David Clarke

Why I Hate Wearing Glasses

Chapters 6-10

Chapter Six

In which Danny unleashes the Grob Attack and Kevin learns that first impressions can be misleading.

Kevin

Football practice the next morning was rather more relaxed than it usually was, possibly because there wasn't a match looming – the next game wouldn't be until the following weekend – and possibly because it was taking place during the holidays, when everyone was in a good mood, even Mr Clifford. The usual training went on, but the session ended with a normal six-a-side game without the usual two- or three-touch only rule. And because Ryan was still away and there were an odd number of players, Mr Clifford suggested that I should play in goal for one team.

All I can say about it is that I probably made Jamie Leyton at the other end look like a superstar. But I did stop a few shots, and since nobody expected me to be any good anyway nobody gave me a hard time over my failings. The only disappointment was that everyone went straight home at the end of the practice, so I didn't get a chance to watch them getting changed.

Chris was going out after lunch and so he had arranged for Danny Engel to come round and baby-sit. Obviously I wasn't very happy, either about having some little kid two years younger than me telling me what to do, or about the prospect of an afternoon in the company of a boy who apparently had no sense of humour at all and whose only topic of conversation – if a collection of one word mumbles can be called a conversation – was chess. I thought an afternoon at the dentist's would probably be more fun.

Chris spent a couple of minutes talking quietly to him and then turned to me.

"Make sure you do whatever he tells you," he said. "You know what will happen if you don't. I'll be back around six, I think. Be good!"

And he gave me a big cheesy grin and left, closing the door behind him.

"Well, as we're stuck with each other I suppose we might as well play some chess," said Engel. "I assume you've got a set?"

"In the bedroom," I said.

"Go and get it, then… no, hang on, I'd better come with you. I'm not supposed to let you out of my sight."

"Bloody hell, I'm only going to be gone fifteen seconds!" I protested.

"I don't care. Your brother said I have to stay with you. Besides, this place is a bit different from mine, and I'd like to see what your room looks like."

So I took him up to my room.

"Crumbs," he said, "this is about three times the size of my room…"

"'Crumbs'?"

"Yes, crumbs. We're not all like you, Stratford: some of us can manage to get through life without swearing all the time."

"Okay. Actually that's sort of impressive. I know I swear a bit – not as much as Jason the Microbe, of course, but still… okay, Engel, I'll try not to swear while you're here."

He looked surprised, as if he'd expected me to say something sarcastic instead, but he quickly resumed his usual expressionless look.

"Why is there a camera pointing at your bed?"' he asked. "Are you so big-headed that you like seeing yourself on film all the time?"

"God, no… sorry, I mean 'gosh, no'. That's one of the ones Chris and Mark set up to stop me from… you know, what you're here to stop me doing. There's one in our bathroom, too."

"What, so it watches you getting ready for bed and then keeps going all night long? That must be embarrassing… how do you know your brother won't put it on the net, or something?"

"I don't, and if I keep… you know, doing it, maybe he will. But I trust him not to as long as I keep to the rules. Now, are we going to play up here, or shall we go downstairs? There's a better table in the study…"

So we took the chess set downstairs and set it up on the small table I normally used for doing my homework. Engel had brought his chess clock and some score sheets, so he was obviously going to do this properly.

"I've been learning a couple of new openings," he told me, "and I want to try them out. I'd sooner not use them in matches until I've worked on them a bit…"

He pulled his fountain pen out of a pocket and wrote the date and our names at the top of the first score-sheet, and within ten seconds of the pen appearing there was an ink stain on his right hand. And ten seconds after that he'd scratched his head and transferred a smear of it onto his forehead.

I wondered if he had done it deliberately to distract me. Chess players aren't above that sort of thing, of course: our teacher had told us that in the old days, before smoking was banned, players used to puff noxious tobacco smoke at each other, or – and this still happens – slurp cups of tea noisily, or play mind games like doing the Times crossword between moves, as much as to say 'I can beat you without bothering to think about my moves in advance'. But I didn't think Engel was really like that, and in fact I was pretty sure he had no idea he had ink on his face, and so I tried to ignore it and got on with the game.

In the course of that game I discovered one reason why he always looked so scruffy: he fidgeted all the time, tugging at his shirt, running his fingers through his hair, pulling his ear and biting his nails, and by the time we'd finished the first game – which I won – he looked as if he'd been pushed face first through a hedge – a hedge in which blueberries were growing, because the ink smears had multiplied.

We spent a while on the post-mortem, in the course of which he decided that his opening was basically sound but that he hadn't developed his pieces as quickly as he should have done, and then swapped colours and set the board up once more.

"Let's blitz this one," he said, setting the clock to give us five minutes each.

I quite like this sort of chess: each player has only five minutes to make all his moves, and it means that if you make a mistake your opponent doesn't always have time to analyze and identify the error. But of course that cuts both ways…

I thought I knew a bit about all the usual openings, but I'd never before been faced with a player whose first move was to shove his king's knight's pawn forward two spaces.

"What the hell is that?" I demanded, staring at it.

"Language," he reprimanded me. "It's called the Grob Attack. Just play."

It ought to have been complete rubbish: it's against all the basic principles to weaken the pawn formation without developing any pieces, but I didn't have time to waste, so I just shoved the queen's pawn forwards. His second move made no attempt to defend his pawn, so I took it. A couple of moves later I was in trouble, and ten moves after that I resigned, which is something that hardly ever happens in blitz chess. And for the first time ever I actually saw him smile.

"What was that cra… I mean, that rubbish?" I said. "You can't play moves like that!"

"It worked, though, didn't it?"

"Well, yes, but only because we were playing blitz. I'm sure that if I'd had time to think about it I'd have found a way to beat it."

"But that's the point – you didn't have time. Yes, it's unsound, and I wouldn't use it in a school match, but it's perfect for quick-time games. It's best not to take the pawn, actually… do you want to try again?"

So I tried again and he still won, even though I didn't take the pawn this time.

"Maybe I will use it in matches," he said, grinning once more.

We played a couple more games, this time without the five minute limit, and then we played some basically silly variations on the normal game: barrel chess, where it's possible to go off on one side of the board and reappear at the other, as though the board were cylindrical; hole chess, where each player secretly designated one square as a 'hole', with the result that any opposing piece landing on it falls down the hole and is lost; and kamikaze chess, where the idea is to lose all your pieces as quickly as possible. We tried playing with a camel and a zebra instead of knights, and then we got really adventurous and tried inventing our own game using two boards and a few extra pieces. It was actually a lot of fun.

By the end of all this Engel looked as messy as he usually did at the end of a school day, and I decided it was time to do something about it. So I led him up to my parents' room and made him stand in front of my mother's full-length mirror.

"Look at yourself," I enjoined him. "What do you think you look like?"

He shrugged. "Okay, I look a bit messy – but who cares? There's nobody here except us, and even if there was anyone else here, why should I care what they think?"

"Because… I don't know, really. But I reckon you could look good if you cleaned yourself up and put some decent clothes on. Maybe then people would…"

"What?"

"Well, talk to you more, and stuff. I never see you with anyone at school – you're always on your own. Doesn't it bother you?"

"Not really. It was like that at my old school, too. I'm just different."

"How?"

"How many ways do you want? I'm Jewish; I don't like football, either playing or watching; I play chess; I like school; I can speak proper English, unlike most of the morons I went to primary school with. They just thought I was a nerd, and so they ignored me, when they weren't hitting me. Here the other kids just ignore me, which is better. Why would I want to get noticed?"

"Oh… but not everyone is like that. I mean, I'm a bit of a dweeb, I suppose, but I get on all right with the other kids in my class most of the time. And like I said before, sooner or later you're going to start looking at girls, and you'll need to smarten yourself up then – so why not start now and see what happens?"

He shrugged again. "Well… all right, then. What do you suggest?"

"Maybe you should start by having a shower and changing your clothes – these have got ink all over them, just like your face has. I'll find some of my brother's stuff for you to wear while we wash these – he's a bit taller than you, but I don't think that'll matter too much. Why don't you go and get in the shower, and while you're getting that ink out of your hair I'll go and put your stuff in the wash and fish out something of Chris's for you to wear until it's ready."

"Okay, then. Where's the bathroom?"

So I took him to our bathroom.

"I suppose it would be okay for us to block the camera," I said. "We can tell Chris it was because you were in the shower, so he knows it wasn't me trying to… you know."

"Or I could have a bath instead," he said. "The camera is pointing at the shower, not the bath. Actually I'd prefer a bath – that's what I usually do at home. I've never been in a bathroom that has both, though… you lot must be rolling in cash."

I shrugged. "My dad's doing okay, sure," I said. "But he works all the time, so we hardly ever see him. Sometimes I wish he just did an ordinary nine to five job, even if it meant living somewhere smaller. Anyway, chuck your clothes outside the door when you're ready to get in, and I'll put them in the wash."

I turned to go, but as I reached the door he stopped me.

"Hang on," he said. "This is a trick to get some time away from me, isn't it? I can guess what you'll do as soon as I'm in the bath: you'll be off somewhere perving again, won't you?"

"No, I won't! There's a camera in my room, remember?"

"So you won't do it in your room – you'll do it on the sofa downstairs or somewhere. Sorry, Stratford, I can't let you do that. You'll have to stay here while I'm in the bath."

"But you don't want me seeing you in the bath, surely?"

"It wouldn't bother me too much – it's not as if there's anything wrong with me. But you can sit on the toilet and look the other way – as long as I can see you I'll know you're not doing anything you shouldn't."

He started running the bath, adding some of the bubble-generating liquid we use sometimes, and I obediently went and sat on the toilet, though I didn't look the other way. Once the bath was ready he got undressed, chucking his clothes towards the door, and got into the bath. Because the tap end was furthest away from me he had his back to me when he was getting in, which was a pity…

He started to wash and I sat quietly watching him. After a bit he called me over.

"Have I got rid of all the ink on my face?" he asked.

"Not quite. Give me the flannel."

I took it and carefully cleaned the surviving ink smears from his right ear and the corner of his right eye. The bubbles hid him from the waist down, but I could see that he was incredibly skinny: every rib was clearly outlined.

"You should eat more," I said. "I know I'm pretty skinny, but you're almost a skeleton."

"Better too thin than too fat," he said.

"Better neither," I argued. "Okay, I think that's got rid of the ink on your face. Sit still and I'll wash it out of your hair, too."

I picked up the spray attachment, aimed it away from his body while I got the temperature right and then soaked his hair, and then I handed him the spray.

"Hold that and close your eyes," I said, and I started to rub shampoo into his hair.

I'd never actually washed someone else's hair before, and it was interesting. I did what it said on the bottle – wash, rinse and repeat – and by the time I'd rinsed for the second time I was confident that it was as clean as it was going to get.

"I can manage myself, you know," he said as I replaced the spray on top of the taps.

"I know. But it's more relaxing letting someone else do the work, isn't it?"

"I suppose so."

"Good. Now, are you finished, or would you like to soak for a little longer?"

"I'll give it five more minutes, I think."

"Okay." And I went and sat down again. Engel washed himself in a fairly desultory fashion and then lay back for a bit.

"What's the time?" he asked, eventually.

"About half past three."

"Then I suppose I should get out. It's nice here, but… no. Can you find me a towel?"

I went to the cupboard and found him a medium sized towel, and he stood up without making any attempt to hide his body from me and started to dry his hair with it. When he'd done that he started to dry his shoulders, and since he was facing me that gave me a great view.

"Wow, Engel, you're getting some hair!" I said.

"Huh?"

"You know, there," I said, pointing to the little dark hairs at the base of his cock. There weren't all that many, but they were plainly visible, and his cock wasn't bad for an eleven-year-old, either: there were certainly boys in Chris's football team with smaller ones. And Engel's looked nice, too: somehow the way the uncovered tip was a different colour to the skin on the shaft fascinated me.

"Yes, I know. So what? It's normal, isn't it?"

"Well, yes, but I think most boys only start when they're older than you are now."

"Oh." He shrugged. "Could you dry my back for me?"

He climbed out of the bath and faced away from me, so I took the towel and carefully dried his back, and then his bum, and then his legs.

"Turn round," I said, and to my surprise he did, which allowed me to look at him close up while I dried his feet and legs. Yes, it was definitely interesting… and then I felt a twitch between my legs and looked away quickly, because if I got an erection in this situation… well, let's just say I don't think he would have been impressed.

I handed him back the towel and went to collect his clothes, and when I turned round again he was doing up the towel around his waist.

"I suppose we'd better get my stuff in the machine first," he said. "I don't know how long your machine takes, but probably I ought to be wearing my own stuff again when your brother gets home."

