Dancing To The Music of Their Hearts: The Scott Saga
by Nick Turner
Chapter 5
Justin
Chris woke early and dressed in shorts (white, of course) and t-shirt to go for his run in Hyde Park. He had not been running since the previous Thursday, and felt a little stiff. In the lobby of the hotel, he met Justin bound on the same errand, and the two of them smiled and agreed to run together; they set a fast pace, challenging each other as two males do, and returned an hour later, sweating and grinning. They descended to the little hotel gym and worked out for another hour, then sat sweating in the steam room, shyly still in their shorts, before showering.
‘Listen, Jus, you go in and have breakfast; I’m going to Mass in a minute. I’ll catch you later.’
‘Mass today? What with all those candles and stuff? Cool.’
‘No, it’s short, only about half an hour, if that, and not many candles, I’m afraid. Why, do you want to come?’
‘Can I?’
‘Why not?’
So they went, and though the service was staid by comparison with the Easter liturgies, Justin liked it, and much preferred it to the service he had been to with his parents yesterday. He found it prayerful and reposeful.
‘We only go once or twice a year, really. We’re not very good churchgoers in my family,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I’d go more often if it was like that.’
When they got back to the hotel, they found a note from Justin’s parents saying that they had gone out for the day, and would see the boys in the evening. They left some money, with instructions to Justin to buy himself and Chris some lunch.
‘Cool! We’ve got the day to ourselves.’
After a leisurely breakfast, Chris and Justin went to Chris’ room to move his clothes and other belongings into Justin’s.
The first thing that Chris noticed about Justin’s room was that there was only one bed, like in his own room.
Chris looked at Justin questioningly. Justin said quickly
‘Look, it’s okay; we can both fit in the bed, but if you’re shy, I’ll take the floor.’
‘Having paid for you to have a bed, I’m sure the last thing your Mum and Dad want is for you to sleep on the floor.’
‘They’ve not been in here; they probably thought this room had twin beds like their own. But honestly, it’s cool. I like floors!
‘Bollocks! If anyone takes the floor, it’ll be me. But really, as you say, there should be room in the bed for us both, if you’re sure you don’t mind.’
Chris did not mention that he had shared an identical bed with John just the other night.
Justin relaxed. ‘Fine; settled, then.’
They chatted for a while, and then Justin said
‘Look what is it with this white suit thing? Don’t you want to relax a bit?’
So Chris explained, and Justin drew near to feel the light silky smoothness of the suit’s lapel.
‘God, that feels so sexy!’
Mm, thought Chris, as he saw Justin’s smooth cheek so near his own, and smelt the breakfast coffee still on his breath. Justin continued to rub the lapel with his thumb. There was a charged silence. Chris felt sure that Justin would be able to hear his heart beating, it was thumping so strongly.
‘Would you like to try it on?’ said Chris in a small voice.
‘Could I? I’d love to.’ But Justin continued to rub Chris’s lapel gently, swallowing hard, and looking down at his fingers. There was a long silence, apart from the soft hiss of Justin’s thumb on the silk. Chris said
‘Er, Jus…’
‘Yeah?’ Absently.
‘You’ll need to take your own clothes off first, mate.’
‘Oh yeah,’
Reluctantly, Justin let go the lapel and took a couple of steps away. He turned to face Chris, then changed his mind and turned away, his breath heavy.
‘What’s wrong, Jus’
Justin squared his shoulders and replied in an embarrassed voice
‘I’m sorry, Chris. I’ve… er… I’ve got a hard on. I’ve no idea where that came from. Perhaps the silk reminded me of that girl in the show last night.’ Justin was improvising wildly.
‘Oh yeah; the one with the big… er…. Look, don’t worry, I’ve got a bit of a hard on, too.’
Justin turned back reluctantly, and looked relieved when he saw only too clearly outlined under the white silk of the trousers that Chris was telling the truth.
Chris said, ‘Well, go on, then.’
‘Go on, what?’
‘Get undressed!’ Chris could not believe himself saying this. He knew this was dangerous territory; the last person he wanted to out himself to was Justin, whom once again, as in past times, he was coming to idolize. ‘You wanted to try the suit, and you can’t when you’re like that!’
Justin still hesitated, but eventually he slowly pulled his shirt over his blond head. The boys stood looking at each other saying nothing for a while, Chris’s eyes drinking in every ridge and hollow of Justin’s perfect muscular torso. Justin was studying Chris’ beautiful proportions, so perfectly flattered by the silken suit. After a couple of minutes had passed, Chris, feeling more confident, said
‘You’ll need to take your trousers off too, Jus. This is a suit, remember?
‘Oh yeah. Sorry. Blond moment! I spaced out for a minute.’
Justin grinned nervously, kicked off his shoes, never taking his eyes off Chris, then bent to remove his socks. Standing again across from Chris, his hands moved to his belt. He tensed the end of the belt to release the tongue, and Chris noted, fascinated, the way it pulled in the slim waistband of his khaki chinos. Suddenly nervous, Justin quickly undid the button and zip, and slid the trousers down, stepping out of them with a couple of smooth athletic movements.
He now wore only a pair of deep blue retro nylon football shorts. It seemed that they were as much a turn on for him as they were for Chris and John. His erection strained at the shorts, and Chris thought for a moment he himself was going to faint at the sight, and at the effort to keep himself and his voice under control.
‘Er…, Justin, those are going to have to come off as well, I’m afraid.’
Justin looked panicked. ‘Why?’
‘White silk has much the same effect as white lycra. You of all people must remember the white lycra! Anyway, it’s dead see-through, and those shorts will show right through.’
Justin shrugged, and, pushing his thumbs into the waistband, lowered the shorts, and stepped out of them.
They had often seen each other naked before, when changing for sports at school, but this was a very different atmosphere indeed, especially with Justin’s very visible large and thick erection. Once more, they stood in silence, drinking each other in. This time Justin broke the silence. His voice cracked, and he repeated himself self-consciously several tones deeper.
‘Chris…… er… Chris, you’re going to have to strip too, if I’m going to try on the suit.’
‘Oh yeah!’ And slowly, Chris removed the jacket and laid it on the bed. He undid the tie, and put it with the jacket. He slowly unbuttoned his shirt the whole way and removed that, too. Normally he would just have undone a few buttons and pulled it over his head. He longed for Justin to strip him, and the thought made his erection all the harder. He fought down the impulse to do a strip-tease for his friend.
Justin gave a sharp intake of breath as he saw how developed Chris’s smooth chest had become by all the workouts, to say nothing of the rowing and swimming; it was almost the twin of his own, and the narrow waist and slim muscular legs highlighted in the shimmering white silk trousers only served to make him more agitated.
‘Oh God, Chris, you look…… fantastic!’ He couldn’t stop himself saying it.
‘You’re not so bad yourself!’ smiled Chris back. He sat on the bed and unlaced his white shoes, then removed them and the white socks.
He stood again and unlatched the white belt. Justin swallowed hard as Chris undid the fasteners at the top of the trousers, then reached down inside to adjust his straining cock as he lowered the zip. In a moment, Justin understood why.
‘God! You’re going commando!’
‘Yeah. I always do.’
‘Wow!’
The two of them stood completely naked together, a few feet apart, studying each other intently. A draught blew in, and chilled Chris for a moment. It served to recall him to himself.
‘Right, get dressed, then, Jus.’
Justin sat on the edge of the bed to pull on the white socks, but his hands were shaking with the tension, and he couldn’t manage it. He looked up at Chris highly embarrassed. So Chris squatted down in front of him to help, his knees apart and his erection pointing straight up at Justin’s face. That didn’t help Justin keep calm at all, and Chris had to put the socks on him, and then help him on with the silk shirt; Justin was utterly incapable of doing up the buttons—and so, very nearly, was Chris—and the process was not helped by the fact that Justin’s chest was still just a little more muscular than his friend’s, and the shirt had been made to Chris’s exact dimensions. But if anything, once buttoned, the sharply tapered, slightly stretched, nearly see-through silk material made Justin’s torso look stupendous.
By now, Chris had taken over operations. He held the trousers, and Justin, one trembling hand on Chris’s bare shoulder for balance, stepped into them. Chris pulled them up over the slim hips, but then there came a problem. Justin’s rock hard erection sat in the V of the fly and refused to budge. The sensation of the silk sliding up over his legs combined with the naked Chris’s hands so near his groin had been too much.
‘Great tits that girl had, eh?…’ said Chris, amused.
‘Er… yeah, great. Really big. Yeah, she was…er…fantastic.’
Yeah, right, thought Chris. Now he was sure.
