies and nonsequiturs that anyone with half a brain should've been able to see through it, but, he thought, there were obviously a lot of people out there who were either daft enough or desperate enough to want to believe this kind of thing. He thought - no, he knew - that he was far cleverer than that, he could easily pretend to be someone else, and keep up the act indefinitely. After all, he had little else to do. Since that day...his mind shied away from thinking about that day, as always...since that day, he hadn't been able to work, he subsisted on the pittance that the state deigned to give him, and a little money that was left after virtually all of the inheritance from his parents had been spent on the lease for basement flat where he now eked out his existence. His world consisted of the flat, the few hundred yards between his front door and the mini-supermarket which marked the furthest he could walk, with the aid of his sticks, without inducing appalling muscle spasms in his lower back and legs that even the powerful prescription-only painkillers that were delivered every eight weeks could barely contain, and...the internet. On the net, he could go anywhere, see anything, and, he decided, be anyone.
So he came to be 'Alfie', supposedly 14 years old when he first appeared in Blogland as a commenter on various blogs of others of around that age, and on one or two discussion forums that he'd learned about where teenagers who were uncertain about their sexual orientation went to discuss issues in their lives - 'Am I gay?', 'Should I come out?', 'Will my parents kill me?' and the rest, all so stereotypical, he thought, so easy, with his extra life experience, to become the leader of the little pack by imperceptible steps, always having the ready answer to his cyber-friends' problems, and the vocabulary to express his thoughts. 'Why don't you start your own blog?' they asked him, you could help so many people like us, you're so cool. His vanity was massaged by such things, though he played 'hard-to-get' for a while, quite a few months actually, long enough, he thought, to give the impression of genuinely not wanting to put himself 'out there', what if my real-life friends, my family see my blog, I'll be toast, before 'reluctantly' allowing himself to be persuaded. 'Alfie's Den' was born, and soon hoovered up dozens of followers, all wanting to read about the life, adventures and crushes of 'Alfie', the maybe gay, maybe bi, ultra-cool teen who seemed to be able to have everything his followers wanted, loads of friends, a little 'experimentation' on a sleepover or two, parents who loved him and kept him well supplied with the latest fashions and gadgets, even good grades at school. After a few weeks, he decided that he would throw a few more sprats to the assembled shoal, and started posting a photo or two, of 'his school', 'his house', 'his dad's car', all good quality pictures of good quality places and things, all found online, and, in terms of his life, completely fictitious.
Then came the fateful day, although he didn't know it at the time. His followers had been plaguing him, on the blog, and on IM, for a picture of himself. Again, he portrayed himself as reticent, 'if anyone I know finds this, I'm history'. He'd already got a photograph lined up, but he didn't want to post anything that could be found on an online image search, so he scanned a picture into his computer that he knew for certain wasn't in cyberspace - he knew, because he had the only copy of it, taken on his own camera a quarter of a century earlier, a picture of...again, his mind rebelled against any thought which took him back to that darkness that pervaded every minute of every day, consciously or unconsciously. It was a picture of a handsome, shirtless mid-teenage boy, taken against the backdrop of a beautifully sunny day in the Lake District, Wastwater in all its glory in the background. A picture of a happy time, an Outward Bound course where he had shared a tent with...the person in the photo. He didn't post the picture on his blog, though, he e-mailed it to a select group of his most loyal acolytes, who'd followed him from the forum to the blog, and had, by all appearances, hung on every word he had written. 'Dane11', 'Boy In Limbo', 'Cammy', 'Whisper', 'Next Big Star', three or four others, beatified by his munificence - 'I wouldn't do this for anyone, you're special, guys, don't spread it around.'
Everything continued as before for some weeks, 'Alfie's Den' in full flow, almost daily posts of a completely imaginary teenage life, progressing to 'Alfie's' fifteenth birthday. And then the bombshell. A late night post detailing a 'well brilliant' birthday party, the regular commenters saying how much they wished they'd been there, then -
'Anonymous said...
I'd wish you a happy birthday, except it isn't your birthday, is it, Stuart?"
He deleted the comment as soon as he saw it, less than 10 minutes after it had been posted, but the sight of his real name had made his guts dissolve. He felt sick, panicked, empty, nothing had made him feel this way since that day, when his father had come into his hospital room, and said "I'm so sorry, but I've got some bad news."
It was the middle of the school term, there was no way that 'Alfie' could suddenly 'disappear' for no reason, so he carried on with the charade for a few more days, doing his best to make the posts as upbeat as ever, but it all felt hollow, meaningless, especially when the 'Anonymous' comments appeared every time, full of irony and cynicism, and with his name, always in bold type, there to taunt him. He felt he could hardly sleep, eat or leave the flat, in case another comment appeared when he was away from the computer. He didn't want to change to a 'pre-approval' style of comment moderation, because he was afraid it would be obvious that something was amiss with the blog, paranoia was the watchword of the week. Then the comments stopped, as suddenly as they'd started. He maintained his obsessive vigil over the computer for another couple of days, before, very gradually, starting to unwind a little. The school half-term holidays were approaching, he began a thread of the story where 'Alfie' was going to be away on a camping trip for a few days, no internet access or mobile phone coverage, so 'no posts, guys, sorry'.
The first day of the school holiday arrived, and he felt that he could finally relax, and think about how he was going to extricate himself from his predicament. An idea was beginning to form in his head, it would take a few months to come to fruition, 'Dad's been promoted, but we've got to move to the Gulf, I don't know whether I'll be able to keep the blog going, I'll still be around for another few months, though, guys'. Give them enough time, do it gradually, and they'll take it in, they always do. He began to feel rather better with life, give it until the Christmas holidays, and 'Alfie' will be no more.
Then the doorbell rang. He started, he wasn't used to visitors, apart from the prescription deliveries, but he knew that wasn't due for another couple of weeks. Ignore it, they'll soon go away. The bell rang again, longer this time, plangent in the otherwise quiet flat. Then a third time. And a fourth. Confusion filled his mind. It seemed like someone knew he was there, and was willing to wait until he answered the door, but who, why?
Another long, shrill clangour, like tinnitus, speared his auditory nerve and finally broke down his resistance - whoever it was would get a hearty piece of his mind, he thought, as he limped to the front door. He opened the door as brusquely as he could manage, and glared at what he expected to be eye level, only to see the top of a tousled head. He shifted his gaze downwards, and froze. On his doorstep was a boy, five foot nothing, seven stone wringing wet, at a guess, with a look of utter hatred in his eyes and a...large gun in his right hand.
"Get inside, Stuart."
He stepped back instinctively, the boy quickly slipped through the door and pushed it closed behind him.
"Get in the front room."
"What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" Stuart stammered out.
"You've ruined my life, so I'm going to end yours," the boy spat out. "Sit in that chair." He motioned towards the computer chair. Stuart sat, hesitantly, his eyes never leaving the weapon, so obscenely huge in the small hand.
"What are you talking about, ruined your life, I've never even met you..."
"You can call me 'Whisper'...'Alfie'," he sneered.
Stuart's stomach clenched on itself, he'd been talking to this boy on forum, blog and IM for almost a year, almost every day, all the while pretending to be his own age, giving him spurious encouragement and advice, toying with him. Now the boy was here, in his flat, filled with rage and armed with a deadly weapon, and not in any mood for conciliation, apparently.
"I came out because of you, and ever since, my life has been misery, my mum and dad hardly speak to me, my so-called friends won't have anything to do with me, I've been beaten up at school, I might as well be dead. So I'm going to be, and so are you." He waved the gun menacingly. Stuart's eyes followed, like a rabbit hypnotised by a cobra.
"Whisper...Whisper, please be careful with that gun, please let me explain."
"EXPLAIN," the boy yelled, making Stuart flinch back into the chair, as though he was trying to percolate into its structure. "Explain, you've got to be joking. All you can do is beg, and even then I'll ignore you."
