David Clarke

Jeremy Fielding Collection

Chapters 15-18

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Chapter Fifteen

While other members of the Collection are mired in a messy love triangle, or worrying about the local Hitler Youth, or indulging in slightly strange dom/sub relationships, Miguel – who seems to have been hit over the head with the Lucky Stick at birth – has sailed serenely on, having fun with Andy, learning about sex with Kenji and beginning to form a strong emotional bond with James, and generally avoiding the pitfalls that the others are falling into. So as an antidote to the wall-to-wall gloom at the end of the last chapter, let's follow Miguel as he heads off for four weeks in Spain with Hamilton in tow…

Miguel wasn't quite as excited as he usually was at the start of the summer holiday this year: he enjoyed playing with his cousin, and wasn't sure that Alex Hamilton would really be a good replacement: after all, they hadn't exactly been friends so far. But when they picked Alex up from his house on the Sunday afternoon it was obvious that he was really looking forward to it, and his enthusiasm was contagious, so that by the time they got to Heathrow Miguel was once again in his usual happy going-on-holiday mood.

It helped that Alex had never flown before – he'd gone to Paris the previous year by boat and train – and his sense of awe and excitement was hard to resist, especially since by now Miguel was a seasoned air-traveller and knew all about flying. He let Alex sit by the window (on the firm understanding that it would be his turn on the flight home) and shared his boiled sweets with him, explaining that it would help to prevent his ears popping if he sucked one.

Alex's enthusiasm hadn't dimmed in the least by the time they landed, and all through the taxi journey from the airport to the apartment complex he kept up a stream of comments and questions. He was really impressed with the apartment complex, too, particularly because there were three swimming pools between the various blocks.

There was more room in the apartment than usual this year because Roberto's parents and sister weren't there to take up their usual rooms, and this meant that Alex could have taken a room to himself if he had wanted. But when offered his own room he asked if he could share with Miguel instead.

"It'd be more fun if we can share, wouldn't it?" he said. "I mean… only if you don't mind, of course."

"I do not mind. I usually share a room with my cousin, and you are right, it is more fun. So we can share if you want."

"Brilliant! Which room is ours, then?"

Miguel took him into the room he usually shared with Roberto and let him pick which of the twin beds he wanted. Alex was surprised to see that there were no sheets or blankets, just a light duvet on each bed.

"We do not use blankets in Spain," Miguel told him. "Unless it is very cold, anyway. The duvet makes it very easy to make the bed in the morning."

"Gosh, I don't know if I can get used to that… still, I expect I'll manage. Which wardrobe should I use?"

They got unpacked, and then Miguel took Alex for a quick walk round the site, showing him where the supermarket and post office were, and then pointing towards the sea.

"Tomorrow I will show you the beach," he said. "There are three beaches that we can use… and there is a golf course, too. Can you play golf?"

Alex shook his head. "Not unless you count crazy golf," he said. "I'd quite like to learn, though."

"I do not play very well," admitted Miguel. "I only play when we are here. There is a range here, so you can practice before we go on the course."

They returned to the apartment and found that Miguel's parents had gone out – they had left a note saying that they had gone to stock up with food.

"Of course, one good thing about coming on holiday with you is that I'll finally get to find out if you were lying about having a bigger willy than me," said Alex. "In fact, I think you should show me now."

"I do not think so. You would have to beat me at cards to find out."

"No, I wouldn't. I mean, I'm bigger than you, and stronger, and you haven't got Shaw here to help you, so I could make you strip bare whenever I wanted."

"I do not think so."

"Oh, come on, Miguel: if we fight, I'm bound to win – so why not make it easy on yourself and just strip of your own accord?"

"Because I do not want to."

"Then I'll just have to make you, won't I?" Alex grinned and advanced on him, and Miguel judged his approach: Alex was a little shorter and lighter than Kenji, and if he could throw him, then he ought to be able to throw Alex even more easily. And of course Alex wasn't expecting it, either.

It went absolutely perfectly: he grabbed Alex's wrist, threw him onto the floor and followed up with Kenji's wrist-lock.

"That was not nice," he remonstrated. "You are my guest: you should not try to attack me. I think you will have to be punished. Maybe I should break your arm?"

He applied the lock a little more firmly, and Alex gasped.

"Don't, Miguel – I'm sorry," he said. "I promise I won't try that again."

"Do you promise to take your punishment, when I think of one?"

"Aargh! Yes, yes, I swear!"

Miguel got up and helped Alex to his feet. Alex looked at him in amazement.

"Wow, Miguel, where did you learn to fight like that?" he asked. "I mean, I thought… well, I thought I could beat you easily. I'm really sorry, and I meant what I said. I definitely won't try anything like that again."

Miguel enjoyed the look of respect on Alex's face – it wasn't often that the sportier boys at school looked at him like that.

"Okay," he said. "But I will still punish you. I expect I will have thought of a good punishment by tomorrow. And do not forget that you promised to do it, or maybe I will have to break your arm."

"It's okay, you won't have to do that. If I promise a friend I will do something, I never break my word." He paused. "We are still friends, aren't we?" he added. "I mean, I really am glad you asked me to come with you, and I don't want to have messed it up."

"Of course we are still friends – if you do not try to bully me again, that is. Now – come with me. I want to see if my other friends are here this year."

He led Alex to an apartment in the block opposite theirs and knocked at the door, and a well-tanned blond boy of about their own age opened the door.

"¡Hola, Miguel!" he cried, his face lighting up.

"Hello, Jason. You will have to speak English this year because my cousin is not here. This is Alex, who is a friend at my school."

"Hello," said the blond boy. "Have you been to Spain before?"

Alex shook his head.

"You're going to like it," Jason promised him. "We have a lot of fun. It's a pity Roberto isn't here this year, but I reckon you'll fit in. I mean, I don't think Mig would have brought you with him if you weren't a good friend."

Alex felt a bit guilty at that, but he didn't say anything.

"Is Estebán here this year?" Miguel asked.

"Si – I mean, yes," replied Jason. "So we'll be able to do all the usual stuff this year, and Jose Luis is here, too, so that'll keep Darren out of our hair. That's my kid brother," he explained to Alex. "Jose Luis is this kid he hangs about with, and if he wasn't here I'd get stuck with looking after him. But he is, so I won't, and we can go and do whatever we feel like. It's going to be a good summer, I can tell. But I'll have to remember to speak English, unless you can speak Spanish…?"

"I can't," said Alex. "We do French and Latin at school, not Spanish, and, like I said, I've never been here before."

"Oh. I'll try to remember, then. See, we live here all year round, except for a couple of weeks, usually at the end of the summer holidays, when we go back to England to see my gran. My dad runs a bar up the coast, and we've been living in Spain for about five years now. Darren speaks better Spanish than he does English, because he's been here almost all his life. So – what are we going to do tomorrow, Mig?"

"I thought we would go to the beach… in fact, I have had an idea. Perhaps you and Darren could help me with something?" And he broke into rapid Spanish, and Alex didn't understand a word of it, but it must have been funny, because Jason first grinned and then burst out laughing.

"Right," he said. "We'll see you tomorrow morning, then. Oh, and Alex? Don't forget to bring some sun-tan cream. If you're not used to the sun you might get burnt."

And he grinned once more and went back inside.

Miguel and Alex made their way back to their apartment. Alex would really have liked to know what Miguel and Jason had been talking about, but he didn't like to ask, and by the time they had eaten he had forgotten about it.

As the boys were tired from the journey they went to bed a little earlier than they would normally have done on holiday: Miguel explained that people usually stayed up much later in Spain than they did in England. But tonight he felt ready for bed, so they said goodnight to his parents and went to their room.

"It's pretty hot," said Alex, starting to get undressed. "I don't know if I'll be able to sleep – it's not like in England."

"Do not wear any pyjamas, then," suggested Miguel.

"What, sleep naked? Really?"

"Why not? My parents do not come into this room, and I have seen you undressed before. And unless I stand very close to you I could not see your so tiny thing anyway."

"Oi, it's not that small! So… are you going to sleep naked, too?"

"You still want to see me, I think. Well… okay, tomorrow I will sleep naked, and you can look if you want. But tonight I shall wear my shorts."

Miguel waited until Alex was naked and then turned on the air conditioning unit. Alex had never seen one before and had assumed it was a heater until cold air started to come out of it. Miguel grinned, went into the bathroom (this room had its own en-suite loo and shower) and came back wearing a pair of shorts.

"Goodnight, then," he said, and climbed into bed.

Next morning the boys dressed for the beach – shorts over swimming trunks, a thin short-sleeved shirt and sandals – and Miguel led Alex towards the sea.

"I have decided your punishment for attacking me," he said. "You will have a chance to prove you are sorry for attacking me: if you do your punishment and do not complain, we will be proper friends again and you will share in everything we do. Is that fair?"

"Yes, okay," agreed Alex at once.

"Good. Now, there are three beaches we can use, and on one of them you do not have to wear swimming trunks. We are going to that beach this morning. I will wear my trunks, but you will not, so everyone will be able to see you."

"No! Oh, come on, Mig, that's not fair – you can't make me go naked! Everyone will laugh at me!"

"They won't. Many people go naked on this beach, and I and Jason and Estebán will not wear our trunks after this morning. So you will be able to see us all if you want. But this morning we will keep our trunks on and you will not, so you learn your lesson."

"Well… but surely Jason and… the other one won't want to go about with me if you've told them I tried to bully you?"

"I did not tell them that. I told Jason you lost a game of strip cards with me and asked for double or quits, and this is your 'double' – you said if you lost again you would go naked on the beach, and when you lost again… well, there is one more thing, but we will tell you that after. But they do not know that you tried to make me undress, and I will not tell them. I told Jason you were a good friend, and that is how they will treat you, if you do not complain about this morning. If you do not argue they will know you are a good sport and they will like you."

Alex wasn't at all happy about this, but he realised there was little he could do about it: after all, Miguel had already proved that he could beat him in a fight, which meant that if he argued he'd probably be forcibly stripped anyway. And at least if he went along with it the other two boys wouldn't think badly of him, and with the whole stay looming ahead of him it made sense not to upset Miguel's friends.

"Well," he said, eventually, " in that case… I suppose I deserve it. But you have to promise to come on the beach yourself naked next time."

"I promise. Now come on."

They found Jason and another boy who was almost a clone of Miguel waiting for them at the entrance of the 'clothing optional' beach. They introduced Alex and Estebán to each other and then headed into an area of dunes at the nearer end of the beach.

"We play here a lot," Miguel told Alex. "And this is where we leave our clothes if we go swimming… but today we do not need to leave them here, because Jason's brother is on the beach and he will look after them for us."

They stopped and took off their shirts, shorts and sandals, and after a moment Alex removed his trunks, too. Estebán said something in Spanish and the others all laughed, and Alex went red: he was sure they were laughing at the size of his equipment.

"What did he say?" he asked Miguel, but it was Jason who answered.

"He said your bum is so white that if you mooned from the edge of the sea they could see you in Morocco," he explained. "And he's right, too. But I bet it won't be by the time you go home. Did you bring your sun cream?"

Alex nodded, happy to think that they weren't laughing at his genitals after all, and produced a bottle of high factor sun screen. The others got their own bottles out: Jason and Estebán had a very low factor cream, because they were used to the sun and already had good tans, and Miguel's was a little higher because although his skin was quite dark he still hadn't been out in strong sunlight as much as the other two. Alex watched Jason and Estebán rubbing the cream onto each other's backs and offered to do the same for Miguel, who then did it for him.

"Don't forget to put some on your cock," suggested Jason. "You really don't want a sunburnt knob, I can promise you."

Once they were all ready they picked up their clothes and walked a little further down the beach, and near the water's edge they found two much younger boys building a sandcastle. These two were wearing swimming trunks, too, and that made Alex feel even more naked.

"This is my brother Darren and his friend Jose Luis," said Jason.

The younger boys said hello, and Alex was surprised to discover that the fair-haired one was Jose Luis, while Darren's hair was mid-brown.

"I bet you didn't know that Spaniards come in blond too," said Jason, correctly interpreting his expression. "Well, they do. Anyway, Jose Luis doesn't speak a lot of English, but Darren can translate for you."

"Erm… why would he need to?" asked Alex.

"Oh, did I forget to tell you?" replied Miguel. "You are going to stay here and help them to build their castle while we go swimming. And you will do whatever they tell you to, as well. This is your extra punishment for being no good at cards. If you are good and do what they say you will have paid your forfeit. Okay?"

The three older boys dumped their clothes close to the sandcastle and ran off towards the sea, leaving Alex feeling… well, he wasn't quite sure what he was feeling. But he didn't get long to think about it, because as soon as the others had gone Darren commanded him imperiously to start digging the moat.

The two younger boys kept him running about for about half an hour, digging, collecting shells to decorate the towers, and running a bucket relay to the edge of the water in order to fill the moat. He did it all without complaining, and actually found himself quite enjoying it after a while: it was quite some time since he had last built a really good sandcastle. And the two boys made no comment at all about his nakedness, either.

The other three came back just as they were putting the finishing touches to the castle.

"Not bad," said Jason to his brother. "Has he been behaving himself?"

"Yes, he's fun. And he did everything without arguing – and he found some really good shells, look."

"Good. Do you want to come in for a swim before we go back, then?"

Darren nodded vigorously and jumped onto his brother's back, at which Jose Luis said something to Alex.

"He wants a piggy-back," translated Jason. "Give him one and we'll race you to the sea."

So Alex offered his back to the little blond boy, who jumped on, and then they all raced back to the water. They splashed about for about half an hour, and by the time they got out again Alex was really enjoying himself and had virtually forgotten that he was naked.

"We have to go now," said Miguel as they returned to where they had left their clothes. "You should not be out in the sun for too long on your first day here, or you will burn. And I should be careful, too. So, we will go back to the apartment and stay out of the sun for a while."

They dressed, said goodbye to the others and went back to the apartment, where they draped their wet towels from the balcony and then retreated to their room.

"Now we are proper friends again," said Miguel. "And that is good, because the others all said that they like you and want to play with you some more."

"Great! And nobody even teased me about… you know, being small."

"Neither of them is really very big," said Miguel. "They are a little bigger than you, of course, but not too much. And… now I am going to have a shower, so you will see that I am not really very big, either. You had better have one, too, to get rid of the sand."

"Okay," said Alex, throwing his clothes off and getting his second towel from the wardrobe.

He stood by the door to the shower room and waited, and when Miguel finally removed his trunks and turned to face him, Alex's eyes immediately went to his groin. And before he realised it was happening his own little penis started to go stiff.

