Another Dormitory Incident

by Bruin Fisher

I wish I had a better memory of this. Some of the detail has gone now, and I'll have to guess some bits so the story makes sense. I can't remember what was the game or how I came to win, or even how I got to choose such a prize. And worst of all I can't remember any fallout. I can remember the prize, though, like it was yesterday.

It was after lights out in the biggest dormitory I ever slept in, nearly forty beds. I had just turned eleven and towards the end of my first year at boarding school and I'd learned so much in that year. Probably learned more in that dormitory than in the classrooms, if the truth's to be told.

We were all obsessed with sex, of course. No, I take that back – we were obsessed with our genitals. Sex was still something remote and mysterious and about which we knew nothing. But we were discovering the pleasures available from our own bodies, and inquisitive about pleasures that might be available from the bodies of others. Some were more forward than I, and ways were found to explore, that I would never have thought of. There was a game, ostensibly just boyish rough-and-tumble but designed to give the boys an excuse to touch each others' genitals, known as ball-picking. A judo-like game, two boys faced each other, bent at the waist to protect the groin, and circled each other until one or the other lunged forwards, hoping to break past the other's defences and grab hold of the precious delicate parts dangling between the legs of his opponent, through his pyjamas or – and extra points were awarded for this – through the opening in his pyjamas.

Too young, too inexperienced, too shell-shocked by the whole boarding-school experience to analyse what was behind such games, I joined in when called upon, with very little success because of my stunted growth and puny frame. I did work out that the game was unsatisfactory, because a considerable degree of violence had to be maintained in order to preserve the veneer of innocence. And thus when one player vanquished the other by securing hold of the privates of his opponent, his victory was invariably accomplished with a brutal tug till his victim squealed, then release. No chance to discover what these parts really felt like, the silky soft mobile skin covering the willy – and the radical difference caused by circumcision – the crinkled skin of the ball sack that seemed to have a life of its own as it reacted to the smallest temperature change. Fascinating to all of us but our curiosity remained unsated by the thuggery of ball-picking.

There were timid boys who took no part in either these games or other explorations, or even discussions on the subject. The rest of us assumed that they were shy and embarrassed and left them alone. In such a large dormitory, though, they would perforce have experienced at least the sound of all that the rest of us experienced. Perhaps we should have been more considerate.

One evening a variation of 'Truth or Dare' was initiated by Tim Wilmott, the dorm monitor. One of the oldest in the dormitory, he was nearly a year older than me, a little larger than most of us and considerably larger than me. And he was challenging each of us in turn to do more and more outrageous things, offering a reward to those who met his challenge and demanding a true answer to an awkward question of his own choosing from those who chickened out.

It came to my turn. “Take your pyjamas off, stand up on your bed and wank so we can all see!”

This was way beyond what anyone else had been asked to do and nobody expected me to comply, least of all Wilmott. A tingle ran up my spine of mingled fear and excitement and I realised that I could call his bluff.

“If I do it, you have to take your pyjamas off too and let me get in bed with you!” I announced triumphantly, assuming that he would withdraw his challenge rather than submit to this indignity.

But he called me on it. “Okay. Now let's see you wanking!”

The forces that battled each other in my brain at this point were gargantuan. Standing nude in the gloom of the dormitory and wanking in full view of all the boys would be an act of immense bravado fraught with the considerable danger that the general view might be that this crossed the line of what was brave and advanced into what was depraved and sick. But I knew how much I yearned to slide into bed next to Tim Wilmott and feel his naked flesh next to mine. Bravado won and I quickly slipped out of my PJ's and stood up, gripped my little todger between thumb and two fingers and pulled the skin back and forth a few times, consoling myself that only those in the nearest six or seven beds would be able to distinguish anything more than a vague shape. And no-one would have been able to see how red my face was.

I knew how to wank, having had the process explained to me six months previously, after lights out the first day of my first term. I remembered trying it and initially failing to see what all the excitement was about. One boy whispered “See what I mean?” after giving me a minute or so to put his instruction into practice, and I whispered back “Yeah, good isn't it?” while thinking I must have missed something because it wasn't good at all, but after trying once or twice more I found out why the other boys thought it so important that I mastered the art. And I'd been experiencing dry orgasms several times a day ever since. Stood naked for the inspection of my peers, though, sporting my little three inch erection, I wasn't going to do more than a few seconds of demonstration, and quickly climbed back under the covers.

I didn't need to claim my prize; the other boys immediately clamoured for Wilmott to concede defeat and give me my prize. So moments later after doffing his pyjamas, he called over: “Come on then, Atkins!” and turned back his bedclothes a little in invitation.