"I can explain, not excuse, but explain. No-one knows this story, and if you're serious about killing us both, no-one will. But I want to tell the story anyway, if you're willing to listen." The boy said nothing, but didn't give any sign that he wouldn't hear Stuart out. "The picture I sent you, and the others, you know it's not a picture of me, but it's a real picture of someone I..." He almost said 'know', "knew. It's a picture of the only person I've ever loved, and the only person who ever loved me back. And he's not here anymore, because of me. That picture was taken when we were both 15, 25 years ago, and we were happy together, we were going to spend our whole lives together. We got all the bad things that have happened to you, and more, but it was all going to be worth it, once we left school, left home, we were going to come to London and live happily ever after. But I..." Stuart's voice cracked with emotion, "I killed him, it was all my fault. I'd just passed my driving test, I thought I was the best driver in the world, I was going much too fast on this country road, I....I crashed into a tree. I woke up in hospital, my dad came in to my room a few hours later, he told me...told me...Ash was dead, he never regained consciousness. I've never been able to walk properly since, never been able...to do anything much, except spend my time on computers, and dream of escaping from being me, from the pain in my body, and the pain in my mind. I just thought I was so clever, when I invented 'Alfie', I'd found a way of being someone else, someone who a few people liked - people like you, Whisper. I know my apologies are not going to fix anything, it's too late for that, but I really am sorry you've been hurt, and all the more sorry you've been hurt by me trying to blot out my pain - I see now how selfish I've been. I deserve to die."
There was a thud which once again made Stuart shudder, but after a split second, he realised that the sound was the gun dropping from the boy's hand to the floor. Their eyes met, both glittering with unshed tears, before Stuart glanced nervously to where the firearm had fallen.
"It's OK, it's a fake, my dad collects them. I just wanted to frighten you. And my name's Craig."
Stuart gasped. "You succeeded. I really thought you were going to kill me."
"I felt like I wanted to. I spent all that time thinking you were like a cooler version of me, only to find that you were a fat bloke, as old as my dad."
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want, but how did you find out? I spent hours and hours trying to make sure I kept the story consistent. I didn't think I'd made any mistakes, but I must've done."
Craig smiled a brief, wan smile. "I should leave you wondering, so you're not tempted to do it again, but I won't - you didn't make any mistakes in the blog, not that I noticed, anyway, your only mistake was to have your postman's son as one of your followers. I sometimes walk with my dad, we walk the dog while he's doing his round, and I deliver some of the letters for him. I delivered one to you, and saw your computer on through a crack in the curtains - I could see that you were on Blogger, that's what I use, so I looked again, closer, and saw that you were writing 'Alfie's Den'. I remembered your name from the letter I'd delivered, so I set up a new ID and started leaving those 'Anonymous' comments. I was really angry, I really thought you were a kid like me, then I told a couple of the others on IM, they knew my dad collected the replica guns, so we came up with this plan to scare you. But it looks to me like you've just done it because you're sad and lonely, so I'll forgive you. I don't know if the others will, though."
"Craig...I know there's not much I can say, but I will tell everyone the truth now, and make my apologies. Like you say, it's up to the individuals whether they can forgive me. Would you be willing to shake my hand?"
The boy looked intently at Stuart for a moment, then slowly raised his right hand, the one that had clasped that horrifying weapon so recently. They shook hands, briefly.
"Thank you, Craig. I've got a lot of amends to make, I'd better start soon."
****
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Sunday, 18 July 2010
Longing
Author's note: This story includes explicit sexual content, involving contact between an adult male and a boy below the age of consent. If you find this in any way offensive or distasteful, please read no further, and/or if it is illegal for you to read such material in your jurisdiction due to age or domicile, please read no further. The author does not condone or promote any illegal activity. This story is entirely a product of my imagination, no minors were involved in any way in its compilation, and the characters and actions portrayed are entirely fictitious. The characters in this story may not engage in safe sex, because, being fictitious, they don't need to. You, as a real person, do.
****
On the Saturday afternoon before Christmas, I was sitting at home, watching TV and feeling smug. Smug, because I'd completed all my Christmas shopping, the presents were wrapped and sitting neatly in my wardrobe, ready to take their place under the tree on Christmas Eve, while my wife and two daughters were currently struggling around Manchester city centre, along with a cast of thousands, battling to complete their purchases. My wife had rung a short time earlier.
"It's a nightmare, I can see why you didn't want to come with us!"
"You see, it's not always us blokes that are disorganised at Christmas." I'd taken a day off work at the beginning of December, and managed to get everything done. "I told you that you should have come with me the other week."
"Thanks for the benefit of your 20/20 hindsight, you git! Anyway, we're nearly done, we should be on the 3:00 train home. Have the kettle on for a quarter to four!"
The Cheshire village we lived in had an hourly train service to and from Manchester, some thirty-five minutes away, and we only lived a few minutes' walk from the station, so it was a regular occurrence to go into town by train, rather than taking the car and then having to fight for a parking space, especially on busy days, and days didn't get much busier than this particular Saturday. I congratulated myself again on my foresight, and settled back to my armchair and the TV sport. I'd hardly had the chance to sit down when the doorbell rang. Do these double glazing people never take a day off, I muttered, as I headed into the hallway. Before I'd even opened the door, though, the salesman theory was pretty much disproved, because the silhouette visible through the frosted glass was obviously that of someone around the age of my younger daughter, 12 or so.
I opened the door to find a slightly built, dark haired boy I didn't recognise on the threshold.
"Hello," I said neutrally.
"Hello. Is Kim in, please?" the boy replied politely.
Kim was my younger daughter, in her second year at senior school, a couple of months short of her thirteenth birthday.
"No, I'm sorry, she's gone Christmas shopping with her mum and her sister. They should be back at about 3:45". It was just after 2:15. "Did Kim know you were coming?"
The boy looked crestfallen. "I was talking to her on MSN last night, she said she'd be in this afternoon."
"I think their shopping has taken longer than they thought, it's very busy in Manchester. Can you come back later?"
The boy looked even more downcast. "Not...not really. I've come on the train. I haven't got enough money for another ticket." He turned to go. "Could you tell Kim that Max was here, please?"
"Wait a minute, Max. I didn't know that you'd come a long way. Do you want to wait for Kim?" Max looked uncertain. "Don't worry, I don't bite!"
The boy smiled nervously. "If you're sure it's not a problem....I would like to see Kim today." He looked embarrassed, I could remember feeling exactly the same the first time I met my first girlfriend's parents.
"Of course it's not a problem, come in. I'm Steve, by the way, I don't go for formality! Take your coat off, there are some coathooks in the hallway, there. Make yourself at home."
I was watching a rugby match on TV, Max came into the living room and sat on the sofa while I resumed my position in the armchair. "Do you like rugby, Max?"
"Well...it's OK, I guess."
"I'll take that as a 'no', then! Would you rather do something else while you're waiting. I can put the computer on in the study, if you like."
"If you don't mind...yes, please."
"Of course, it's no problem. I assume you know what you're doing, or is there anything you'll need help with."
"I'll be OK, Steve. We use computers at school, and I've got one at home, too."
"I guessed so, it's oldies like me that can't cope with modern technology! The fridge is in the study, help yourself to a cold drink if you want one, or give me a shout if you want anything else."
I started up the computer for Max, and left him to it. I heard him go to the fridge ten minutes or so later, followed by the hiss of a soft drink can being opened. I wouldn't mind a drink myself, I thought, it'll be half-time in the match in a couple of minutes, I'll go then.
As the whistle blew to signal the break in the game, I got up and headed for the small room on the opposite side of the hallway where both Max and the fridge were situated. As I got to the door, I could see that what was on the screen wasn't exactly what I would have guessed that the boy's parents would've chosen for him to look at. Max's eyes were glued to the screen, and, although he more or less had his back to me, it was pretty obvious from the way he was moving that he was doing more than just watching. I wasn't a prude by any means, but this young boy watching porn on my computer didn't strike me as being a very good idea.