So we went down to the laundry room and I chucked all his clothes into the washer, added the liquid and softener and started the machine. Then I took him back up to Chris's room and found him some clothes, including socks and underwear, and he removed the towel and handed it to me, once again making no attempt to cover himself…

Danny

Stratford was looking at my genitals again. It didn't bother me, though it did strike me as a bit strange: I've never really understood why other people's bodies, and that area of other people's bodies in particular, seem to interest people so much. I've seen boys in my class trying to peep at each other when we're getting changed for Games, but I don't really understand why. Perhaps I could understand more if there were some girls to look at, though to be honest I'm not really interested in girls' bodies, either. The special classes we had in my last year at primary school suggested that we would probably start to get interested in girls fairly soon, but it hasn't happened to me yet. The class also said that some boys might get interested in other boys, or girls in other girls, but that hasn't happened to me, either. Maybe there's something wrong with me – after all, some of the other boys in my class are definitely interested in sex. Or maybe I'm still just too young.

Anyway, Stratford seemed to be interested in me, because he kept looking at me while I was choosing something to wear. If the classes are right I suppose that means he's gay, which probably isn't that easy for him: even if the classes said it was normal, quite a lot of boys in my class don't seem to think it is, because they call some of the other boys 'poof' or 'queer' and things like that… anyway, like I said, it doesn't really bother me, so I didn't say anything. Instead I found some clothes that weren't too big – Chris Stratford is taller and heavier than me, but perhaps his brother had found some clothes that he'd grown out of, because they didn't fit too badly.

Once I was fully dressed Stratford gave me a comb and told me to comb my hair. I normally don't bother with a comb except when I'm going to synagogue (and I wouldn't bother then either if my mother didn't moan at me about it), but I took the comb and pulled it through my hair.

"No, not like that," said Stratford. "Give it here."

So I handed him the comb and he combed my hair for me, combing it back rather than forward. Then he led me back into his parents' room and stood me in front of the mirror.

""What do you think?" he asked.

I looked at myself. I certainly looked different: earlier I'd been a scruffy kid with dirty, uncombed hair, ink on my face and hand and my shirt half-untucked and with ink on the collar. Now the shirt was neat, clean and untucked all round, the face and hands were clean and my hair looked neat and tidy. I thought my mother would approve, but I wasn't sure that it was really me.

"I don't know," I said. "It looks as if I'm going to meet the queen or something."

"Well, I think you look good. If I was out somewhere with you I'd be proud to be with you. Earlier I'd have pretended not to know you."

"Really? 'If you were out somewhere with me… are you talking about going on a date?"

"No! No, of course not! I just meant… you look nice like that, that's all."

"Oh, okay. Of course, I'm not sure I'd want to be seen with you: you need to get your hair sorted out, and maybe a new pair of glasses – those make you look really nerdy."

"All right, then: if you keep looking like you do now, I'll try to sort my hair out. I don't know that I can do a lot about the glasses, though – I can't afford a new pair at the moment. But I can take them off if you like."

And he did, and actually it did make him look a bit less of a dork. A lot less, if I'm honest.

"Problem is I can't see anything like this," he said. "But I suppose if I'm not going anywhere it won't matter too much. So – what do you want to do now?"

"Well… can you show me round the house?" I asked. "I want to know how big this place really is."

So he put his glasses back on and gave me the guided tour, and that place really is massive: there are only four people living there, and according to Stratford his dad is away a lot, and yet there were six bedrooms, two full bathrooms, and a whole heap of rooms downstairs that my house hasn't got, like the study where they do their homework, a separate dining room, a laundry room, a 'pantry' (whatever that is), and two living rooms. And the garden was huge, too. The only reason we didn't stay there very long was because it was still quite cold out.

We went back indoors and played another couple of games of our newly-invented two-board chess variation, and by the time we'd done that my clothes were clean and dry. Stratford insisted on ironing them for me, saying that I might as well look as smart as possible, and once he'd done that he led me back up to his parents' room, presumably so that I could check myself out in the mirror after I'd got changed.

I removed Chris's clothes one by one, folding each one up and handing it to his brother, who piled them on a chair near the door. Once I'd removed the boxers and passed them across I reached for my own briefs, but Stratford stopped me.

"Wait," he said, and he guided me in front of the mirror. "Just look how thin you are! Don't you think you're too skinny?"

I looked at myself. I don't think I've ever looked at myself completely naked in a full-length mirror like this before, and it felt strange… and kind of interesting, too.

Stratford came and stood behind me and put his hands lightly on my chest.

"See?" he said, quietly. "I can feel every rib like this…" and he started to run his hands gently across my chest.

It felt… strange, I suppose, but a nice sort of strange. I don't know why, but it felt sort of warm, and I didn't really want him to stop. His thumbs traced the ridges formed by my ribs and I watched him doing it to me in the mirror and wondered why it felt so interesting.

"And your tummy's like a cave," he went on, slipping one hand onto it and letting his thumb trace around my belly button. "I bet if you look down you can't even see it, it's so far behind your ribs."

I couldn't think of anything to say. I was aware that my mouth was dry.

"You really need to eat a bit more," he said, almost whispering. "Mind you, at least your skin looks healthy: you haven't got any zits, even though your body's starting to change."

"Change?" I croaked.

"Yes – you know, the hair. Your skin's really pale, so you can see them easily. Look."

The tip of his middle finger brushed lightly against the little hairs at the base of my penis, and I gave a sort of shiver. This ought to have been extremely embarrassing, and yet it wasn't, somehow: instead it felt… actually I can't really describe it, but it felt really good. He moved his hand from side to side, barely touching the tiny hairs, and I felt something happening: my penis was starting to grow.

Obviously I know why that happens if you're with a girl, and I know that sometimes it happens for no reason at all, and that it's completely natural, but it isn't something I'd want to let anyone else see. And yet I still didn't move – it was almost as if I'd been hypnotised, but not against my will.

He went on just barely letting the tip of his finger tickle the little hairs, and my penis kept growing until it was sticking up properly. Normally when that happens I just try to ignore it and think about something else, and after a bit it always goes down again. But there was no chance of thinking about anything else this time.

"That looks really good," he said. "And you're definitely bigger than a lot of eleven-year-olds – it has to be at least nine or ten centimetres. Don't you think it looks good?"

"Well… I don't know. I've never really thought about it. Do you think it looks good?"

"Definitely. And it looks really hard, too. I wonder how hard it is?" And, moving very slowly and giving me every opportunity to shout 'stop!' he slipped his hand around my erection, took hold of it and squeezed gently.

I didn't shout 'stop!': instead I gave a gasp of shock. My whole body starting to tremble, and for a moment I thought my knees were going to give way. I've never felt anything like it. Obviously I've held it myself while I was washing it in the bath, but it had never felt remotely like this: my heart seemed to beating a lot faster than usual, and I felt hot, as though I had walked out into bright sunlight on the hottest day of summer. I could feel him standing close behind me, his other hand resting on my chest, and it was the most amazing moment of my life: for the first time I got a glimpse of why older people think that sex is such an important subject.

I looked at him in the mirror, and that seemed to break the spell: he flushed, let go of me and stepped back.

"Oh, God, Engel, I'm sorry," he stammered. "I really shouldn't have done that…" He looked really bad, as if he were going to burst into tears at any moment.

"It's okay," I said. "It was nice, actually. I don't know why, but it felt sort of warm."

"Really? You're not mad at me?"

I shook my head. He looked unconvinced, but then seemed to pull himself together a bit.

"So… you're not going to tell Chris?" he asked.

"Of course not! Why would I want to tell him that? It's nothing to do with him – I wasn't even wearing any of his clothes at the time. But… why did you do it?"

"I don't really know. I was looking at you, and you looked really nice – even if you are too thin – and I just wanted to touch you and to feel your skin. And then when you started to go stiff I just couldn't stop myself… I know I shouldn't have, but…" He shrugged.

"It's all right. So – is it hard, being gay?"

"Oh! Well… I suppose it's pretty obvious after that, isn't it? Well, it's not too bad so far because hardly anyone knows about it, just my brother and Mark. And now you, I suppose. But I wouldn't want the other boys in my form to find out – I already get treated like a skinny short-sighted nerd, and it would probably get worse if they knew I was gay, too."

"Don't worry, I'm not going to tell anyone. But do you really think I look nice? I mean, you're right about me being a bit thin, and my face is all bony…"

"Well, okay, I suppose it is, but I still think you're good-looking. And you've got nice eyes, too – I like the contrast between black hair and blue eyes."

He seemed to have recovered a bit – at least, now he was looking at me properly again. My penis had softened, but I hadn't started to get dressed yet, and for some reason I didn't really want to – after all, this was the first time that anyone had ever said that I look good, and I thought that he really liked looking at me I could let him do so for a bit longer.

It was strange: until today I'd hardly known him – although we play on the same chess team we've never really spoken to each other before, and then when I had found out a bit about him – when his brother told me about his dirty habits – I'd only thought bad things about him. But this afternoon had been fun: I'd enjoyed springing the Grob Attack on him, and it had been brilliant actually inventing a new sort of chess game with him. He was obviously quite clever, and once I started talking to him properly I found that I liked him. Okay, playing with yourself still seems dirty, but if it's really true that a lot of people do it – and that's what those classes I went to last year said – then maybe it isn't a good reason not to like him. I suppose he's like me, in that he's nerdy and skinny and hasn't got a lot of friends, so perhaps it would be okay to be friends with him. And he likes chess, too, so we've got something in common.

"Don't you think you ought to get dressed?" he asked.

"Do you want me to?"

"Well, not really."

"Then I won't – at least… how long have we got before your brother comes home?"

He looked at his watch. "About an hour, I should think."

"Then there's no hurry, is there? In fact… why don't you get undressed, too? Then we can see which of us really is the skinniest."

He hesitated, but only for a moment.

"Okay, then," he said, and he began to get undressed. He hesitated again when he got down to his underwear, and it was obvious why: his penis was hard.

"Don't worry," I said. "You've already seen me looking like that. Now come and stand in front of the mirror."

We stood side by side and looked at ourselves, and we agreed that I was slightly thinner, but not by much. In fact we were quite like each other in other ways, too: we both had blue eyes and dark hair, though my hair is black and his is dark brown, and we both looked as if we couldn't punch our way out of a paper bag. Of course, in other ways we were quite different: he was about eight inches taller than me, for a start. And his hair was wavy while mine is flat, and of course he wears glasses, and he isn't circumcised. Obviously his is a bit bigger than mine, especially since his was hard at the moment, and he had more hair, too.

"You look okay," I told him. "Especially if you lose the glasses. I wouldn't be ashamed of you if we were seen together, anyway."

"Thanks," he said. "And you look good, especially when you smile. Why don't you do it more often?"

I shrugged. "I suppose I don't often have a lot to smile about… although I have had fun this afternoon. I won't mind doing this again if your brother asks me to."

"Make sure you tell him that, then! And… I suppose we ought to get dressed, just in case he comes back early."

So we did that, and once we were dressed he stood me in front of the mirror again and showed me what I looked like when my clothes were clean and pressed. To be honest my own clothes didn't look as good as Chris's on me – okay, I suppose his are more expensive, while mine come from the supermarket – but I still looked a lot better than I had with ink everywhere. And when I admitted this Stratford took me through to his bedroom, went to his desk and gave me a really nice-looking ballpoint pen in a proper presentation box.

"I never use this," he said. "Why don't you try it for a week or so? It's got to be better than having ink all over your face and clothes all the time."

"Are you sure?" I asked. "This looks expensive."

"Not really. Go on, Engel, try it – please?"

"You can call me Daniel, or Danny, if you want," I said. "Hardly anyone does, but I'd like it if you would."

"I will if you promise to try the pen."

"Okay, then, I will," I said, putting it in my pocket.

"Good. Then I suppose you'd better call me Kevin – if you don't mind, that is: you can still call me 'Stratford' if you prefer."

"No, I think I'd like to use your proper name… except maybe I'd better not when your brother's around, because if he thinks I'm being soft on you he might not want me to watch you any more."

"Good thinking. And talking of that, I need a pee. Can I go on my own, or are you going to come and make sure I don't misbehave?"

"You know I can't let you out of my sight," I said, grinning at him.

"Fair enough." And he led me back to the bathroom.

Of course I didn't actually watch him pee: I just waited by the door until he'd done it and rinsed his hands, and then we went back downstairs and played some more wide screen chess until his brother came home.

"Did he behave himself?" he asked me.

"Yes, pretty much. He swears sometimes, but I suppose I can put up with that," I told him. "I wouldn't mind if you asked me to do that again, anyway."

"Great!" said Chris. "I'll give you a call later, then – we might need you over the weekend."