Still naked, I swung out of my bed and skittered across the wood floor and into his bed, into the space he had made for me by sliding to one edge of the pitifully narrow bed. I just lay beside him, the two of us pressed together by the dip in the bed caused by the worn-out bedsprings. Hip to hip, thigh to thigh, calf to calf I felt his skin against mine and fireworks exploded in my brain. He lay rigid, enduring the torment. I could feel his distaste but I didn't mind, the experience was the most erotic of my young life so far.

“Okay, enough, get back to your...” Willmott's whisper was cut short as he saw the beam of a torch hit the floor and heard the footstep of an adult approaching along the corridor leading to the dormitory. There was no door so almost immediately the bearer of the torch would be able to scan the room with it. “K.V.!” hissed Willmott, the universal boarding school code for “Watch out!”.^*

I slid down until my head disappeared under the bedclothes. He swung his arm over the blankets to help disguise the extra lumpiness of the bed and I rolled against him, my nose in his armpit and my erection hard against his buttock. I lifted one knee slightly across the top of his two legs and my arm over his stomach where my hand lay naturally against his penis which I was relieved to find as hard as mine. I heard his sudden intake of breath as he felt my hand. I risked a featherlight stroke of the soft skin which moved easily over the hard core beneath until the creak of a floorboard brought me back to reality and I froze. My terror increased when I suddenly realised the intruder would see my empty bed. Damn. There was nothing I could do, just lie still and hope he wasn't observant.

We lay still, pressed together under the sheets, my mind fizzing with electricity as I struggled to capture and savour the most perfect sensual experience of my life. Despite the danger my erection didn't subside – and neither did Wilmott's. We listened, petrified, as the footsteps, male, leathershod footsteps, made their slow way around the dormitory. I could picture the torch swinging from side to side ensuring that all was well. The gentle footfalls turned the final corner and approached the point where they would pass between my bed and Wilmott's, before turning out of the room and down the corridor to inspect the next dormitory. And they stopped. A voice, not loud, but not a whisper either, deafening in the silent room: “Where is Atkins?”

It was Monsieur Dupont, French master and pervert. The man who liked to sit on a boy's bed when on dormitory duty and engage him in innocuous conversation while surreptitiously sliding his hand under the covers to grope the poor boy in full view of the rest of the dorm.

It would have to be him, of course – most of the staff who did dormitory duty left us alone after lights out, but M'sieur Dupont liked to do a tour with a torch, looking, perhaps, for some reason to spank a boy. He was the only teacher whose punishment of choice consisted of an elaborate ritual in which the criminal was bent over the end of his bed and his pyjama trousers were lovingly lowered to his knees by M'sieur, then he was left there displaying his behind to the dormitory while M'sieur wandered around the beds looking for a slipper that suited his need. Large, not too soft, pliable. And with his trophy found, he would advance on the poor boy, and with a grin that he tried but failed to wipe from his face he would swing the slipper with all his might, his feet leaving the floor in his enthusiasm, attempting to make as impressive a red wheal on the buttocks of the miscreant as possible within the maximum of six strokes he was allowed under school rules. We called him Monsieur Two-Prong behind his back.

I held my breath. Wilmott began to shake, and I pushed down on his groin in an attempt to calm him. He stopped shaking. I heard the awful Two-Prong repeat his question: “Where is Atkins?” and this time a timid voice replied: “Toilet, I think, sir.” I thanked whoever it was silently.

Out of danger? I was beginning to relax when I suddenly thought about my pyjamas – both mine and Wilmott's. Were they on view? I remembered I had shoved mine under my covers as I left my bed. But what about Wilmott? What had he done with his? Would the torch shortly scan them and bring another, more dangerous question from Two-Prong?

The footsteps resumed and I could feel Wilmott's chest sink together with mine as we breathed out our relief. We listened to the footsteps fade into the distance before stirring. I knew the time had come to relinquish the delicious new sensation of the skin of another boy against mine and that we were once again playing the game. I could not delay further but must return to my own bed, the forfeit paid in full – with interest. Nevertheless I took one further risk. As I raised myself and rolled away from Wilmott's side, I leaned down to his chest and kissed his chest just above the nipple. Just a quick peck but I couldn't resist. I felt him tense and his head turned in surprise, meeting my eyes as I slid up the bed and out. I have him a sheepish grin and legged it across the space between our beds, and dived into my bed and safety, grabbing my pyjamas and fighting my way into them as I got under the covers.

And I lay there, panting slightly, my heart racing still, the adrenaline rush still coursing through my veins. My heart calmed quickly but my mind continued to replay the sensations it had experienced, burning into my memory indelibly, savouring the discovery of the erotic potential of touch, and the joyous wonderful sense of wholeness, that I had come home, that I knew what sexual attraction was all about. Another mystery unravelled.

So why did it take me nearly another forty years to discover I'm gay, then? Answer me that!

Bruin Fisher

© June 2008