"You'll get me into trouble watching that kind of stuff," I said quietly.
Unsurprisingly, Max jumped as though I'd stuck a red-hot wire into him. "I...I'm...really sorry." He seemed on the point of tears. "My friend at school told me about this...website and...oh, I'm really sorry, please don't tell my mum and dad, they'll kill me."
"I don't know your parents, or even your surname, so don't worry about that. Look..." I tried to find something reassuring to say, "I was your age not that many years ago - well, about thirty, anyway! - I know sex is a big subject of interest as you start growing up. We didn't have the internet when I was a boy, but there were magazines and things - I found some in my dad's bedside cupboard once, and I didn't waste much time in looking at them. I learned more about what a woman looked like from there than from what little sex education we had."
Max looked very uncomfortable all over again, and, at that point, I looked more closely at what was still playing on the computer screen. It was pornographic, hard-core at that, but there wasn't a female in sight.
"Oh" was all I could find to say, at which point the boy burst into tears, burying his face in his hands. I was fairly used to the moods and emotions of girls, having two of my own and a younger sister who in turn had had a daughter, but I had no idea of how to deal with a crying boy. If one of my daughters had been as upset as Max obviously was, I'd have given them a big hug, but you didn't hug boys...did you? I laid my hand on his shoulder instead. He jumped again, but didn't make any move to brush my hand away.
"Hey, Max, come on, it's not that bad. Shall we turn this off for now? We can talk if you want."
I closed the video and cleared the browser history - I knew my wife wouldn't even know what a browser history was, but I didn't want my daughters stumbling over what the boy had been watching, not least because I didn't want them to think I'd been watching it. Max had calmed down a little, but was still sniffling intermittently. After another minute or two, he uncovered his face, and turned to look at me with eyes that were nothing short of pleading.
"No-one's supposed to know," he sniffed, "about me, I mean."
"What about you, sunshine?"
"That...that I'm...I mean I like..." His voice gave out into another sob.
I guessed what he wanted to say. "That you're gay, you mean?"
Another sob, then a slight, ever so slight, nod of his head.
"Steve, you're the only person who knows." He blurted out the words. "I had a talk with my dad a while ago, made it as though it was someone else at school who was gay, he told me to stay away from anyone like that, that he wouldn't want a son like that. What will he do when he finds out, he'll throw me out, won't he?"
"He can't just throw you out, parents have legal responsibilities for their children, especially when they're as young as you. Anyway, how is he going to find out, you're not going to tell him and neither am I."
"Do you mean it, you're not going to tell anyone?"
"Of course I mean it, I don't go around broadcasting my house guests' secrets to all and sundry!"
Max looked like the whole weight of the world had been taken from his shoulders. He smiled broadly, got up from the computer chair where he'd been sitting and threw his arms around me.
"Calm down, I haven't done that much. Not that I dislike hugs, but we've only known each other for about half an hour."
Max's face fell again. "Come on, I'm only joking, don't take it all so seriously. You've got to remember I'm only used to girls, I've got a wife, two daughters, a sister and a niece - not many boys amongst that lot! So, tell me, you and Kim are friends at school, I assume."
"Yeah, she's in my form. She's really nice, and interesting to talk to."
"I know that, she's a bright girl, but I also know she's looking for a boyfriend - does she think you want to be that boyfriend? Not that I want to sound as though I'm being some kind of heavy dad, but I wouldn't want her to be upset, and from what you've said, you're not likely to be looking for a girlfriend."
"No, we're just friends - Kim fancies a boy in year 9, anyway. I...sort of...find it easier to be friends with girls, because...well, sometimes I fancy the boys, and, besides, if it looks like I like girls a lot, people probably won't think I'm...gay."
It all sounded perfectly logical, and, although I'd suppressed the memory for years, eerily familiar. Familiar, because I'd been in exactly the position Max was in when I was his age, and a little older. And like Max, no-one knew. My memory began to drift to another time and place, almost thirty years earlier.
****
I had always been fascinated by the comings and goings along the canal and up and down its flight of locks as it passed through my home town, ever since I was a little boy. I'd badgered my dad to take me 'to see the boats' at every opportunity when I was small, until, as soon as I was deemed to be old enough not to fall in, or anything similarly deranged, at around 9 or 10, I was allowed to go on my own. 'On my own' was the operative phrase, because I had few friends and my only sibling was a sister six years younger than me, but I was happy in my own company, for the most part, and spent many hours, especially in the summer, either sitting beside one or another of the locks, or walking the towpath for the two miles between the top and bottom locks. Most of the boats were hired by holidaymakers for a week or two, but there were a handful of working boats, and a few owned by people who lived on them permanently, so, over the course of a couple of years, leading up to when I was around 12, I got to recognise some of the 'regulars' by sight, and they came to recognise me. That led to me chatting to one or two people, while they were traversing the locks, one of those people being Eddie.
Eddie worked for the railway, in some sort of engineering role, but his real love was his boat. He and his wife, Beryl, had, I later discovered, taken many canal holidays over the years, and had finally decided that it was the lifestyle they wanted to follow permanently, so they sold their house and bought a boat, spending most of their time cruising around the Midlands, always within commuting range of Eddie's job. I'd seen them a few times, and had taken a short trip on the canal with them once or twice, but the next time I spotted their attractive boat, Eddie was on his own. I was at the top lock. Eddie waved to me.
"Hi, Eddie. Where's Beryl?"
"Hello Steve. Beryl's mother has been taken to hospital, she's gone home to look after her dad. I'm taking the boat to the marina, I'll have to leave it there until Beryl's family problems are sorted out - we'll be staying with the in-laws for the time being. Have you got a couple of hours to help me get the boat through the locks?"
Even if I'd had anything else planned, a chance to take a boat through the whole flight wasn't something I was going to miss out on.
"Yeah, that would be great."
"Come aboard, then," Eddie offered his hand to help me onto the deck area at the stern, where the tiller and throttle were, "do you fancy driving her while I work the locks?" My eyes must've been the size of saucers, because Eddie burst out laughing. "I guess the answer's 'yes', then."
"Oh, yes please, Eddie, I've never done that before. Wow, this is really exciting."
Eddie laughed again as my enthusiasm bubbled over. "Come on, let's get going. At least the cut's not too busy today, we shouldn't get into too many queues."
We made pretty good progress, only having to wait for other boats climbing the flight at three or four of the eleven locks, so, just on two hours after we'd set out, I edged the boat out of the bottom lock, waited for Eddie to close the gates and come back aboard, and then headed into the calm water of the long pound which would eventually lead to the marina, ten miles or so further on.
"What time are you expected back home, Steve?" Eddie asked.
"No special time, my dad's at work and my mum's going shopping with my sister. Teatime, I suppose."
"Fancy some lunch, I'm pretty peckish. I haven't got too much stuff on the boat, but I can stretch to some cheese on toast, I think."
"Yes, please, that would be nice."
We'd been chatting inconsequentially while taking the boat through the locks, but, as we moored and Eddie started making lunch, the tone of the conversation changed.
"Have you got a girlfriend, Steve?"
I blushed a little. "No...I...er, don't like girls all that much."
"No? I thought all boys your age thought about nothing else."
I was starting to get a bit flustered, thinking 'Does he know my secret - no, he can't, I've never told anyone.'
"What's up, Steve, you've gone a bit red. Have I hit a raw nerve?"
"I...I don't know what you mean."
"Have I asked something you're embarrassed about? Don't worry, I'm very broad-minded. If there's something you want to talk about, I'm your man."
There was a long, awkward silence - there were things I wanted to talk about, but I didn't really know if I could turn my inchoate mass of thoughts and feelings into words that would make any sense, even to me. Eddie's tone of voice changed, from his usual bluff, hearty self into something much gentler, as though he'd suddenly turned into a vicar, or something like that.