Miguel noticed and laughed. "You must think that I am sexy," he commented.

"No! Well… okay, you look nice, but… anyway, let's go and shower." And he turned and darted into the shower room, blushing copiously once again.

He had never shared a small, non-school changing room shower before and found that he really liked it: he loved watching Miguel washing himself and enjoyed it when Miguel suggested that they wash each other's backs, especially when Miguel went a little lower than he had expected and washed his bum for him, too. That made him bold enough to do the same thing when it was his turn, and Miguel didn't object in the least.

They washed their hair and then just stood in the hot water for a while, barging each other out of the main flow now and again and eventually having a proper wrestling match on the floor while the water fell on them, and Alex thought that felt really amazing: he loved the way Miguel's slippery body pressed against his. Of course, his erection never went down, but Miguel didn't tease him about it, so he didn't really mind.

Eventually they got out of the shower and got dressed, and then Miguel took him over to the golf course and gave him his first lesson in the driving range. As Miguel was no expert it is doubtful how good his instruction was, but by the time they finished Alex was hitting the ball in roughly the right direction.

After lunch they met up with Jason and Estebán again and played a sort of hunting, stalking, fighting and all-out wrestling game with them in among the dunes, followed by another swimming, chasing, splashing and ducking session (and this time none of them wore trunks, and Alex was able to see that Jason and Estebán really were not too much bigger than he was, as Miguel had said). Miguel wouldn't let him stay out in the sun for too long, however, and took him back to the apartment before he could get burned.

After supper they went round to Jason's apartment and played Monopoly with him and his brother for a couple of hours, and by the time they got back to their own apartment and were ready for bed Alex was feeling that this was probably the best holiday he had ever been on: he really liked Miguel's friends, and Miguel himself was proving to have a sense of fun that his school friends rarely saw.

"Miguel," asked Alex, tentatively, as they got undressed for bed, "do you think we could push the beds together? Only… I had trouble sleeping last night: I've never been away from my family before, and I thought… well, now I know I can really trust you, maybe you could… God, this is going to sound really childish…"

"What?"

"Could you… hold my hand until I'm asleep? And if you tell Jason and Estebán, or worse, the other kids at school, that I asked, I'll kill you, okay? But… I felt sort of alone last night…"

"Of course I will. And I will not tell. I have never slept away from my family, either, so I do not know what it is like… help me to move the beds."

So they pushed the beds together and got under the duvets, and Alex reached across and Miguel wriggled close enough to take his hand, and then closer still, close enough to put his arm around the other boy's shoulders.

"We are friends," he said. "We will stick together, okay?"

"Okay," agreed Alex, nervously putting his own arm around Miguel's waist: he'd never been in this position before, but he thought it felt good to be so close to someone… and soon he fell asleep, and tonight he slept soundly, and woke up next morning feeling fine. He also had an erection, which he knew was often the case when he woke up… and he found himself wondering if the same thing happened to Miguel. Miguel was sleeping on his back right next to him, and he had kept his promise to sleep naked, so it would be easy to check…

Very carefully Alex slid his hand down to Miguel's groin, and there it encountered a rampant erection. He wondered what it would feel like, so he let it slip through his fingers. Miguel seemed to stir slightly and Alex froze, but Miguel's breathing kept going as before and so he decided it was safe to explore further. He stroked his friend's balls and caressed the rigid shaft, thinking how interesting it felt. Like his own, this penis still had a little spare foreskin at the tip even though it was fully erect, and he ran his forefinger across it…

"That tickles," said Miguel, making Alex jump.

"I do not think I said you could do that," commented Miguel.

"I'm sorry," babbled Alex, snatching his hand away. "I just… I mean… I only wanted to see if yours gets hard in the morning, like mine does."

"I think maybe I will have to punish you again," said Miguel.

"Oh, no… look, I'm sorry, Miguel – but I really want to come out with you and Jason and Estebán this morning. I mean, I like Darren and Jose Luis, but don't leave me babysitting again – please?"

"I will not. Instead you have to lie on your back and let me do that to you."

"Okay," said Alex, with alacrity, rolling onto his back.

Miguel began to stroke his erection, and it felt really good, and he wriggled about, enjoying it.

"You can do it to me at the same time if you want," invited Miguel after a minute or so.

Alex didn't need asking twice, and resumed his exploration of Miguel's body, and for several minutes they felt each other up, until a voice from outside the door told them to get up and have some breakfast.

"I have something to show you later," said Miguel, rolling out of bed and displaying a rock-solid penis to Alex's admiring eyes. "When my parents have gone out."

They couldn't spend too long at a time outside to start with, of course, because both of them needed to acclimatise to the hot sun, so they would have to spend some time indoors, at least for the first few days. So after Miguel's parents had gone out they went back into the bedroom and undressed once more.

To start with they just felt each other again, but once they were both fully erect Miguel took hold of Alex's small shaft and started to rub it the way Kenji had taught him.

"Oh, wow, that feels really good!" said Alex, wriggling.

"Good. So in a minute you can do that to me."

"Okay." Alex liked Miguel's penis, which was about an inch longer than his and so easier to manipulate, and he very quickly got the technique.

"That is really good," Miguel told him. "Your turn again…"

They took it in turns to do it to each other, but not for more than thirty seconds at a time: Miguel didn't want either of them to get too excited too quickly. But in the end he just told Alex to keep doing it to him, allowing himself to reach a really good orgasm. Alex didn't realise what had happened, of course, and had to be told to stop, but then it was his turn and he discovered for himself what it was that had made Miguel writhe and gasp and clench his toes the way he had.

After he had come down a little from his high he stared at Miguel.

"What was that?" he asked.

"That is what sex feels like," Miguel told him.

"Bloody hell! Then… I definitely want a lot of sex!"

"I am sure we will be able to do that many times," Miguel assured him.

***

That set the pattern for the best holiday Alex had ever had – and it was the best that Miguel had ever had, too, because this year he had discovered a bit about sex and he had a willing partner with him to experiment with. During the day they went to the beach or played golf or swam in one of the pools, and Alex had a ride on a horse for the first time in his life (though he said afterwards that it was too uncomfortable for him to want to do it too often), and in the evenings they and Jason and Estebán visited each others' apartments and played cards and board games, and at night the two of them slept naked and curled up together.

Slowly Alex's skin began to tan – all over, because they usually spent at least part of the day on the private beach – and he was able to spend more time outdoors. They joined Jason and Estebán as they tried to sneak through the dunes to spy on a couple of sunbathing girls two or three years older than them and ran away laughing when one of the girls spotted them and shouted at them; they hunted each other through the dunes and had wrestling matches in the sand; they chased each other in the sea, trying to duck each other; they played beach cricket with a tennis ball (Estebán had been taught to play by Jason some summers previously); and they helped Darren and Jose Luis to build ever-larger and more complicated sandcastles. Sometimes they had piggy-back fights in the sea, and Alex and Jose Luis formed a really successful partnership, even though they couldn't understand each other very well.

Around the end of the second week Miguel and Alex had a blazing row that erupted out of nothing, as these things often do, and for half a day they refused to talk to each other. But Estebán worked on Miguel and Jason worked on Alex, and the argument was resolved, and that evening they apologised to each other and spent the following night curled up together as before.

By the fourth week Alex had learned a few words of Spanish, and the others encouraged him by refusing to speak English to him, forcing him to try to communicate in Spanish instead. In the evenings Miguel and his family helped him with a little basic grammar, and then they started to test it by sending him to the supermarket to get food for them all. In fact the staff at the supermarket all spoke reasonable English, but they didn't let on, allowing him to do his best in Spanish; and as a result he felt extremely pleased with himself when his shopping expedition was (more or less) a success.

Sometimes during the day when they were alone in the apartment they undressed and had fun together, sometimes just wrestling, sometimes masturbating each other, as they had done on that second morning. Miguel considered trying to teach Alex how to use his mouth, but decided against it, at least for now: it still seemed pretty weird to him, no matter how good it felt, and he thought it better to keep it between himself and Kenji for the time being. He also considered getting Jason and Estebán to join in, but he wasn't quite sure how they might take it, and he didn't want to risk ruining future summer trips by alienating them, so again he decided against it.

The last week rolled on by. Miguel never enjoyed the last couple of days, particularly if the holiday had gone well, because it meant that he wouldn't see his cousin or his friends again for a year. In a way this year was better because at least one of his friends would be flying home with him, but of course for Alex it was worse because he didn't think he'd ever be able to come back: he was pretty sure that his parents couldn't afford holidays in Spain. Next year Miguel's cousin would be back and that would mean no place for him – even assuming Miguel would even want him to come again, that is.

"Of course I would want to go on holiday with you again," Miguel reassured him. "We have had fun this time, haven't we? And even if you cannot come here with me next summer, I would still like to see you in the other holidays."

"Thanks. It won't be like here, of course…God, Mig, this has been a brilliant time – it's just… I don't want it to end."

"My father says it is better not to keep doing something until it bores you, or you will not want to do it again. If we were here always, we would get bored and wish we could go back to England."

"Do you really think so? I don't think I could ever get bored with it here – playing golf and mucking about with Jason and Estebán and running about the beach naked, and all the rest of it. And sharing a bed with you – that's been really brilliant fun, too."

"We can do that in England."

"I suppose we can, too… I'll have to invite you over for the weekend sometimes."

"And we can play golf in England, too."

"We can't run around naked, though."

"That is true, but I thought you did not like to undress in case people laugh at your small thing."

"Well… okay, it's smaller than yours – but the others here didn't laugh at me, so perhaps my English friends won't, either."

"I will make fun of it still – but only when we are alone. I will never tease you in front of anyone else. Except for Andy, of course: every time you lose to us at cards we will tease you to death about it."

"I don't mind that too much because I know you're bigger than me, so you're allowed to tease me."

"Everyone is bigger than you. Even Darren and Jose Luis are bigger than you."

"Well… okay, I admit it. Actually, I think Jose Luis is bigger than you, too – his one is pretty big for a seven-year-old. It'll be huge when he's our age."

"If I am honest I do not think it is important to be big," said Miguel. "I know that some boys think it is really important, but I do not think so. I think that you and I have found that we can still make each other feel good even though we are not yet grown up."

"That's true – I can't believe the feelings I get when you rub it for me…and I suppose we can keep doing that in England, too."

"I am sure that we can."

"Great!"

They spent their last afternoon on the beach, scampering about naked as usual. By now Alex had tanned really well, and he wondered if his parents would have anything to say about it – after all, it was immediately obvious that his tan went all the way down. But he didn't think they would mind too much, especially when they saw what a good time he'd had…

He said goodbye to Estebán and Jose Luis when they went in for supper (and he did so in Spanish, even though it was a bit wonky). After supper they went to Jason's apartment for a final game of Monopoly, after which they said goodbye to Jason and Darren.

"It's been a good laugh," said Jason. "Next time your stupid cousin can't come, Mig, make sure you invite this one instead. He's cool."

Which, Alex thought, was really nice to hear.

They couldn't misbehave too much in bed with Miguel's parents in the flat, and of course the next morning they had to get up and finish packing quite early instead of being able to lie in bed and play with each other as they had been doing most mornings. Alex didn't really sleep very well: he was feeling down about having to go home, and he'd spent most of the evening trying hard not to let himself start crying in front of anyone. Only when he thought Miguel was asleep did he finally let himself go – only to find, as he had discovered on the second morning, that Miguel wasn't always asleep when you thought he was.

"What is wrong?" Miguel asked quietly.

"I… I don't want to go home."

"I do not want to go home, either. But we will have to go. And… we will still be friends, won't we?"

"Of course!"

"Then we can still have fun together. But now we should try to sleep." And Miguel hugged him, and Alex hugged him back, and just for a moment Miguel felt the way he had when he and James had held each other… maybe he was starting to really like Alex a lot…

They flew home next day, and by the time they landed Alex was his usual self, joking and laughing about what they had done during the past four weeks. They dropped him off at his house and drove the rest of the way back to Poundford Spa. It had been a really good holiday, Miguel thought. And he wondered if his other friends had been having as much fun as he had…

…that seems extremely unlikely, given what has gone before. But before we follow Jeremy on his annual escape to the States, we'll spend a while in the unorthodox but still apparently happy world of Sim and Uzzy…

Chapter Sixteen

In this chapter we'll follow Sim and Uzzy as they spend the first day of the holiday together. Uzzy is keen to get Sim somewhere nice and quiet so that he can have some fun doing unmentionable things with him, but things don't work out exactly as Uzzy had intended…

Sim and Uzzy had been friends for quite some time now, but they had not yet spent a night together: Uzzy's parents didn't like the distraction a sleepover would cause during term time, and of course until very recently Sim's parents hadn't known about Uzzy at all. But now that the summer holidays were here they were determined to get at least one night together before their family holidays began: both were going away in early August, Sim for two weeks and Uzzy for three.

They started by going for a long bike ride together: as Uzzy had expected, his parents were quite happy for him to off on his bike all day as long as there was someone with him. So on the first Monday of the holidays they got on their bikes and rode out in a westerly direction, going through Brideford and out onto the High Wold.

They took it quite slowly: they had each brought a packed lunch and they weren't expected back until tea time, so they saw no need to rush. They rode on until they were properly on the Wold and then they left the road and followed one of the tracks that criss-crossed the open heath-land.

There were one or two other people about, but not many, and once they had followed their track three or four hundred yards away from the road they found themselves alone. Gradually the track sloped downhill, heading down into a shallow valley, and as they reached the floor of the valley they found themselves in a wooded area with a stream running through it. This looked like the perfect place to stop and rest for a while, so they left the track and pushed their bikes down a barely-visible path that ran along one bank of the stream.

About a hundred yard along the path opened into a small clearing, and at that point the stream had formed a pool. It was about seven feet long by five feet wide [2 x 1½ m], so it wasn't big enough to swim in, but it looked deep – at least four or five feet [1¼-1½ m], Uzzy thought, though it was difficult to judge looking through the water. He knelt down and put his hand into the water, and found it quite a bit colder than he had expected, considering what a hot day it was. He had thought about sitting on the edge and dangling his feet in the water, but now he was having second thoughts.

"There seems to be something wrong here," he remarked to Sim. "I mean, here we are, completely on our own and out of view of everyone else, but you still seem to have all your clothes on. That can't be right, surely?"

Sim stared at him. "But… we're outdoors!" he said.

"So what?"

"Well… people might come along."

"And..?"

"Oh, come on, Uzzy… you can't expect me to undreth… undress outdoors. It wouldn't be sssafe."