Justin made no move to adjust his cock, and Chris said, despite himself,
‘Look, I’m not touching that thing; you’ll have to do it yourself.’
‘Oh God, yeah, sorry, sure!’
And Justin manipulated his penis painfully inside the silk of the trousers, where it immediately tented the light cloth, and Chris quickly fastened and zipped up, pulling the belt tight. The trousers fitted really well, and Chris was suprised. Again, Justin was a little bigger than he was, and so the shimmering silk stretched slightly against his backside and round his legs, the effect heightened by the straining erection, but he looked, frankly, stupendous.
Justin thought so too. As soon as his cock felt the silk, it hardened even more, and he began to fear that he was going to disgrace himself by cumming. Chris ran his hands round Justin’s thighs and backside, adjusting the silk and getting the seams straight, and Justin began to panic, the sensation was so erotic. It was as well that Chris then got up from his squat and busied himself with the tie, meanwhile looking into Justin’s intense blue eyes, then helped him on with the jacket, and finally the shoes. Justin got up and looked at himself in the long mirror. He tidied his blond hair with shaking hands and admired himself. This suit was the loveliest thing he had ever worn; he felt fantastic, and looked fantastic—well, apart from the tenting monster erection, anyway.
He looked back at Chris to find that his friend had pulled on his own shorts. Wow! How erotic! Their cocks were now in each other’s places, silky, and still warm from the previous occupant.
‘Do you mind?’ said Chris.
‘God, no, of course not! I’m wearing your suit, after all.’
Justin did, indeed, think those shorts were very erotic, and thought they looked even better on Chris. Chris was thinking exactly the same thing about Justin in the suit. There was another long silence, as they looked at one another. With one consent, they drew nearer. Justin reached out, and ran his hand softly over Chris’s bare pectoral muscle, circling slowly round the nipple, and looking deep into Chris’s eyes. Chris raised a hand and gently caressed Justin’s cheek. All pretence about girls was behind them now, and Justin leaned over to Chris and kissed him gently on the lips. He was surprised at the vehemence of Chris’s response; he grabbed Justin behind the head and pulled him to him. The silken trousers rubbed against the nylon shorts, hissing sensuously, cock abraded cock, and it became too much…
‘Oh God, Chris, I’m cumming……”
At the same instant, there was a knock at the door. ‘Room Service. Can I come and clean now, please?’
With an agonized bleat, Justin sped into the bathroom, tearing down the zip just in time to extract his pulsing cock; he came again and again into the bath, gasping, relieved only that he had prevented a single drop from falling on the suit.
With great presence of mind, without opening the door, Chris had sent the cleaner away, and they were not discovered.
He sat down on the bed, still in Justin’s shorts, with his head in his hand. The moment’s excitement had deflated his own erection, and cold reality was beginning to seep in. They had crossed a serious boundary together, and nobody could tell just what was going to happen now.
Justin pathetically called for help from the bathroom, so Chris got up and went in to see what the problem was.
When he saw his friend, he began to laugh. Justin stood by the bath, his face a picture of desperation, his hands held over the bath, away from the precious suit, dripping in huge quantities of his semen. He was terrified lest he stain the delicate white silk. His cock hung out of the fly, going flaccid now, though it was still a deep red, and still oozing slightly.
‘Don’t just fucking laugh, you git, help me!’ Justin could not see the funny side at all. But Chris had to sit down on the lavatory seat, because he was laughing so hard at his friend’s predicament. Finally, even Justin began to smile, even as he begged Chris to pull himself together and do something.
So Chris took the shower attachment on its hose, and turned on the tap.
‘No, you bloody idiot! You’ll get water on this suit, and it’ll be ruined!’
‘What, then?’
‘Use some toilet roll to clean me off.’
‘Ugh! No way!’
‘Please!’ Justin’s smile had gone, and he was getting desperate. He was more terrified of spoiling the suit than Chris was, who frankly was thinking that he might actually treasure one of Justin’s cum stains.
So Chris tore off a long strip of toilet tissue and approached Justin’s hands.
‘No, my cock first; it’s about to drip! Oh please!’
Justin was nearly crying now, so Chris suppressed his conflicting feelings of reluctance and desire, squared his shoulders, squatted, and took Justin’s large sticky cock in his hand. It was indeed about to drip, and so Chris cleaned it off, gently squeezing the shaft to remove any more cum from the urethra, and tenderly cleaning under Justin’s foreskin. In years past, he had dreamed of doing this, and the reality was not failing in its effects now. He felt himself harden again inside Justin’s shorts, and he felt Justin’s heartbeat strengthen in the cock as it pushed blood hard into his renewed erection.
‘Oh God, not again!’ groaned Justin.
But Chris was nearly finished. He soaked a face flannel in cold water, wrung it out, and washed what was left of the cum off Justin’s cock with that. The cold water cooled Justin’s ardour somewhat, and after drying his cock with a towel, Chris was able reluctantly to tuck it back inside the silken trousers and close the zip.
Chris then turned his attention to Justin’s dripping hands. In some ways, this was even more intimate, since Justin’s helplessness was all the more poignant, he who was so strong and full of life. Chris gently unbuttoned and turned back the still pristine jacket sleeves, undid the gold cufflinks and slid the silken cuffs back along Justin’s muscular and lightly haired tan forearms. Again he took some tissue and, squatting again, painstakingly cleaned off all the sticky mess between the rough fingers, along the strong palms and the defined backs.
As Chris worked, Justin looked down at his friend’s short hair. The sight did not move his cock this time, but rather he felt his heart give a bound as he looked at where the neck met the bare shoulders and the perfection of the spine and back muscles. He could see that Chris had no erection tenting his own shorts now, and so was surprised that, when he was finished, Chris did not let go his hands, but held on to them tightly, studying them intently. Then suddenly, he kissed them softly. He then pulled down the shirtsleeves and fastened the cuffs once more, then gently folded down and buttoned the jacket sleeves.
‘There.’
There was silence. Justin and Chris simply stood in the bathroom looking into one another’s eyes. Justin raised one hand and gently stroked Chris’ cheek. Chris raised his hand and laid it over Justin’s, holding it against his face and nuzzling into it. Nothing was said, but both boys recognized that they had crossed a bridge together, and nothing would ever be the same again.
The sound of a lavatory flushing from another room recalled them to their senses. They both laughed, and Justin said
‘I suppose I’d better take the suit off, now.’
‘Don’t for my sake. You look much better in it than I do. Please keep it on for a while; wear it when we go out.’
‘Wow! I’d love to, for a while, anyway; it feels and looks so fantastic. What are you going to wear, if we’re going clothes shopping? Do you want some of my stuff?’
‘Thanks, that’d be great; I’ll wear these shorts, then. No, hang on, I ought to wear white.’
‘John did say you don’t have to.’
‘No, I want to; it’s important to me.’
‘Okay, okay. But I haven’t really got any white trousers. The khaki chinos are the nearest.’
‘They won’t do. I can’t wear the shorts I ran in this morning; they’re all sweaty.’
They looked through both lads’ collections of clothes, and concluded that there was nothing for it. If Chris had to wear white, he would have to wear the suit.
‘I’ll feel so overdressed, though.’
‘Your decision! Why don’t you wear the trousers of the suit and my white football shirt. Then you can put on some trainers.’
‘Brilliant!’
And that is what Chris did.
Justin reluctantly took off the suit, and Chris reluctantly took off the shorts, and they swapped. As Justin was about to put the shorts back on, Chris, still naked, stopped him;
‘No, Jus, go commando!’
‘Me! No way! What if I had an accident? I’ve never gone commando!’
‘Well, it’s not too late to start!’
And Chris snatched the shorts back. A tussle started, and Chris won, sitting naked astride the naked Justin, the shorts in his hand.
‘You’re going commando!’
‘Never!’
And Chris reached behind and squeezed Justin’s balls. A useful tip from Tony.
‘Ow! ow! okay, okay, I promise!’ and Justin was allowed up. ‘For today.’
So Chris dressed once more in the white suit trousers, and put on Justin’s shiny white football shirt and his own white trainers. He looked in the mirror as he tucked in the shirt, to make sure that his privates were not on display through the thin material.
Justin pulled on a tight blue polo shirt and his chinos, shiverering as he felt the rough cloth against his cock for the first time. It was a strange, but not unpleasant sensation. He closed the zip with exaggerated care, then pushed his feet into boat shoes, and the two hit the town.
The first stop was the bank. Chris had absolutely no idea how much money he had, so he inserted his card into the machine and entered his pin number. He took a step back in shock.
‘Crikey, Justin! I’ve got over twenty thousand pounds! John must have been putting in a lot more than he said.’