"Have you got a problem, Steve? It's OK, I won't make fun of you, whatever it is. You're a nice lad, and I wouldn't want to see you upset."
I still didn't know whether I wanted to speak, and if I did, what I wanted to say. Then, like a flash, I thought 'Why not? I might never see him again, it won't hurt.' I looked up at him from my seat.
"I think...I might...be a...might like...," my voice tailed off to a whisper, "boys."
"What makes you think that?" he asked, even more gently than before.
"I found some...dirty magazines in my dad's cupboard. I looked at the pictures, but I wasn't looking at the...women, I was only interested in...the men. It made me feel...strange inside, kind of shivery. I feel the same way at school sometimes, when we change for games, when we have a shower afterwards. I don't understand what it means. Girls don't make me feel like that, they just annoy me. Am I going to be...a homo?"
I used the school slang insult, not really knowing any other word to refer to...me?
Eddie looked at me reflectively for a few moments, then turned back to the cooker and took the toasted cheese from under the grill, turning the gas burner off. He handed me a plate, took one himself, sat on the opposite side of the saloon of the boat, looked at me thoughtfully again.
"I think you're a bit young to decide. They say a lot of boys go through a phase of liking other boys at around your age, but they still end up getting married and having kids. I don't think it's anything you need to worry about too much. Anyway, if you do end up that way, what does it matter? As long as you're happy and you're not hurting anyone, it's nobody else's business."
"Did you like boys when you were younger?" I asked him.
The bluff Eddie briefly resurfaced. "Blimey, that's a straight question!" He chuckled. "OK, a straight question deserves a straight answer. Yes, I had a friend I...messed around with. He was your age, I was a little bit older, about 14. It started as a 'you show me yours, and I'll show you mine' game, and we kind of took it from there. We both enjoyed ourselves, no-one else knew, we stayed friends afterwards - he was the best man at my wedding, actually. I don't see him very often these days, he moved to Scotland, works on the North Sea oil rigs, but we still send Christmas cards and the like. There, so now you know something about me that Beryl doesn't even know."
"I won't tell."
"I should hope not! I wouldn't have told you if I thought you were going to shout it from the rooftops! I'll tell you something else as well." His voice seemed to waver a little. "You really remind me of him as he was when we...played."
I felt a massive rush of butterflies in my stomach, for reasons I barely understood. It wasn't fear, though. More expectancy, even hope that something - I didn't really know what - was going to happen.
"Eddie...do you mean you...like me?"
He swallowed, visibly. It seemed to be his turn not to know what to say. I wondered if he was feeling anything like the shivers that were coursing through my young body at that moment, like lightning from my brain, down my spine and directly to my groin.
He opened his mouth, but no sound emerged at first. His mind didn't seem to be able to command his tongue.
"I...I think...I do mean that, Steve."
For long seconds, neither of us spoke, we hardly even seemed to breathe. I broke the silence, the stillness.
"I like you, Eddie. I'm getting those shivers again, but I don't know what to do about it."
"Come over here, little man." I took the two steps across the narrow ocean between us, and stood in front of him. He wrapped me in his strong arms, drawing me into the warmth of his body, his clothes smelling of fabric softener and a faint undertone of some deodorant. He eased me a few inches away from him, his hand softly, so softly ran down from my stomach to the front of my jeans, where my boyhood was trying to punch a hole through the denim. I shuddered as his palm slid over my erection, then sucked my breath in through my teeth as he delicately squeezed my hardness between the tips of his thumb and one finger.
"That's quite something, Steve." He stood up, and took my small hand in his large one. He led me to the front area of the saloon, which was set up as a bedroom, with a curtained partition from the living area. The window curtains were closed, and when he drew the partition curtain across behind us, the light level dropped to very dim.
"Wait a minute, I'd better lock the main door." Eddie disappeared through the curtain, I heard the door being closed and the bolts being shot, then he returned.
"Look, Steve, before anything else happens, I need to say something to you. You're in charge here. If I do or say anything you don't like, tell me straight away and I promise I'll stop. Say 'stop' right now if you want to. I'm breaking the law, even by touching you like I already have. There's no way I want to hurt you, and I definitely don't want to go to prison. Do you understand what I'm saying to you?"
I nodded. "It's alright, Eddie. It was nice when you touched me. I know I have to keep it a secret. I like you, I know you wouldn't hurt me on purpose, and I don't want you to go to prison, either. I don't want you to stop."
He sat on the bed, and gently drew me close to him again. With exaggerated care, as though I was made of eggshells and clad in candy floss, he began to undress me. His fingertips brushed against the skin of my sides as he took off my shirt, what would normally have been an unpleasant tickling being magically transformed to a harbinger of enchantments to come. I trembled as Eddie began to undo my trousers, at which he pulled his hand away as though he'd been scalded.
"Are you sure you're OK with this, Steve? Please tell me if you're not."
"Eddie, I'm fine. I've just never...felt like this before, so...excited."
He looked into my eyes for a long moment, as if trying to confirm, maybe convince himself, that I was telling the truth, before allowing his hands to resume their task. He eased my jeans over my narrow hips and down past my knees, I stepped out of the legs, leaving the garment in a puddle on the floor. He looked up at my face again, almost shyly, as he hooked his thumbs into the elastic waistband of my underwear, looking, I guessed, for consent to take that final step. I smiled slightly and nodded, feeling him stretch the elastic outwards at the front so as not to snag my penis as he removed the final, thin layer of my clothing, leaving me standing naked in front of him. His eyes devoured me, seeming to look everywhere at once, before a huge, somehow primal sigh escaped him.
"You're lovely, Steve, just as lovely as Colin was at your age." I blushed, as he continued quietly, as though speaking to himself. "I never thought I'd see anyone so stunning again."
I had no idea what kind of response was apposite to such a comment, so I said nothing. Eddie's hands found their way to my shoulders, and he guided me to turn around, very slowly, until my back was to him. Another sigh, dredged from deep within him, broke the silence.
"So lovely," Eddie said again, as his arms wrapped around my chest and hugged me in towards him, my head angled back a little so that my right cheek touched his left. "I'd love to make you feel good, Steve, would you let me?"
"Yes, oh, yes please." My voice had almost failed me, my words emerged as a breathless whisper. I was so aroused already, I could hardly keep still, I felt the need for touch, for stimulation, for the profound itch which was washing over every part of my body to be scratched. Eddie manoeuvred me carefully across his left leg and onto the bed beside him, then turned me around so that my head was resting on his leg, just above the knee, as I laid on my back. Using both of his hands, he ran his fingertips, then his palms, across every inch of my upper body, caressing my face, my neck, my shoulders, my arms, my chest, my stomach, sending tiny thrills, like electric shocks, racing around my torso and converging on the twitching, throbbing, stone-hard nexus of anticipation in my loins. I moaned and squirmed when he brushed across my nipples, sending another jolt of sensation careering through me. Eddie shuffled a little beneath me, then placed one arm under my shoulder blades and the other in the crook of my knees before effortlessly lifting himself and my light, pliant body, turning me around in midair and tenderly laying me back down at the head end of the bed, resting on a fluffy pillow. He smiled down at me.
"OK, Steve?"
"Yeah, oh, please, don't stop, Eddie."
He knelt on the bed beside me, and began working up my lower body as he'd previously worked down from the top, stroking my toes, feet, ankles, shins, ever-so-slowly higher, passing my knees, then reaching between my inner thighs and nudging them apart, coming up closer, any second now he's going to touch my screaming penis and it's going to be the best thing ever, I thought, I closed my eyes and felt...hot, wet breath on my glans, feeling like nothing I could even imagine, still less describe.
"Oh, Eddie, oh, that's unbelievable!"