"I reckon we'd hear anyone coming long before they got here. Anyway, you know the rules: when we're on our own you don't wear any clothes. Now get undressed, before I decide I need to whip you for being disobedient."

Sim really wasn't sure about this: it was one thing to be naked inside the locked pavilion, even if there was an outside chance that the caretaker might come in, or in Uzzy's or Kam's bedroom; but outdoors, where anyone might come past? But Uzzy wanted him to do it, and as usual that was the most important factor to Sim's way of thinking, and so he started to get undressed, draping his clothes over the frame of his bike as he went.

It felt strange being completely naked outdoors, and at first he was so nervous about the possibility of someone coming and catching him like this that he just huddled down beside his bike, his penis soft and small. But of course Uzzy wouldn't let him get away with that.

"Stand up straight!" he commanded, and Sim came to a feeble impression of the 'attention' position.

Uzzy looked around. At the edge of the clearing was a tall, straight tree, which he thought would suit his purpose perfectly, so he went to his saddlebag and withdrew some lengths of cord. Then he marched Sim over to the tree, made him stand with his back to it and used the cord to tie him firmly against it, binding his wrists together behind the tree and using another piece of rope to tie his midsection to the tree as well to stop the prisoner from wriggling too much.

By now Sim was really nervous: if anyone came by now there would never be time to cut him free and get him dressed again before they saw him, and so even when Uzzy began to tickle his balls he was too scared to get an erection. Uzzy looked at the little dangling member and then at his friend's face.

"You really don't like this, do you?" he asked.

Sim shook his head.

"Well, tough. You're a slave boy, remember, and slave boys have to be dealt with properly. And if anyone comes and sees you, that's just too bad: slaves deserve to be laughed at. I really ought to make you go naked at school, and I probably would if I didn't think the teachers would make you get dressed again…"

Actually Uzzy was virtually certain there was nobody else around – after all, since leaving the area next to the road they hadn't seen anyone at all, and as far as he knew there were no houses within at least two miles [3 km] in every direction. And he'd wanted to strip Sim outdoors for ages, because there were loads of things you could do to a naughty slave boy outdoors that you couldn't do in the pavilion…

"Anyway, it's really hot today, so you're probably more comfortable without all those sticky clothes in the way," Uzzy went on. "In fact, I was thinking of taking my own clothes off. Do you think I should?"

"Definitely," said Sim. "That way if anyone come… comes, they'd laugh at you, too."

"They wouldn't laugh at me, because I look good naked," said Uzzy, removing the thin short-sleeved shirt he was wearing. "You're the one with the funny curvy thingy."

And now that Uzzy's clothes were coming off, Sim's nervousness began to disappear, and the sight of his friend's bare chest was enough to make his penis start to stiffen up. Uzzy saw it and grinned at him, then stripped to his underpants before turning his back, removing them and pulling his shorts back on, which made Sim groan with disappointment. Uzzy put his sandals back on as well, in case there were any thorns about on the ground, did up his belt, which had a sheath for his knife attached, collected up the rest of his clothes and went and tucked them into his saddlebag. Then he strolled slowly back over to the tree, took hold of Sim's erection and squeezed.

"Now you know you're not allowed to let this stick up unless I say you can," remonstrated Uzzy, squeezing and caressing gently and so making it even harder. "I hope you realise that I'm going to have to punish it… let's see…"

He looked around and spotted a clump of nettles. Perfect, he thought, and went and picked one, taking care not to get stung, and then he came back and showed it to his prisoner.

"I wonder what it would feel like if I slipped and touched your thingy with this?" he mused, holding it dangerously close.

"Oh, come on, Uthy, don't!" begged Sim, nervously. "It'd really hurt if you did – you know how thenthitive it is…"

"You got my name wrong," Uzzy pointed out. "You haven't done that for ages… and what sort of a word is 'thenthitive'? You're getting lazy, Sim, and we really can't have that." And, just to see what would happen, he drew the tip of the nettle slowly up the underside of Sim's erection.

Sim yelped a couple of times, indicating that he had been stung, and Uzzy just couldn't hold himself back after that: he caressed Sim's cock and balls with the nettle for a minute or so and then, wrapping his hand in his handkerchief to protect it, crushed the nettle against Sim's shaft. Sim yelped and struggled, but the rope around his waist stopped him from moving more than a couple of inches.

Uzzy dropped the remains of the nettle, put his handkerchief away and started to stoke the hard organ instead, and now he could clearly see the nettle rash on it.

"Is that sore?" he asked.

Sim nodded.

"Then you have to learn to control it, don't you? Next time I'll go on doing it until we run out of nettles, and then it'll really be sore… still, wait a moment…"

Uzzy spotted some dock leaves growing not too far from the nettles, so he went and picked a couple of large ones and then rubbed Sim's sore penis with them. Dock leaves are a natural antidote to nettle stings, and soon Sim was feeling better – in fact, having the cool leaves rubbed against his straining penis felt really nice…. And then of course Uzzy stopped, leaving it stiff and twitching.

"I wonder what else we could try?" said Uzzy, scanning the local flora. "There must be some thistles about somewhere… there's a nice bramble bush over there – and look, there's some holly! I really think we ought to try that…

He strolled over to the holly bush and cut off a stem about two feet [60 cm] long with plenty of leaves on it, and then wandered back over to Sim's tree, swishing it idly. He didn't think it would really do much damage – after all, the leaves seemed quite flexible when he touched them, which he thought would mean the prickly bits would just give way and not really hurt. So he took a swing and brought it down on Sim's erection.

Sim yelped again, and Uzzy was disconcerted to see a number of spots of blood appear on his friend's shaft.

"Oh, gosh," he said, dropping the branch, "I didn't realise it would… I mean, sorry, Sim… is it okay?"

Sim managed to nod.

"Well, maybe that's enough for now," said Uzzy, reaching for his knife.

He had cut through the rope binding Sim's wrists together and was about to start on the one tied around his waist when they heard voices approaching.

"Oh, shit!" cried Sim. "Hurry, Uthy, hurry…"

Uzzy sawed through the rope, but it was obvious that Sim would never have time to get to his clothes before the owners of the voices arrived – after all, his bike was on the other side of the clearing. Uzzy thought quickly and had an idea.

"Forget your clothes," he said, quietly, as the rope finally gave way. "Just run and jump straight into the pool."

"Huh?"

"Trust me. I can talk us out of this, but you have to get in the pool – and you need to take a running jump into it, too. Look out, though, because it's cold. Now go!"

Sim couldn't see how being naked in the pool was going to be much of an improvement on being naked on the land – okay, he could curl up in the water, but he could do that where he was, too… but he trusted Uzzy implicitly, and so as soon as Uzzy had said 'go' he ran straight towards the pool. Out of the corner of his eye he saw some figures entering the clearing from the opposite direction to the one they had come from, but he didn't stop to look. Instead he jumped, bringing his knees up to his chest and cannonballing into the water.

He went under, found his feet and came to the surface, at which he gasped loudly.

"I told you it would be cold," said Uzzy, walking towards the side of the pool. "And is it?"

"It'th freething!" replied Sim.

"You should have listened to me, then… oh… hello!"

He turned to the newcomers, pretending to be aware of them for the first time. There were six boys of around his own age or a year or so older coming towards him, and he was surprised to see that two of them were black and one was of what we would now describe as mixed race: non-whites, as he knew from personal experience, were very thin on the ground in this area.

"What's going on?" asked the leader, one of the white boys, who might have been two years older than Uzzy.

"My friend said he was feeling hot and decided to cool off," said Uzzy. "He thought the water would be warm because it's so hot today. I told him that the pool's in the shade all day and so won't warm up, but he didn't believe me. I think he does now, though."

"Didn't you try sticking your hand in first?" asked the leader, looking at Sim, who was now standing in the middle of the pool – the water came up to his nipples – with his arms wrapped round himself.

Sim shook his head. Now that he knew the line Uzzy had chosen it was easy to play along.

"It looked cool, not really cold," he said. "And I thought the sssun would have warmed it up… "

"He's no good at science," added Uzzy. "Otherwise he'd have known better."

"Well, why don't you get out, then?" asked the boy.

"Becau…because I haven't got anything on."

The newly arrived boys all laughed.

"Shall we stop here for lunch, boys?" asked the leader, and of course they all thought that was a great idea and began to sit down around the edge of the pool.

"You might as well get out," said one of the black kids, "because we're not going anywhere, and if you stay in there too long you'll freeze your arse off."

"He's got another problem, too," said Uzzy. "He hasn't got a towel, so he's going to have to drip dry."

That got another burst of laughter.

"God, you really don't think ahead, do you?" commented another of the white boys. "How are you going to get dry, then?"

Sim shrugged. "I thought it would be warm, so I didn't really think about it. I thu…ssuppose I could go out of the wood into the sssun – probably I'll get warm quite quickly if I do that."

"Can't you use your clothes to dry yourself?"

"I don't think so," said Uzzy. "He's only got a pair of football shorts, a nylon shirt and his pants and socks, and if he uses those as a towel he'll have nothing to put on afterwards."

"I bet you feel bloody embarrassed," commented the leader, taking a packet of sandwiches from his bag and biting into the first one.

Sim did, but not half as embarrassed as he would have felt if they'd caught him tied to a tree with a big erection on display. At least that was no longer a problem: it had subsided completely in the cold water, which had also put a stop to the pinpricks of blood caused by the holly.

"Okay, I'm coming out," he said, once it was clear that the audience was fully prepared to wait if it had to. "Can one of you give me a hand?"

The two nearest boys held out their hands and Sim took them and heaved himself out of the water. There didn't seem too much point in trying to cover himself, but he held his left hand over his groin all the same. The boys smirked at him as he walked over to his bike and slipped his feet into his sandals.

"Go that way," the leader advised him, pointing back the way they had come. "The path goes out of the wood in about fifty yards. Once you're clear of the trees, lie down and roll about on the grass – that should dry you out pretty quickly."

"Thanks," said Sim, and he jogged off in the direction indicated.

Uzzy simply couldn't help himself – even though Sim was his best friend he felt that he really had to take advantage of this situation.

"I wonder what would happen if he came back and found his clothes were missing?" he wondered aloud.

That drew some more laughter.

"It'd be even worse if one of us picked them up and walked off with them," commented the black boy who had spoken before. "How far away does he live?"

"About ten miles [15 km]," Uzzy told him, and the boy laughed, and so did most of his friends.

"Well, it's a nice day," commented the leader, "but I wouldn't care how warm it was if I had to cycle ten miles [15 km] stark naked. I don't think we could really do that to him."

"It'd be funny, though," said the black kid. "And it's mostly country round here, so not too many people would notice…"

"I bet you wouldn't do it, Kyle," said the leader.

"Too right I wouldn't," agreed the boy. "But then I'm not stupid enough to get into trouble like that."

"It could be arranged, though. Suppose we chucked you into the pool – what would you do then?"

"I'd keep my wet clothes on until I dried out, probably, because I wouldn't trust you lot if I took them off. You'd nick them and hide them."

"Just like you want to do to this kid's mate," agreed the leader. "Who reckons we ought to sling Kyle in the pool?"

Not surprisingly, most of Kyle's friends thought that was a great idea, and within twenty seconds four of them had an ankle or a wrist each and he was being swung back and forward at the edge of the pool. He was swearing like a trooper by now, but it didn't seem to be doing him any good.

"Ready?" asked the leader, who had his left ankle. "On three, then: one…two…"

"Wait!" yelled Kyle. "Put me down and I'll jump in, I swear – but don't chuck me in with my clothes on…"

"Really? You swear?"

"Yes!!"

"Okay. But if you don't, you're going in head-first, and we'll chuck your bag in with you."

They put him down and he stripped to his underpants, stepped back and leapt into the water.

"Fuck, that's cold!" he yelled as he resurfaced.

"Really? We'd never have guessed," said the leader, grinning.

He helped Kyle out of the water and the boy ran off the way Sim had gone.

Sim was still rolling about in the grass, and he had to admit that as a means of getting dry it was at least partially effective – and because he was in the sun he really didn't feel at all cold any longer, either.- in fact, rolling about like this naked felt sort of fun.

He looked up and saw a black kid of his own age, wearing only a pair of blue briefs and dripping from head to foot, emerging from the wood.

"What happened to you?" he asked. "Did you want to find out how cold it is, too?"

"No, the bastards were going to throw me in fully dressed, so I said I'd jump if they let me get undressed first. And it's fucking cold – you must have been off your head to jump in there without being made to."

'It seemed a good idea at the time," said Sim. "The gra… grass will dry you off; though – it feelth sssort of good, in fact. You'd better take your pants off and wring them out first, though, or they'll never dry."

"Fuck off! I'm not getting naked in front of you!"

"I'll look the other way. And if you don't do it here, you'll have to do it in front of all that lot."

"I suppose so… okay, lie on your stomach and don't look round, or I'll beat you up, okay?"

Kyle was no taller than Uzzy and looked pretty puny, too, so Sim wasn't too worried, but he did as he was told, and he heard the water dripping as the wet garment was wrung out.

"Thpread them out on the ground and roll about for a bit," suggested Sim. "It got me dry quite quickly. Well, dryer, anyway. And I'll keep an eye on the path so they don't thneak up and catch you naked."

"Well… okay, then. But if I catch you trying to look at my knob you're dead, okay?"

"I'm not interested in your knob," lied Sim, going and standing at the edge of the wood so he could watch the path. Kyle promptly threw himself into the long grass like a goalkeeper making a full-length save and started to roll about.

"Hey, this feels alright," he reported after a few seconds. "It's sort of… I dunno, but I like it."

"I know. I liked it, too. Can I come back and do it a bit more?"

"Go on, then – but don't get too close."

So Sim went and dived into the grass, and the two of them rolled about, though Sim managed to roll closer and closer until he 'accidentally' rolled against the other boy.

"Hey, this is my space," said Kyle, jabbing him in the ribs.

"I wath here first," retorted Sim, jabbing back. So Kyle jabbed him again, and Sim jabbed back, and Kyle grabbed Sim's left nipple and twisted, and Sim tried to knee Kyle in the balls but missed, and Kyle said, "Oh, you want to fight dirty," and brought his own knee up…

They fought for a couple of minutes, and probably that did more to dry them out than any amount of rolling about. Eventually Kyle got on top of Sim and pinned him down with his knees, which left Sim looking at Kyle's penis from a distance of about six inches [15 cm]. It was still soft – as, mercifully was his own – and it looked close to the same size as his, though this one was uncircumcised. And it was black, of course, which Sim found fascinating, and he felt his own organ starting to twitch dangerously.

"Now submit, or I'll piss in your face," threatened Kyle.