‘Well, looks like dinner’s on you, then!’
They wandered up Knightsbridge, into all the clothes shops and had a wonderful time. Harrods they didn’t like much, thinking it overrated and tacky, though they wanderered in and out of almost all the departments, and got lots of ideas for clothes.
In one shop, they found almost all their tastes answered. Chris, who only wanted white clothes, found a pair of slinky shiny light cotton trousers that were almost as good as the ones he was wearing. Justin thought they were so good on him that he tried a pair on too. He was mortified taking off his chinos in the changing room lest someone pull aside the curtain and discover that he was wearing no underwear, but he came out to show Chris, and Chris thought they were so good on Justin that he bought them for him, as well as a pair for himself.
In the Gap, Chris bought some tight white jeans, and some tight black ones for Justin.
‘You don’t have to do this, man!’ said Justin, touched and a little embarrassed. ‘John and the other guys’ parents gave me so much money that day in the hospital!’
‘But you deserved it, and you don’t have nearly as much as I seem to have, though I’ve done nothing to deserve it, unlike you, so shut up. I want to do this. It gives me more fun than you. And anyway you look so fantastic in them, which gives me pleasure.’
Chris showed Justin what John had told him to look out for in trousers ‘since you’re going to be going commando all the time in future.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Absolutely! Always look and make sure the zip has a strip of cloth covering it on the inside. Otherwise the chafing is agony! You only make that mistake once!’
‘I think I’d rather wear underpants, thanks!’
Chris tried on some t-shirts and polo shirts in what was supposed to be his own size, but Justin made him try a size smaller.
‘You’ve got a really good torso now; you should show it off.’
And, looking in the mirror, Chris had to agree.
The two strode along the road, quickly marching towards Piccadilly. As he went, Justin began to appreciate what going commando was all about. He felt curiously exposed, but curiously free, too. The thought that there was only one thin layer of cloth between his cock and the outside world was quite erotic, and he liked the way his cock brushed against the inside of his fly, and his balls bounced around. It felt so, well, male! Really weird that a pair of shorts or briefs could make all that much difference under his trousers. He began to bounce on the soles of his feet as he strode, and come down hard on his heels, just to intensify the experience in his groin.
Chris noticed what was going on; he walked like that so habitually now that he didn’t have to think about it. But he said to Justin,
‘See what I mean?’
‘Yeah, I think I do. This is way cool, man! I think you’ve got a convert—to this, at least, if not to the rest.’
Chris didn’t like to ask what he meant about ‘the rest’, but he noted something else, and it amused him.
‘Going up and down a lot of steps is the best. There is something else you have to look out for, though.’
‘Oh yeah; what’s that?’
‘Look down.’
And Justin was mortified to see himself in full erection. He had been so absorbed in the sensation, that he had not thought how it was being caused. He immediately calmed his walking style, and the problem slowly subsided. No one seemed to have noticed, fortunately, except Chris. Chris grinned as he remembered;
‘That happened to John once, in a big public street in Dublin. He looked in a dark window to admire himself, and saw this great hard-on sticking out in front. He wasn’t as lucky as you; people saw him and laughed. He nearly stopped going commando, but he felt that the loss would be more than the gain! Just be a bit careful. He also says you’re not as sensitive when you get older.’
‘John goes commando, too? So he doesn’t mind you doing it?’
‘Yes to the first, no to the second. Of course. Anyway, who do you think gave me the idea?’
‘And Tony?’
‘Sometimes. Not always. But then he’s half-and-half in so many things.’
That puzzled Justin, but Chris did not elaborate.
Chris had hugely enjoyed his shave at Trumpers a few days before, and he wanted Justin to have the experience too, even if there was not yet a great deal to shave on either lad. Before going in, Chris stripped off Justin’s football shirt on the street; he thought that it might not quite strike the right note in Trumpers, and pulled on one of his new tight white polo shirts, remembering just in time to rip off the price label.
In the shop, they sat in adjoining chairs as their faces were lathered, shaved with an open razor, and then swathed in hot, wet towels and splashed with cologne. Chris, of course, did not need his hair cutting, but insisted that Justin got the benefit of such professional barbers, and afterwards, Justin looked ravishingly handsome. Chris swallowed hard. The men really knew their work.
Chris’s barber recognized him. ‘Weren’t you the young man who was baptized the other night in the Oratory? I was there myself; I go there regularly; in fact I’m one of the servers, so I saw you up close at the Vigil. Many congratulations to you! And all in white, too. Very appropriate!’
And he refused to charge for the lads’ shaves and haircut, but presented them each with a bottle of Wellington cologne.
‘Our pleasures, sirs. Happy Easter to you both, and God bless you!’
‘Are all catholics so nice?’ asked Justin.
‘Definitely not’, said Chris. ‘The Perv is a catholic, for one, though not a very good one. He has to take his turn taking the catholic guys to Mass, and bitches about the Church all the way.’
Looking at the hair gel on display gave Justin an idea. He slipped back into Trumpers, pretending he had left something, and bought a pot.
The next visit was to Lillywhites, the great sports shop on Piccadilly Circus. Chris treated them both again to new sports kit for the next term; their muscular growth had made their old sports gear rather tight, and though tight was good from a fashion point of view, it was not so good when freedom of movement was required.
Justin again was embarrassed.
‘Look’ said Chris. ‘I have been given so, so, much by someone who loves me. How can I not give to someone I love? That would be the rottenest ingratitude! You can’t believe how it makes me feel better to give stuff to others. I never used to be able to. Now I can, and you’re not going to take that from me.’
Justin reeled for a minute. ‘Did you say love?’
But Chris did not answer, and Justin did not like to press in case he got an answer he didn’t want to hear.
In Lillywhites, while Chris was engrossed in the football shorts, Justin slipped away for a minute, and bought each of them a pair of cropped adidas trousers; white with grey stripes for Chris, blue with white stripes for Justin, and some sleeveless muscle t-shirts to match.
Strolling back along Piccadilly, the young men passed a sort of market in front of St James’ Anglican church. They wandered around the stalls, and Justin bought two shell necklaces; they were not that expensive, but both he and Chris liked them. There and then, Justin spread the elastic with his hands, and lifted it over Chris’s head so that it circled his throat. Then he gave the other necklace to Chris, who immediately realised what he was supposed to do, and put it on Justin.
‘Take it off again’ said Justin.
‘Why? I really like it.’
‘No: now we’ll swap. I’ll wear yours and you’ll wear mine. That way I’ll always have a bit of you with me, and know that you have a bit of me with you.’
Chris was deeply touched, and hastened to comply. The intimacy of the act caused them to forget the busy market around them, and they kissed, gently. The world around them receded quickly as they found each other more intimately than ever before…
It was their first real kiss.
For both of them.
Neither ever forgot it.
Justin and Chris were due to have dinner with Justin’s parents that night in a smart French restuarant not far from the hotel. For the occasion, Chris put out again his white suit for himself, but was rather at a loss as to what Justin was to wear. He was very anxious that he should not outshine his friend, and together they tried on every combination of what they had bought, and got quite a lot of sensual pleasure doing so. But nothing seemed quite right, most of the clothes they had bought being rather too casual or fashionable for a smart restuarant, until Chris remembered his black baptism suit. Justin could wear that.
The two suits were laid together on the bed, together with two silk shirts and ties, and slowly, lovingly, Chris and Justin dressed each other, applied cologne, and tidied each other’s hair. Then they went down to the hotel lobby to meet Justin’s parents. The adults were prepared for the sight of Chris in his white suit. What they were not prepared for was the sight of their own son, in a beautiful suit which fitted so well, and with his blond hair cut to perfection, also blissfully happy.
‘Oh my baby!’ said his mother, tears coming suddenly to her eyes. ‘You are so handsome!’ And, to Justin’s embarrassment, she kissed him, and then had to wipe her lipstick off his face with a handkerchief.
The evening was a great success. Chris and Justin’s parents got on famously together, and though their views on teenagers drinking wine were a little more puritan than John’s ideas, everybody enjoyed themselves and the company of the others.
The boys sensuously stripped each other of their suits that night, and, each dressed only in soccer shorts, shared a half-bottle of whisky they had managed to illegally purchase earlier and put the world to rights.
‘Chris?’
‘Mm?’
‘This freeballing thing. You don’t do it all the time, do you?’
‘You said it!’
‘All the time?’
‘Yup.’
‘Do you own a single pair of underpants?’
‘Nope!’
‘Why?’
‘Because it feels good, that’s why. Anyway, what’s wrong with it? There’s no great moral dilemma here. It isn’t immoral not to wear undies. Why do you wear retro nylon footie shorts instead of underpants?’