He kept up a steady rhythm of deep breathing, caressing me with nothing more than air, then I could sense him, even through closed eyes, coming even closer, then, suddenly, the top half of my erection was engulfed in moist, gentle pressure from lips and tongue. I'll never know, from that day to this, why I didn't climax instantaneously, maybe it was the shock of the first contact, maybe I was so over-stimulated that my body couldn't respond at all. Eddie just held me in his mouth, stock-still, for what seemed like an eternity, until he could gauge, perhaps, that I wasn't going to boil over there and then, before starting to nibble and lick, dabble and suck, all with tiny, barely perceptible movements. The feeling just got better and better, until the whole midsection of my body, almost from chest to knees, seemed like an enormous sandpile of pleasure, with Eddie's lips and tongue adding grain after grain to the top, to the point where it was almost painful, then, with paroxysmal force, the whole edifice collapsed into an avalanche of delight, surging out from between my legs to deluge every inch of my body. I could hear myself whimpering as spasm after spasm of my dry orgasm - 6,7,8?...I was too overwhelmed to even think of counting - ripped through me, but the sounds I was making seemed to be detached from me, as though being produced by someone far away. Eventually, the maelstrom of feelings began to calm, and I began to feel uncomfortably sensitive.
"Oh, Eddie, too much, please!"
He released me from his blissful grip, very careful, as with everything else, not to do anything that would detract from my wonderful experience. And wonderful it was, a hundred times better than my boyish attempts at masturbation, like comparing an old wreck with a Rolls Royce.
"Eddie, that was so good, I've never felt anything like that in my life, thank you so much." I was very emotional, as though I could cry my eyes out or burst out into delirious laughter, or both, at any moment. "I want to do something for you, what can I do for you?"
"You don't need to do anything for me beyond what you've done already."
"But I haven't done anything, I just laid there and you made me feel fantastic."
"Oh, but Steve, you've done more than you can know. Every sight, every sound, touch, taste and smell of the last half hour is up here..." He tapped his forehead. "...up here for ever. And you've done what all the magicians and alchemists of the past, and all the scientists of the present can never do - you've made me 14 again, lying on a bed with my best buddy, loving each other. I'll tell you what you can do, come and give me a hug." As I watched, a tear or two squeezed out of the corner of his eyes, making me reach up instinctively and put my arms around his neck, and kiss him passionately on the lips, in a way I'd never kissed anyone before, and wouldn't again for many years after.
"Thank you, Steve, that was beautiful. Will you lay here with me for a while?"
He laid on his back, and I settled my naked body into his side, his arm wrapped around my back, my head resting on his shoulder. The next thing I remember, I woke up shivering.
"Eddie, sorry, I fell asleep on you. What time is it?"
"Just after 3:00." I shivered again. "Sorry, Steve, I should've found you a blanket, but I was just admiring you and enjoying watching you sleep. Get dressed now, and I'll make you a hot drink, and then we'll have to go - the marina closes at 5:30, and you need to get home, your mum will think you've been kidnapped."
I knew he was right, but I didn't really want to leave, I was like someone who had just had a mystical experience. I sipped my tea as slowly as I could, but the inevitable bottom of the mug arrived, and it really was time to part.
"When will you be back this way, Eddie?"
"I can't say at the moment, little man, it depends on Beryl's mum. Hopefully fairly soon, though."
"Eddie...thank you so much for today, it's been the best day of my life."
"Thank you too, little man, I haven't had many better ones myself, and, like I said, it's in my memory forever. Keep looking out for us, I'm sure it won't be too long."
He looked quickly up and down the canal, and, seeing no-one nearby, literally lifted me off my feet, kissed me on both cheeks, nose and finally on the lips, and set me down on the towpath. "For remembrance!" He laughed his hearty Eddie laugh. I never saw or heard of him again.
****
"Steve. STEVE!" I was jerked back to the present. "The phone's ringing!"
"Sorry, Max, I was really away with the fairies."
I went into the hallway to answer the phone, then a minute or two later, rejoined Max in the study.
"Sorry about the daydreaming before, you must think I'm a right one!" Max grinned. "I just got thinking about something that happened to me when I was about your age."
"Good or bad?"
"Oh, very good, one of my favourite days. It's just that what you were saying took me right back. A good friend told me something that day that I reckon you might like to think about, about being straight or gay. He said 'What does it matter? As long as you're happy and you're not hurting anyone, it's nobody else's business.' I don't think that's a bad philosophy of life." Max looked like a light bulb had gone on in his head. "That was Kim's mum on the phone, by the way, they've just left Wilmslow. Why don't you walk down to the station and meet them, I'm sure Kim will be pleasantly surprised to see you. The tea will be made when you get back."
I let Max out of the front door, and watched him walk down to the corner of the street. He turned, saw me looking at him, and gave a little wave. Just like the wave I'd given Eddie, just before his boat went out of sight for the last time, all those years ago. Just one missing piece in my jigsaw, I thought, an hour of my life giving someone like Max what Eddie had given me, and giving me what I'd given him - the chance to be a boy again, and a memory to treasure for the rest of my life.
But until that missing piece falls into place, I just have my longing.
****
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
****
On the Saturday afternoon before Christmas, I was sitting at home, watching TV and feeling smug. Smug, because I'd completed all my Christmas shopping, the presents were wrapped and sitting neatly in my wardrobe, ready to take their place under the tree on Christmas Eve, while my wife and two daughters were currently struggling around Manchester city centre, along with a cast of thousands, battling to complete their purchases. My wife had rung a short time earlier.
"It's a nightmare, I can see why you didn't want to come with us!"
"You see, it's not always us blokes that are disorganised at Christmas." I'd taken a day off work at the beginning of December, and managed to get everything done. "I told you that you should have come with me the other week."
"Thanks for the benefit of your 20/20 hindsight, you git! Anyway, we're nearly done, we should be on the 3:00 train home. Have the kettle on for a quarter to four!"
The Cheshire village we lived in had an hourly train service to and from Manchester, some thirty-five minutes away, and we only lived a few minutes' walk from the station, so it was a regular occurrence to go into town by train, rather than taking the car and then having to fight for a parking space, especially on busy days, and days didn't get much busier than this particular Saturday. I congratulated myself again on my foresight, and settled back to my armchair and the TV sport. I'd hardly had the chance to sit down when the doorbell rang. Do these double glazing people never take a day off, I muttered, as I headed into the hallway. Before I'd even opened the door, though, the salesman theory was pretty much disproved, because the silhouette visible through the frosted glass was obviously that of someone around the age of my younger daughter, 12 or so.
I opened the door to find a slightly built, dark haired boy I didn't recognise on the threshold.
"Hello," I said neutrally.
"Hello. Is Kim in, please?" the boy replied politely.
Kim was my younger daughter, in her second year at senior school, a couple of months short of her thirteenth birthday.
"No, I'm sorry, she's gone Christmas shopping with her mum and her sister. They should be back at about 3:45". It was just after 2:15. "Did Kim know you were coming?"
The boy looked crestfallen. "I was talking to her on MSN last night, she said she'd be in this afternoon."
"I think their shopping has taken longer than they thought, it's very busy in Manchester. Can you come back later?"
The boy looked even more downcast. "Not...not really. I've come on the train. I haven't got enough money for another ticket." He turned to go. "Could you tell Kim that Max was here, please?"
"Wait a minute, Max. I didn't know that you'd come a long way. Do you want to wait for Kim?" Max looked uncertain. "Don't worry, I don't bite!"
The boy smiled nervously. "If you're sure it's not a problem....I would like to see Kim today." He looked embarrassed, I could remember feeling exactly the same the first time I met my first girlfriend's parents.
"Of course it's not a problem, come in. I'm Steve, by the way, I don't go for formality! Take your coat off, there are some coathooks in the hallway, there. Make yourself at home."
I was watching a rugby match on TV, Max came into the living room and sat on the sofa while I resumed my position in the armchair. "Do you like rugby, Max?"