"You wouldn't dare!"

"Don't bet on it. I could even do this first," and he pinched Sim's nose, forcing him to open his mouth in order to breathe. "It won't just go in your face, it'll go down your throat."

Sim wondered how that would feel. He thought he might want to find out if it was Uzzy doing the pissing, but not with a total stranger, so…

"Okay, I give in," he said.

"Good," said Kyle, getting up and helping Sim to his feet.

"Would you have done it?" Sim asked.

"Probably not. It'd be pretty gross… but I might have done, just to see your face. Come on, we'd better get back or they'll think we're having a shag, or something."

Kyle retrieved his pants and pulled them back on, grimacing: they felt clammy and uncomfortable, but he was absolutely NOT going back to his mates with his balls on show, so he forced himself to get them right on. Sim's organ stopped misbehaving once Kyle's was safely under wraps, so he was able to walk back down the path only feeling embarrassed, rather than mortified.

"That grass feels brilliant after you've been in the water," said Kyle to the others. "The water wakes you up and then the grass gets you warm again – and it feels amazing, too. Doesn't it?"

He turned to Sim at that point, and Sim, who could see what he was trying to do, nodded vigorously. "It feels magic," he told them.

"So I think I'm going in again," Kyle went on. "Any of you pussies feel like joining me?"

The others looked at each other. "You're having a laugh, right?" asked the other black boy. "That water's like ice."

"Yes, but when you're hot it feels brilliant, and rolling about in the sun afterwards… well, it's hard to describe, but it's an amazing feeling. And that water has to be a hell of a lot cleaner than the canal back home…"

"That's true," said the leader. "And I suppose we came here to try something different… it's a pity we haven't got towels, but I suppose we can just lie in the sun for an hour or so afterwards… Okay, Kyle, if you can do it, I reckon I can…."

He stood up and started to throw his clothes off until he was only wearing a pair of psychedelically-coloured briefs, and then he stepped back a couple of paces and prepared to take a running jump into the water.

"It'ss up to you," said Sim, who was no longer bothering to hide himself (and he was aware that at least three of the boys were eyeing him up, too), "but I think you'd be better off naked. I think this boy'th pantsss will take a long time to dry, and I don't think they're very comfortable at the moment…"

Kyle, who loved the idea of his friends being made to strip right off as well as getting half-frozen in the pool, quickly endorsed this.

"I'm going to leave mine off next time," he said. "They feel bloody horrible clinging to your balls."

"You haven't got any balls," the leader said, grinning at him. "But… okay, why not?"

He threw off the dazzling briefs and hurled himself into the water, yelling with the shock of it, and of course once he had felt how cold it was he was determined that everyone else was going to share the experience. So he chivvied them along until all six of them (Kyle had slipped off his pants and joined in without argument) were jumping about in the pool, splashing each other, ducking each other and shivering their balls off – at least to start with. But, like all outdoor swimming, once you move about you get acclimatised fairly quickly, and soon they were all enjoying themselves.

"You, too," said Sim to Uzzy, who was sitting on the bank.

"I don't think so," said Uzzy.

"Hey; my friend doesn't want to come in," said Sim to Kyle. "Come and help me perthuade him."

"Don't you dare!" cried Uzzy, getting to his feet. "You're going to be in so much trouble…"

"I don't care,' said Sim, advancing on him from one side while Kyle and one of his friends climbed out of the pool and closed in from the other. Uzzy turned and tried to run, but he'd left it too late, and soon he was being held in a grip of iron while Sim pulled off his shorts and sandals and carefully removed his glasses.

"Chuck him in," he said, and they did.

None of them stayed in too long – even moving about it was pretty cold – and soon all eight of them had moved out into the sun and were rolling about in the grass to get partially dry and then lying in the sun to finish off. The leader didn't put his underwear back on and consequently a chorus of scorn and insults greeted the two boys who tried to do that, so in the end they all stayed naked, lying on their backs in the grass and soaking up the sun.

Only the leader had any appreciable amount of pubic hair, though the mixed race boy and one of the other white boys had some visible peach down, rather like Uzzy's. The other three were, as far as Sim could tell, hairless. Of course, he had to carry out this furtive inspection lying on his stomach, because just looking at the naked boys had given him another erection.

While they were drying off in the sun the leader told them that his name was Ryan and introduced the others as Calvin and Kyle (the two black boys), Sam (the mixed race kid), and Eddie and Richie (the other two whites), and told them that they lived in a part of north-east London called Walthamstow, and that the youth club they belonged to ran a holiday fortnight every year, usually in this area.

"They can take twenty of us," Ryan explained. "There's another group of around our age and one of some older kids. There aren't enough places for everyone at the club, so they give them to kids who have basically behaved okay through the year – not too much bunking off school, no getting caught doing graffiti, and obviously no trouble with the Old Bill. It's worth keeping your nose clean, 'cos these holidays are a good laugh – this is the third time I've come. They send us out in groups like this – we can pretty much go where we like as long as we're back by three o'clock, but we have to try to collect stuff that's on a list they give us – different sorts of leaves and plants, stuff like that."

"It seems really strange out here," said Kyle. "I've never been out of London before, and it's weird how quiet it is – and all this open land with no houses on – okay, we've got Tottenham Marshes, but it isn't the same… you two are really lucky to live in a place like this."

"Well, we don't live here, exactly," said Uzzy. "I live in a town about ten miles [15 km] away, and Sim lives in a village not far away from me – but we can get out here easily on our bikes. But I reckon if you lived here you'd get bored – there must be loads more to do in a city. We've only got one cinema, and obviously where Sim is there isn't anything to do, really. And we haven't got a youth club like you lot, either."

"Maybe we should swap for a bit," said Kyle. "I'll come and live here, and you can go and live on my estate in Walthamstow. I reckon I'd be happier, though."

"Come on," said Ryan, looking at his watch and standing up. "Let's go and get dressed and finish eating, then we'd better get back on the trail. There are a few leaves we haven't found yet."

They went back to the clearing and got dressed, all except for Sim, who found that he couldn't.

"Okay," he said, looking at Uzzy, "Who'th pinched my clo… clothes?"

"Why are you looking at me?" asked Uzzy, grinning and doing up his shorts.

"Becau… because I know you, Uzzy. Where are they?"

Getting no answer Sim checked around the trees at the edge of the clearing, but without success. By the time he had finished doing that everyone else was fully dressed, including Uzzy, who was leaning on a tree smirking at him.

"Are you looking for these?" he asked, producing Sim's shorts from his saddlebag.

Sim strode towards him, and Uzzy let him get quite close before wadding the shorts up and throwing them to Ryan, who taunted Sim with them for a couple of seconds before chucking them to Calvin… and now Sim found himself playing piggy-in-the-middle, trying vainly to catch his shorts as they were thrown back and forward across the clearing by seven laughing boys. At first he was just embarrassed, but after a bit the usual strange Sim-type thoughts kicked in and he started to find this sort of exciting, in an embarrassing kind of way: he could imagine what he looked like, running and jumping about the clearing completely naked, with his private parts bobbling about and completely on show… and, of course, as soon as he started thinking like that he began to get an erection.

Once the boys noticed, of course, they really started laughing, and could barely keep throwing his shorts from one to another – and then Kyle grabbed the shorts and said that they ought to stop.

"Come on, guys, give him a break," he said. "How would you like it if it happened to you, getting a boner in front of a gang of boys you'd only just met?"

"Nobody would notice if it was you, Kyle," said Ryan. "Your prick's too small for anyone to be able to tell if it's stiff or not."

"Fuck off, Ryan, it's not that small. Anyway, I reckon Sim deserves a break, okay? He's been a good laugh, and maybe we shouldn't take the piss any longer."

Sim noticed that he didn't actually hand his shorts back until Ryan agreed to it, but he was grateful, all the same – as well as being perversely disappointed at the same time. He took the shorts from Kyle's hand but before he could put them on Uzzy retrieved his pants from the depths of his saddlebag and gave them to him so that he could put them on first.

"We'd better go," said Ryan, as Sim finished dressing – his shirt and socks had also somehow turned up in Uzzy's saddlebag. "It's been a laugh, though… have you seen any oak trees around here? I'm sure there are loads, but we just haven't seen any yet."

"There's a big wood up the side of the valley," Uzzy told him. "There are probably oaks there."

"Okay, thanks. Bye, then…"

Ryan led his troop off, though Kyle held back long enough to scrawl his address on a piece of paper and pass it to Sim.

"Write to me if you want to come and see what London's like," he said.

"Thanks," said Sim. "Give me that book a moment…"

He took Kyle's notebook and pencil and wrote his own address in it, adding his phone number underneath, and then handed the book and pencil back.

"If you do come down thith way again, call me and I'll meet you and show you round," he said.

"Okay, thanks. Course, if I do see you again I might just have to beat you up again."

"You couldn't beat me up," said Sim, tucking the paper carefully into his shirt pocket.

"I've done it once, remember? And next time maybe I really will piss in your face." And Kyle grinned at him and ran off to catch up with the others.

"They were fun, weren't they?" said Sim, watching him go.

"Yes, they were… but that doesn't change how much trouble you're in," Uzzy told him.

"Why? What have I done now?"

"Apart from stripping me and throwing me in the pool, you mean?"

"Oh, that."

"Yes, that. You just wait, Simeon Lewis, you're going to pay for that… hey, I didn't tell you, did I? I've managed to borrow a tent from one of my uncles, so we're going to be able to camp out."

"Brilliant! I've always wanted to do that;"

"Me, too. And I've even found a good place, too."

"What, you mean we won't have to stay in your garden?"

"No. Mum and Dad have already agreed. Of course, it's not far from home, but there's a wood and some fields a quarter of a mile [400 m] away and they say we can camp there – apparently the field is common ground, or something. I didn't really understand that bit, but it means it doesn't belong to a farmer, so we don't need to ask for permission…so, can you do Wednesday night? That way we won't have to worry about me needing to be home to go to mosque on Friday, and you won't be away on your Sabbath, either."

"Yesss, I'm pretty ssure I can. I'll ask when we get home – you can come in with me and find out. S… so, what are we going to do?"

"Well, obviously we'll spend most of the time punishing you for throwing me in the pool, but maybe we can find a few minutes for other stuff, too… we can go on a night march, perhaps, or try making a fire to cook on… or we could just go to the chip shop, which would be easier… anyway, I'm sure we'll think of plenty of stuff to do."

"Great! Ecthept… I want a camp site where there aren't any nettles. Or holly, either."

"No, I think we'll have to find one with lots and lots of nice stingy plants… after all, I have to make sure you realise what a bad idea it is to attack your master in future…"

"Then maybe I should just do it now while I can. I could throw you back in the pool if you like…"

"You wouldn't dare!"

"If I'm going to get puni… punished anyway, I might as well."

"Okay, then, no holly. Or nettles. Or anything else with thorns or stingers. Deal?"

"Deal," said Sim, and they shook on it, pushed their bikes back towards the track and headed for home.

We'll have to wait a while before we find out how the camping trip works out, though, because next we're going to be following Jeremy as he heads off to the States in search of a break from all the things that have been weighing him down – Adolf, his feelings for Bilal, Tony's feelings for him… And he'll also be hoping to get some advice on where he should go from here.

Chapter Seventeen

A couple of chapters ago we left our hero feeling as if the roof had caved in on him. Now we're going to rewind to the day after those fateful conversations in Tony's bedroom and follow him as he heads out across the Atlantic in search of a complete break from his problems – though if he can get some advice about how to handle them while he's there, so much the better…

Jeremy had always looked forward to going to stay with his dad: his visit to America had always been fun, a chance to do stuff with his father, who always took at least three of the four weeks off work so that they could go places and see things together. But this year things were different, because his life had become so much more complicated since the previous summer. He was now at secondary school; he now had a step-father; and he now had a whole lot of emotional baggage that he really didn't want.

He hoped he would be able to forget about things back in England and just have fun with his dad as in previous years, but he also hoped he would get a chance to ask for advice on how to deal with… well, things. Though he also didn't want to admit to his father how he felt about Bilal, in case it got him disowned on the spot… He decided to just wait and see if an opportunity presented itself to ask some questions in a suitably vague and oblique way.

This was, of course, a very long journey. First Adolf drove him to Heathrow, then he had a flight of about eight and a half hours to New York, then he had to wait for a connecting flight, and then it was about another five and a half hours to San Francisco, where his father would meet him – and then it was quite a long drive to get to his father's house. Of course, because he was flying east to west it didn't actually take fourteen hours according to the clock, because Pacific Time was eight hours behind London Time, but he always felt exhausted when they finally got to his father's house and had to spend most of the following day acclimatising and adjusting to the time difference.

This year he had far too much time during the journey to sit and think about things, and even though he tried to distract himself with a book his attention kept drifting away, so that he kept reading the same page without actually taking in a single word. He dozed on and off but kept waking up with the same stuff going round and round in his head, so that didn't help, either.

Eventually he got to San Francisco, and at the sight of his father waiting for him at the barrier with a big smile on his face he was finally able to put all the heavy thoughts to the back of his head, at least for a while.

"So how's Little Rolo?" asked his father, as he came through the barrier. "Good journey?"

Jeremy smiled: his dad was the only person to call him Little Rolo, which he had been doing for as long as Jeremy could remember. His middle name was Roland, which was also his father's first name, and when Jeremy was small he and his father always called each other Big Rolo and Little Rolo.

"Not too bad," said Jeremy, hugging him. "I'm a bit tired, though."

"Don't worry, you can stay in bed tomorrow morning until at least… half past six?"

"Make it half past ten and I'll think about it."

"So, how's your mother?" asked Mr Fielding, picking up his son's bag and heading towards the parking lot.

"Okay."

"And is everything working out with Andrew?"

"Andrew? Oh… yes, I think so."

Jeremy had promised himself he wasn't going to spend this holiday moaning about Adolf: he simply wanted to forget about his home life for four weeks and just enjoy himself. So he answered all his father's questions briefly and without adverse comment.

They got into the car and worked their way out of the airport, getting onto Route 101 and heading north. Jeremy always felt that the holiday had really begun when they reached the Golden Gate Bridge, though his father never failed to point out Alcatraz Island off to their right: he had regularly threatened to send Jeremy to stay there if he misbehaved during his stay. It hadn't been until last year that Jeremy had discovered that the prison had closed many years previously.