‘I only do it sometimes, and because they feel really good I suppose. Okay, okay, hoist with my own petard, I know. But what about sports? Don’t you even wear a jock strap or swimming trunks, or something under your shorts to play football? Ow, man!’
‘No, never! Look; didn’t you feel fantastic today when running up and down stairs? You said you did, anyway, and I always do. Your balls are outside your body not only to get cool, but to get shaken up when you run, in other words, when you need an aggressive edge. Your balls supply testosterone to your body and will do so more readily when they are stimulated. Stands to reason; if you have more testosterone in your system when you play football or rugby, or any other competitive sport, you will have more of an aggressive edge. That could well make the difference between defeat and victory. Q.E.D. Go commando at all times, buddy!’
‘But what about your balls and cords and things getting tangled. I’ve heard about it; it’s supposed to be fucking agony.’
‘Whom do you know first hand that that has happened to? Nobody? Right! Urban myth, mate!’
They were unused to spirits, and so, very drunk, but just remembering John’s advice to drink great quantities of water before retiring, they passed out on top of the bed, tangled in each other’s limbs, and slept the sleep of the just.
It was Conor’s fifteenth birthday, and among his many presents—bought ones from his parents, though they could not afford anything fancy, and home-made ones from his siblings—was a card from John, with money inside. Conor had had his birthday party the week before, because the house was in uproar in preparation for the move to Whitefriars. So on the day itself, the very day before the move was to take place, the celebration was muted; people ate cake and drank coke among the packing cases and dust.
Conor was thoughtful as he read the affectionate message in the card from John. He took it up to his room and sat on the bed glumly, looking across to John’s side of the room. His own side of the room was stripped and packed, but John’s was still as on the day he left, except that Conor had replaced the beloved Swallows and Amazons books on John’s otherwise empty shelves. Conor sighed; the job would have to be done; it was well overdue, anyway. He pulled down the posters, one by one and rolled them carefully. They had faded rather, and were very out of date, but Conor treated them as if they were prized relics, as indeed they were as far as he was concerned. There weren’t many things there that were John’s, but Conor packed them all carefully, ready to unpack and reinstall when they got to Whitefriars.
‘You sad fuck!’ he said to himself.
He knew he was behaving ridiculously. Conor was not gay, he didn’t know why John meant so much to him. Since he knew John was alive and well, and now understood that his depature was not his, Conor’s, fault, the lad had felt a lot better. The anti-depressants were no longer necessary, but he still felt angry with John, and missed him terribly. He knew himself to be a good second-in-command, not a leader, and Seán was now coming to an age when he really needed an older brother. Conor tried his best, but Seán had spent the last couple of years more or less on his own, since Conor had been in no fit mental state for anything, and so Seán had been growing up rather too fast.
Seán’s distress at John’s leaving had at first resulted in bed-wetting, and then, partly due to embarrassment at that problem, an ever-increasing toughness that was becoming more and more difficult to deal with. He got into fights at school, he began to hang around with bad characters down at Macdonalds, he was probably beginning to steal with them, he bitched about having to go to Mass…
Seán needed an older brother. Conor said it again to himself, and blamed himself for not being that older brother that Seán needed, but in truth he was not to blame at all. His personality, even if he not been depressed, was simply not equal to the job. Though a first-rate athlete, and quite fearless on the sports field, he was simply not an alpha male, not someone that Seán could look to in that way. He was loving and caring, like his father, but he suspected that what Seán needed was someone to dominate him a little for a while. He sat on the side of the bed, an old pair of John’s jeans in his hands, and cried again. He not only felt his own burdens, he felt his younger brother’s, and he could deal with neither.
There is no doubt that he could, had he wished, have talked to his parents: Pat was identical in almost all ways to his first-born son, though perhaps more of a leader, and Bernadette saw and loved in Conor what she saw and loved in his father, but there must be very few fifteen-year-olds who would ever think of confiding in their parents.
‘I’m going to have to talk to John’, Conor said to himself. He had a mobile phone now and, before he could change his mind, he dialled John’s number, which was inside the birthday card. Conor’s heart banged in his chest as he heard the phone ring at the other end, and he began to panic as he heard that voice, so familiar, and yet different, older.
‘Hello. John Scott here… hello… anyone there?’
‘Erm… it’s Conor Henry.’
‘Conor!’ There was no mistaking the delight in John’s voice. ‘How wonderful to hear from you! And happy birthday!’
Conor relaxed a little. Perhaps after all there would be no problem.
‘Er, thanks. I just, er, reckoned that it was time we talked again.’
‘Absolutely right. I’ve really missed you, little brother.’
Suddenly it was all too much for Conor, and he started to sob.
‘J…J…John; why did you go? Why? It’s all been so horrible without you! I miss you so badly. We all do.’
John felt deeply guilty; somehow being actually confronted with Conor’s acute distress—still strong, even after the worst had passed, after John had been found again—made it all so much more real, and he began to realize what Pat and Bernadette had had to cope with all these last few years.
It took a little while, but Conor eventually calmed down, and the two were able to have a healing and good conversation. Conor finally admitted the real reason for his call, that Seán was in very bad need of John’s help right now; Conor thought that probably only John would be able to do anything at all.
John worried about this; what would he be able to do if everyone else who loved Seán had failed? He then suddenly realized what he was doing; pushing away the problem, and, as three years before when he had fled Lancashire, he was pushing it onto the Henrys once more, for them to deal with. Ready or not, this time it was his call. So he said
‘Conor, is Mum or Dad there?’
‘Yeah; everyone’s here. We’re packing up because we’re moving tomorrow.’
‘Look, shall I ask if you and Seán can come down and stay with me for a few days?’
Conor started to tear up once more. ‘Oh, please, yes. That would be fantastic, and I know Seán would like to come as well.’ Then his heart sank. ‘But we’re in the middle of moving; I’m sure we’ll both be needed at Whitefriars.’
‘Well, it doesn’t have to be today; next week would be fine; I know what moving is like; I’m just coming to the end of the horror myself. Look, just get me Dad; in fact, get me Mum; we’ll sort something out between us.’
In a minute or so, Bernadette was on the line.
‘Hi, John: how’s the new house?’
‘Beautiful, Bernie. You’re going to have to come and see it soon; there’s acres of space for you all. But there’s time to talk about that later; there’s something I want to ask you.’
John quickly explained his request, and to his surprise, Bernadette immediately thought it was a great idea.
‘John, that’d be perfect; frankly the lads are getting under foot; they think they’re being a big help, but I’d rather have two of them out of the way. If I got them onto a train, how soon could you take them?’
‘Seriously?’
‘Definitely!’
‘Well, today.’
‘I suppose that wouldn’t work, really, much as I’d like to do that. We’d better arrive at the house together and get the fights over the room allocation out of the way first. But perhaps the day after tomorrow?’
‘I’ll look forward to it. Really I will.’
‘John, I’m so pleased to get you three back together. I think it’ll make a big difference to the lads; they’ve both missed you so much; so have we all. You weren’t that long with us, I suppose, but it was at a very crucial time in their lives. But actually, Seán has been behaving very oddly recently, and Pat and I are worried. It’s a big part of the reason we are moving now, and getting him away from his bad friends.’
‘I know; Conor is worried too. I think that’s why he rang me.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me. Conor would do anything for Seán, and vice versa, I think. But Conor is so very like Pat; the most loveable guy in the world, but totally helpless when being a bit tough with his own family is required. That’s usually my job. Actually, if this is what has made Conor get back in touch with you, then perhaps Seán’s problems may prove to be a blessing in disguise. God willing.’
Chris and Justin were left to their own devices again the following day. They woke a little woozy, but, thanks to John’s tip about the water, without any noticeable hangover. After their usual run and work-out, the two friends sat in the steam room, fully naked this time, having firmly shed their inhibitions of the previous day. There was another man who shared the steam with them, and the lads ignored him, sitting opposite each other, transfixed by the sight of each other’s bare, sweating musculature; every contour of their bodies seemingly highlighted by the wetness of the atmosphere and the severity of their workout. They trapped their erections between their thighs and prayed that the stranger would not notice. If he did, he didn’t comment, for he left without saying a word to either of them, as is the way in such places. The lads sighed their relief and released their cocks. They had already stayed in the steam room far longer than they should, and felt hugely overheated and a little unwell, but both had been afraid to move for fear of revealing their excited state.
Nervous as a result of their rock-hard erections, they waited until the changing room was empty, then exiting with relief the steam room, eschewed the gym’s own shower facilities, and, shorts on, they tucked their erections under the elastic waistbands, and fled back to their shared room.