So I said goodbye to them and walked to the bus-stop to catch the bus home. It had been a really interesting afternoon: I'd expected it to be dreadfully boring, because I thought Stratford – Kevin – was a dull sort of boy who was only remotely interesting because he plays chess: apart from that all I knew about him was that he was supposed to be a pervert who plays with himself. I'd only agreed to do it because I had absolutely nothing else to do, and because I wanted someone to practise my new openings with. And instead it had turned out to be the best time I'd had for ages: Kevin turned out to be a nice boy after all, and as for what had happened in his parents' room, that had opened my eyes to a whole new world. So I definitely wouldn't mind if Chris wanted me to look after his brother again – and maybe next time he could teach me a bit more about why being touched like that felt so incredible…

So now there's another relationship getting under way that we'll need to keep an eye on – and once again Kevin has emerged successfully from an apparently unpromising situation.

Chapter Seven

In which Chris reads minds, Dwayne tries it on and Kevin turns the tables on the Microbes.

Chris

Checking the cameras later that evening was interesting. They hadn't actually caught Kevin misbehaving, but I hadn't expected them to, not with Engel in the house. But at one point Engel had taken a bath, and Kevin had stayed in the bathroom at the same time. Of course the 'official' camera was pointing at the shower, and so only caught glimpses as they walked past it, but the clandestine one was at the end of the room and so had seen everything.

"You know what he's like," said Kevin when I asked him about it. "We were playing chess, and he had that crappy fountain pen as usual and got ink all over him. I suggested he should have a shower, but he said he'd prefer a bath. And because he thought I couldn't be trusted to behave while he was in the bath he made me stay in the room with him."

"Right," I said. Of course I wasn't supposed to have seen anything not covered by the shower camera, but I didn't see why I shouldn't find out how honest my brother was going to be. So…

"Well, I'm sure you had a good look while you had the chance," I went on. "Is he your type?"

"Not really. He's far too thin – even skinnier than me – and of course he's really too small, too."

"Ah, so you only fancy tall boys," I commented. "That narrows down the choice of who in the team you're after – I can delete anyone shorter than Engel, then."

"No! I mean… well, not exactly… Look, there's more to it than just height! It's just that Engel is small and skinny – maybe if he wasn't quite so thin…"

"You're not fooling anyone, you know," I said. "I'll be watching you tomorrow…"

The following morning I packed him off to the Microbes', having once again impressed upon them that they shouldn't let Kev play with himself this time. They still seemed reluctant, but they agreed on condition that the next time round they'd be free to make him do it in front of them, and I couldn't see any reason not to accept.

Training went well – there were still a few of the team missing for one reason or another, but Ryan was back, so at least we didn't have to put up with Kev's crap goalkeeping this time. And Mr Clifford said that everyone would be back in time for the game on Sunday, so that was okay.

On Friday Kev was going to be away doing the First Aid course Mr Clifford had signed him up to. Obviously I wouldn't be able to monitor him while he was off doing that, but I had arranged for him to be at home on his own for most of Thursday, and I was pretty sure that he'd be far more likely to do it in the comfort of the living room, or my bedroom, than in a toilet cubicle wherever the First Aid course was taking place.

I spent most of Thursday out of the house – I went into town with Colin and Mark and didn't go back home until about five o'clock. Kevin was sitting in the living room, innocently watching TV, and I didn't for one moment believe that he'd been doing that all day. And when I went upstairs and checked the cameras I found that, exactly as I'd expected, he'd used my bedroom, and the photo, again that morning. Not only that, but he'd also had a second go earlier in the afternoon, this time on the sofa downstairs. Excellent, I thought: that makes five.

I went downstairs and sat next to him in front of the TV, and when the program he had been watching finished I turned the TV off.

"Okay, Kev," I said. "Is there anything you want to tell me?"

"Like what?"

"Well, I wondered if you might like to admit to having slipped up and done something you weren't supposed to in the last two or three weeks."

"You haven't exactly left me a lot of opportunities, have you?"

"Oh, I don't know. You were here on your own today, and that hasn't been the first time, either – it's so hard to get baby-sitters these days. So, answer the question: have you?"

"No, I haven't," he said.

"Oh, dear, wrong answer," I said. "I make it five times so far…"

And I gave him the time and date of each time he had broken the rule, and his face was a picture.

"But… how… I mean, that's crap, Chris!"

"No, it isn't. I can read your mind, Kev – after you've done it you get sort of guilty and shifty, and I can always tell. There's a sort of psychic bond between us, and it's got much easier to read you since I found out about what you do in your spare time. Do you mean to say you've never known when I'm lying? I thought all brothers had that sort of a link."

Okay, it's utter crap, and 99% of people would have known it was utter crap the moment I spoke. But of course Kevin wasn't able to think properly right now, and I hoped that by hitting him with this psychic bullshit it would stop him from thinking clearly – because if he did that he'd pretty soon work out that there had to be some cameras somewhere that he hadn't found out about yet. And I wanted those cameras to remain a secret for as long as possible.

"What, you mean you can really tell what I'm thinking about?" he asked. "Everything?"

"Well, no, not everything. I'm still not sure who you fancy in the football team, for a start. But I can tell when you've been playing with yourself. So… five offences means five more people get to find out about you. I'll let you off the first couple, because that'll cover the Microbe's brother and Engel, so that just leaves us with three to find. You know the team a bit better by now, so do you have any preferences?"

Kevin

I simply didn't know what to think. I really didn't think Chris was able to read my mind – if he was he'd certainly have had something to say about what I'd been up to with Mark, and the same went for what I'd been doing with Danny Engel in our parents' bedroom. But I couldn't understand how he knew about my wanking sessions otherwise.

"Yes, none of them," I said. "Come on, Chris, be reasonable – aren't you having enough fun with this without involving other people?"

"That's not the point," he said. "You knew the rules, and you broke them. And you knew what would happen if you did. So, if you don't have any preference, let's just have a lucky dip."

He went out and came back a couple of minutes later with a pack of cards.

"Okay," he said, "you're going to draw three cards. Each card corresponds to someone's squad number – so if you draw an ace, that's Ryan, because he's number one. Jacks are eleven, queens are twelve, kings are thirteen and if you draw an eight it counts as fourteen, because eight is my squad number and I know about you already, whereas fourteen is Lee Woodford's number, and he doesn't. If you draw the same number twice you won't have to take a different card instead. And if you manage to draw three jacks you'll be the luckiest bastard on earth, because Mark's number eleven and he already knows about you. The Microbe is fifteen, so you can't get an escape card by picking his number because it won't be in there. So…"

He shuffled the cards and offered them to me. The one card I really didn't want was a nine, because that was Colin's number, and I still hoped that I could get out of this without having Colin find out about it. So I closed my eyes, prayed that I wouldn't get a nine, and drew my first card. I didn't turn it over straight away: instead I just put it face down on the sofa next to me. I drew two more and lined them up next to the first one and waited while Chris went and put the rest of the pack on the table.

"Okay," he said, "let's see who you've got."

I turned the first one over. It was the five of diamonds.

"That's Dwayne," Chris told me. "I wonder what they think of wankers in Jamaica? You'd better hope they're not too fussed about it. Who's next?"

I turned over the eight of clubs.

"Well, that would have been me, but, like I said before, now it's Lee Woodford."

"Which one is he?" I asked. "Oh, it's the kid with red hair, isn't it?"

"No, it's the other one – there are two Lees in the team. Short, dark brown hair, big teeth," he told me. "He plays at right back when Charlie's away, or sometimes on the right side of midfield."

I thought I knew which one he meant, though I didn't think I'd ever spoken to him. I took a deep breath and turned the last card over, and was delighted to see the jack of spades.

"Lucky bastard," he said. "That's Mark, and he already knows about you. So you're getting off with only two new witnesses. I'll talk to them on Sunday at the game and arrange for them to join in with keeping you under control – after all, the more of us there are to keep an eye on you, the better."

Obviously I didn't agree with that, but I knew it wouldn't do me any good to argue. Although when I thought about it I would have to say that, so far at least, this hadn't been the embarrassing and humiliating disaster I had expected it to be. Thus far nobody had given me a really hard time about it, and in fact in a lot of ways my life had become far more interesting. Before Chris caught me I'd never had any sexual contact with anyone else at all, and in fact I'd scarcely even managed to see another boy naked, except for the odd glimpse on Games Days at school. But now I'd had a couple of brilliant experiences with Mark; I'd been naked with Danny Engel, and he had even let me handle him; and I'd found someone to talk to in class, too – even though Jason Temple was a geek like me, well, two geeks are better than one. So perhaps everything would go smoothly with Dwayne and… whatever the other one's name was.

The first-aid course was interesting. I'd quite liked the idea of having to give one of the team the kiss of life, but after I'd been working with the dummy for a couple of minutes I realised that actually it would be really hard work – though perhaps if I managed to save the team member's life he'd be prepared to reward me with a rather less strenuous kiss afterwards… anyway, I learned a lot about bandages and splints and how to deal with different sorts of injury, and even though I really hoped I would never see some of the injuries I learned about in real life I still felt confident that I could be useful if anything actually did happen on the pitch. Though, oddly, I didn't learn anything about the famous Magic Sponge.

I didn't have any particular plans for Saturday, though I'd been vaguely hoping Mark might volunteer to supervise me for a couple of hours: I was learning a lot from him and would have been happy to get some more practical experience, too. But instead I ended up spending the day indoors with Chris, just moping about the house and watching TV and stuff.

Sunday's match was at home to Eagleton Rovers, another of the better teams in the league, and at half-time we were losing 1-0 and I thought I was going to see the team lose for the first time. But Mr Clifford did his impersonation of Sir Alex during the half-time turnaround and the second half was a lot better: Colin scored shortly after the second half started, and in the last five minutes we scored twice more, the first a rather fluky own goal and the second a hard shot from the edge of the area by the little winger Silvio. I thought he was trying to cross, but afterwards he swore it had been deliberate, and I suppose he's the only one who would know. Anyway, Mr Clifford was a lot happier at the end of the game, though he still had plenty to say about the fact that it had taken an own goal four minutes before the final whistle to put us in front.

Once he had finished holding forth the team headed for the showers and I did my usual kit-collecting routine, after which I was able to sit and admire the view for a while. The only downside was that everyone generally seemed to get changed in roughly the same place, and in my spot by the door I was about as far away from Colin as I could possibly get, and neither Lee Becontree the redhead nor Grant of the wingnut ears, who were closest to me, offered much in the way of compensation. But at least it meant that for once my body didn't betray me.

Afterwards, when I got back from taking the kit back to Mr Clifford, I saw Chris talking to Dwayne. From the look the black boy shot in my direction it was fairly clear what they were talking about, but neither of them said anything to me about it – or not then, anyway.

But once we were back home Chris told me that I had an appointment at Dwayne's house that afternoon. By now I knew there was no point in arguing – and, besides, I was almost looking forward to it – after all, everything so far had worked out quite well…

Dwayne

When Chris Stratford takes me to one side after the game I don't know what to expect – it's not like I really know him or nothing. But I'd never have guessed what he wants to say: what it is, he's caught his brother having a wank – not only caught him, but got it on film too. Can't see nothing wrong with wanking, myself, but getting caught on film – what a muppet! And it turns out I'm not the only one to find out about it neither – seems that every time Kevin gets caught his brother tells someone else about it. You'd have thought the stupid idiot would have worked out not to get caught by now…

Anyhow, what it means is I can make him do whatever I tell him. Chris tells me the others make Kevin clean their boots and stuff, and that sounds good to me – I don't know nobody that likes having to clean his boots. So when Kevin turns up at my yard that's the first thing I tell him to do. I give him the boots and the cleaning stuff and then go back to my room and get on with playing GTA IV. Yes, I know it's an 18, but so what? It's not like playing a game is going to make me steal a ride, get a strap and start driving all over killing people and that, is it? I don't get why some adults think kids can't tell the difference between a game and reality… anyway, my 'rents are cool about it.

So I've been playing for about half an hour when Sam comes in (he's my little bro. He's nine, and he's okay, for a little kid).

"That boy says he's done your boots," he says. "Can I get him to do mine?"

"Sure," I say. "Get him to do anything else you can think of, too."

"Cool!" he says, and off he goes. Suits me – apart from cleaning my boots I can't think of nothing for the boy to do anyway. So I'm happy to leave it to Sam for a bit while I get on with the game.

About another half hour goes by and Sam comes in again, only this time Kevin is with him, so I pause the game to see what they want.

"He's done the boots," says Sam. "And I thought… well, you know how Mum is always on at us to tidy the room? I thought he could do it for us."

"'Kay, why not?" I say. "Just do it quietly, 'cause I'm trying to concentrate here."

So I get back to the game while Sam tells Kevin what to do and what goes where and stuff, and I'm kind of aware of him moving about doing stuff, 'cept I'm busy with the game so I don't take a lot of notice. And next time I look up – I've messed up and Niko's in hospital again – I see them both standing behind me and watching.

"So, you finished?" I ask, pausing the game.

"Yeah, what do you think?" asks Sam.

It looks clean. I'm pretty sure Mum's going to like it, but I'm not sure I'll be able to find my stuff – I know where it is when I just put it down on the floor. Still, I guess it's worth it to get a bit of peace from Mum's going on about it.