It was a journey of a good hundred miles, and once they were clear of the city Jeremy settled down and dozed. His father woke him up when the lake came into view, because it was a beautiful sight, and he knew that Jeremy would complain if he wasn't awake to see it for the first time. This was always a strange moment for Roland Fielding, who was convinced that if only his wife had seen this she would have been prepared to try living in America after all: nothing could be further from the bleak view of American inner cities that she saw on television and on the big screen, and which she thought was typical of the whole country. And if she had come with him, things would be so different…

He sighed and drove on, aware that there was no point in speculating on what-ifs.

They reached the house at about five o'clock in the afternoon, though to Jeremy it felt more like one in the morning, and he was in no condition to do very much more than have a quick bite to eat and then fall into bed. The next morning he woke up early, and having spent about thirteen hours in bed he didn't want to stay there any longer, so he got up, threw his clothes on and – moving quietly so as not to awaken his dad – went out and sat on the porch, looking out over the lake. He was still there when his father got up a couple of hours later.

"Do you think it's too early for me to go and call on Scott?" he asked. "I mean, he does know I'm here, doesn't he?"

"He does, but you can't call on him this week because they've gone to visit with his grandma. He came by before he left and said to tell you he's sorry – but he'll be back next week. And I'm sure we can find enough to do to keep you busy until then."

Scott was a boy of about Jeremy's own age who lived two houses away from Mr Fielding. They usually spent a lot of time together during the summer, and Jeremy was disappointed to discover that they'd be apart for the first week of his stay. On the other hand, his father usually had some interesting trips planned, and no doubt those would be fun, too…

Jeremy loved the desert, because it was so different from south-east England, and so this year his father took him on a four day drive through parts of Nevada, allowing him to enjoy huge vistas of emptiness. To balance that there were some shorter expeditions to the woods and lakes closer to Mr Fielding's home, though these too were completely different from Jeremy's corner of England, being… well, of a much larger scale, for a start.

It was fun being with his father, but Jeremy was glad when Scott returned home at the start of the second week: he wanted to spend some time with boys of his own age. So when Scott came and called for him on the first morning after his return Jeremy greeted him happily… and also found himself looking at him in a whole new way. Last year Scott had just been a boy to play with, but since then Jeremy had started to notice boys in a completely different way, and now he realised that Scott was really very good-looking: he was tall – well, a couple of inches taller than Jeremy, anyway – and tanned and had quite long dark blond hair and blue eyes and a nice smile…

Jeremy realised he was staring and looked away quickly, hoping he wasn't going to start blushing, which he thought would be an absolute give-away. But Scott didn't seem to have noticed anything.

"Hi, Jeremy," he said, displaying that perfect smile again. "Doing anything today?"

Jeremy looked over his shoulder at his father, who smiled and shook his head: he'd deliberately kept the day of Scott's return free.

"Apparently not," said Jeremy.

"Great! Then let's go hang out by the pool!"

Jeremy paused long enough to grab his trunks and a towel and then followed Scott to his house. The pool was new: this time last year it hadn't even been started – they'd done most of their swimming in the lake.

"Do you like it?" Scott asked him.

"Yes, it's brilliant! Aren't we going in?"

"Maybe later. Go get yourself a soda and we'll catch up on what's happening."

Jeremy knew where the kitchen was, of course, so he went and collected a couple of cans from the fridge and took them back to Scott, who had removed his shirt and was relaxing on a lounger. Desperately trying not to stare, Jeremy handed him one of the cans and parked himself on the other lounger.

Scott filled him in on what he had been doing over the past eleven months, inadvertently dashing Jeremy's hopes of a holiday romance by waxing lyrical about a girl called Jeanette who went to his school.

"Her titties are just starting," Scott said, a dreamy expression on his face. "Just little buds… I'm sure she'll go out with me if I can just ask her right… so, what about you? Have you found a girlfriend yet?"

"No," said Jeremy. He had been hoping Scott might be able to advise him, but now he thought it would be a bad idea to mention it, since Scott was apparently into girls.

"Don't worry, you'll meet one soon. So – what do you want to do? We could swim awhile, then maybe we could go sit on the pier and watch girls go by – or we could go fishing…"

Watching girls wasn't on Jeremy's list of Things To Do, though maybe there'd be some boys he could watch go by… and then maybe Scott would see him staring at boys, and that would be the end of another friendship. Bad idea, he thought.

"Let's swim and then fish," said Jeremy. "I mean, I won't be here long enough to get anywhere with girls, will I?"

"Guess not. Come on, then."

Scott threw off his jeans, shoes and socks, revealing that he was already wearing his Speedos underneath. Jeremy stared again, caught himself doing it and turned around quickly, covering his embarrassment by taking his own clothes off and pulling his trunks on, and by the time he had done that Scott was already halfway down the pool.

They swam for about an hour, racing, chasing each other and trying to duck each other; they had competitions to see who could make the biggest splash jumping into the pool, and they showed off their diving techniques to each other (neither really having much of a technique at all, in fact). This was exactly how things had been in previous years, and Jeremy was happy to be able to escape to a time before sex.

They were still in the pool when a boy whom Jeremy had never met before came into the yard.

"Hey, Scottie – is this the English kid?" he asked.

Jeremy wasn't sure that he wanted to be described as 'the English kid', but he let it pass. Scott introduced him to the boy, whose name was Joe and who had moved into the neighbourhood the previous September. Apparently he and Scott were good friends, and for a moment Jeremy felt jealous: at this time of year Scott was supposed to be his friend. But that feeling subsided immediately when Scott pointed out to Joe that anything they were going to be doing for the next three weeks would have to include Jeremy.

"Sure, why not?" agreed Joe. "He's told me all about you," he added to Jeremy," and he says you're cool, and that's good enough for me. So, what's the plan?"

"We're going fishing," Scott told him.

"Great! Can we take the boat out?"

"Sure – the weather's okay, so it'll be good on the lake. We're gonna have a bite to eat and then go get the boat. You wanna eat with us?"

"'Kay."

"Come on, then, Jeremy, let's go get changed."

Jeremy thought he'd have to be really careful here: staring at Scott while he was changing would be a really bad idea – but, on the other hand, he really wanted to know if anything was happening to Scott, development-wise: last year he had been as small and undeveloped where it counts as Jeremy himself.

They went into the poolside room and started to dry themselves off, and then Scott brazenly removed his trunks right in front of Jeremy's eyes. The previous year when this had happened Jeremy had barely glanced at his friend, but this year there was rather more to look at, because Scott got an erection as soon as he removed his Speedos.

"I don't know why, but I can't stop getting boners lately," he told Jeremy, displaying himself.

"You must be thinking about Jeanette," said Jeremy, admiring it: it was definitely a bit bigger than his, and Scott now had a little pubic hair, too. Of course, he was six months older than Jeremy…

"Just ignore him," said Joe, who was leaning on the wall by the door. "He's just showing off because he's got a few little bitty hairs. And because he thinks he's got a big one."

"It's bigger than yours," responded Scott.

"Not by much. And it'll take more than that to impress Jeanette."

Scott was in no hurry to cover it up, and so Jeremy felt far less worried when he took his trunks off and revealed his own erection. Scott spotted it straight away.

"Hey, Jeremy's popped a boner, too," he commented. "Come have a look, Joe."

That wasn't an invitation Jeremy would have issued himself, especially when he was demonstrably smaller than his friend, but there didn't seem to be any way to avoid an inspection now.

Joe wandered over and peered at him.

"So what's it like having a foreskin?" he asked. "It looks different… does it feel different? Okay, that's a stupid question – how would you know how it feels NOT to have one? Only there aren't too many people to ask here – most of us are cut. One or two of the Mexicans aren't, but I don't know any of them well enough to ask, except Raul, and he's been cut, too… Can I touch it?"

Jeremy gaped: that was an astonishing thing to ask a total stranger, even if Scott had described him as 'cool'. On the other hand… why not?

"Okay," he said. "As long as you get undressed first, that is."

"Okay, then – so long as you don't worry about getting shown up…"

Joe wasn't wearing much, just a tee shirt, shorts and underpants, and he threw those off and came to stand next to Jeremy. His penis, which rose swiftly to attention as Jeremy watched, was only about the same length as his own, but it seemed thicker, and Joe's balls were larger, too. And of course, like Scott, he was circumcised.

He put out a hand and took hold of Jeremy, rolling his foreskin up and down.

"That feels neat," he said. "Try it, Scottie."

Scott hesitated – after all, he was into girls. But then he guessed it might be interesting to see how a foreskin worked, so he gave it a quick try, too.

Jeremy found he liked being handled like this, and so he was disappointed when Joe said, "Okay, I guess we'd better go eat, then," and pulled his clothes back on again, leaving Jeremy with a raging erection. Scott grinned at him as he put his own clothes on.

"Looks like your jeans won't do up, huh?" he commented. "Just push it in best you can and then come through to the kitchen."

Scott left him to it, and Jeremy felt frustrated: naked and stiff and nobody to do anything with. Again. He'd have rubbed himself, but he knew with his luck that the other two would walk in on him at the vital moment if he tried that here, so instead he got dressed and followed them into the kitchen. They had their heads together and started laughing when he came in, which immediately raised his suspicions that they were up to something. But they simply got on with making sandwiches without saying anything, so he supposed that maybe he was imagining things.

They stuffed themselves full of sandwiches, made some more to take with them and then walked down to the boathouse where Scott's family kept their small boat. Jeremy didn't fish – he'd never had the patience for it – but he was quite happy to lounge about in the boat and talk to the other two while they went after bass, which were allegedly plentiful in the lake but which usually managed to avoid Scott's rod completely.

"Is it true that all you Brits are cold-blooded?" asked Joe, after a bit. "Like, you never react to anything, except to say something like 'I say, gracious me'?"

"That's a rotten accent," Jeremy pointed out. "And no, I don't think I'm like that at all. Why?"

"Well, we thought we'd invite a few friends round for a party Saturday, and we wondered if you'd be able to relax your stiff upper lip enough to enjoy it."

"Of course I can! I like parties… except… you're not talking about drugs, are you?"

Joe burst out laughing. "Of course not, numb nut," he said. "Do we look stupid to you? Okay, this is California, but we're not all into tripping our brains out. Maybe when I get to college – everyone does it then – but not before."

"That's okay, then," said Jeremy.

"Good. My parents are away, so my brother will be in charge, except he's usually sort of busy at parties… well, you'll see. And you can sleep over, too, if you want. So, what do you say?"

Jeremy looked at Scott, who nodded, and that was good enough for him. Maybe a good party would take his mind off the problems waiting for him back in England.

They caught nothing, which Scott admitted was usually the case, though he claimed that this was because this wasn't the best place to fish for bass, or anything else, come to that, and not due to their lack of ability. After a couple of hours they gave up and took the boat back, and then spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the pier watching girls (and in Jeremy's case, surreptitiously, boys) and eating ice cream and talking about this and that. And then Joe went home and Scott and Jeremy walked slowly back up to Scott's house.

The rest of the week passed in a number of outings with his father and some splashing about in Scott's pool or sailing on the lake in his boat, until Saturday night rolled round and Scott came to collect him for Joe's party.

"Are there going to be girls there?" he asked, surprised to see that Scott hadn't bothered to put his good clothes on.

"No. Joe's parents won't let us, and Brian – that's Joe's brother – wouldn't let us sneak any in anyway. Too bad, because if Jeanette was there I'd have to show her the basement, or the attic – somewhere where nobody's likely to go, anyway… maybe next year…"

Joe met them at the door.

"Hi, Jeremy. Come meet my brother," he said, looking at him in a strange way as if trying not to laugh. Jeremy couldn't see what the joke was: he was pretty sure he didn't have dirt on his face, and his jeans were properly zipped up… he shrugged and followed Joe through to the kitchen.

Brian was a slightly larger version of Joe – same mid-brown hair, though worn a little longer, and Brian had a small gold stud in one ear, which surprised Jeremy, who had never seen a boy wearing ear jewellery before. The brothers both had green eyes, too. But the main difference between the twelve-year-old Joe and the not-quite-fourteen-year-old Brian was what Brian had draped around his shoulders: standing behind him and holding him in a firm embrace was a boy of about the same age, though this one had curly black hair and brown eyes and a big smile.

Jeremy was aware that Scott and Joe were watching him closely to see what his reaction was going to be: this was obviously something they'd been planning for a while. So he did his best not to react at all.

"Hello," he said. "I'm Jeremy. Thanks for inviting me."

"Glad you could come," said Brian, in a voice that had barely started to change. "This is Raul." And, apparently disappointed by the reaction so far he turned and hugged the curly-haired boy and then kissed him on the lips, watching Jeremy out of the corner of his eye.

"Hello, Raul," said Jeremy, politely.

"Jeez, you were right," said Brian, looking at his brother. "Cold-blooded and stiff-upper-lipped to the nth degree. Doesn't anything surprise you?" he added to Jeremy.

"Not really. Are you really boyfriends, or are you just trying to wind me up?"

"No, we're for real. And we're out, too."

"Huh? Out where?"

"Out of the closet, you… never mind. Maybe you don't have closets in England. I mean that we don't try to keep it a secret. The kids at school know about us."

Jeremy gaped, and now the sang-froid had completely disappeared: he couldn't begin to imagine telling the boys at school that he was queer. "But… don't they call you names and stuff?" he asked.

"Not any more. We just don't react to anything they say, and the only time they tried to beat up on us we ended up kicking their asses instead. I'm on the track team and Raul plays basketball and swims, so we're in good shape. And it's weird, but a lot of the girls supported us. I don't know why – I have no idea how girls think – but it helped. We still get some remarks, but we can handle that. So, have you got a problem with gay guys?"

"God, no. In fact, I think it's brilliant. What do your parents think?"

"Mine are great – I mean, I guess my dad was disappointed when we first told him – I guess it's hard for a red-blooded guy to find out his son's a faggot. But he's been pretty supportive since. Raul's folks, though…"

"I haven't told them," said Raul. "They'd say it was a sin against God, or something. I guess I'll have to tell them in the end, but… hell, it can wait."

"And what about Joe? Doesn't it make life difficult – I mean, I sort of imagine all the kids at school going 'your brother's gay' all the time."

"They don't any more," said Joe. "My brother can beat the crap out of anyone who badmouths me, and they know that. And a lot of them seem to think it's sort of cool, somehow. This is California, remember, not the Bible Belt."

"And are you okay with it?"

"Sure. I love my brother, even if he is a fag – joking, Brian, okay? I just wish they'd let me watch when they do stuff – I bet I could learn plenty if I did."

"You're too young," said Brian. "And I'll bet you're not going to let us watch you when you finally start making out with girls, are you?"

"No way!"

"Well, then. Now go get in the pool before we throw you in."

"Okay. Come on, Jeremy."