There, they collapsed in nervous giggles.
‘God! That was close. Did you see that pervy cleaner staring at us?’
‘Der! I think it was the fact that we were sweating like pigs, all we were wearing was shorts, and were carrying our shirts rather obviously in front of our groins! How obvious can you get?’
‘Still, we made it!’
Justin went in for the first shower, but Chris could not stand it, and went in to join him.
‘Chris, is this wise?’
‘I’m lonely!’
‘I’ll only be five minutes. Surely you can wait that long?’
‘No: I’m all sweaty!’
And Chris stepped out of his shorts and climbed into the shower with Justin.
Justin looked crossly at Chris, and then, seeing Chris’s look of total, hopeless, love, he melted, reached up and touched his friend’s face.
‘Oh Chris! I can never refuse you anything!’
‘I know.’
And Chris took some shower gel and slowly and sensuously massaged it into Justin’s hair, then rubbed it into his chest, his back, his groin and his behind, his legs, his arms……
Before long they were kissing passionately under the warm shower, both their bodies slick with soap, rubbing together, and exploring every one of each other’s body’s secrets.
‘Jus?’
‘Mm?’
‘Your balls feel totally different to mine; all silky and smooth.’
‘That’s because I shave them.’
‘?’
‘Yeah; Tom showed me. His older brother showed him, and it feels really fantastic.’
‘Well yeah, it does, even to me. But don’t you cut your scrotum?’
‘Not if you’re careful. Here; I’ll shave you right now.’
Chris panicked; ‘No, no! Maybe some other time.’
‘Well, will you do me, then? It’s better if somebody else does it.’
‘Does Tom do this for you, then?’ Chris suddenly felt jealous.
‘Yeah, sometimes, but it’s no great deal. We’re just mates. I do him, too.’
What was unspoken was that Justin thought he and Chris were more than just mates.
‘Well, okay then. Where’s the razor?’
Chris soaped up Justin’s ball sac and drew the skin out sensuously. He passed the razor gently over the scrotum, taking off the small stubble and soap, and then proceeded to the hair that grew on Justin’s thighs on either side of his genitalia. He then shaved under his arms, then his forearms and his legs. He worshipped every inch of the lad’s body and revelled in the intimacy.
Their erections once more reached for the sky, and Chris reached down his hand to Justin’s cock and kissed it. Justin was at that moment ready to explode, and he let fly, covering Chris’s hair and body with his cum. Justin then lovingly washed it all off with shower gel, and then turned to Chris’s straining cock to give him release, but Chris suddenly turned off the water and headed out of the shower.
‘Chris; what’s wrong?’
‘It’s time for Mass!’
Oh fuck! thought Justin, but did not say it.
Chris had promised that Justin could wear the white suit, and this was the opportunity. Lovingly again, he dressed Justin in the whole costume, rubbing his hands sensuously over his friend’s body, smoothing the fabric, until Justin was again yearning for release. But this time it was not to be. Chris himself dressed in his white jeans and white polo shirt, pushed his feet into his trainers and was ready.
‘Is it all right to go to Mass dressed casually like that?’
‘Sure, on a weekday: why do you think I’m doing it?’
‘Won’t I be a bit overdressed, then?’
‘This is Knightsbridge, Justin. Trust me, you’ll be fine!’
Justin was really taking to these Masses. They were ceremonious, though simple, dignified and direct. There was no Latin, which made things easier from one point of view, but Justin would have preferred a little more mystery. But he still loved it.
Chris and he had talked about the fact that Chris, now a Catholic, could take Communion, and Justin, a Protestant, couldn’t, or at least couldn’t in a Catholic church. But Chris had also said that even a Catholic had to be fairly sinless to take communion; that was what the white clothes symbolized. Justin thought that what they had been up to could hardly be described as innocent fun!
But Chris very definitely went forward to take communion that morning without a blush. Justin’s mind whirred.
The two of them, handsome visions in white, walked around South Kensington that morning, poking into shops, running into museums (and out again when Justin got bored; about ten minutes later), and generally attracting envious and lustful stares, which they soaked up like sponges. Justin loved the feel of the white silk suit out of doors worn, of course, commando; the cool breeze blew the sensuous material around his body when he stood still, and every movement slid it across his smooth skin—and more to the point, across his cock and shaved balls—giving him the most delicious sexy sensations.
They ate an expensive lunch in a smart restaurant, which was Justin’s idea, simply because he wanted to wear the suit in an environment where it would be appreciated, and where his beauty wearing it would be appreciated. Though a wonderful young man in many ways, he was not immune to the charge of vanity! Chris had risen to the occasion, changing his jeans and polo shirt for his new glazed cotton trousers, and another tailored silk shirt, worn without jacket. They were not disappointed in their ambition to be noticed; an old woman bought the boys a bottle of wine for ‘giving her old eyes such a treat’, and an old queen, seeing their loving looks, paid for their meal, kissed them, told them to ‘be happy, darlings’, and made a dramatic sobbing exit.
That afternoon, Justin revealed his plan. He produced the adidas cropped trousers and muscle shirts he had bought, and showed them to Chris. Chris was touched, but refused to wear the trousers unless the silly lining was cut out.
‘Look, Jus, if I want long johns to wear under my trousers, I’ll buy long johns. This is too much like underwear!’
So they found a pair of nail scissors, and with their help removed the entire cotton lining from both the pairs of trousers.
Both of them liked the result.With the tight muscle shirts and necklaces, their cocks and balls swinging freely in their cropped, shin-length athletic trousers, they felt really cool and contemporary.
‘One more thing to do’ said Justin.
He took Chris into the bathroom, and produced the pot of hair gel he had bought. He took a great gob and smeared it through Chris’s hair, pulling it into spikes. Then Chris did the same to him. They looked together into the bathroom mirror:
‘Cool!’ they said in unison. They pushed their feet into trainers, and went out to meet the world.
They attracted stares everywhere they went. Both boys were extremely fit and handsome, and, as is the way with such people, they could have been wearing plastic bin liners and still have looked good. Instead, they were wearing designer sports gear, and looked outstanding.
Conservative young men in tweeds and lesbians in dungarees sneered at them, lecherous old men leered at them, young women lusted after them, older women wanted to mother them, but nobody was indifferent to them. Their clothes clung snugly to their fit bodies, they were stared at everywhere, and they were deliriously happy, in love with each other, and admired by all they wanted to be admired by.
Back at Piccadilly Circus, they leant against the railings and against each other, utterly smug and self-satisfied, and watched the world go by.
Two middle-aged men in denim jeans and jackets approached; they were well-built, but unsavoury. One said to Chris;
‘How much?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘How much? You deaf?’
‘How much for what?’
‘You and your mate. What do you do?’
‘We’re students. Why?’
‘Don’t give me that! We want a fuck. Or at least a blow job. How much?’
It was slowly dawning on Justin that they had been mistaken for rent boys. This was terrible! But how to get rid of these pervs? Justin, suddenly inspired, pulled the puzzled Chris into a kiss, then said to their would-be suitors
‘We’d rather eat cold vomit!’
The ambulance came quite quickly, and this time it was Chris who was just about conscious, and Justin who lay dead to the world while paramedics tried to make them both comfortable as the van raced through the London streets.
The police had not been sympathetic. It had taken a doctor’s very intimate and embarrassing examination to convince them that Chris and Justin were not, despite their appearance, rent boys, and by the time this had been established, their assailants had long disappeared. Reports were filed, bruises were soothed, cuts were plastered, and the boys were released in the early evening. They had phoned Justin’s parents in the hotel, saying they were unavoidably delayed, but not giving details, and returned stealthily at about six, carrying another comforting bottle of whisky.
It was not a good evening. Justin’s parents had gone on to the theatre alone, and so the boys sat in their room, still in their rent-boy costumes, drinking on empty stomachs. They went over the events of what had happened, and argued the rights and wrongs of it while they tried to disguise the worst effects on their cut and hurt faces and sought to ease the aching of their tender bruised ribs and balls. Chris thought that Justin had behaved like a prick, and told him so.
‘Cold vomit? What the fuck were you thinking of, Jus?’
Justin, while privately agreeing with Chris, would rather have died than admit it, and so fought back. Their inebriated voices rose, and, perhaps, if they did not care for each other so deeply, would not have wounded each other so deeply.
Finally, Justin, with little ammunition left, returned to the subject of Mass that morning.
‘Chris, how could you take communion? After what we had done together!’
‘Pardon me; after what you had done. I seem to remember that you were the one pumping your cum over half South Kensington!’
‘And I seem to remember that you had more than a hand in that. Pun completely intended!’