"Yeah, looks good," I say. "So what else do the others make you do, then?"

He shrugs. "I help the Microbe's brother out with his homework sometimes," he says. "There's nothing else really."

I wonder why he isn't looking at me as he says this. It makes me think he's lying.

"Yes, there is," I say. "You'd better tell me, 'cause I'll just ask around next time we have training. Course, I don't know who to ask, so I'll just have to ask everyone. I guess that means 'nuff kids who don't know about you yet gonna find out…"

He looks unhappy, and he glances at Sam and then back to me, like he don't want to say in front of Sam or something.

"Don't you worry 'bout my bro," I say. "He's safe. So let's hear it."

"Well… see, a couple of times they've made me do it while they watch – you know, what it is I'm not supposed to keep doing."

"What's he talking about?" asks Sam.

"Tell him," I say.

It's obvious Kevin's not happy talking about this in front of some little kid he don't know, but I just stare at him until he gives in.

"Well… you know, playing with… with myself," he says.

"Huh?" says Sam.

Sam's not stupid and he knows 'xactly what it's about, but he keeps a straight face.

"Playing with… with my penis," says Kevin, blushing all over.

"Huh?" says Sam again. "Why you do that, then?"

Like he don't know – I know Sam wanks himself because I've caught him sometimes, and I can hear when he does it in bed, too.

"Well, it feels good," says Kevin, blushing some more.

"Really? Show us, then!"

I wait for Kevin to tell him to get lost, 'cause that's what I'd have done. But instead he just looks at me.

"Come on," he says, "I can't do that in front of a little kid like Sam."

"Why not?" I say. "He's already getting sex education at school – this'll just help him understand it better."

"Yes, but…"

"But nothing. You already said you had to do it for some of the others. 'Sides, Chris said to tell him if you don't do what you're told. I think you'll be in for it if I do that."

I still reckon he's not going to do it, but then he starts to undo his belt. Sam's about to crack up, but somehow he holds it back.

"Take everything off," he says. "Then we can see properly…"

Kevin

I really wasn't happy about this. I hadn't been all that keen doing it in front of the Microbes, but this was far worse because Sam was so young. I didn't know anything about this stuff when I was his age – it only came up in sex education in my last year at primary school. I thought it might shock him, and then he'd go asking his parents questions, and then I could be in real trouble.

"You have to promise not to tell anyone about this," I said.

"No, I don't!"

"Yes, you do – if you go telling your parents 'Guess what happened today' I'll be in serious shit!"

"I'm not stupid," he said. "Obviously I'm not going to tell my parents. And anyway, if you did get into trouble we would too for making you do it. So get on with it."

I still thought this was a really bad idea, but I couldn't really see a way out of it, at least not without annoying Chris, and if that happened there was a risk that some of his pictures of me might end up on the net somewhere. And pretty much anything would be better than that. So, unenthusiastically, I started to get undressed, and once I was naked I lay down on the bed.

"That hair looks weird," said Sam, staring at me. "How old are you?"

"I'm fourteen," I told him.

"His dick's not up to much for fourteen, is it, Dwayne?" he asked.

"It's not, at that. Still, give him a chance to get it hard."

Obviously this sort of critique wasn't doing a lot to help me get it hard, but I did my best, trying to shut out the younger boy's giggles, and eventually I got it hard – at least, hard enough to make a start. I took hold and started to rub it.

"That's not very hard," commented Sam. "Mine gets a lot harder than that."

"Give me a chance," I said. "I've barely started yet."

"Get on with it, then!"

So I got on with it, I was just getting settled into a rhythm when Sam made me stop and let go again.

"That's still too floppy," he said. "You need to make it harder, or we'll think you're not trying."

"Look, you try doing it in front of an audience sometime. I bet you couldn't get properly hard either."

"Bet I could!"

"Well, I can't," I said. "It's hard enough for you to get the idea, anyway. So can I get dressed now?"

"Course not, you haven't finished yet. I wanna see you spunk up."

I stared at him, because I certainly hadn't known that word when I was nine. I supposed that sex education at his school was a bit less clinical than it had been at mine. That, or his older brother had been teaching him stuff. In any event it was obvious that I was going to have to finish the job, and so I lay down again and got on with it. But it was really difficult, far harder than it had been doing it in front of the Microbes, and that had been difficult enough. But at least I knew Jason a bit, whereas I didn't know these two at all. And then there was the whole different culture thing: I knew that Jamaicans really don't like gay people, and I wondered if that extended to boys who play with themselves a lot. So it took a very long time.

Finally I could feel it building up, so I told them I was getting there.

"About bloody time," said Dwayne.

A few more strokes brought me over the edge and I spurted three or four times.

"Is that it?" commented Dwayne. "Hardly worth waiting for, was it? That's pretty pathetic for fourteen."

"Oh, and you can do better, can you?" I asked, stung.

"I'm twelve," Dwayne pointed out. "But, yeah, I reckon I could do it faster than that, and get a lot more out too."

"Don't lie!

"I never lie. Next time you come round we'll time you, and then I'll be able to tell you how much faster I can do it."

He handed me a tissue and I cleaned myself up, and then he told me to get dressed.

"I'll sort out with your bro when you're coming round here next," he promised me. "Maybe next time we'll film you."

"I don't think so," I said. "That would be well gay."

I'd hoped that would make him think again, and it seemed to. Instead he just told me I could go and went back to his video game. So I said "Goodbye" over my shoulder and headed for home.

When I got home Chris asked how it had gone.

"It was embarrassing," he said.

He seemed to be waiting for more details, but I saw no reason to oblige. I supposed that if he really wanted to know he could always ask Dwayne about it next time he saw him.

"You'll have to wait to see Lee Woodford," he said. "He goes to some private school somewhere and he isn't allowed to do anything on school-nights. We'll have to sort something out with him next Friday."

That didn't bother me too much – there were already too many people involved for comfort.

"Am I supposed to be going over to Mark's this evening?" I asked.

"No, they've got guests. So you're lucky – you can stay in and watch TV instead."

To be honest, I wouldn't have minded going to Mark's at all. But I could hardly say so without making Chris very suspicious, so instead I managed to look enthusiastic about watching crap on TV.

School got straight back into the normal routine on Monday, so I went to chess club after school as usual. Danny Engel was there, but he was already playing someone else when I got there, and I didn't get a chance to speak to him until shortly before we went home.

"Sorry I was ignoring you," he told me, once we were outside. "I thought that we shouldn't look too friendly, because if your brother finds out he won't let me babysit you again."

"I'm not sure that 'babysit' is quite the right word," I pointed out. "But that's probably good thinking. How's the pen working out?"

"I like it," he said. "I don't look messy today, do I?"

His clothes were still untidy, but at least now there was no ink on his hands or face.

"Well, not as much as usual," I conceded. "Now we just have to find a way to stop your shirt coming untucked and your tie ending up under your ear."

He shrugged. "I fidget when I'm thinking," he said.

"Well, it's a bad habit. It makes you look untidy. Maybe I ought to try to get you out of the habit – after all, you're helping me deal with my bad habit. Perhaps if I beat you up every time I see your shoelaces knotted or something…"

"No, thank you. I can manage on my own."

"Bet you can't. Anyway, I don't know when Chris will need someone to keep an eye on me again. Saturday morning when he goes shopping is about the only time I'm likely to be at home without him."

"I can't do Saturdays. Saturday is a family day, and I have to go to synagogue, too."

"Pity. Well, you could come round one evening after school if you like. You could tell Chris you want to practice playing chess with me."

"Could I?" he said, his face lighting up. "That'd be great! I'll ask permission when I get home. It should be alright as long as I don't have too much homework."

We walked to the bus stop. I thought it would be nice to have an evening playing chess with Danny. Of course, Chris would be in the house, and that, together with the camera in my room, would probably prevent us doing anything we shouldn't, but that didn't matter too much – it would be fun just playing chess together.

In the event, we were out of luck: the only evening Danny was free was Thursday, and that was my night for going round to the Microbes' place. Danny was disappointed when I told him but said he might be able to fix a visit for Tuesday or Wednesday of the following week.

Jason

By now the Microbe and I were used to having Stratford round on a Thursday evening and we had a proper schedule for him. First, while my brother and I were eating supper, he took Luke's boots out into the back yard and cleaned them. Obviously my mum offered supper to our guest, but he declined on the grounds that he'd be eating when he got back to his own place. And tonight he did such a good job that even the Microbe couldn't find fault with it, and you can bet he tried. He'd even taken the laces right out and washed them separately.

Then we did our homework. First we did the science stuff, and then I tried doing the French on my own, writing the answers on a piece of scrap paper. Once I was finished I got Stratford to check it for me, and where I'd got it wrong he explained why and got me to do it again. Yes, obviously I could just have sat back and let him do it all for me, but you'd have to be a fucking moron to do that, 'cos at the end of term we've got an exam, and I'll have to do that on my own. So I needed to know how to do it.

Once I'd finished I copied it into my exercise book (leaving in a couple of wrong answers, obviously), and then I looked at my watch.

"You don't have to go yet," I told Stratford. "Fancy another game of cards? I mean, your brother said we weren't supposed to let you have a wank this week, but I reckon you've earned a chance. What about it?"

"Yes, okay," he said. "I brought my cards, just in case."

And the bastard pulled a pack of cards out of his briefcase.

"It's okay, we can use our cards," I said.

"Nah, I've got these out now. I thought if we use the same pack every week they'll get manked up before too long. This way both packs will last twice as long."

"How do we know these aren't marked?" I asked.

"Look for yourself," he said, handing them to me. "Come to that, how do I know yours aren't marked?"

"Don't be stupid. Where would I get a set of marked cards?"

"So why would you think I could? Satisfied?"

I had a cursory look at them and handed them back, knowing I couldn't really keep arguing without making him suspicious. And of course if he examined our pack closely he'd see that they were marked, and I couldn't risk that.

In theory the odds were that he'd beat one of us but not the other, and if that happened it would just be a draw and he'd be able to go home without giving us another demonstration. But instead it looked like fate had decided to give us a kick in the pants for stitching him up a couple of weeks previously, because after a few fairly even rounds I suddenly hit a losing run and found myself in my boxers while the other two were close to fully dressed. And my sodding little brother looked as enthusiastic about getting me naked as Stratford did.

"One more!" said Luke, happily. "Come on, Kevin, let's finish him off!"

Oh, so suddenly it's 'Kevin', is it? I thought. I decided I'd have to talk to my brother about family loyalty once Stratford had gone home. Well, not so much 'talk to' as 'thrash the living daylights out of'.

Luke lost the next hand, and I made a rude noise at him as he took his shirt off, and Stratford lost the one after that, but it couldn't last and thirty seconds later I lost again. I hesitated: after all, I was supposed to be in charge of Stratford, so if I told him to go home now he'd have to do it. But I realised that I couldn't do that, not unless I wanted him to think I was a bottler, and so I stood up and pulled my boxers off. And of course the moment I did that my bloody prick betrayed me and I started to get an erection. I sat down with my hands over it, but I didn't expect to be able to get away with that, and of course I didn't.

"Stand up and show us," said my brother, the little sod. Yes, I was definitely going to give him a smack later, I decided. But there was no getting out of it, so I stood up and moved my hands away.

I'm small for my age. I already know that. But somehow standing here like this and knowing what Stratford's got made it seem even smaller, even though it was as big as it ever gets – which is exactly three inches (yes, I measure it. I keep hoping all the attention will make it start growing at last) – and twitching with it. I braced myself against the torrent of snide comments I was expecting. But Stratford surprised me.

"That looks good," he said.

"It looks pathetic," I replied.

"No, it doesn't. It's really hard, for a start. Mine never gets that hard."

"Oh, right, so going hard in front of other boys is okay, is it?" I demanded.

"You can't help that. You're naked and people are looking at you. It's almost impossible not to go hard in those circumstances. But, seriously, it looks okay. Look, Jase, you haven't really started growing yet, so it's no surprise if that hasn't started growing either – in fact if you were four feet eight…"

"Four feet nine [1.45 m]," I interrupted.

"Sorry, four feet nine, then… and had a massive knob and big hairy balls you'd look gross. As it is everything looks just right."

Sure," I said, bitterly. "I'm thirteen and I look eight, but that's okay because I've got an eight-year-old's prick, too."

"You'll grow," he said. "In another couple of years you'll probably be bigger than me. Anyway, you can sit down if you want."

"Let's make him do it to himself!" said Luke, suddenly. "Come on, Kevin, let's – after all, when you came last a couple of weeks ago you had to do it!"

If looks could kill my brother would have exploded at that point, but before I could started tearing into him Stratford beat me to it.

"That's not what we agreed," he said. "I mean, yes, I'd quite like to watch, just to find out how it feels from the audience's point of view, but it wouldn't be fair, because we never agreed that before we started. What we agreed was just that if I come last I have to do it in front of you, and if I beat both of you I get to use your bathroom instead. How would you have felt if you'd lost and Jason had said that about you?"