Joe led him up the stairs to his bedroom and told him to dump his bag and get into his swimwear. This time Jeremy had thought to put on his trunks under his jeans, so it didn't take him more than a minute or so to get ready. Then he followed Joe back downstairs.

Joe's pool wasn't quite as big as Scott's, but it was big enough. By the time they arrived there were already three or four boys of their own age messing around in and around it, so Jeremy just dropped his towel by the door and leapt in.

The evening passed in swimming, eating pizza and playing basketball (there was a hoop above the garage door). Jeremy was useless at basketball – the only time he ever played was during his summer break with his dad – but nobody seemed to care, nor did he seem to be the only one with limited skills.

One by one the other kids left the party – including Scott, who told Jeremy that he had to go to church the following morning, and that his mother didn't trust him to get home in time if he slept over. He'd be home from church before twelve, though, so they could hang out after lunch.

By ten o'clock all the guests had gone except for himself and Raul, who was also staying over.

"Maybe we should sneak into their room later and find out what gay boys do to each other," suggested Joe, as they all sat in front of the TV.

"Do that," said Brian. "Of course, five seconds later you'll be flying out of the window. If you're really lucky you might land in the pool."

"You wouldn't do that to a guest."

"I would if he tried sneaking into my bedroom when Raul's here. I'm serious."

"I wouldn't do that," Jeremy assured him.

"Good."

Fifteen minutes later Joe went out to use the toilet, and Jeremy felt that this was a chance not to be missed.

"Look," he said, "I need some advice, and I reckon you two would be the perfect people to ask…"

"Why us?" asked Brian.

"Because… well… look, I think I'm probably like you, and I've got a problem. I really like this friend of mine, except he doesn't like boys. And this other friend fancies me, but I don't really fancy him, and I don't know what to do about it. Can I possibly talk to you later when Joe's not about?"

"Joe's cool," said Brian. "Okay, he makes fun of us sometimes, but I've seen him really lay into a kid who called us faggots in front of him. It won't worry him if you tell him you're gay."

"Yes, but… I mean, I don't really know him. And really don't want it getting back to Scott…"

"Scott's cool, too. But okay, if you'd prefer not to tell him, I'll send him to the store in the morning and you can talk to us then."

"Thanks. I mean, really."

Joe reappeared and they watched TV for a bit and then went up to Joe's bedroom.

"So, you want to borrow my sleeping bag and sleep on the floor, or do you want to share the bed?" Joe asked him.

Jeremy thought about that briefly. He'd have to be really careful not to touch him, or even get too close, if he didn't want him to guess about him… but the bed was quite large and the floor looked hard…

"I'll share, if you really don't mind," he said.

"Great!"

Jeremy went to his bag and got out his pyjamas and then started to get undressed.

"You're not going to wear those, are you?" asked Joe.

"Why not? What do you wear in bed, then?"

"Just my shorts. Or if it's hot, like today, sometimes I don't wear anything at all. You should try it – it feels really good, sleeping naked."

Jeremy didn't say anything. Of course, he'd slept naked in the garage, and he'd even shared the mattress in the garage with Tony without anything on; but he'd known Tony for several years, while he had only met Joe a few days ago.

"What's the matter?" Joe asked him. "Too daring for you? I thought you told me Brits aren't all dull and boring…"

"Okay, then," said Jeremy, and he put his pyjamas back in the bag.

"Great!" said Joe once more, throwing his own clothes off and flinging them onto (and around) a chair in the corner of the room.

Jeremy put his own clothes in a pile next to his bag and turned around, grateful that – so far, at least – his usually rebellious penis was behaving itself and staying properly limp.

"Hey, guess what I got?" said Joe, lifting his mattress a little and retrieving a magazine from underneath it. "One of my friends at school got me this. What do you think?"

Unfortunately – at least, from Jeremy's point of view – the magazine in question was designed for an exclusively heterosexual male audience, and he really wasn't remotely interested in its contents – in fact, he couldn't understand how some of his school-friends could find those huge swellings and all that hair attractive. But Joe came and sat next to him and opened the magazine, and soon his penis had gone hard; and by looking discreetly at Joe rather than the magazine Jeremy was soon able to achieve the same result.

"Hot, isn't she?" asked Joe, looking down at Jeremy's groin and then back at the magazine.

"I guess," said Jeremy, hoping his lack of enthusiasm wasn't too obvious.

Joe looked at the magazine for another minute or so and then turned to look at Jeremy.

"Hey, wanna jack off?" he said.

"What?"

"I feel like jacking off. You wanna?"

"Sorry, I don't understand."

"Jeez, Jer, don't you know how to jack off yet? Well, don't worry, I'll show you. See, what you gotta do is to take some lotion – this hand-cream's good – and you squeeze a little out onto your dick. Then you take hold of it like this, and you sort of massage it…"

"Oh, right… no, I know all about that. It's just called something different where I live."

"So what's it called?"

"Wanking. But I don't use any cream or anything."

"You should try some. It feels neat." And Joe passed him the bottle.

Jeremy wasn't at all sure about doing this in front of someone else: as far as he was concerned it was an intensely private activity. Though, of course, he had fantasised about doing it with Bilal… and maybe he should try using the cream, just to see what it felt like. So he took the bottle, poured a little onto his right hand and took hold of himself. He felt extremely self-conscious, and he was very aware that Joe was watching him closely; but then he thought that now that he'd come this far he might as well get on with it. So he started to rub it.

It did feel different using the cream: not better, necessarily, but different…

"How does that feel?" asked Joe.

"Nice."

"Good. Say… do you want me to do it to you? I'd sorta like to know how it feels jacking one with skin."

To Jeremy things seemed to be hurtling along almost out of control here: he'd gone from undressing in front of another boy to being on the point of being wanked by one in less than five minutes. Nobody back in England had ever touched him before, far less actually rubbed it, and he'd known Joe for no time at all… but then, why not? Nobody back in England would ever hear about this unless he decided to tell them, which he thought was pretty unlikely. And it would be interesting to find out what it felt like…

"Okay, then." And he lay on his back, and Joe grinned at him, applied a little more lotion to his hand and set to work. And Jeremy quickly decide that this felt nice… really nice, in fact. Soon he was wriggling about, aware that he was getting close… and then Joe stopped.

"Please don't stop," Jeremy begged him. "That feels magic!"

"You like that, huh?" And Joe grinned at him again, but instead of rubbing it some more he just slowly rolled Jeremy's foreskin up and down a couple of times. And it felt really nice, but it wasn't going to get him to where he wanted to be, so Jeremy begged him once again to rub it some more.

"Okay, if you really want me to…" Joe teased Jeremy's foreskin for another few seconds and then got back to work, and in less than a minute Jeremy was bucking and gasping his way to the best orgasm he had ever experienced.

"Bloody hell, Joe, I never knew it could feel like that," he said as Joe finally let go. "That was amazing!"

"I knew you'd like it. So, you wanna do me now?"

Jeremy wasn't one hundred percent sure about that, but he felt that he owed Joe, so he dribbled some lotion over the tip of Joe's erection and rubbed it in with the tips of his fingers. Of course, Joe was circumcised, just like Bilal, so if he closed his eyes, maybe he could imagine that it was Bilal he had hold of…

He took it quite slowly, wanting to make it last. It wasn't quite the same, of course: there was no hair at all around this one, and he thought Bilal was probably a little bigger, but all the same it still felt interesting.

Slowly he speeded up, and Joe began to react, and that made it even more fun, knowing that he was responsible for those little gasps and groans. It took a long time to get Joe to orgasm, and Jeremy had to change hands a couple of times and add more lotion as well, but eventually Joe got there, wriggling and clenching his toes and throwing his head back as the feeling overwhelmed him.

"You ever do that to someone else before?" he asked, sitting up.

Jeremy shook his head.

"You learn real quick, then, because that was… well, you did great."

"Thanks. Joe… do you think you're gay?"

"Jeez, no! I like girls. We're just having fun, is all. I do it sometimes with a boy from my school, but he's away with his parents right now. But just because we jack off together doesn't mean we're fags, or anything. It's just fun, that's all. So, you wanna take a shower? We need to get that lotion off…"

So they walked down the landing and took a shower together, and that was quite enough to get them both hard again, and they towelled each other down, which did nothing to reduce the swelling, and then Joe said, "Let's go see what my brother's doing."

"What, like this?"

"Well… maybe not. It might be fun to see their reaction, but… no, let's go put our shorts on first." Joe ran back to his bedroom and pulled his shorts on and then marched off along the landing and down the stairs. Jeremy threw his own shorts on and followed him, having by now just decided to go along with whatever Joe suggested and see where it led.

Because they had bare feet they got downstairs without being heard, and so were able to get within ten feet [3 m] of the couch before Raul looked up and saw them.

"What are you doing?" he asked. "We thought you'd gone to bed."

"Obviously," said Joe. The two older boys had shed everything except their shorts and had been cuddling happily, engrossed in each other, before being interrupted.

"So what do you want?" asked Brian, trying to conceal an obvious tent in his briefs.

"We thought we'd come see what you guys were doing. We've just been jacking, and we thought you might be, too."

Jeremy wasn't happy about this intimate detail being aired quite so freely, and it must have been obvious from his expression, because Joe looked at him and laughed.

"Lighten up, dude," he said. "I don't keep secrets from my brother. 'Sides, he knows it don't mean nothing."

"I bet it does when you two do it to each other," said Jeremy, looking at the older boys.

"Of course it does," said Brian. "But I don't have a problem with Joe doing it with his friends, so if you two want to give us a show now, go right ahead."

"No, thanks," said Jeremy quickly, before Joe could agree to that suggestion. "At least, not unless you two are going to do it as well."

He expected that to meet with an immediate refusal, but in fact Brian appeared to be considering it.

"Go on, Bri, it'll be fun," said Joe. "Jeremy's hot – and he's got this real neat little foreskin. You guys wanna see? Go on, Jer, show them."

"Not unless they take their shorts off first," said Jeremy, who was feeling like an exhibit in the zoo again.

"Want to?" said Brian, looking at Raul.

"Okay, why not?"

So they stood up and removed their shorts. Brian's was still partly erect, though it still wasn't huge, and he didn't have a lot of hair yet. Raul's looked a little bigger and it was definitely hairier. Jeremy removed his own shorts and let them examine his penis, which was soon nice and stiff once more.

"What a cute little dick," said Brian, grinning at him.

"Don't laugh at him, Bri. You know yours was smaller than that last year," said his brother.

"Guess that's true. So, Jeremy, sit down and we'll talk about what you told us earlier. I know I said we'd send Joe to the store, but I don't think we need to, especially now we know you've been having fun with him. He won't tell anyone about what we talk about – will you, Joe?"

The younger boy shook his head. Jeremy wasn't sure he wouldn't change his mind when he heard what it was about, though, so he asked, "Joe… what would you say if I told you I think I'm gay?"

"I'd say 'so what?' probably. Why, are you?"

"Well… I think so."

"That's not really a problem to me. All the gay guys I know… okay, both the gay guys I know – are way cool."

"Okay, then…. Look, I don't want you to tell Scott about this, okay?"

"I won't if you don't want me to."

"Well, then…" Jeremy allowed the two older boys to pull him down onto the couch, so that he was sitting between them with their arms round him. Joe, not wanting to be left out, threw his shorts off and came and sat next to his brother. And Jeremy told them all about the way he felt about Bilal and the way Tony felt about him and asked what they thought he should do next.

"You might not want to hear this," said Brian, once the recital was over, "but there's no future in trying to score with a straight boy. If you keep trying you'll just make him so pissed that he'll never want to speak with you again."

"I think maybe he already feels like that," said Jeremy, gloomily.

"If you were friends for a long time he'll get over it and be friends again, most likely – if you can make sure he knows you're not going to try anything with him. So don't, okay?"

"The other boy – Tony," said Raul. "Is he gross, or something? Or do you just not like him?"

"No, he's okay-looking, and we're good friends… why?"

"Jeremy, have you got any idea how few gay boys you're going to meet? I mean real gay boys, not kids like Joe just having a bit of fun… unless things are very different over there in England, you'll never run into more than one or two at school. Okay, there might be some who are still in the closet, but we're the only out kids at our school. If you're gay and a gay boy wants to go with you, you'd have to be a total retard to say no, unless he's mega-gross or something."

"But I don't fancy him."

"That's because you're thinking all the time about this other guy, the one from Pakistan. But you can't have him, Jeremy: you have to start looking at other guys, and if there's already one who wants you, I'd say grab him and don't let go. Guys like us don't get to pick and choose. I mean to say, look what I got stuck with."

Brian swiped him, and Raul ducked and grinned.

"Serious, Jeremy, I'm lucky: I got a gorgeous guy, and he loves me as much as I love him. Not everyone can be that lucky. So take what's there, and maybe you could get to fall in love with him once you've been going together for a few weeks."

Jeremy thought about that. Tony was a brilliant friend, and he certainly wasn't bad-looking. The only thing wrong with him was that he wasn't Bilal…

"Thanks," he said. "Sincerely. Look, I think me and Joe ought to go and leave you in peace now – come on, Joe."

He walked slowly back upstairs with Joe following him, and when he got back to Joe's room he dropped his shorts on the pile of his other clothes and got into bed once more. Joe turned off the light and got in with him, snuggling up close, and Jeremy, grateful for the contact, put his arm round the other boy's shoulders and settled down to sleep.

He still wasn't certain what he would do next when he woke up the following morning, but he realised that Raul was probably right when he said that gay boys might be thin on the ground. After all, Timmy had told him the same thing: that he and Graham were the only two in their year at school. So maybe he should think seriously about saying yes to Tony. Except that the thought of Bilal in his arms just wouldn't go away…

"I got another boner," said Joe's voice in his ear, breaking into his thoughts. "Wanna jack it for me?"

So he did, and afterwards Joe did it for him.

The rest of the holiday passed happily: he spent plenty of time with Scott and Joe (and if Joe had said anything to Scott about him it didn't seem to have made the remotest difference to the way Scott treated him), and he saw Brian and Raul a couple more times, and his dad took him on some more trips, including one brilliant afternoon when he got to fly across the lake in a hot air balloon, and – as it did every year – the end of his stay arrived far too quickly. And as he flew back to England he knew that once he was back home he was going to have to get together with Bilal and Tony and try to sort out the way forward. And he was pretty sure that this wasn't going to be easy…

Well, at least Jeremy seems to have enjoyed his four-week escape – and finally he's managed to get a little action of his own. But now he's going to have to return to the triangular mess he left behind at the end of term. Will Raul's advice help him? Can he bring himself to stop thinking about Bilal? I'm sure we'll find out eventually…

Chapter Eighteen

Later on in this chapter we'll see two of our couples as they finally get around to trying to… well, to do it properly, so to speak. With mixed results, as it turns out. But first, let's go back to the day after those conversations in Tony's bedroom to find out how Tony is bearing up…

It was Monday July 26^th, the day that Jeremy had set off to America and so the day after his conversations with Bilal and Tony. Tony was in the same room now, still lying in bed at 10 a.m. because he couldn't think of a good reason to get up, even though this was the first proper day of the holidays. Normally during the holidays he got up quite early and went out and did something with his friends, but today he wasn't even sure if he still had friends – at least, not his two closest ones. So he stayed in bed and stared at the ceiling.