‘I never came. That’s the point. I haven’t sinned. It’s your problem if you can’t control yourself, not mine.’
‘So according to you, even though I was the one to orgasm, okay, twice, you were entirely blameless in the whole procedure?’
‘Well yes, I suppose. You were the one who came, you were the one who had no self-control.’
‘So rubbing, sucking, soaking, kissing, frotting, perving and every other -ing you can think of is okay, but having the fucking weakness to cum as a result of it is suddenly an unforgiveable sin?’
‘Well, if you put it like that, yes.’
‘And is that what Catholicism teaches?
‘Absolutely’
Justin exploded.
‘You fucking prig! Do you realise that I was actually interested in your fucking religion? Well, you’ve opened my eyes! Now I realise that you and they are just a bunch of fucking hypocritical prigs! You were every bit as much responsible as me for what happened, from our first touch to our getting beaten up today! I won’t accept the total blame for this! You were at least as much to blame! And probably more, since you claim to be so fucking white and pure. You are a hypocrite, Chris, and the worst possible advertisement for your religion, which a day ago, even an hour ago, I passionately wanted to share. You can now suck on the fact that I would, as I said earlier, rather eat cold vomit!’
Both lads were crying by this stage. Chris was deeply angry with Justin for being, he suspected, right, but he would never admit it. All his years battling with his mother had taught him never to admit weakness. But at the same time, he deeply loved Justin, and was self-aware enough to acknowledge that fact, at least internally. If they did not love, the quarrel would not be half so bitter. He had to get away, to get some distance on this!
Neither Chris nor Justin wanted to sleep in the same bed, so Chris took the spare blanket from the wardrobe and curled up in the armchair. Justin went out like a light and slept heavily; he had drunk more than Chris, who willed himself to stay awake until he was sure Justin was asleep. Then he quietly packed all his clothes, spitefully leaving behind only the cropped sports trousers and muscle t-shirt, and tiptoed out.
In the morning, Justin awoke with a headache. He wondered where Chris was; gone for his run, perhaps? But without him? The room looked suspiciously tidy. Had the cleaners been in? He looked in the wardrobe. It was only then that it struck him; Chris was gone. All that was left of Chris were the cropped trousers and t-shirt that Justin had given him. No note. Nothing.
It was as though the whole world came crashing down on Justin’s head; he yelled out loud in his grief and regret, sobbing his heart out. He took the trousers and t-shirt that Chris had discarded, and held them to his face, sucking in every last fading smell of his beloved, then crashed face-down upon the bed and sobbed into Chris’ abandoned clothing,
‘Chris, Chris, I’m so sorry, so, so, sorry! Please, God, I’m so, so, sorry. Oh Chris, come back! I’m so, so sorry!
5.2
The following morning Chris stormed into the house at Arundel carrying his bags, which he dumped in the hall. His nocturnal journey, which had taken hours, and involved hanging around for ages on chilly station platforms, had worsened his temper considerably. He looked everywhere for John, and eventually found him in one of the bedrooms, hanging curtains with Jules.
As soon as he saw the familiar figure of the young man who had taken him in and been the first and only steady rock in his life, as usual barechested and wearing his soccer shorts, something snapped, and his anger dissolved into tears.
‘John……!’
‘Chris! What are you doing back so soon? Where’s Justin? My God! What happened to your face?.’
Jules withdrew discreetly to give them some privacy.
‘John, oh John…It’s been so horrible! We got beaten up yesterday, and… and… Justin’s been such a prick!’
John took Chris into his arms and hugged him tightly, then quickly let go as Chris yelped with pain from his bruised ribs.
‘Justin a prick? That doesn’t sound like the Justin I know. I have always thought him to be a really wonderful guy.’
Chris poured out the whole story to John, the two of them sitting cross-legged opposite each other on the carpet, because there was still no furniture in that room.
When it was over, John looked grim. He said coldly to Chris
‘Well, someone’s been a prick, but I’m not so sure it was Justin!’
Chris was deeply shocked. Never before had John been anything but loving and supportive to him. He said, his voice rising,
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You want me to spell it out for you? You’re the prick, not Justin! You have just shat upon the wonderful guy who saved your life, let me remind you! You have manipulated and used him in your little sex games, and then let him carry all the blame. You threw yourself at him like a tart, and then heaped guilt upon his head simply because he reacted entirely naturally to what sounds like extremely erotic provocation. And then, to cap it all off, you smugly unload religious guilt on him; you use the faith into which you were baptized mere days ago as simply another stick to beat poor Justin with. No Chris, you’ve fucked up, big time, and I’m really angry with you.’
Chris felt as if the bottom had fallen out of his world. For the first time since he had come to live with John, he felt insecure and defensive. He was being criticized again, just like when he was with his mother, and he panicked. He stood up, his face white, and John did so too.
‘Is that all you can say, John? Do you hate me now? Have you gone off me? I’m not so pretty with all these bruises, am I? I suppose you want Justin to live with you now, and me to get out. Why don’t you just finish it off and call me F.B. again; you may as well! You and my mother will have lots to talk about, won’t you!’
Before he could think what he was doing, John drew back his hand and slapped Chris across the face, contacting with one of the boy’s worse bruises.
Chris cried out, then looked in horror at John, who was looking in even worse horror back at Chris. Chris turned and fled out of the room, nearly knocking over Jules, who had been standing guard in the corridor to prevent anyone else stumbling into the confrontation. Jules stood for a moment, uncertain as to whom he should go, then decided that Chris could run faster than he himself could mince in tight jeans, and so he went to John.
John was standing in the middle of the room, looking at his hands and shaking. The sound of Chris’s car starting up came in through the window, followed by the noise of churning gravel as the car sped off at dangerous speed down the drive. John dropped to his knees and bent over, gasping. Jules got down beside him and took the big young man in his arms, hugging him tightly.
‘Oh my God, Jules; what have I done?’
The dam broke, and John cried bitterly into Jules’s shoulder. Jules was reassuring and sensible. He let the storm have its way, and when it abated, he said,
‘Don’t worry, sweetheart. It’s only an adolescent tantrum, and he certainly didn’t mean it. He’s a good lad, and he’ll soon be back when he’s calmed down. All he needs is a bit of space to get some distance on things.’
‘Did you hear all that, Jules? Okay, I suppose half of West Sussex heard it. Oh, why did I overreact like that? Chris has had enough abuse in his life without hearing it from me too! I was so determined to be always calm and supportive for him, and suddenly I snapped. My father once did that to me, and it was one of the worst moments in my life. I hit Chris, Jules! Why? why? I’ve really messed up this time!’
‘Well, petal, I think there are probably two reasons, if you don’t think it’s cheeky of me to butt in. The first is that you are still only a lad yourself, really. You’ve been thrust into adult life very sharply, and you’ve always had to be severely self-reliant, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re still only twenty-one. The other reason is that I think you’re a bit jealous. I think you love Chris more than you’ll admit to yourself, and it isn’t only protective, family-love. I think you’re at least a little bit in love with the boy; you’d like him to do all those things with you that he did with the other lad—Justin, is it? And so you overreacted. You both did. Not, by the way, that you weren’t right. He did behave badly, very badly, and I hope he’ll soon realise it. But for now, just give him some space. He’ll be back soon. You’ll see.’
And John cried quietly into Jules’ shoulder.
After ten minutes or so, when things seemed to have stilled, Jules asked John,
‘Are you feeling better, heart-face?’
‘No, but I’ll live.’
‘Of course you’ll live. But it’s time for you to go to the station; aren’t your visitors coming on the midday train?’
‘Visitors? … Oh shit! Conor and Seán! I haven’t got rooms ready for them!’
‘Darling, that’s what you pay me for! I’ve prepared two rooms, so that they can either have a room each, or share, as they prefer.’
‘Jules, how long have we lived together?’
‘Oooh, cheeky! Is that a proposition?’
John grinned, his woes disappearing for the moment. ‘I don’t think Sandy would like that, and he’s a lot bigger than I am.’
‘Perhaps he’d join in… But the answer to your question is three days, lovey.’
‘Three days, and already I don’t know what I would do without you, Jules.’
And John kissed the little queen on the cheek, and ran to grab a shirt and some trousers.
As he left the room, Jules shed a few tears of his own; tears of gratitude and happiness. A mere month before, he had still been at his desk in the city, organizing company takeovers, and most frustrated and stressed. Now he truly felt he had come home.
The journey should have taken nearly two hours, but Chris pulled into the Oratory forecourt after only an hour and a quarter on the road. He was lucky not to have been in a crash, for his eyes spilled tears of self-pity most of the way. And he was also lucky not to have been trapped on a speed camera.