"I didn't lose, though."

"Well, okay then: suppose we say now that whichever of us two loses has to do it in public? I bet you wouldn't be so keen about that, would you?"

He thought about it. "Well, okay," he said. "At least that means I've still got a chance of watching you do it. And… let's say Jason has to keep playing too, and if he loses four more times before either of us does, then he has to do it too. That way I might even get to watch both of you doing it."

I wasn't too keen on that, but then I thought that I just had to avoid losing four times before one of the others did, and then I'd either get to watch my brother making a fool of himself, or I'd get to watch Stratford spurting all over himself. And so I agreed.

Of course, that was a mistake, because I'd lost four times before either of them was even in his underwear, and at that point Luke bounced about as if he'd won the bloody lottery

"You're going to look so funny!" he crowed at me. "I'm going to film it on my mobile and show everyone in my form!"

"No, you're not," Stratford told him. "We never agreed to that. And if you try and Jason beats you up, I won't try to stop him. And the same goes if you try filming me, too."

That kept Luke quiet for a moment, but when he won the next hand he got lippy again. And then Stratford won three hands in a row, and that was enough to win the game. Of course at that point Luke shut up.

"Come on, then," said Stratford. "We're waiting."

Luke hesitated, but to be fair to him he doesn't chicken out of stuff, and after a moment he stood up and pulled his briefs off. And, like me, he had an erection.

I haven't caught more than a glimpse of him undressed recently, and I was surprised to see that it was bigger than I had thought – in fact it probably wasn't a lot smaller than mine. As you can imagine, this didn't exactly make me feel good – after all, I'm five inches taller than he is, and more than two years older.

"Come on, then," said Stratford. "Who's going first?"

"You could let us off," suggested Luke, hopefully.

"Yeah, like you let me off last time, you mean? But you can both do it at the same time if you prefer. Stand and face each other."

Luke looked at me, and then he grabbed his prick and started to rub it.

"Bet I get there before you do!" he challenged, and so of course I had to try to make sure that he didn't, because that would have been too shameful.

For a minute or so Stratford just sat on the bed and watched us, but then he told us to stop and take our hands away. Seeing Luke's twitching the same way mine does was sort of interesting, although knowing mine was doing it too was a bit of an embarrassment.

"Okay," said Stratford, "I'll make you an offer. At the moment I'm going to have fifteen minutes in your bathroom on my own, but… would you prefer me to do it here instead?"

"Obviously," I said. "I don't see why you should be spared the shame if we can avoid it. So what do you want in exchange?"

"I want to watch you two do it to each other."

"Fuck off!" I said. "I'm not touching my brother's dick. That would be seriously gay."

"You can wear gloves if you like. Then you wouldn't have to touch it."

"No way!"

"I dunno, Jase," said Luke. "I wouldn't mind doing it. That way we'd get to watch him spurt again, and that's well funny."

I thought about it. Okay, it had been fun watching him spunk up and I would have liked to see it happen again, but if anyone ever found out I'd tossed my brother off…

But before I could object any further Luke reached out, took hold of me and started to rub, and when I got over the initial shock – I must have jumped about a foot into the air when he took hold, because nobody has ever touched me like that before – I realised that it felt good. Physically, at least – mentally it still felt weird.

"And you, Jase," said Stratford. "Do it to him, too."

So I took hold of my brother, though I didn't start to rub it straight away: instead I just felt it. Like mine, his balls weren't very big, and like mine his prick was small but very hard, and stroking it felt sort of interesting.

"Lie on the bed and do it to each other," said Stratford, and so we did: we got into a position where we could get hold of each other and got on with it. And as long as I didn't actually think about what I was doing it felt good, and when I finally came it felt pretty amazing. Finishing my brother off afterwards wasn't quite so good, but at least once we'd both got dressed again we had the fun of watching Stratford shooting all over himself. At least when Luke and I do it there's no mess to clean up afterwards. That's not to say that I don't wish I could come like Stratford can, but still…

I thought maybe I'd feel a bit awkward being with Luke after that, but in fact once Stratford had gone home he just grinned at me and challenged me to a game on his PS2, like he usually did, and within five minutes or so I felt that he and I were completely back to normal. But it had definitely been an interesting evening…

Kevin might not be happy that his fame is spreading, but at least it's no longer just one-way traffic.

Chapter Eight

In which Kevin takes up pedagogy and some geeks benefit from his wisdom.

Kevin

Jason was a bit quiet the following morning, which wasn't like him at all, and I wondered if he was regretting the previous evening's activities.

"Not really," he said when I asked. "But… you're not going to tell anyone about it, are you?"

"Don't be bloody stupid! Obviously I'm not – I mean, it doesn't exactly make me look hyper-normal, does it? And, besides, we're mates, and mates don't drop each other in it."

"Right. It still feels fucking weird, doing that with my brother, but I suppose as long as nobody finds out about it, it won't matter. And I suppose it was kinda interesting. Have you ever done that with your brother?"

"God, no. Me and Chris? I don't think so."

"Why not? It's not like he's butt-ugly, is it?"

I looked at him. "Jase, he's my brother," I said. "I bet you'd never looked at Luke that way until yesterday evening, had you?"

"Well, no…"

"And, anyway, why would you think I want to do anything with boys?"

"Well, you don't seem to be beating the girls away from you, so maybe your brother could be a sort of alternative. Let's face it, you and me, we're never going to have the girls fighting to get near us, so… well… having Luke do it was better than doing it myself, is all I'm saying. Maybe if I ever reach puberty girls will start taking an interest in me and then I won't need Luke any longer, but that could be ages away. And I'd have thought it's the same for you: until you get some muscles and buy some contact lenses I don't think you'll be getting anywhere with girls either. So maybe it would be better getting Chris to do it for you instead of just wanking yourself stupid every night."

"There's no way I'm going to ask my brother to toss me off. He'd fall about laughing, and then he'd tell Mark and Colin, and pretty soon it would be all round the school. Maybe it's okay for you and Luke, but me and Chris… no. No chance. And, anyway, the whole point of what's happening to me at the moment is to stop me wanking, so I don't think he's going to suddenly start volunteering to do it for me himself."

"Yeah, I'd forgotten about that. Well, we can probably fix it so you can do it most Thursday evenings, as long as you don't mind an audience."

"Thanks… I suppose. I'd sooner be able to do it in private, though."

"Well, you could have done that last night, if you hadn't wanted to laugh at me and the Microbe more."

"True, but that was worth it. You looked pretty funny, playing with each other."

"You just wait till next time we beat you at cards!"

It drizzled through football training that evening, but it didn't rain hard enough for Mr Clifford to call the training off, and so everyone got wet – except me: I got to sit under the verandah of the changing room, brushing up on the laws of the game. Mr Clifford wanted me to take a referee's course sometime at Easter if it could be arranged and so he expected me to have a good basic knowledge of the rules before then. At least it kept me dry, though I got wedged up against my very wet brother on the journey home, which meant I was a lot less dry by the time Colin's mother dropped us off.

"Lee is free tomorrow morning," Chris told me. "He's expecting you at around ten o'clock. Mind you don't mess up – your timetable is getting a bit full, and if you're not careful you'll end up scrubbing someone's boots every night of the week."

I wasn't too keen on that idea: cleaning endless pairs of dirty boots really isn't my idea of fun. But when I got to Lee Woodford's house the following morning I found that he'd already cleaned his boots himself the previous evening.

"You should have left them for me," I said, although I was grateful that he hadn't. "That's really what I'm here for, after all."

"Is it? Honestly, I didn't actually understand most of what your brother told me. He said something about you doing things you're not supposed to, and because of that I can get you to work for me, or something like that, but I didn't really get it. I didn't say anything because I didn't want to look stupid, but… please could you explain it to me?"

I looked at him. Various adjectives sprang to mind: 'neat' (although he was about the same size as Danny Engel, visually he was completely different – even though it was the weekend he looked very tidy, his dark brown hair carefully combed and his clothes clean and smart); 'toothy' (he had both an overbite and very large front teeth); and 'posh' (he had one of those very correct 'private education' accents) – though he didn't seem at all snobby about it.

"Well, did you understand any of it – like what Chris caught me doing, for example?" I asked.

"Not really. He said something about you playing with yourself, but I don't see what's so bad about doing things on your own. What exactly was it that you were doing?"

Did he really not understand, I wondered, or was he winding me up?

"Do you know what masturbation is?" I asked.

He shook his head slowly, and I was virtually certain he was being honest with me.

"Doesn't your school have sex education?" I asked.

"No," he said. "Why? Is it something to do with sex?"

"Yes, it is."

"Oh. Only I don't really know anything much about that. Of course, I've heard things at school, but I don't know if any of them are actually true."

"Haven't you ever thought of looking it up on the computer? I mean, you do have one – or don't you?"

Looking round the room I couldn't see one, but…

"Yes, but it's downstairs in the living room, and I couldn't use it for anything like that or my parents would find out, and then they would think I was dirty. But… if you're supposed to work for me… perhaps you could help me. You could teach me about it and tell me whether the things I heard at school are true or not, couldn't you?"

I wasn't too keen on that idea: in its way, this could turn out almost as embarrassing as having to play with myself in front of Dwayne and Sam had been.

"Wouldn't it be better to ask your parents?" I suggested.

He stared at me. "Is that how you found out about it?" he asked.

"Well, no. But my school had classes for it."

"I simply couldn't talk to my parents about something like that," he said. "It would be far less embarrassing if you could help me. Please?"

"Okay, I can see it would be less embarrassing for you… By the way, what do your parents think I'm doing here in the first place?"

"They didn't ask, and all I said was that I'd have a friend coming round this morning."

"Well, we ought to do something, otherwise they'll wonder what we're doing. Can you play chess?"

"Yes, but I'm not very good."

"That'll do, then. Have you got a chess set?"

He nodded, pulled a set from under his bed and handed it to me.

"Get it set up and I'll go and tell my mother we're playing chess," he said. "That way we won't be disturbed."

He came back a couple of minutes later carrying a bottle of Coke and a couple of glasses, which he put on the floor beside us. I finished setting up the board and went through the usual process of hiding a pawn in each hand. He picked the black one, so I sat down on the white side of the board and shoved the king's pawn forward two spaces.

"How old are you?" I asked.

"Eleven, nearly twelve."

"And you really don't know about sex?"

No – well, not much, anyway."

"Okay, tell me what you do know…"

Lee

I didn't really know Kevin Stratford, of course, but from what I had seen of him at football he seemed nice, and although I had no idea why he was here – in all honesty I hadn't understood what his brother had told me at all – it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss.

However, this was still quite a difficult question to answer without blushing…

"Well," I said, "I know boys are different from girls because girls don't have a… you know… and my friend at school told me that sex is where you put your… your willy inside a girl's… front…"

This was really difficult: I'd never talked about this sort of thing before, except with my best friend at school, and I was scared that Kevin would think I was a complete baby for not knowing anything about it, or perhaps that he'd think I was dirty for wanting to talk about it at all. But he didn't laugh or anything, and he didn't look disgusted with me either. Instead he nodded.

"That's basically right," he said. "If you do that with a girl when you're both old enough, you can make her pregnant and then she'll have a baby… you do know where babies come from?"

I nodded. "They come from inside their mother," I said.

"Right. Babies start after a man has had sex with a woman, so if you're going to do that with a girl you have to be very careful to make sure she doesn't get pregnant."

"Don't worry, I'm not going to do that. I can't imagine why anyone would want to anyway – it sounds disgusting."

"A lot of things you hear about sex sound disgusting, but somehow when you try them you find out that they're not," he said.

"But why would people want to do that?" I asked. "I can understand that if you're married and want to have children, then you have to, but when I've heard people talking about it at school, or at football, they make out that it's something everyone wants to do. And I was afraid maybe it's me – is there something wrong with me? Why does everyone want to do it except me?"

"It's not you," he assured me. "I bet you none of the boys at school or at football have ever done it, and probably most of them don't really want to either – at least, not yet. Most people don't get interested in sex at all until they reach puberty. I know I didn't."

"What's puberty?" I asked.

"Ah. I suppose if your school doesn't have sex education and your parents haven't told you, and you can't use the computer either, there's no way for you to know. Well, puberty is when you start growing up properly – you could say it's when you change from a boy into a man. Haven't you ever noticed the way some of the boys in the team are more developed than others?"

"I don't get changed with the rest of the team," I said. "I always go straight home after the game. I take my kit off in the car and Daddy gives it straight to Mr Clifford while I'm putting my old tracksuit on. Then I come home and have a proper bath here. So I haven't seen what the other boys in the team look like. And at school we get changed for games and PE in individual cubicles, and we wear trunks to have a shower after rugby or hockey."