Obviously there was nothing he could do about Jeremy until he came back from America, but he wondered if he ought to try to straighten things out with Bilal, and he considered walking round to Bilal's house or trying to phone him. But then he envisaged the door being slammed in his face or Bilal's mother telling him that Bilal didn't want to talk to him, and that was enough to keep him from trying.

Eventually he got up, had a cursory wash, dressed in the first clothes that came to hand and went downstairs and ate a bowl of cereal. There was a note from his mother on the fridge, telling him that she had gone to the shop but would be back soon, so when he had finished eating he rinsed his bowl out under the tap and went and slumped in the living room, staring at an unplugged television and wondering how he was going to get through the next four weeks if every day was going to be like this.

His mother came home shortly afterwards and found him still sitting in front of a blank television.

"Are you all right?" she asked. "Why aren't you outside? It's a really nice day again…"

"I'll probably go out this afternoon," he said. "It's just with Jeremy away, and Bilal being busy, I don't really know what to do."

"Surely you've got some other friends?" she asked.

"Yes, of course I have… maybe I'll see if Kam and his brother fancy kicking a ball about for a bit."

If they didn't he couldn't think what else he could do with himself. He had some other friends at school, but none that he saw outside school time. Miguel had gone to Spain and he didn't really know Sim or Uzzy well enough… though if things stayed the way they were at the moment, maybe he'd have to get to know them, especially if his two closest friends didn't want to speak to him again.

So he went and phoned Kam, who said that he was going out after lunch but could come out for an hour or so now if Tony wanted. So Tony said he'd be at the car park in ten minutes.

"You look like crap," was the first thing Kam said to him when he got there. "What's the matter?"

Of course, Tony didn't know about Kam's relationship with Neil, so he had no reason to think that Kam would be any more sympathetic to homosexuality than Bilal seemed to be, and that made it hard to answer the question. So instead he asked, "Where's Awais?"

"Mucking about with Robin. Last time I saw them they were firing water-pistols at each other in Robin's garden. So it looks like it's just you and me."

They practised taking penalties against each other and then they went to opposite ends of the 'pitch' and tried to score long-distance goals past each other, but after about twenty minutes it was clear to Kam that Tony wasn't really concentrating on the game.

"Okay," he said, picking up the ball and going to sit on the wall, "what's up?"

"What do you mean?"

"Come on, Tony, something's bothering you. Is it Bilal and Jeremy?"

"What about them?"

"Did Jeremy talk to Bilal about… you know?"

"You know about that?"

"Sure. I told Jeremy that he ought to talk to Bilal… so what happened?"

"Bilal said he wasn't interested."

"Ah…. I see. I suppose I'll have to talk to him, then, because I don't want to see two of my friends… well, not wanting to be friends."

"Do you think talking to him will do any good?"

"I don't know," admitted Kam. "But I have to try, because I promised Jeremy I would. I suppose it'll depend on whether Bilal just thinks girls are better, or if he thinks gay people are disgusting – I mean, he's never said anything like that, but I don't think the subject has ever come up. You should come with me – if both of us try to talk to him together he'll be more likely to listen."

"I don't think he'll want to listen to me," said Tony, gloomily.

"Why not?"

"Because I told him I'm like Jeremy – I like boys, too. Well, just one boy, but still…"

"What, you fancy Bilal, too?"

"No, I fancy Jeremy – except I don't think 'fancy' is really the right word. I think… well, maybe 'love' is the word I'd use."

"Ah. And does Jeremy know?"

Tony nodded. "And he told me about the same thing as Bilal told him: thanks, but no thanks," he said. "Which I suppose I can put up with… I mean, I don't hate him for saying 'no', or anything – in fact I still feel the same way about him as I did before. But it makes things more of a mess, and that's why I don't think Bilal will want to talk to me."

"Well, that's tough, because he's going to," said Kam, standing up and glancing at his watch. "We've got at least half an hour before I have to be home, and that should be plenty. Come on."

He strode off towards the street and Tony trailed along behind him. He really wasn't sure that this was a good idea, but nor did there seem to be any chance of changing Kam's mind, so he supposed he was going to have to go along with it.

When they reached Bilal's house Kam marched straight up the path and rang the bell. Bilal's mother answered the door, greeted them cheerfully (so apparently Tony's name was not yet mud in the Khan household, which made Tony feel a little better) and told them that Bilal was in his room and that they should go straight up.

Bilal was sitting on his bed reading a book. His face lit up when Kam came in, but his expression immediately became a little more guarded when Tony followed him into the room.

"Okay," said Kam, closing the door and sitting on the chair, turning it first to face Bilal, "what's going on?"

"Hasn't Tony told you?"

"I want to hear it from you."

"Well, I don't want to talk about it."

"Well, you're going to talk about it, whether you want to or not, okay? I'm not going to sit back and watch my friends falling out with each other without doing something about it. So start talking."

Bilal opened his mouth, but then looked at Tony and closed it again.

"I'll go and wait downstairs, shall I?" said Tony, reaching for the door.

"No, you won't. Sit down," ordered Kam, pointing at the bed, and reluctantly Tony went and sat next to Bilal, though leaving an appreciable gap.

"Okay," said Kam. "Now, Bilal, you were saying..?"

"I'm sorry, Kam, but I don't think I can talk about it."

"Fine. You want to spend the rest of the summer sitting here in your room reading a book, then, do you? And what are you going to do at the start of next term? You won't be able to avoid each other then, will you? Sorry, Bilal, but you're going to have to deal with this. First, what's different now? How is Jeremy different to what he was like last week?"

"Well… I mean, you know, he's… well, he's…"

"Say it, Bilal," said Tony. "It won't bother me any, whatever you call it."

"Okay, then… he's queer, okay? Is that what you wanted me to say?"

"And how is that different to how he was two weeks ago?" asked Kam.

"I didn't know about it two weeks ago."

"Yes, but it's you that's changed, then, not Jeremy. Jeremy's been that way for ages."

"So have I," murmured Tony.

"Well, so what?" said Bilal. "You can't just expect me to pretend it didn't happen and to go on the way things were before."

"Why not? I haven't changed the way I think about him since he told me."

"Yes, but it's not you he wants to… you know, do things with, is it?"

"I don't think he wants to 'do things' with you, either," said Tony. "It's perfectly possible to love someone without wanting sex with them – or don't you think so?"

"No… I mean, yes… look, the point is I can't help looking at him differently now, and nothing you say is likely to change that."

"Well, okay. But does 'look at him differently' have to mean 'not want to speak to him again'?" asked Kam.

"No – and I never said I didn't want to speak to him again," Bilal pointed out. "It's just… I don't know how I'm going to be able to talk to him without thinking… well, you know."

"But you will talk to him?"

"Yes, of course. Look, whatever's happened I can't just walk away from it – he's been my best friend for about six years. It's just… it's going to be really difficult, that's all."

"I know," said Kam, in a quieter voice. "I just want you to try, okay?"

"I'd have done that, anyway."

"What about me?" asked Tony. "Can you… I mean, are… well, you know… I… are we still friends?"

Bilal looked at him. "I suppose so… look, it's just hard for me to take this in… I mean, I've always thought queers were just dirty perverts who… I mean, how can you do that stuff, Tony? It's disgusting!"

"I've never done any stuff," Tony pointed out. "So whatever it is that you think is disgusting, I haven't done it, okay?"

"Yes, but you'd like to – wouldn't you?"

"I don't know. What are we talking about, exactly?"

"Well, you know – putting your thing up some other boy's arse…"

"Have you ever done that, Bilal?" asked Kam.

"No, of course not!"

"Then how can you say it's disgusting? How is it any worse than putting it where a girl pisses?"

"But that's where it's supposed to go!"

"But it's just as messy, don't you think? I mean, I've never put mine anywhere," ('yet', he added, mentally: he was going to the garage with Neil later this week, and after that maybe he'd view this a little differently) "so I don't know what it feels like. Okay, if you want to get religious and say you should never do anything with anyone unless you're married and want to have children, then that's another argument, and one that you really can't use on either Jeremy or Tony because they don't follow our religion. But if you're just talking about sex in general, personally I don't think you can criticise anything just because you don't know what it's like and the idea of it seems bad to you. For example: do you wank yourself?"

"I'm not telling you that!" declared Bilal, looking shocked.

"Why not? I do," said Kam.

"So do I," added Tony.

"And so do most boys of our age – at least, the ones who know how to," Kam went on. "We're not supposed to, but we do, because it feels really good. Maybe it sounds weird if you describe it to someone, but when you try it for yourself it doesn't feel weird, it feels brilliant. Maybe all sex is like that – it sounds strange, or weird, or disgusting, but when you try it you find out it's brilliant. Of course, you don't have to try everything for yourself: there are things I wouldn't want to try – but I don't think you should just describe anything you can't understand as wrong or disgusting…

"Look, Bilal, nobody's saying you have to have sex with Jeremy…"

"Good," said Bilal.

"… but we are saying that he's your friend, that he really likes you, and that you should give him a chance to talk to you – and that after he's talked to you, you should go on being his friend anyway, because that's what friends do: they stay friends even if there's stuff they disagree about. Okay?"

"Okay, I suppose that's true."

"And what about you and me?" asked Tony again. "When you look at me, can you just see me the way you always have, and not like I'm some sort of monster who should be locked up?"

"I don't think that," protested Bilal.

"Sure?"

"Positive. It's just that I don't really want to talk about this stuff any more, that's all."

"Fair enough. So, do you want to come round after lunch and play tennis?"

"No, I can't," said Bilal, and Tony's heart sank. But it rose again when Bilal continued, "But only 'cos I'm going out shopping with my mum. I can come round when we get back, though – about half past three?"

"Great!"

"But… I'm serious, Tony: we don't talk about sex. Or Jeremy, for now, either. Okay?"

"Okay. But when he gets back from his dad's we're going to have to."

"I know, but that's still four weeks away. Let's just forget about it until then, okay?"

"All right. See you this afternoon, then." And Tony got up, feeling that although the main problem had only been shelved, rather than disposed of, at least he wouldn't have to worry about it until Jeremy returned home.

***

Kam went back home thinking that at least things had been patched up for the next three or four weeks, and maybe by then, if Bilal and Tony spent enough time together, Bilal would begin to accept that neither Tony nor Jeremy had really changed. He'd thought about telling Bilal about his own relationship with Neil, but had decided that it probably wasn't a good idea. Besides, his activities with Neil were probably only going to be short-term anyway – just until he found the right girl…

Although, when he thought about it, there was no need for him to go rushing after girls just yet. It was a lot easier talking to Neil than to a girl, for a start, and he didn't have to worry about wearing the right clothes or talking about the right subjects or buying a present or choosing the right film to go and see together… girls seemed like really hard work, whereas being with Neil he could just be himself.

He and Neil had decided to spend a night in the garage at the end of that week. As far as their parents were concerned they were sleeping in a tent that Kam had borrowed from Uzzy, but of course they didn't need a tent, and as they were only going for one night – this time, anyway – they didn't need to carry a lot of stuff with them, either: a change of socks and underwear, a basic washing kit and a sleeping bag each seemed likely to be adequate. Plus, of course, the small jar of Vaseline and box of tissues that Kam had bought from the local branch of Boots.

They set out after lunch, rode to Shortham along the main road and reached the garage in the early afternoon. As they had hoped, there was no sign of life there, so they went inside and left their sleeping bags on the mattress, and then got back on their bikes and rode on down the lane and so back to Britannia Forest. This time Kam had packed a blanket, and he wanted to have another try at the snuggling-under-a-pine-tree trick, so they found a suitable path, rode along it for a hundred yards or so and then pushed their bikes off into the trees until they found a pine not unlike the one they had tried using the first time. They pushed their way into this one and found another fairly clear area close to the trunk, so Kam spread his blanket out and they got undressed and lay down side by side on it. And this time it was perfect: the blanket solved the problem of the pine needles completely.

"You know, we could probably sleep here tonight if we wanted to," commented Kam.

"I suppose so. Except with my luck it would probably rain."

"I think we'd stay fairly dry here, even if it did."

"Maybe… it is nice here, but I think I'd feel safer in the garage. Still, maybe a little snooze now might be nice."

He rolled over to face away from Kam and backed into him, pulling his friend's arm around him, and Kam wriggled as close as he could get.

"That's nice," said Neil, dreamily. "Maybe I could go to sleep out here like this…"

Kam let him settle for two or three minutes and then slipped his hand down to Neil's groin and started exploring what he found there, and Neil reached round behind his back and returned the favour, and soon all thoughts of sleep had vanished completely.

"Of course, we don't actually have to go back to the garage if we want to do… stuff," Kam pointed out. "It might be quite nice to do it here. What do you think?"

"Well… we'd be in trouble if anyone came by."

"Yes, but that's not very likely. I mean, we're away from the path, so if anyone was going to find us they'd have to be pushing their way through the trees instead of following a track, and they'd have to push their way right into this one, because I'll bet you can't see inside if you're outside the branches. I know you couldn't with the tree we tried last time, because I checked."

"I suppose so… so, what sort of 'stuff' did you have in mind?"

"Well, I only left the sleeping bag in the garage: everything else is in my bag here. Like the Vaseline, for example."

"That's handy."

"Isn't it? But… look, Neil, are you still sure about this? Like I said before, I don't want to hurt you…."

"And like I said, if you do we can always stop. Come on, Kam, let's try, okay? So… what should I do?"

Kam looked around. Just behind them was a branch growing almost horizontally, about two feet up from the ground.

"You could try bending over that," he suggested. "Put the blanket over it first, though, because you don't want bits of bark digging into anywhere… well, anywhere."

So Neil folded the blanket up and put it over the branch, and then positioned himself over it. Kam took the Vaseline and rubbed some around Neil's opening. But now that the moment had arrived he was feeling unsure of himself and more than a little nervous, and as a result his erection subsided. And nothing he tried seemed able to resurrect it.