He got out of the car, and cleaned himself up as well as he could with his handkerchief. Then he went and rang the doorbell, and asked to speak to Father Smith.
The priest came down to see Chris, but when he saw the boy’s bruised face, puffy from his weeping, he took him not to the public parlours where they had met before, but for the first time upstairs to his own room. As they went, Fr Smith chatted gently and calmly to Chris, reassuring him, and putting him at his ease.
Chris was surprised to see that the Fathers of the Oratory each live in only one small room; it was simply but comfortably furnished, and was lined with books. There was a nice view over the suprisingly large garden at the back, and for central London, it was very quiet.
The priest poured Chris a large glass of port and another for himself, and they sat in comfortable leather chairs by the empty fireplace. The little kindnesses were restoring Chris to something resembling calm, and the quiet voice of the priest as he chatted about irrelevancies comforted him immeasurably.
As soon as Fr Smith thought that Chris was calm enough he said
‘I thought I might be seeing you soon. I had a visit from a very nice young man this morning who was most distressed about something.’
‘Justin?’
‘Exactly so. In the flesh.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Well, as to that, we’ll talk later. But now why don’t you tell me what you came to speak to me about.’
It all came pouring out; here and there the priest asked some questions gently, rising from time to time to refill Chris’ glass, and all the time looking steadily at the lad with his wise eyes that had seen so many distressed people through the years. Chris spoke of it all, and was far more honest than he had been with John; he knew that he could not deceive this priest who knew him well, and had heard confessions all his priestly life, so he did not try. When finally he finished, telling of his quarrel with John, the priest was looking at him with deep sympathy and a real affection.
‘You poor boy! How you’ve suffered over all this!’
‘Thank you, Father, for believing me. I couldn’t make John see what a pri… how wrong Justin was!’
‘Well, a little bit, perhaps. But honestly, I think there’s more to it than that.’
‘But it isn’t me who’s at fault, Father. I never came, er… ejaculated at all. I know that’s wrong. I swore that I would never do that again, the day I was baptized, and that’s why I always wear white now, to remind me.’
‘Chris, there are other sins besides sex, you know. And I know that I have said to you before that I do not think that the sexual sins are by any means the worst ones, and can at times even be understandable.’
Chris looked puzzled, so the priest continued
‘Look, Christopher. Let’s put this in the context of the oldest story of all, Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Now how many characters are in that story?’
Chris thought a minute, and said ‘Four: Adam, Eve, God, and the serpent—the devil.’
‘Good. Now, let’s say that the eating of the apple is the er… sexual ejaculation… that occurred between you and Justin.’
‘It was Justin who came, not me.’
‘Quite so. So Justin is Adam: Adam ate the apple; Justin ‘came’ as you so rightly say. Now, which character are you in the story?’
Chris hadn’t looked at it like this, and was intelligent enough to see the answer quickly. He went almost the colour of the port in his glass. He whispered, almost inaudibly,
‘Eve!’
‘Again, quite so. You acted, and caused Justin to, er, react. And God is still God in our story, and the Devil is still the Devil. But, Christopher, even poor old Eve didn’t rub the apple into Adam’s face until he had no alternative but to swallow! Nor did she reproach Adam afterwards for his weakness, nor did she walk out on him, nor did she claim to be more righteous than he, nor did she call God as a witness to her virtue and his vice.’
Chris was no longer red, but white. He realised now what he had done. But Fr Smith was remorseless.
‘Christopher, I’m sorry to tell you that your baptismal robe is no longer white, but is pretty filthy. The stain of what you call ‘cum’ is not among the stains, but there are far worse ones. I told you, when we had our talk about homosexuality, that there were far more horrible sins than the sexual ones. Sins of malice, spite, pride, arrogance, presumption, all are much worse, and you have scored pretty highly in some of these. Justin was merely not strong enough, when even the strongest would have found it difficult. You, on the other hand, were cruel and proud.’
Chris was sobbing again, but no longer in self-pity. It was true remorse, and the priest could see the difference.
‘Now, go down on your knees, Christopher. It’s time you made your first confession.’
And Chris poured it all out again, but this time in a different focus. He humbly accused himself of having led Justin on, of almost having driven him to orgasm, of having reproached him with the guilt of it, of being smug in his own supposed virtue, of pride, spiritual and natural, of having walked out without thought of Justin’s feelings, and of having upset John and, effectively, lied to him about Justin. When it was all out, the priest laid his hand on Chris’s head and absolved him with the power Christ gave to the apostles.
Then he drew Chris to his feet and embraced him.
‘Welcome home, Chris. Your baptismal robe is white as snow again!’
Chris felt that a load had been lifted off him, and his heart sang.
John jogged down the stairs to the station platform just as the train pulled in. The warm air was full with summer dust and the scent of diesel fumes. John scanned the alighting passengers, looking for the two boys he remembered. He grew a little worried, as the last of the children made their way towards the exit, with no probable candidates in sight. They must have missed the train.
A big shadow loomed against the light.
‘John?’ boomed a voice.
‘Pat?’ said John. ‘Where are the boys?’
Then he realized. If it was Pat, he was a good deal thinner than before, and where had the grey hair gone?
‘Conor? Is it you?’
‘Oh John, I can’t tell you how good it is to see you!’
The big young man flung his arms around John and hugged him tightly. For that frank and affectionate lad his troubles were gone as suddenly has they had appeared. Not so for his brother.
‘Where’s Seán?’ said John.
‘Right here’ said Conor, his arm still around John’s shoulder.
Behind him was a young man just a little short of Conor’s six foot with black, black hair and smouldering blue eyes under strong brows. Wow, what a stunner! thought John. He’s seriously going to be breaking a few hearts very soon. He had his mother’s looks, for sure. But Seán hung back shyly. John, with his free arm, pulled him into a hug, but felt the other’s body stiffen awkwardly in his embrace. There was no hostility, however, for Seán smiled a little and said.
‘Hi, John, it’s nice to see you.’
But that was all he said. Not that there was much opportunity, for Conor was into his old stride, talking nineteen to the dozen about anything and nothing as the three made their way to John’s car.
‘Wow, John. Still got this old banger?’ said Conor.
‘What do you mean, old banger? I’ll have you know this was my father’s car, and never a day of bother does she give me.’
But uneasily he began to wonder whether the time had come for a change. Shit! Conor always had this effect on him. Better not let Chris know, or else, if those two were to get their heads together, his life would be turned upside down in short order.
Both lads were very impressed with the new house.
‘Wow’ said Conor again. ‘I thought our new house at Whitefriars was cool. This is wicked!’
Conor elected for seperate rooms, but John intercepted a sudden panicked look from Seán, which made Conor relent.
‘But you know, John, I haven’t shared a room with anyone since you left, so little bro is seriously honoured.’
Fr Smith gave Chris his telephone, and told him to ring John before he did anything else, leaving the room to give him some privacy. When he returned, he could see that everything was now all right as far as that went.
‘Justin is still staying in the Rembrandt Hotel, Chris, so I suggest you go over now and make your peace with him. You can leave your car in our forecourt as long as you like, so I suggest you spend a few days together. And don’t be too downhearted, lad; somehow I think everything is going to be fine. Come and see me again, and tell me if I’m right.’
It was only after Chris had left the building that it occurred to him that he had never asked Fr Smith what Justin and he had talked about.
In great trepidation, Chris went up to the room he had shared with Justin. He didn’t even know whether Justin would be in or not, but he just prayed. He tapped on the door. A peevish voice answered
‘What?’
Chris tried the handle; it wasn’t locked, so he turned it silently and went in. The air in the room was stale, and the curtains were drawn. Justin lay face down on the bed in his shorts, shirtless, unmoving. Chris shut the door, and Justin turned to see who was in the room. His eyes were red and puffy from weeping, but when he saw who his visitor was, he leapt to his feet. Chris flinched, momentarily afraid of violence, and saw a look of pain suddenly in Justin’s eyes. They both looked at each other, tears running down their faces, and suddenly both said together
‘I’m so sorry!’
They rushed together in a tight hug, ignoring the protests from their bruised ribs, and simply held each other, crying hard down each other’s back. They must have been there a good twenty minutes, but neither of them noticed. The back of Chris’s shirt was wet with Justin’s tears and snot, and so he pulled the shirt off. The sight of his bare torso made Justin gasp again, and they returned to their hug, Chris feeling his own tears and snot on the skin of Justin’s back as he put his arms again around his lover.
Justin sobbed ‘I thought I must have hurt you so badly. I’m so sorry, Chris! I said some unforgiveable things.’