"Okay. Well, have you noticed any changes to your own body recently?"

"Not really. I'm still getting taller – I'm four feet seven [1.40 m] now – and I suppose I'm getting a bit faster and stronger, but that's all."

"I was thinking more about your… you know, personal places."

"I don't think so," I said. "Except…"

I hesitated. If there was something wrong with me I didn't want him telling everyone about it… but so far he'd been nice and hadn't laughed at me at all. I really wanted to know the answer to this question, and I didn't know who else to ask, so I decided to go ahead.

"It seems to go hard a lot," I said. "It's uncomfortable, and I don't know why it happens. Can you tell me?"

"Don't worry," he said. "It happens to all boys. There's not a lot you can do about it, but it's nothing to worry about."

"Really?"

"I promise."

"Thanks," I said, and I really did feel relieved. "But why does it happen?"

"It gets like that when you're thinking of sex – basically it has to be hard when you have sex or you won't be able to get it in. But when you're going through puberty it seems to get hard a lot for no reason. It happens to me even when I'm just sitting in class trying to follow what the teacher is saying, and it's often hard when I wake up in the mornings."

"Me, too," I said, happy to hear that it wasn't just me. And now I felt relaxed enough to ask the other question that had been bothering me, too. "One other thing: when I was talking to Freddie – that's my friend at school – he… well, he showed me what his one looked like, and it was different from mine. And I wondered if maybe there was something wrong with mine."

"I shouldn't think so," he said. "I don't think any two look the same. But I'll have a look at it for you if you like."

I stared at him. "I'm not supposed to let anyone see me undressed," I told him. "I mean, I didn't even show Freddie, even though he let me see his. That's why I'm not allowed to get changed with the other boys at football."

"Has your doctor seen you undressed?"

"Well, yes. But that's different."

"Not really," he said. "You're asking me about sex, and you want to know if there's something wrong with you, so I'm sort of like a doctor. And I promise I won't tell anyone else about it, either – after all, doctors are supposed to keep their patients' details confidential, so I will, too."

Kevin

He didn't seem sure about it, so I didn't push – clearly his parents and his school, which was apparently some sort of religious place, both set high standards by modesty.

"Look, you can always ask your doctor," I said. "I'm sure he won't mind talking to you about it."

"Yes, but Mummy always comes with me when I see the doctor."

"Ah. Yes, I suppose that would be a bit awkward. Well, I really wouldn't worry about it – like I said, we all look a little bit different from each other, and it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it. Is there anything else you want to know?"

"Well, yes, but… look, you promise not to tell anyone?"

"Of course I do. Even if Chris asks me, I won't tell him."

"Well, then…"

He stood up, undid his trousers and pushed them and his underwear – white briefs, I noticed, which I didn't think anyone wore these days – down to his knees. Then he lifted his shirt out of the way.

It was about average size – and actually probably a bit bigger than either of the Microbes could offer, though I thought I might not mention that to Jason, unless he really annoyed me, of course… anyway, I couldn't see anything wrong with it.

"That looks okay," I said. "It isn't too big or too small, and it seems to hang down properly. Does it just look funny when it sticks out, or something?"

"No – it's the end that's different," he said. "Freddie's has got skin all over the end – so is he the one with something wrong?"

"No, not at all. It's just that you've been circumcised – that means that the skin over the end has been cut off. It's quite common – I know at least two other boys who have had it done, and there are probably more in the team, and at your school, too. It's perfectly normal."

"You swear?" he asked.

"I swear. There's nothing wrong with you, Lee."

"Gosh, that is a relief," he said, pulling his trousers back up. "When I saw Freddie's I was afraid that… anyway, thanks, Kevin. You know you could really have got me going there, don't you? I mean, if you'd said something like 'Bloody hell, what's happened to you?' or something I'd have really thought I was a freak. I knew I was right about you being nice."

"Maybe I'll do that next time!" I threatened, grinning. "No, I know it's really difficult, not knowing stuff and having people tease you about it, so I wouldn't do that to anyone."

"Thanks. So… will you give me proper sex education lessons, then?"

"Well, what else do you want to know?"

"Everything! I want to know what happens when you get puberty, and why boys want to do sex with girls, and why boys look different from each other, and how exactly babies start growing, and… well, everything! Please, Kevin? I won't ever make you clean my boots if you say yes."

"Well, I suppose so. But I'm not really a proper expert or anything – after all, I've never actually been out with a girl, and there's probably stuff I don't know. But I'll do my best."

"Cool! Except… maybe it would be better if we don't do it here. Mummy might come upstairs to see what we're doing, and if you had some rude pictures to show me, or something like that, we'd get into trouble. So can I come to your house? If I tell Mummy that you're teaching me chess, or maybe that I was going to play football with your brother, I'm sure it would be all right. Can I come this afternoon?"

"Yes, I suppose so. I don't have anything else planned, anyway. Do you know where we live?"

I gave him my address and then we just played chess for half an hour or so. He wasn't particularly good, though he did know the basics, and when we played a second game, during which I asked him to explain why he had made each move as soon as he had made it, and explained the thinking behind my own moves, he seemed to take it in quite well. And it's as well that we stuck to playing chess, because partway through that second game 'Mummy' came into the bedroom without knocking 'to see if we needed anything'.

"No, thanks," said Lee, without looking up, and Mummy retreated again.

"That's why I want to come to your house," he whispered, once he was sure she'd gone.

I wondered if he'd be allowed to come at all if his mother liked to be able to check up on him all the time.

"It's not really like that," Lee said. "It's just that she doesn't know you – well, she's seen you at football, so she knows who you are, but it's the first time you've been here, so…" He shrugged. "She just likes to know I'm safe. She wasn't very happy about me joining the football club at first, and when she found out there was a black boy in the team she wanted me to leave. But Daddy said it would be a good thing for me to play football, especially because I'm not much good at rugby or hockey, and he managed to persuade her that Dwayne is just a boy who likes football and not a mad gangsta who's going to get me hooked on cannabis… sometimes Mummy has some strange ideas about people. But that's another reason why I'm still not allowed to get changed with the others – I'm sure she thinks Dwayne passes round cannabis cigarettes in the changing room."

I really started to like him at that point: being able to dismiss his mother's casual racism with a joke instead of actually following it, the way a lot of kids might, seemed pretty decent to me. Although it sounded as if his father was a lot more sensible.

I went home shortly after that and spent my lunchtime wondering if I could persuade Chris to turn my camera off for the afternoon – I didn't particularly want to try to talk about sex with Lee in front of the camera. But before I managed to raise the question Chris said he was going round to Colin's for the afternoon, and that meant that I didn't have to worry about it: I'd simply use Chris's room instead. As soon as he had gone out I went up to my room, disconnected my computer from the monitor, keyboard, mouse and so on and carried it to Chris's room, where I connected it to his monitor and so forth. It would have been easier to use his computer, but I knew it was password-protected, and if Mark had had anything to do with choosing the password it would be well-nigh uncrackable.

I spent a while looking for suitable material to use for my lesson. As I'd told Lee, I'm no expert, and a bit of help in the way of visual aids seemed to be a good idea. Of course, if you type the word 'sex' into Google… well, apparently there's so much stuff out there that Google won't even respond unless you give it something else to work with. So I added the word 'education', and that gave me plenty, including reams of lesson plans for use in schools. I started looking through these, and I got so engrossed that I lost track of time, and it was only when the doorbell rang that I realised what the time was.

I got up and went downstairs, and when I opened the door I found not only Lee but also another boy who looked even geekier, right down to the plastic-framed glasses and the light brown hair brushed into a parting, a style which I'm pretty sure nobody has worn since about 1945. Both boys looked as if they were going to church: they were even wearing ties.

"This is Freddie," said Lee, indicating the time-warped figure beside him. "You don't mind if he comes too, do you?"

I did mind – this was likely to be awkward even with only one student. But I didn't think I could just slam the door in Freddie's face, so I invited them both in, hoping I could persuade Chris to give me credit for the extra body.

"You didn't need to dress up for me, you know," I remarked as I led them upstairs.

"Sorry," said Lee. "It was Mummy's idea. But I said we might play a bit of football later, so she let us bring our sports kit. We can get changed into that if you prefer."

"Whatever you like," I said, leading them into Chris's room. "Just sit on the bed for a minute while I go and get some extra chairs."

I nipped downstairs and grabbed a couple of chairs from the dining room. When I got back I found them looking at Chris's photo of the football team.

"I think it's nice that you've got a team photo in your room," commented Lee. "Is it to help you remember who everyone is?"

"No – I think I know who everyone is now. Actually this is my brother's room, so it's his photo."

"Oh. Why…?"

"Because my printer isn't working," I said, quickly – I really didn't want to have to explain about the camera in my room. "And I thought that we might need to print stuff, so I set up my computer in here. Now – where would you like to start?"

Freddie

I'm a geek. It's the glasses – there's nothing I can do about it, at least not until they need replacing. What happened was that originally I chose a decent pair that didn't look bad on me at all, but then I broke them – well, I didn't actually break them myself, but they fell off when I was playing football in the school yard, and before I could pick them up someone trod on them. My mother refused to buy me another good pair – instead she got the cheapest pair in the shop, which I really don't think were all that much cheaper, because as far as I can make out about 95% of the cost of glasses is the lenses. Anyway, I complained that they made me look geeky, and she said 'Well, you'll just have to look geeky until you learn how to look after your things.' So I decided to try to look as geeky as possible, which is why I now have a geeky haircut and wear geeky clothes most of the time – after all, I thought, if you're going to get beaten up for wearing bad glasses, you might as well go the whole hog.

Unfortunately it didn't embarrass my mother into getting me a decent pair of glasses, but it didn't get me beaten up either – the boys at school seemed to think I was too strange to bother hitting. A couple of them started calling me names, first 'Supergeek' and then 'Captain Geekoid', and actually I quite liked that, so I started answering to it. Now most of my class just call me 'Captain', which is actually sort of cool. Lee's happy too, because when we're standing next to each other, suddenly he doesn't look half as dweeby as he does when I'm not there.

Anyway, we'd been friends for a while, but since I became the Geekmeister we've become really good mates, and that's why he'd invited me along this afternoon. He'd called me on his mobile just before lunchtime, and that was unusual – his attitude was that if he was at home he'd always use the landline: why pay for a call or use up your free minutes when your parents' phone is free? So I knew something was up. The first thing he said was 'Do you want to learn about sex?' which you can believe got me interested. So I asked what he meant, and he told me he knew an older boy who was prepared to teach us all about sex.

I know very little about sex. I've often wished I had an older brother who could explain things to me, but I haven't. Instead I've got a much older sister (she's sixteen) who is an utter pain and whom I try to ignore as much as possible. I'm glad my parents have never tried to talk to me about it, because I'm sure I'd just curl up and die from embarrassment if they did, but I'd like someone to explain it to me. As it is the only thing I know is something I heard a couple of boys from another school saying to each other on the bus one evening, about how you put your thing inside a girl's front, and that's sex, and it's called 'fucking'. I would never have thought of doing that, and Lee said the same thing when I told him what I'd heard. So perhaps now we'd find out what sex is really about, and as Kevin had asked where we wanted to start…

"What's fucking?" I asked him.

"That's when you have normal sex with a girl," Kevin told us. "You put… look, we're going to talking about a lot of body parts here, so perhaps we should get the terminology done first. I haven't actually had time to find any photos we can use yet, but I've got a friend who knows about computers and where to find stuff, so perhaps I can get some proper pictures before the next lesson…"

"Photos?" I interrupted. "What, you mean real photos of naked people?"

"Sure. There are sites that deal with naturism, so somewhere there are sure to be photographs. But we haven't got any this week, so I need one of you to volunteer to be our model."

I didn't get it straight away, but Lee did.

"You mean that you want one of us to get undressed?" he asked.

"Yes, please. Any volunteers?"

Lee and I looked at each other. I was in no rush to volunteer – yes, I'd shown mine to Lee, but we were friends. I didn't know Kevin at all. But Lee didn't seem to want to either.

"No?" said Kevin. "Then we'll do it the old fashioned way. Call, Lee."

He took a coin from his pocket and flicked it into the air. Lee called 'heads', and heads it was.

"Bad luck!" said Lee, smirking at me.

I suppose I could have just got up and gone home, but I really wanted to learn about sex, and so I stood up and got undressed. I thought Kevin might laugh at my deliberately-chosen old-fashioned white underwear, but he didn't, and nor did he laugh at me when I took them off and revealed my thing.

"Thanks," he said. "Now, do you know the proper name for this?"

"Penis," I said. "And these are testicles."

"Correct. What else can you call them?"

We went through as many of the slang words as we knew, and Kevin taught us several more but said he's use the proper words for our lessons. And then he said, "You already know that if you want to get a girl pregnant you have to put it in her front – and we'll deal with the proper names for girls' bits in a moment. But you wouldn't be able to get it to go in like it is now, so could you make it stick out, please?"