"Well...it's OK, I guess."
"I'll take that as a 'no', then! Would you rather do something else while you're waiting. I can put the computer on in the study, if you like."
"If you don't mind...yes, please."
"Of course, it's no problem. I assume you know what you're doing, or is there anything you'll need help with."
"I'll be OK, Steve. We use computers at school, and I've got one at home, too."
"I guessed so, it's oldies like me that can't cope with modern technology! The fridge is in the study, help yourself to a cold drink if you want one, or give me a shout if you want anything else."
I started up the computer for Max, and left him to it. I heard him go to the fridge ten minutes or so later, followed by the hiss of a soft drink can being opened. I wouldn't mind a drink myself, I thought, it'll be half-time in the match in a couple of minutes, I'll go then.
As the whistle blew to signal the break in the game, I got up and headed for the small room on the opposite side of the hallway where both Max and the fridge were situated. As I got to the door, I could see that what was on the screen wasn't exactly what I would have guessed that the boy's parents would've chosen for him to look at. Max's eyes were glued to the screen, and, although he more or less had his back to me, it was pretty obvious from the way he was moving that he was doing more than just watching. I wasn't a prude by any means, but this young boy watching porn on my computer didn't strike me as being a very good idea.
"You'll get me into trouble watching that kind of stuff," I said quietly.
Unsurprisingly, Max jumped as though I'd stuck a red-hot wire into him. "I...I'm...really sorry." He seemed on the point of tears. "My friend at school told me about this...website and...oh, I'm really sorry, please don't tell my mum and dad, they'll kill me."
"I don't know your parents, or even your surname, so don't worry about that. Look..." I tried to find something reassuring to say, "I was your age not that many years ago - well, about thirty, anyway! - I know sex is a big subject of interest as you start growing up. We didn't have the internet when I was a boy, but there were magazines and things - I found some in my dad's bedside cupboard once, and I didn't waste much time in looking at them. I learned more about what a woman looked like from there than from what little sex education we had."
Max looked very uncomfortable all over again, and, at that point, I looked more closely at what was still playing on the computer screen. It was pornographic, hard-core at that, but there wasn't a female in sight.
"Oh" was all I could find to say, at which point the boy burst into tears, burying his face in his hands. I was fairly used to the moods and emotions of girls, having two of my own and a younger sister who in turn had had a daughter, but I had no idea of how to deal with a crying boy. If one of my daughters had been as upset as Max obviously was, I'd have given them a big hug, but you didn't hug boys...did you? I laid my hand on his shoulder instead. He jumped again, but didn't make any move to brush my hand away.
"Hey, Max, come on, it's not that bad. Shall we turn this off for now? We can talk if you want."
I closed the video and cleared the browser history - I knew my wife wouldn't even know what a browser history was, but I didn't want my daughters stumbling over what the boy had been watching, not least because I didn't want them to think I'd been watching it. Max had calmed down a little, but was still sniffling intermittently. After another minute or two, he uncovered his face, and turned to look at me with eyes that were nothing short of pleading.
"No-one's supposed to know," he sniffed, "about me, I mean."
"What about you, sunshine?"
"That...that I'm...I mean I like..." His voice gave out into another sob.
I guessed what he wanted to say. "That you're gay, you mean?"
Another sob, then a slight, ever so slight, nod of his head.
"Steve, you're the only person who knows." He blurted out the words. "I had a talk with my dad a while ago, made it as though it was someone else at school who was gay, he told me to stay away from anyone like that, that he wouldn't want a son like that. What will he do when he finds out, he'll throw me out, won't he?"
"He can't just throw you out, parents have legal responsibilities for their children, especially when they're as young as you. Anyway, how is he going to find out, you're not going to tell him and neither am I."
"Do you mean it, you're not going to tell anyone?"
"Of course I mean it, I don't go around broadcasting my house guests' secrets to all and sundry!"
Max looked like the whole weight of the world had been taken from his shoulders. He smiled broadly, got up from the computer chair where he'd been sitting and threw his arms around me.
"Calm down, I haven't done that much. Not that I dislike hugs, but we've only known each other for about half an hour."
Max's face fell again. "Come on, I'm only joking, don't take it all so seriously. You've got to remember I'm only used to girls, I've got a wife, two daughters, a sister and a niece - not many boys amongst that lot! So, tell me, you and Kim are friends at school, I assume."
"Yeah, she's in my form. She's really nice, and interesting to talk to."
"I know that, she's a bright girl, but I also know she's looking for a boyfriend - does she think you want to be that boyfriend? Not that I want to sound as though I'm being some kind of heavy dad, but I wouldn't want her to be upset, and from what you've said, you're not likely to be looking for a girlfriend."
"No, we're just friends - Kim fancies a boy in year 9, anyway. I...sort of...find it easier to be friends with girls, because...well, sometimes I fancy the boys, and, besides, if it looks like I like girls a lot, people probably won't think I'm...gay."
It all sounded perfectly logical, and, although I'd suppressed the memory for years, eerily familiar. Familiar, because I'd been in exactly the position Max was in when I was his age, and a little older. And like Max, no-one knew. My memory began to drift to another time and place, almost thirty years earlier.
****
I had always been fascinated by the comings and goings along the canal and up and down its flight of locks as it passed through my home town, ever since I was a little boy. I'd badgered my dad to take me 'to see the boats' at every opportunity when I was small, until, as soon as I was deemed to be old enough not to fall in, or anything similarly deranged, at around 9 or 10, I was allowed to go on my own. 'On my own' was the operative phrase, because I had few friends and my only sibling was a sister six years younger than me, but I was happy in my own company, for the most part, and spent many hours, especially in the summer, either sitting beside one or another of the locks, or walking the towpath for the two miles between the top and bottom locks. Most of the boats were hired by holidaymakers for a week or two, but there were a handful of working boats, and a few owned by people who lived on them permanently, so, over the course of a couple of years, leading up to when I was around 12, I got to recognise some of the 'regulars' by sight, and they came to recognise me. That led to me chatting to one or two people, while they were traversing the locks, one of those people being Eddie.
Eddie worked for the railway, in some sort of engineering role, but his real love was his boat. He and his wife, Beryl, had, I later discovered, taken many canal holidays over the years, and had finally decided that it was the lifestyle they wanted to follow permanently, so they sold their house and bought a boat, spending most of their time cruising around the Midlands, always within commuting range of Eddie's job. I'd seen them a few times, and had taken a short trip on the canal with them once or twice, but the next time I spotted their attractive boat, Eddie was on his own. I was at the top lock. Eddie waved to me.
"Hi, Eddie. Where's Beryl?"
"Hello Steve. Beryl's mother has been taken to hospital, she's gone home to look after her dad. I'm taking the boat to the marina, I'll have to leave it there until Beryl's family problems are sorted out - we'll be staying with the in-laws for the time being. Have you got a couple of hours to help me get the boat through the locks?"
Even if I'd had anything else planned, a chance to take a boat through the whole flight wasn't something I was going to miss out on.
"Yeah, that would be great."
"Come aboard, then," Eddie offered his hand to help me onto the deck area at the stern, where the tiller and throttle were, "do you fancy driving her while I work the locks?" My eyes must've been the size of saucers, because Eddie burst out laughing. "I guess the answer's 'yes', then."
"Oh, yes please, Eddie, I've never done that before. Wow, this is really exciting."
Eddie laughed again as my enthusiasm bubbled over. "Come on, let's get going. At least the cut's not too busy today, we shouldn't get into too many queues."
We made pretty good progress, only having to wait for other boats climbing the flight at three or four of the eleven locks, so, just on two hours after we'd set out, I edged the boat out of the bottom lock, waited for Eddie to close the gates and come back aboard, and then headed into the calm water of the long pound which would eventually lead to the marina, ten miles or so further on.