"I'm really sorry, Neil," he said, "but… I suppose I'm too nervous about this. Let's swap places, and then you can go first."

"Well… okay, then." Neil stood up and Kam took his place, handing Neil the Vaseline jar as he did so.

Neil paused briefly: certainly when this subject had first been mentioned he hadn't expected to be starting off in the active role… but part of him at least seemed quite enthusiastic to give it a try, so he rubbed a little Vaseline onto it, added a further dab onto Kam's bum and tried to line up.

It took a little while to get into the correct position, and in the end Kam had to reach back and guide him into place, but then, finally, he was ready. He pushed forwards.

At first nothing happened: he was aware of resistance, and he was too scared of hurting his friend to push any harder. But then Kam asked what he was waiting for, so he shoved a little harder, and suddenly the resistance eased and he felt himself sliding in. And then Kam gave a hiss and Neil froze.

"Okay?" asked Neil.

"Give me a moment… I think you're bigger than I thought you were…"

"Should I stop?"

"No. Just give me a minute to get used to it… Okay, now keep going, but slowly…"

Neil pushed and Kam gasped again.

"Look, I really think we ought to stop," said Neil, although now that he had got as far as he had, stopping was not what he really wanted to do: it was an amazing feeling.

Kam shook his head. "Keep going until it's in as far as it'll go," he instructed.

Neil was torn between not wanting to hurt his friend and wanting to go further with what he was doing. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"I'm sure. Get on with it."

So Neil got on with it, pushing slowly forwards until it was as far in as it would go and his sparse pubic hair was touching Kam's bum.

"That's it – it's all the way in," he reported. "Are you okay?"

Kam nodded. "Just give me a moment to adjust," he said, "and then pull it about halfway out and push it in again. But slowly, okay?"

Neil very carefully did as he was told, and then did it again, and again… he was still a bit concerned that he might be hurting his friend, but the astonishing feelings he was experiencing were going quite a long way towards eclipsing that concern.

As far as Kam was concerned, this just felt weird. It had hurt on the way in, but now it just felt odd, though at the same time it was starting to feel… well, interesting… in fact, it felt good… in fact…he was getting excited. He hadn't expected this at all: he'd thought it would probably feel good doing it from the active standpoint, but he hadn't expected being on the receiving end to be anything more than a means of helping his friend to reach orgasm. But he was starting to think that if this carried in for much longer he was in danger of losing control of himself.

By now Neil was loving it: it was a truly incredible feeling of warmth and tightness. It usually took quite a while to bring himself to orgasm when he did it by hand, but he thought this would be quicker… and then Kam began to tremble and gasp, and Neil returned to his senses and stopped, convinced he was hurting Kam badly. But Kam simply gasped, "Don't stop!" and started writhing and pushing back against him, so Neil did as he was told and kept going, even when Kam gave a cry and convulsed beneath him, and then, a few seconds later, went still.

It took Neil a further minute or so to get there, and when he did it felt unbelievable: he gripped Kam's hips and thrust as hard as he could, feeling the sperm bursting out of him as his penis was squeezed in the vice of Kam's tunnel… and then, slowly, he came back down from the summit. He held still for a few seconds and then withdrew, and as he moved away he saw the state of the earth underneath the branch: there were copious splashes of white on the ground.

"Wow," he said, standing up. "Were you rubbing yourself while I was doing it to you?"

Kam stood up as well and went to his bag to find the tissues he had brought along for the purpose.

"No," he said. "I never touched it. That just happened – having you moving about like that inside me made me feel… well, it got me excited. I don't know how, but it felt good."

He pulled out some of the tissues and handed them to Neil, then took the rest of the box and went round to the far side of the tree trunk, where there was another low branch.

"Excuse me a moment," he said, sitting down on it and sliding back. "I think I need the toilet."

Neil politely turned his back and concentrated on getting himself clean, which was easier than he had expected, as the lubricant came off fairly easily, taking all the other residues with it. By the time Kam reappeared Neil was dressed once more.

"Do you mind if we wait until we get to the garage for you to do it to me?" he asked. "Only I'm feeling a bit… well, you know."

"I don't think I could do it straight away anyway," said Kam, pulling his own clothes on. "I'd need a while to recover from that. So – what was it like?"

"Amazing. It's hard to describe, but it felt really tight and hot… I'd really like to do that again some time, as long as it wasn't too bad for you."

"Well, it hurt on the way in… and I'm even more worried about doing it to you than I was before, to be honest, because I am a bit bigger than you… still, once it was in it didn't feel too bad, and then when you started moving it got pretty good. I didn't know you could get excited by having it done to you… though I suppose that's maybe what it's like for girls – I mean, it must feel good for them, being fucked, or they'd never let boys do it to them…"

They pushed their bikes back to the path, rode back to the road and then went back up the lane to the garage. Kam stood on his pedals for most of the way because his bum felt a bit sore, but it was feeling a little better by the time they had got back to the garage and eaten their packed tea.

"OK," said Neil, as soon as they had eaten, "now it's your turn." He threw his clothes off and bent over the edge of the table, and Kam, despite still having some reservations, got undressed himself, put the tissues close at hand on one of the chairs, and then opened the Vaseline and applied it to Neil once again. And this time he was rather more ready for this, because by the time he had finished getting Neil properly anointed his own penis was good and hard. He lined up and pushed, but nothing happened.

"You're in the wrong place," Neil told him, and guided him into position, but once again he was unable to get it in. He tried for quite a while, but despite the lubricant he couldn't get it in, and he was afraid of pushing too hard in case he hurt his friend – after all, he now knew what being penetrated for the first time felt like.

It was probably this reticence that prevented him from getting it in, but in the end he simply gave up trying.

"It's no good," he said, taking a tissue and wiping off the Vaseline. "I don't know if it's because you're too small or I'm too big, but it's not going in. Sorry, Neil."

"Maybe I should practise with someone a bit smaller," suggested Neil. "If I got someone with a smaller one to do it to me first, maybe it would open me up a bit so yours would fit afterwards."

"Two problems there," said Kam. "First, I don't think I want anyone else doing this with you – it's supposed to be our special thing. And second, who were you thinking of asking, anyway? I mean, you can't just walk up to someone and say, 'Would you mind fucking me? See, I need someone with a little cock to do it to me first…'"

Neil laughed. "I suppose not," he agreed. "But I really want you to do it, Kam, because it made me feel amazing when I did it to you, and I want you to feel like that, too. I'll have to try to open it up somehow. I could try sticking a carrot up my bum, or something."

"I never thought I'd be jealous of a carrot," said Kam. "But… it doesn't matter too much, because we already know that you doing it to me makes us both feel good. So I wouldn't mind if we keep doing it like that, at least until you've found a nice big carrot to practise with for a while."

"Okay. But sooner or later we're going to do it the other way round, too, because I really want you to find out how good that feels…"

***

Paul McAllen was a couple of years younger than Kam, but his approach to the same problem had been much more scientific, which is why when he and Owen got together for their own big experiment they both felt ready for it. Since that first time in the pavilion Paul had found a series of useful objects – pens, candles of different sizes, and yes, a carrot or two – to push into Owen's bum. Each of these had been used very gently and carefully, and Paul had been quick to pull it out at the least sign of discomfort from his partner, until, a couple of weeks into the holiday, he felt that Owen was probably ready for the real thing.

Owen felt the same way. He still had very serious reservations about the whole exercise, but he couldn't fault the careful way Paul had built up to this. And so when Paul had asked if he thought he was ready to try it for real, he had replied that he was.

They had managed to find a morning when Paul's mother and brother would be out (his father was at work, of course), which mean that they would have the place to themselves. They went up to Paul's room, and to disguise his nervousness he became more 'masterful' than usual, demanding that Owen strip and threatening to beat his if he was too slow. Owen was nervous, too, and so unusually he didn't have an erection when his pants came off.

"Lie across the edge of the bed, slave, and spread your legs," demanded Paul, and Owen did as he was told.

Paul undressed and sat down beside him, stroking his bum for a minute or so and then dipping his finger into the lubricant and carefully running it around and then into Owen's bum. He moved his finger in and out for a minute or so, then switched to using a candle, and then finally pulled the candle out, anointed his own penis and lined up.

"Ready?" he asked.

"I suppose so."

"Good. And if it hurts, shout and I'll stop."

By now Owen had learned to push out when the candle or carrot or whatever touched his hole, and so he did the same thing now, and Paul pushed forwards… and to Owen's surprise it hardly hurt at all, and once it was fully inside it felt great: It was very stiff, yet still somehow softer that the candles had been, but more importantly it was warm and felt alive… and Paul was lying half on top of him, and that felt good, too.

"Okay?" asked Paul.

"Yes, it's fine."

"Sure? I can take it out if you want."

"No, it's okay. Carry on."

Paul started to rock back and forwards, and Owen quickly decided that this was nothing like vegetables or candles: this felt good. Just to see what would happen, he squeezed, and Paul gave a gasp.

"Oh, wow!" he exclaimed. "That felt fantastic, Owen – do it again."

So Owen did it again, and then started doing it rhythmically in time with Paul's thrusts. He was hard himself now: the way Paul was rubbing against and inside him felt really good and he didn't want it to stop. Paul had no intention of stopping: this felt incredible. Danny had been telling the truth when he said this felt even better than being sucked…

Owen could feel something building up inside him, and by now he had been sucking other boys long enough to realise that this was what happened to them when he sucked them long enough for them to get excited. It felt great, and as the feeling grew it got better and better until he couldn't hold it back any longer… he convulsed and cried out as he came, and the bucking of his body dragged Paul over the edge, too, and he ejaculated, thrusting hard against his partner and barely restraining a cry of his own.

"Are you okay?" he asked when he got his breath back. "Did it hurt? I'm sorry, but I couldn't stop…"

"No, it didn't hurt – it felt brilliant. I think I got that same feeling that you did."

"Wow! Are you sure? I mean, I don't see how…"

"Nor do I, but it felt absolutely magic, Paul. You can do that whenever you want if it's going to make me feel like that."

"Oh, brilliant! And it really didn't hurt?"

"Just a little bit right at the start when it went in. But after that I really liked it."

"Oh, God, that's fantastic… come on, let's go and get cleaned up, and then we need to talk."

Owen wasn't sure what they needed to talk about since they apparently both felt equally happy about this, but he followed Paul through into the bathroom and sat quite unselfconsciously on the toilet while Paul stood beside the bath and cleaned himself off with the spray attachment. Then they went back into Paul's room and got dressed.

"Tell me the truth," said Paul, doing up his belt. "Did you really like doing that?"

"It was great. It felt far better than carrots and stuff."

"And you like sucking me, don't you?"

"You know I do."

"Good. Then… we don't need to keep playing the master and slave game, do we? I mean, if we both like what we do together, I don't need to be able to order you to do it – we can just do it whenever we both feel like it, can't we?"

Owen was silent. By now he knew Paul wasn't ever going to hurt him, so he was no longer nervous about being his slave.

"What's the problem?" asked Paul, when Owen didn't reply. "Surely it'll be better if we're equal?"

"Well… yes, I suppose. But…"

"What?"

"It's just… it's something Matt said ages ago, when I sucked on his for the first time. He said…"

"You've sucked Fat Matt?" asked Paul, giggling. "I never knew that. Has he got a big one to go with his stomach, then?"

"No – in fact his is smaller than mine. I suppose that's why I was looking for someone a bit bigger… like you, for example. Anyway, the first time I did it with him we fixed it so that he made me do it, because he said that if people found out that I'd volunteered they'd call me a lot of bad names, but if I only did it because someone made me it would be okay. So all the time I'm your slave I can pretend that I'm only doing it because you force me to. If I'm not a slave I'll have to admit that I'm doing it because I want to."

"But you do enjoy it, don't you?"

"Well, yes…"

"Then you don't need an excuse. Look, Owen, nobody's ever going to find out about us, and I know the truth anyway, so we don't have to pretend any more, do we? Okay, if anyone ever did find out I'd say I made you, but that's not going to happen. And I'd prefer it if we were equal."

"Why? I mean, don't you like being able to do whatever you want to me?"

"Would you really let me? I mean, suppose I took you out into the woods, stripped you bare and whipped you till you bled – I bet you'd go and tell on me, wouldn't you? And even if you didn't, you wouldn't want to play with me any more."

"I wouldn't tell, because I've sworn to obey you. But… I really wouldn't be happy if you started hurting me."

"And that's why I don't want to be your master any more. Look, Owen, I didn't tell you before, but… I went back to see Danny again on Monday. I wanted to see what he was doing to Alan. And… it's hard to explain… see, there are a couple of other kids involved now. They're a year or so younger than Danny, and they've lived on that site since before the travellers we knew arrived… anyway, Danny lets them join in doing stuff to Alan, and they're really nasty. While I was there they whipped him really hard, until he was bleeding and screaming for them to stop… and watching made me get hard, Owen: it was exciting. I didn't want to feel like that, because it was horrible, but I couldn't help it. And I don't want to risk doing stuff like that to you, which I could if I stayed your master…

"I spoke to Alan on his own afterwards – they just tied him to a tree, like when we were there, and left him, and I managed to talk to him for a bit. And he says he still sort of likes it, even though some of the stuff they do to him is even worse than the whipping I'd just watched… but I can't believe anyone would really like that sort of stuff being done to them. I know you wouldn't, anyway, because you're not insane… And I don't want to risk turning into those kids who were beating him, because that was vicious and horrible… so I want us to be equal from now on, okay? So I'm releasing you from your vow to obey me. From now on if you don't want to do stuff with me, you don't have to. But I hope you will want to, because it's brilliant…"

"Thanks, Paul – for not wanting to try stuff like that on me, I mean. And I'm sure I'll always want to do sex stuff with you, so you don't have to worry about that."

"I did want to do stuff like that," Paul admitted. "I used to lie in bed sometimes thinking of tortures to try on you. And it scared me, because I don't want to be like that. So now we're equals, okay? And friends, of course…"

"Do you mean that? About being friends, I mean?"

"Of course I do. I've had loads of fun with you so far this holiday, and not just when we've been doing sex stuff. You're a good laugh, Owen. So – are you okay about being friends instead of you being my slave?"

"Yes," said Owen, with a big smile. "Yes, I'd like that a lot."

So it looks as if Owen no longer has anything to worry about, anyway. Neil and Kam… well, they're getting there, too. But clearly Bilal is still unhappy – it seems that there's still a lot of work to do if that triangle is going to be properly resolved.

In the next chapter we'll find out more about Sim and Uzzy's night under canvas…

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