I stared at him. "I can't do that!" I protested. "It happens sometime, sure, but it's nothing to do with me wanting it to, I promise!"

"You can still make it go hard if you want to. Or maybe it would work better if Lee does it for you."

Now it was Lee's turn to argue. "How? I mean, I can't touch it – I'd get germs!"

"No, you wouldn't. In any case you can wash your hands afterwards, or even have a shower if you prefer. And I promise you that you'll both learn something important if you do this."

It took a bit more persuading, but finally Lee swallowed, reached out a finger as carefully as if my thing was a live grenade, and just barely touched it before snatching his hand away again.

"Not like that!" said Kevin. "Take hold of it properly, and keep hold."

Eventually he persuaded Lee to take hold of it properly and to squeeze a little, and as Lee's soft hand closed around it I felt… I don't know how to describe it properly, but 'strange' and 'weird' ought to be in there somewhere, but so should 'warm', because it didn't feel bad at all. Then Kevin persuaded Lee to sort of stroke it while still squeezing a little, and that felt really strange and weird and warm, but definitely nice, too, and almost as soon as he started doing that I began to get hard. Lee let go in a hurry, but Kevin told him to keep doing it, and soon it was jutting up properly.

"How does that feel?" Kevin asked me.

"Nice," I replied. "Sort of warm and tingly."

"Do you want him to stop?"

I shook my head, because the 'nice' part of the feeling was now a lot stronger than the 'weird' part.

"You can call that Lesson One," said Kevin. "Having your penis held and stroked by someone you really like and trust feels good. How does it feel to you, Lee?"

"Well… it still feels dirty to be touching him there, but at the same time it is sort of interesting – it feels really warm and hard… do you really like me doing this?"

"Yes," I told him. "It feels good – please don't stop."

Kevin let Lee go on holding me for another minute or so.

"Okay, your turn," said Kevin. "Lee, get undressed, and then you'll find out how it feels to have someone else touch you like that…"

Lee

I stared at him in horror. "No!" I cried. "I mean, I can't! Not… well, not at the moment…"

My willy had got hard, and I thought that if Freddie saw that he'd think bad things about me. But Kevin seemed to guess what was wrong.

"Don't worry," he said. "It's normal, remember? Anyway, I hope you know by now you can trust me, and Freddie's hardly going to tell anyone about this, is he? Come on, Lee – Freddie wasn't afraid to take his clothes off…"

"Chicken!" added Freddie, and then of course I felt I had to do it. Yes, I know it's stupid to let people goad you into doing something you're not sure about by calling you chicken, but right then I couldn't help it: I didn't want my best friend to think I was scared to do what he had already done. So I took my clothes off.

"Oh, you've got one like that," commented Freddie when I finally moved my hands and let him see. "My cousin looks like that, too – we were comparing notes when I stayed with him at Christmas. He says a lot of boys at his school – he's at boarding school – look like you do. Come here and I'll try holding it for you."

I was really pleased to hear that I wasn't all that unusual: even though Kevin had already told me so I was glad to hear it confirmed. So I let Freddie take hold of me, and it was a very strange feeling indeed. I felt something deep in my stomach, and I thought for a split second I was going to vomit, but that quickly passed. Then I felt nervous – what if he pulled it off, or twisted it badly, or… but I remembered that this was Freddie, and I didn't think he could hurt me… except when someone is holding you like that you feel horribly vulnerable.

But then he stroked it the way I'd done to him, and that just felt good, and I realised why he'd liked me doing it to him. I stopped tensing myself up and relaxed a little, taking a step closer to him so that he could get at me more easily.

"It's nice, isn't it?" said Freddie. "Why don't you do it to me at the same time?"

So I did, and that felt really, really nice. Freddie smiled at me, and I smiled back and stroked him some more…

"Okay, that's enough for now," said Kevin. "You can do that some more in a minute, but first of all let's deal with the rest of the mechanics…"

He explained that our balls were here to make sperm, and that during sex these sperm travel through the penis into the woman, where they meet up with and fertilise an egg, though he also explained that we were probably still too young to have any sperm yet.

"Next time I'll tell you exactly what happens at puberty," he promised. "It'll be easier to explain that with some pictures, so I hope I can find some. And I'll be able to tell you a bit about some of the other ways you can get nice feelings – you don't actually have to have full sex with a girl to feel good. Just holding each other like that feels nice, and I suppose it qualifies as sex, of a sort."

"Have you got any homework for us?" asked Freddie, grinning – I really don't think I've ever heard Freddie asking for homework before.

"Yes, alright – try to get together during the week and practise feeling each other. Examine each other properly, and next time you have to tell me everything you can find out about each other's body. And now you can go and wash your hands, or have a shower if you prefer – the bathroom is along the landing on the left."

I definitely wanted a wash – it still felt dirty, touching where Freddie pees – but I didn't think I needed a shower, so I pulled my pants back on and went to the bathroom, where I washed my hands thoroughly. When I got back Freddie was already fully dressed, and he spent so little time in the bathroom that I was still getting dressed when he came back – obviously he's less worried about germs than I am.

We went downstairs and played chess for a while until it was time for us to go home. There was nobody else at the bus stop when we got there, and that meant that we were able to talk freely.

"I thought that was amazing!" said Freddie. "And I can't wait until next week. Do you think he'll really be able to find some proper naked photos?"

"Probably. There are supposed to be millions of things like that on the net."

"Yes, but I bet they're hard to find… I hope he can! I'd really like to see what happens as we get older, and how much older you have to be… my cousin – the one whose thing looks like yours – is quite a bit older than us – more than a year, anyway – but he looks just like you do. In fact his is quite a bit smaller than yours. So perhaps we'll have to wait quite a long time before anything changes."

"Maybe not," I said. "Kevin says it's already happening to some of the boys in my football team, and they're the same age as me."

"Great! So… do you want to come over to my house tomorrow afternoon, so we can do our homework?"

"I've already done my… oh, you mean the homework Kevin gave us?"

He nodded enthusiastically.

"Yes, I should be allowed. I'll text you when I've asked my mum. And if she says no we can probably find an evening during the week."

"Or two evenings. At least two… wow, Lee, that felt so strange – but we've definitely got to try it again!"

And I thought he was right about that.

So Freddie and Lee have learned something that, for some strange reason, their school has neglected to teach them. You can bet we'll be seeing a lot more or them, too.

Chapter Nine

In which Dwayne tries it on again, Mark makes a discovery and Kevin meets an unhappy chess-player.

Kevin

Next morning it rained, which meant that for the first time I had the unpleasant experience of trying to run the line in wet weather. Fortunately Chris was thinking on my behalf: he advised me to bring a towel and a change of clothing, since otherwise I'd have to wait around after the match and then travel home in wet clothes, which, he assured me, I wouldn't enjoy.

I didn't enjoy the match too much either. I ran the line wearing a baseball cap, which at least kept most of the rain off my glasses, but I still got very wet, and it's a good thing that there weren't too many goals, because my little notebook got wet quite quickly and then my pen stopped working, which is how I found out that a pencil is a much better idea than a pen. In fact there were only three goals in the game; two scored by Colin and one by an opposition central defender who came up for a corner.

Mr Clifford wasn't particularly impressed: Falconbury weren't one of the best teams in the league, and as far as he was concerned we should have won much more easily. Still, at least we won.

"Give me your specs, and then you can come and have a shower," whispered Chris in my ear once Mr Clifford had completed his post-match analysis. "If you can't see properly you shouldn't get hard. But if you do, you're on your own."

"You mean you won't stick up for me?" I asked, rather wittily, I thought.

"Ha, ha," said Chris. "Come on or there won't be any hot water left."

Actually this was a better changing room than ours, and the shower was quite large, too. Chris guided me to it – once I'd taken my glasses off I probably would have fallen into stuff on my own – and we grabbed a couple of shower-heads, and once I'd been under the hot water for a couple of minutes I felt a lot better. It was probably just as well I couldn't see anything clearly, though, because once I warmed up a bit I began to wonder whether Colin was in here somewhere, and that caused a distinct twitch in my equipment. I decided to get out while the going was good, so I went back to the entrance where we'd left our towels, identified mine by colour and dried myself off, and by the time Chris came and guided me back to where I'd got changed my thoughts were back under control.

I put my glasses on as soon as Chris gave them back to me, but by then most of the team were at least partially dressed, so I didn't get to admire anyone's attributes. Maybe that's just as well – I'm sure Chris would have been annoyed if I'd got hard.

But when we got home he still said that he wanted to talk to me.

"Is there anything you want to tell me?" he asked.

"Like what?"

"Like how you got on with Lee Woodford yesterday, for example."

"It went okay. Why?"

"And you didn't think you needed to explain why you were using my bedroom to give him a sex education lesson?"

"How do you know that?"

"I was speaking to him this morning. So?"

"Well, I couldn't really use my room because of the camera, could I?"

"Why not? You should have told him you have to have it there to stop you being a pervert."

"Yes, but…I didn't think Lee would want to get undressed in a room with a camera in."

"Oh, so you made him strip, did you?"

"I didn't make him… well, not really. See, he was worried about being different from his best friend, and I wanted to tell him it's normal to be… see, he's circumcised and his friend isn't…"

"Right. But you still can't just use my room without asking me first – that's completely out of order. I think it's time for us to pull another name out of the hat…"

"Oh, come on, Chris – that's only supposed to be for if I… you know, play with it."

"It's for breaking the rules too, and using my room without permission is definitely breaking the rules. If I let you get away with this you'll start thinking you can sneak into my room when I'm out and have a wank on my bed, and that would really be out of order. You're just lucky Lee brought his friend along, because it means I'm only going to add one more person now…"

Chris

The look on Kev's face was priceless. Of course I hadn't spoken to Lee, I'd just watched the film from the previous afternoon, but I didn't want him to know about the camera in my room, for obvious reasons.

I thought about rigging the draw to make sure Colin's name came out of the hat, because I knew Kev desperately didn't want Colin involved, though I couldn't understand why: I know Colin jerks off a lot because we've talked about it, so he certainly wouldn't have had a go at Kev for it. In fact Colin likes Kev a lot – he reckons he's everything a big brother should be, always willing to join in with stuff and never talking down to us, and I suppose he's right about that, though as Kev is the only big brother I've got I don't have anything to compare him to.

I don't think Colin would even care if he found out Kev is gay – I know he gets on well with Clive, who's the boy in the team who's out… mind you, we all do – Clive's a laugh. Still, Colin never seems at all prejudiced about anyone, and he'd probably react to being told that Kev is gay by just saying "So what?"

Anyway, I decided to play it straight, so I got the pack of cards, shuffled it and handed it to Kev.

"Pick a card," I said. "This time if you get someone who already knows about you, you have to pick again, but if you get lucky three times I'll let you off."

He didn't look happy, but he cut the cards and drew himself an eight.

"Lucky," I commented. "That's either me or Lee, and we both know about you. Try again."

This time he drew the seven of diamonds.

"That's Silvio," I said. "No nice fantasies for you there – he's small and dark, and we already know you go for tall blondies. Hard luck – maybe you'll find the boy of your dreams next time."

"I hope there isn't going to be a next time," he said. "How much longer is this going to go on?"

"Until the end of the season, I should think," I said. "That seems fair to me. Anyway, this afternoon you're at Dwayne's, and Mark still expects to see you after supper."

For some reason that didn't seem to bother him. I wondered if Mark was letting him down easy – after all, I know he likes Kev, too. I wondered if I ought to have a word with him – we don't want my brother getting away with stuff, do we?

Mrs Jordan served us lunch right after that, and she also had some news for us.

"Your father's coming home at the end of the week," she told us. "He'll be here next weekend, and maybe for a couple of days next week too. Won't that be nice?"

Actually I thought it was. He'd kept in touch, of course, sending us mails and phoning sometimes in the evening, but I thought it would be nice to see him in person again, although I thought it might interfere with Kev's increasingly busy schedule – he could hardly tell Dad that he had to go out because loads of the boys in my football team needed him to clean their football boots. Still, we could always worry about that next weekend.

I wondered how many more of the team I could realistically get involved, because Kev was definitely running out of free time; what with football practice, chess club and visiting the Microbes every Thursday, not to mention Lee, Dwayne and Mark at weekends. I supposed we could squeeze one more in at the weekend, and in theory two more in the week, but I didn't think it would be fair to mess him about to the extent that he couldn't get his homework done. Still, I knew he was able to do his homework with Jason on Thursdays, so provided I found someone sympathetic for Tuesdays and Wednesdays… although after that he'd really have no time, at least until the holidays came round.

So, Silvio and two others, then… and I wondered which two would be most fun to choose. It might be interesting to give him to Clive, for a start: if Clive really is gay, as he keeps claiming, that could benefit both of them. Otherwise I didn't think Kev would care one way or the other, except in the case of Colin.