"What time are you expected back home, Steve?" Eddie asked.
"No special time, my dad's at work and my mum's going shopping with my sister. Teatime, I suppose."
"Fancy some lunch, I'm pretty peckish. I haven't got too much stuff on the boat, but I can stretch to some cheese on toast, I think."
"Yes, please, that would be nice."
We'd been chatting inconsequentially while taking the boat through the locks, but, as we moored and Eddie started making lunch, the tone of the conversation changed.
"Have you got a girlfriend, Steve?"
I blushed a little. "No...I...er, don't like girls all that much."
"No? I thought all boys your age thought about nothing else."
I was starting to get a bit flustered, thinking 'Does he know my secret - no, he can't, I've never told anyone.'
"What's up, Steve, you've gone a bit red. Have I hit a raw nerve?"
"I...I don't know what you mean."
"Have I asked something you're embarrassed about? Don't worry, I'm very broad-minded. If there's something you want to talk about, I'm your man."
There was a long, awkward silence - there were things I wanted to talk about, but I didn't really know if I could turn my inchoate mass of thoughts and feelings into words that would make any sense, even to me. Eddie's tone of voice changed, from his usual bluff, hearty self into something much gentler, as though he'd suddenly turned into a vicar, or something like that.
"Have you got a problem, Steve? It's OK, I won't make fun of you, whatever it is. You're a nice lad, and I wouldn't want to see you upset."
I still didn't know whether I wanted to speak, and if I did, what I wanted to say. Then, like a flash, I thought 'Why not? I might never see him again, it won't hurt.' I looked up at him from my seat.
"I think...I might...be a...might like...," my voice tailed off to a whisper, "boys."
"What makes you think that?" he asked, even more gently than before.
"I found some...dirty magazines in my dad's cupboard. I looked at the pictures, but I wasn't looking at the...women, I was only interested in...the men. It made me feel...strange inside, kind of shivery. I feel the same way at school sometimes, when we change for games, when we have a shower afterwards. I don't understand what it means. Girls don't make me feel like that, they just annoy me. Am I going to be...a homo?"
I used the school slang insult, not really knowing any other word to refer to...me?
Eddie looked at me reflectively for a few moments, then turned back to the cooker and took the toasted cheese from under the grill, turning the gas burner off. He handed me a plate, took one himself, sat on the opposite side of the saloon of the boat, looked at me thoughtfully again.
"I think you're a bit young to decide. They say a lot of boys go through a phase of liking other boys at around your age, but they still end up getting married and having kids. I don't think it's anything you need to worry about too much. Anyway, if you do end up that way, what does it matter? As long as you're happy and you're not hurting anyone, it's nobody else's business."
"Did you like boys when you were younger?" I asked him.
The bluff Eddie briefly resurfaced. "Blimey, that's a straight question!" He chuckled. "OK, a straight question deserves a straight answer. Yes, I had a friend I...messed around with. He was your age, I was a little bit older, about 14. It started as a 'you show me yours, and I'll show you mine' game, and we kind of took it from there. We both enjoyed ourselves, no-one else knew, we stayed friends afterwards - he was the best man at my wedding, actually. I don't see him very often these days, he moved to Scotland, works on the North Sea oil rigs, but we still send Christmas cards and the like. There, so now you know something about me that Beryl doesn't even know."
"I won't tell."
"I should hope not! I wouldn't have told you if I thought you were going to shout it from the rooftops! I'll tell you something else as well." His voice seemed to waver a little. "You really remind me of him as he was when we...played."
I felt a massive rush of butterflies in my stomach, for reasons I barely understood. It wasn't fear, though. More expectancy, even hope that something - I didn't really know what - was going to happen.
"Eddie...do you mean you...like me?"
He swallowed, visibly. It seemed to be his turn not to know what to say. I wondered if he was feeling anything like the shivers that were coursing through my young body at that moment, like lightning from my brain, down my spine and directly to my groin.
He opened his mouth, but no sound emerged at first. His mind didn't seem to be able to command his tongue.
"I...I think...I do mean that, Steve."
For long seconds, neither of us spoke, we hardly even seemed to breathe. I broke the silence, the stillness.
"I like you, Eddie. I'm getting those shivers again, but I don't know what to do about it."
"Come over here, little man." I took the two steps across the narrow ocean between us, and stood in front of him. He wrapped me in his strong arms, drawing me into the warmth of his body, his clothes smelling of fabric softener and a faint undertone of some deodorant. He eased me a few inches away from him, his hand softly, so softly ran down from my stomach to the front of my jeans, where my boyhood was trying to punch a hole through the denim. I shuddered as his palm slid over my erection, then sucked my breath in through my teeth as he delicately squeezed my hardness between the tips of his thumb and one finger.
"That's quite something, Steve." He stood up, and took my small hand in his large one. He led me to the front area of the saloon, which was set up as a bedroom, with a curtained partition from the living area. The window curtains were closed, and when he drew the partition curtain across behind us, the light level dropped to very dim.
"Wait a minute, I'd better lock the main door." Eddie disappeared through the curtain, I heard the door being closed and the bolts being shot, then he returned.
"Look, Steve, before anything else happens, I need to say something to you. You're in charge here. If I do or say anything you don't like, tell me straight away and I promise I'll stop. Say 'stop' right now if you want to. I'm breaking the law, even by touching you like I already have. There's no way I want to hurt you, and I definitely don't want to go to prison. Do you understand what I'm saying to you?"
I nodded. "It's alright, Eddie. It was nice when you touched me. I know I have to keep it a secret. I like you, I know you wouldn't hurt me on purpose, and I don't want you to go to prison, either. I don't want you to stop."
He sat on the bed, and gently drew me close to him again. With exaggerated care, as though I was made of eggshells and clad in candy floss, he began to undress me. His fingertips brushed against the skin of my sides as he took off my shirt, what would normally have been an unpleasant tickling being magically transformed to a harbinger of enchantments to come. I trembled as Eddie began to undo my trousers, at which he pulled his hand away as though he'd been scalded.
"Are you sure you're OK with this, Steve? Please tell me if you're not."
"Eddie, I'm fine. I've just never...felt like this before, so...excited."
He looked into my eyes for a long moment, as if trying to confirm, maybe convince himself, that I was telling the truth, before allowing his hands to resume their task. He eased my jeans over my narrow hips and down past my knees, I stepped out of the legs, leaving the garment in a puddle on the floor. He looked up at my face again, almost shyly, as he hooked his thumbs into the elastic waistband of my underwear, looking, I guessed, for consent to take that final step. I smiled slightly and nodded, feeling him stretch the elastic outwards at the front so as not to snag my penis as he removed the final, thin layer of my clothing, leaving me standing naked in front of him. His eyes devoured me, seeming to look everywhere at once, before a huge, somehow primal sigh escaped him.
"You're lovely, Steve, just as lovely as Colin was at your age." I blushed, as he continued quietly, as though speaking to himself. "I never thought I'd see anyone so stunning again."
I had no idea what kind of response was apposite to such a comment, so I said nothing. Eddie's hands found their way to my shoulders, and he guided me to turn around, very slowly, until my back was to him. Another sigh, dredged from deep within him, broke the silence.
"So lovely," Eddie said again, as his arms wrapped around my chest and hugged me in towards him, my head angled back a little so that my right cheek touched his left. "I'd love to make you feel good, Steve, would you let me?"
"Yes, oh, yes please." My voice had almost failed me, my words emerged as a breathless whisper. I was so aroused already, I could hardly keep still, I felt the need for touch, for stimulation, for the profound itch which was washing over every part of my body to be scratched. Eddie manoeuvred me carefully across his left leg and onto the bed beside him, then turned me around so that my head was resting on his leg, just above the knee, as I laid on my back. Using both of his hands, he ran his fingertips, then his palms, across every inch of my upper body, caressing my face, my neck, my shoulders, my arms, my chest, my stomach, sending tiny thrills, like electric shocks, racing around my torso and converging on the twitching, throbbing, stone-hard nexus of anticipation in my loins. I moaned and squirmed when he brushed across my nipples, sending another jolt of sensation careering through me. Eddie shuffled a little beneath me, then placed one arm under my shoulder blades and the other in the crook of my knees before effortlessly lifting himself and my light, pliant body, turning me around in midair and tenderly laying me back down at the head end of the bed, resting on a fluffy pillow. He smiled down at me.