This made Chris cry all the harder. ‘No, Jus, it was all my fault. You were absolutely right about me, and I’m so sorry!’
Chris went down on his knees and hugged Justin about the waist, crying into his shorts. ‘I’m so sorry, Justin. I love you so, so much and I’ve hurt you so badly. I can’t bear to see you cry like this!’
They stayed a while like that, with Chris’s face buried in his beloved’s shorts. As their sobs subsided, Chris sensed a familiar swelling against his cheek; Justin was feeling better, clearly. Chris wanted to repay Justin so very badly, and he felt inside the leg of the shorts for Justin’s hardening cock, drawing it out gently, and massaging it to full size. He blew on it, ran his fingers up and down it, kissed it, let his tears fall upon it, while Justin gripped Chris’s head with both hands, moaning gently. Then, very, very carefully Chris took Justin’s cock into his mouth and sucked, running his tongue all over, and under the foreskin.
‘Oh Chris, I’m cumming!’ cried Justin, and pulled his cock out of Chris’s mouth. Cum fountained again and again all over Chris and his white jeans, and then Justin fell onto Chris with his whole weight, pinning him to the floor in an ecstatic embrace. They rolled around, almost wrestling in their passion, pleasure and pain indistinguishable as they sucked at each other’s lips and squeezed brutally at any part of each other’s muscular body they could reach, heedless of the bruises they both still bore.
When they finally lay still, filthy, sweating and panting, Chris asked Justin
‘That shave you promised me?’
‘The one in the shower?’
‘Yeah. Can I have it now?’
Chris kicked off his boat shoes—he wasn’t wearing socks—and reached to unbutton his no-longer-white jeans. Justin stopped him; ‘No; let me.’ And he gently undid the button and zip, and inch by inch lowered the trousers to the floor, running his hands down Chris’s legs, and sensuously following their progress with his lips and his tongue. Then Chris did the same with Justin’s shorts. Hand in hand, they went into the shower, and stood embracing in its warm flow, soaping each other with shower gel and rubbing all over. Then Justin took the razor, and knelt before Chris, the water cascading over his head and shoulders. He took Chris’s sac in his hands and shaved away the hair gently, occasionally pushing away the cock that constantly tried to get attention. As Chris had done to him, he then tidied up Chris’s pubic hair, and all his other body hair slowly, sensuously. Finally, when Chris was nearly distracted with passion, he took Chris’s pole into his own mouth, and brought him to climax. Chris groaned in ecstasy, and warned Justin that he was about to cum. But instead of taking his mouth away, Justin pulled Chris’s slim hips tightly towards him, and Chris, unable to move, came into his mouth; weeks and weeks of accumulated semen spurted out, and Justin could not swallow fast enough, not could his mouth hold the sheer abundance. The boys sank to the bottom of the shower, spent and exhausted, and there fell asleep while the shower continued to pour its moist benediction over them.
A little later, Justin woke up. He couldn’t move to turn the shower off with the weight of Chris on him, so he reluctantly disturbed him. It was not an easy job, for Chris had had almost no sleep the night before on the station platform, waiting for the early train to Arundel, and then walking round the streets before it was a decent hour to go home. But Chris finally stirred, and painfully the two stood. Justin turned off the water, and then looked at the wrinkled body of his beloved, who started laughing at Justin’s prune-like skin. They wrestled and joshed a little, and then, taken with emotion, Justin picked Chris up bodily in his arms and carried him into the bedroom, laying him on the bed. He then knelt astride his friend’s hips, sitting back on his heels, and the two just devoured each other with their eyes.
Eventually, Chris said
‘What’s the time?’
‘Time for a kiss.’
There was a longish, but not inactive, pause before Justin looked at his alarm clock. ‘Er, about three in the afternoon.’
‘Jus, I must go and apologize to your parents. They must be really furious with the way I walked out last night, and I don’t blame them.’
‘It’s okay, Chris, they don’t even know! They went out early again this morning.’
‘Oh thank God!’
‘Amen! So nobody but us need know anything about it.’
‘Well, us, and Fr Smith, and John, and Jules, and now probably Tony and Sandy, plus anybody they tell!’
‘Well, it doesn’t matter, anyway.’
‘What did you and Fr Smith talk about?’
Justin climbed off Chris and went to his cupboard for a pair of shorts. He threw a pair to Chris, too, and Chris sensed that they were going to talk about something important, so he pulled the nylon garment on. Justin returned to the bed, and the two sat on the edge, their shoulders, hips, and thighs pressed together and their arms about each other’s waists.
‘Well, at first about you. I felt so bad about what I had said, about Catholicism and about you. Last night I wanted to hurt you really badly, and that really shocked me. When I had woken and found you gone, I was sure that I had badly overdone it and driven you away. But what was worse was that I thought I had probably offended God, too. I remember Fr Smith from your baptism, and I thought that he looked kind, and would talk to me. Actually, he was wonderful. He saw I’d been crying, and took me upstairs to his room, and gave me a cup of coffee.’
‘Ha! I got port!’
‘This was nine o’clock in the morning, buddy. But he listened to everything I had to say; he never interrupted once, unlike you.’
And Justin gave Chris a light punch in the gut. Chris kissed him on the forehead.
‘I wanted forgiveness, because I wanted you back so badly. I’d badmouthed the Church, and I suppose God, then, and I thought I ought to see a priest about it. And I felt guilty about us larking around, and about what I had said to you, and the way I had made you leave. When I had finished, he talked for a while. He talked about our relationship, and said that in his opinion whether or not somebody was responsible for a quarrel, (and he did say that he thought perhaps I wasn’t) they should humbly apologize anyway, if the relationship was worth preserving, and recommended that I do it. I was only too ready to do it, because I was sure I had driven you away, but he said he thought there was more to it than that, and that perhaps, sorry, Chris, you had to bear some of the blame, too.’
‘You said that last night, Jus, and you were right. Fr Smith helped me see that in fact nearly all the blame was mine.’
‘No, no, he never said that to me, and I don’t accept that!’
‘No, he said it to me, when I went to see him today. And I do accept it. I am so, so sorry.’
‘Look, let’s not go down there again. We’ve both said sorry, and that’s all there is to it. We’ll forget about it. But we talked some more about the Catholic Church, and beliefs—I wanted to get straight that business we quarrelled over, and what he said was so sensible that he won me over. So I told him that I wanted to become a Catholic too. I’m going to do it like you did, coming down to London on our free weekends to see him, though I’m not sure where I’ll stay. Unlike you, I can’t afford to stay here all the time! Perhaps I’ll just come down on the Saturday, and do a few hours, then return home, or to school.’
‘Oh Jus, you have made me so happy! I just can’t tell you. What have I done to deserve this happiness? What have I done to deserve you? Let’s go out tonight and celebrate!’
‘We can’t; Mum and Dad are expecting us both to go to the opera with them tonight.’
‘Oh, wow! That’s a celebration! What are we seeing?’
‘It’s really cool; Domingo’s in Turandot at Covent Garden. We’ve got a box.’
‘Wicked! I didn’t know you were into opera. You hated the museums.’
‘There’s lots of things about me you don’t know! Okay; where are your things?’
Chris suddenly looked worried.
‘Oh shit: I left my bag with all my clothes in Arundel.’
‘Double shit! We’re expected to turn up for the opera in suits and ties. All you’ve got is a silk shirt covered in my snot and a pair of white jeans covered in my cum. And I haven’t got a suit at all, here; I was going to ask if I could borrow your black one!’
‘That’s not all I’ve got. You’re forgetting the rent-boy outfit I left here!’
‘Wow, can you imagine us both turning up to Covent Garden dressed like that? We’d have to spike our hair, too.’
‘Lets get piercings!’
‘And tattoos! Won’t do, though. I’ve been spending the best part of eight hours crying into your rent boy gear. I don’t think you’ll want to put it on before it’s had a wash.’
‘Oh Jus!’ Chris began to get tearful again at the thought of what Justin had gone through. Then he pulled himself together; ‘ Come on, I’m going to make it up to you.’
‘How? A kiss?’
‘Oh yes! But until then we’ve still got about an hour and a half before the shops shut: I’m going to buy us each a suit!’
‘Oh no, no, there’s no need for that!’
‘There’s every need for that! It will make me feel a whole lot better. And it’s going to be a good suit; Armani is just along the road, and that’s where we’re heading.’
‘Armani? Oh Chris, are you sure?’
‘Absolutely!’
Chris loved the Saville Row suits that John had bought him, but Tony was right: secretly Chris yearned for the more flamboyant Italian style, and had coveted the suits every time he had walked along the Brompton Road past their w