"OK, Steve?"
"Yeah, oh, please, don't stop, Eddie."
He knelt on the bed beside me, and began working up my lower body as he'd previously worked down from the top, stroking my toes, feet, ankles, shins, ever-so-slowly higher, passing my knees, then reaching between my inner thighs and nudging them apart, coming up closer, any second now he's going to touch my screaming penis and it's going to be the best thing ever, I thought, I closed my eyes and felt...hot, wet breath on my glans, feeling like nothing I could even imagine, still less describe.
"Oh, Eddie, oh, that's unbelievable!"
He kept up a steady rhythm of deep breathing, caressing me with nothing more than air, then I could sense him, even through closed eyes, coming even closer, then, suddenly, the top half of my erection was engulfed in moist, gentle pressure from lips and tongue. I'll never know, from that day to this, why I didn't climax instantaneously, maybe it was the shock of the first contact, maybe I was so over-stimulated that my body couldn't respond at all. Eddie just held me in his mouth, stock-still, for what seemed like an eternity, until he could gauge, perhaps, that I wasn't going to boil over there and then, before starting to nibble and lick, dabble and suck, all with tiny, barely perceptible movements. The feeling just got better and better, until the whole midsection of my body, almost from chest to knees, seemed like an enormous sandpile of pleasure, with Eddie's lips and tongue adding grain after grain to the top, to the point where it was almost painful, then, with paroxysmal force, the whole edifice collapsed into an avalanche of delight, surging out from between my legs to deluge every inch of my body. I could hear myself whimpering as spasm after spasm of my dry orgasm - 6,7,8?...I was too overwhelmed to even think of counting - ripped through me, but the sounds I was making seemed to be detached from me, as though being produced by someone far away. Eventually, the maelstrom of feelings began to calm, and I began to feel uncomfortably sensitive.
"Oh, Eddie, too much, please!"
He released me from his blissful grip, very careful, as with everything else, not to do anything that would detract from my wonderful experience. And wonderful it was, a hundred times better than my boyish attempts at masturbation, like comparing an old wreck with a Rolls Royce.
"Eddie, that was so good, I've never felt anything like that in my life, thank you so much." I was very emotional, as though I could cry my eyes out or burst out into delirious laughter, or both, at any moment. "I want to do something for you, what can I do for you?"
"You don't need to do anything for me beyond what you've done already."
"But I haven't done anything, I just laid there and you made me feel fantastic."
"Oh, but Steve, you've done more than you can know. Every sight, every sound, touch, taste and smell of the last half hour is up here..." He tapped his forehead. "...up here for ever. And you've done what all the magicians and alchemists of the past, and all the scientists of the present can never do - you've made me 14 again, lying on a bed with my best buddy, loving each other. I'll tell you what you can do, come and give me a hug." As I watched, a tear or two squeezed out of the corner of his eyes, making me reach up instinctively and put my arms around his neck, and kiss him passionately on the lips, in a way I'd never kissed anyone before, and wouldn't again for many years after.
"Thank you, Steve, that was beautiful. Will you lay here with me for a while?"
He laid on his back, and I settled my naked body into his side, his arm wrapped around my back, my head resting on his shoulder. The next thing I remember, I woke up shivering.
"Eddie, sorry, I fell asleep on you. What time is it?"
"Just after 3:00." I shivered again. "Sorry, Steve, I should've found you a blanket, but I was just admiring you and enjoying watching you sleep. Get dressed now, and I'll make you a hot drink, and then we'll have to go - the marina closes at 5:30, and you need to get home, your mum will think you've been kidnapped."
I knew he was right, but I didn't really want to leave, I was like someone who had just had a mystical experience. I sipped my tea as slowly as I could, but the inevitable bottom of the mug arrived, and it really was time to part.
"When will you be back this way, Eddie?"
"I can't say at the moment, little man, it depends on Beryl's mum. Hopefully fairly soon, though."
"Eddie...thank you so much for today, it's been the best day of my life."
"Thank you too, little man, I haven't had many better ones myself, and, like I said, it's in my memory forever. Keep looking out for us, I'm sure it won't be too long."
He looked quickly up and down the canal, and, seeing no-one nearby, literally lifted me off my feet, kissed me on both cheeks, nose and finally on the lips, and set me down on the towpath. "For remembrance!" He laughed his hearty Eddie laugh. I never saw or heard of him again.
****
"Steve. STEVE!" I was jerked back to the present. "The phone's ringing!"
"Sorry, Max, I was really away with the fairies."
I went into the hallway to answer the phone, then a minute or two later, rejoined Max in the study.
"Sorry about the daydreaming before, you must think I'm a right one!" Max grinned. "I just got thinking about something that happened to me when I was about your age."
"Good or bad?"
"Oh, very good, one of my favourite days. It's just that what you were saying took me right back. A good friend told me something that day that I reckon you might like to think about, about being straight or gay. He said 'What does it matter? As long as you're happy and you're not hurting anyone, it's nobody else's business.' I don't think that's a bad philosophy of life." Max looked like a light bulb had gone on in his head. "That was Kim's mum on the phone, by the way, they've just left Wilmslow. Why don't you walk down to the station and meet them, I'm sure Kim will be pleasantly surprised to see you. The tea will be made when you get back."
I let Max out of the front door, and watched him walk down to the corner of the street. He turned, saw me looking at him, and gave a little wave. Just like the wave I'd given Eddie, just before his boat went out of sight for the last time, all those years ago. Just one missing piece in my jigsaw, I thought, an hour of my life giving someone like Max what Eddie had given me, and giving me what I'd given him - the chance to be a boy again, and a memory to treasure for the rest of my life.
But until that missing piece falls into place, I just have my longing.
****
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Sunday, 11 July 2010
Vitriol
I've done my best to please you
Worked my fingers to the bone
But you always wanted more
I've given heart and soul day in, day out
To keep you as you deserve
But I've always fallen short
I've had enough of being damned
By faint praise from your lips
Your smile, then insincerity of speech
I'm going to break free
Find a place where I can be me
Without fear or pretence
I'm leaving you behind
Looking out for myself
No more weasel words
I'm on my way to my future
Escaping from the chains that bind me
Crushing my freedom and spirit
I'm finally going to be me.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Worked my fingers to the bone
But you always wanted more
I've given heart and soul day in, day out
To keep you as you deserve
But I've always fallen short
I've had enough of being damned
By faint praise from your lips
Your smile, then insincerity of speech
I'm going to break free
Find a place where I can be me
Without fear or pretence
I'm leaving you behind
Looking out for myself
No more weasel words
I'm on my way to my future
Escaping from the chains that bind me
Crushing my freedom and spirit
I'm finally going to be me.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
Lachrymal
Boys don't cry.
Boys keep it all inside, stay in control, laugh at danger, hunger, pain, never complain.
Take what life throws at you, take it on the chin, be a man.
Don't ever let the mask slip, don't ever let them see what lies beneath.
Boys keep it all inside, stay in control, laugh at danger, hunger, pain, never complain.
Take what life throws at you, take it on the chin, be a man.
Don't ever let the mask slip, don't ever let them see what lies beneath.
Keep it secret, even from yourself.
To show you care is a weakness, and weakness can never be admitted.
Just keep drinking that bitter draught, of insularity, isolation.
Love is for women, hugs are for children, tears are for the weak.
Boys don't cry.
Boys cry - inside.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)