So should we tell Colin, or not? I know Kev didn't want us to, but I thought Colin's reaction to being left out of the loop would be unfortunate, so perhaps we'd just have to tell him. In any case, I don't think he would respond at all badly: as I've said before, he likes my brother a lot, and I didn't think this would change that at all. I'd just have to think about it next time Kev messed up.

Dwayne

So I've been thinking a lot about this over the last week and I've decided to push it a bit and see how far I can go before Chris's bro tells me to eff off. 'Cos, after all, how often do you get a chance to have this sort of fun? So when he comes round my yard this Sunday afternoon, first thing I do is take him to our room and lock the door.

"Sam's out," I tell him. "He'll probly be back 'fore you go, but for now it's just you an' me. So last time we agreed that you had to do whatever I say, so this time, now Sam's not here to hold me back, you're in deep shit. Get naked."

Not a word of argument – he just strips off straight away.

"Now get it good and hard."

He does that as well, and I'm starting to think I might not be able to come up with anything he won't do. But then I think of something I'm sure nobody would do. I stand up, undo my belt and push my jeans and boxers down.

"Now suck me off," I say, expecting him to get up, grab his clothes and walk out – or at least, walk to the door, 'cos I've got the key in my pocket. But no…

"Come on, Dwayne, do I have to?" he says, just standing there and looking at me.

"Course you do. You got to do everything – i'n't that what your bro said? So do it."

He looks at me, and then he drops to his knees, and I'm thinking no, he's never going to… is he??

"Wow, Dwayne, that's pretty big," he says.

"Pretty and big," I say. "Only thing you have to worry about is, is it too big to go in yo mouff?"

"I don't know," he says doubtfully. "I'll try, though."

And he does – he puts his lips on the end and slowly slides it in, and it feels unbelievable.

"Oh, my days!" I exclaim, and he slips it out again and looks at me.

"Oh, my days?" he says, staring at me.

"'Sright. What, you think everyone got to swear all the time?"

"No – in fact, I have a friend who never swears either," he says. "I was just surprised, that's all. I thought you…"

"You think 'cos I'm black I got to swear a lot? Man, that's racist."

"No, it isn't! Most kids I know swear, that's all. Actually I think it's kind of impressive that you don't."

"Oh. Well, do it again – we still don't know if it gonna fit in."

So he slides it slowly in again, and it feels just as good, and then he starts to slide his lips up and down it, and licking at it, and I haven't ever felt nothing like it. He does this for thirty seconds, then stops.

"Sorry," he says, "it's just a little bit too big – if I put it all in it touches the back of my throat and makes me feel as if I'm going to throw up."

"You better keep trying," I say, still not really believing this is happening. "Otherwise maybe I'm gonna think you ain't trying."

So he starts again, and it's getting better and better. I don't have a girlfriend and so I've never had sex, but if getting this done can feel like this, maybe I'm not gonna worry if it takes me a while to find a girl.

Soon I can feel it starting to build up. I'd make him stop to draw it out, 'cept I don't really want Sam to come in and see this – okay, the door's locked, but if he gets back too soon I'll still have to let him in, and I think he's too young for this. But there's one thing I want to check – it's never felt this big or this hard, so I tell him to stop a minute, and when he does I grab a ruler from my desk.

"How big?" he asks.

"Almost five inches [12½ cm]," I tell him. "You better get it back in your mouth quick before it goes down."

I sit down again and he carries in – he doesn't argue or nothing. And soon I can feel it starting to build up again…

Kevin

"Ready?" he said. "You better be, because…"

Five seconds later he spurted into my mouth, not just once, but three or four times. Maybe he didn't have quite as much as Mark, but there was certainly enough to taste. I'd swallowed it down without thinking about it, and it was only after I'd done so that I realised he'd think it weird. He might realise that I'd done this before, and I really didn't want that to happen. So when he told me I could take it out of my mouth I slipped it out slowly and then, keeping my mouth closed, I went to my jeans, pulled out a handkerchief and pretended to spit into it.

"Told you I had more than you," he said, pulling his boxers back up. "Believe me now?"

"Yes," I said. "I apologise, Dwayne – you're well grown-up for twelve. And you've started getting some hair, too. I was thirteen and a half before mine started."

"Good," he said, doing up his belt. "Now let's see you get yours hard."

I was a bit lucky here, because mine had been hard earlier, but when his stuff shot out it hit the back of my throat, and I suppose that struggling not to be sick had made mine soften a bit. If he'd seen that I was hard he'd probably have guessed that I'm gay.

So I played with it until I got it hard – it didn't take long this time, because I was still quite excited – and when it was stiff he handed me the ruler and watched as I help it alongside.

"Hah! Four and three-quarters [12 cm]!" he says. "And you're two years older than me! Shame, Stratford!"

I bowed my head, hoping that he'd let me go before his kid brother got home, because having to do it in front of the kid had been really embarrassing.

"You're not going to make me do that again, are you?" I asked.

"Obviously I am – every week!"

"I'm not sure that my brother would be happy if he knew you'd made me do that," I said. "It's going a bit too far, isn't it? But… okay, I won't tell him, on condition that you swear not to tell anyone about it – including your brother. Deal?"

"And if I don't tell anyone you'll do it again next time?"

"Well… all right," I said. "I just don't want anyone else finding out about it, because I don't want people thinking I'm gay. If nobody knows except you and me, I'll do it again. But not every week!"

"Whenever I tell you," he replied. "That's the deal – you do it whenever I want, and in return I don't tell nobody what a good cocksucker you are!"

"Well… I suppose so," I said, hoping I sounded even more reluctant.

"Good. Now you better go before Sam gets back," he said, so I threw my clothes on, said goodbye and left. Well, I thought, that could have been a whole lot worse…

After supper I headed round to Mark's. At least I managed to persuade Chris not to put the cuffs on my this time, but he did tell me that if I didn't get there quickly enough he'd have to assume that I'd stopped to misbehave on the way, and that would mean yet another person finding out about me. Consequently I ran all the way.

Mark opened the door himself and took me straight up to his room.

"I missed you last weekend," he said. "It's not often we get visitors on a Sunday, but my uncle was visiting from London and so I didn't have a lot of choice. Perhaps we can make up for it this week, though…"

"I wouldn't mind that," I said, enthusiastically. "But… listen, could you do me a really big favour?"

"Such as?"

"Well, I've sort of found myself having to give sex education lessons to Lee Woodford and his friend, and I was sort of hoping that you might be able to find me some… well, teaching material."

"What sort of material?"

"Well, photos. I was thinking that maybe you could find a naturist site, or something – I need to be able to show them what happens at puberty, and since I wouldn't know where to start looking and you're much better with computers than I am…"

"You mean you want me to find you some pictures of naked kids?"

"Well, yes, I suppose so."

"You realise that it might be illegal?"

"Is it? I'd have thought that kids on nudist beaches and places like that ought to be okay."

"I'm not sure that they are any more – the government seems to want to clamp down on stuff like that. But I expect I could find you something suitable… you want boys and girls, or just boys?"

"Both, if you can."

"Then I'll see what I can find. When do you need them?"

"Not until Saturday."

"Okay, then. Of course, it'll cost you."

"How much?"

"Not money, stupid. I was thinking that maybe you'd like another chance to practise sucking."

"Oh! Well, sure – I mean, I'd have done that anyway, whether you help me with the pictures or not."

"Good," he said. "Then we'd better get undressed, hadn't we?"

So we did, and the next half hour or so was actually a lot of fun: we cuddled on the bed for a while, and then he said that if I was going to suck him, maybe he ought to get a bit of practice in too. I wasn't going to argue with that, so I lay back on the bed and let him get on with it…

Mark

It's strange – when I first started doing stuff with Kev I was really just messing about, pushing him to see how far he was prepared to go and stuff like that. I'd never really expected him to agree to sucking me off, and so when he did it was an incredible surprise – but I suppose being sucked is always going to feel pretty good, no matter who is actually doing it for you, and if that had been the only thing I enjoyed it wouldn't have bothered me at all.

But then on his second visit we'd done a lot more – cuddling and even kissing – and that had felt amazing too. And then I'd wanted to find out what it felt like to do the sucking, and when I discovered that I even enjoyed that… well, you'd have to be asking yourself questions after that, wouldn't you? And over the next couple of weeks I'd found that even doing stuff on my own had changed: now when I played with it I started out thinking about girls, but each time within thirty seconds I found myself thinking about Kev instead. And then at half term…

So by now I was pretty sure that I wasn't quite as straight as I had thought. Sure, I could kid myself that this was a one-off, and that it was simply happening because Kev didn't have any choice, no matter what I wanted to do with him… except I knew that wasn't true, either: Kev was obviously enjoying it as much as I was, and by now I'd got to liking him so much that I would never have made him do anything he wasn't happy about. I didn't think I actually fancied him – although once he took his glasses off he looked pretty good – but in any case we were hardly compatible, what with the nine-inch height difference and the two year age gap. If I was really going to turn out gay I supposed I'd have to find a partner in my own year.

And yet… cuddling Kev felt really, really good, and I liked sucking him, and I loved being sucked by him, and I thought it completely possible that we'd go further still, once we'd both had a few more preparatory sessions with my plastic willy. Doing that sort of thing with someone I hardly knew seemed completely out of the question…

Maybe I'm weird, but I'm not sure that casual sex is a good idea. I know there are kids at school who do stuff together – at least, I'm pretty sure of it – but they're not really friends, and somehow a quick wank in the toilets isn't really what I want. I mean, obviously I don't know for sure because I've never done anything like that, but I didn't think it would get within a million miles of what me and Kev were doing right now. And because we were friends we didn't feel awkward afterwards – at least, I certainly didn't, and I'm pretty sure he felt the same. So after I'd sucked him and he'd sucked me – and he was getting really good at it, too – we just lay side by side on my bed for a while, and it felt good even when we weren't talking.

"I suppose I ought to go," he said eventually, though without actually moving.

"Why?" I asked. "You haven't got to be home for ages yet, surely?"

"Well, no, but I don't want Chris to think I've bunked off somewhere to do something I shouldn't. After all, I've had time to clean your boots about ten times by now."

"Don't worry, I'll make sure he knows you were with me," I promised. "Anyway, I like you being here."

"Sounds like you're starting to fancy me!" he said, grinning.

I made fake vomiting noises. "You're the blind one," I pointed out. "I can see exactly what you look like, remember?"

"You said you liked me with my glasses off."

"Well, that's true, but it doesn't mean that I fancy you. I reckon Chris and Colin are both pretty good-looking, too, but I don't fancy either of them."

"I'm glad to hear it. Somehow the thought of you and my brother… well, ewwww!"

"That's just because he's your brother. I find the thought of my sister and her boyfriend doing stuff pretty disgusting, too, but if she wasn't my sister I wouldn't care. I bet you wouldn't worry if you thought me and Col were at it, would you?"

"Yes, I would!"

"Why?"

"Well…I can't really imagine Colin doing sex stuff. And, anyway, I want you all for myself – after all, there isn't enough of you to share!"

I thumped him, but instead of retaliating he just lay still, his eyes taking on a sort of dreamy look.

"What's the matter?" I asked. "Thinking about me and Col getting sweaty together?"

"Well… is Colin even interested in sex?" he asked. "I mean, I've never seen him undressed – has he even started to develop yet?"

"Of course he has," I informed him. "Obviously not as much as me, but I'm a superstud, after all. But he's got enough to work with."

"Oh."

He went quiet again, and suddenly I became suspicious.

"It's Colin, isn't it?" I said. "He's the one you fancy!"

He went all red and started to stammer…

Kevin

"No! I mean, well, obviously not… I… I mean, why… what makes you think…"

"Oh, what a giveaway!" he said, grinning hugely. "You've gone as red as a clown's nose, Kev. So Colin's your dream boy, huh? Wonder what he'll say when I tell him?"

"No!!" I yelled. "You can't… I mean, you're wrong anyway, but… look, please, Mark?"

"Admit it, then," he said. "Admit it and I swear I won't tell him."

"No, but you'll tell Chris instead, and that would be just as bad."

He looked at me seriously. "Do you really not trust me, Kev?" he asked. "Do you really think I'd drop you in it with Chris? That's not the sort of thing you do to your friends. And obviously I'm not going to tell Col, either. But I'd still like to know if it's true."

"It's true," I admitted. "I just think he's really good-looking – and he's nice, too. I really like him. Look, Mark, you know him: is he… well… you know…"

"Gay? I don't think so – as far as I know he likes girls, although he doesn't actually talk about sex hardly at all. I think he's far more interested in football and video games – but then that's probably true of most of the boys in our year. Yes, one or two go on about sex, and like I said, there's a couple who I think are messing about together, but the talkers are probably just making it up, and the other two never talk about sex anyway. So I don't know for sure what Colin thinks about it, if he thinks about it at all. Do you want me to try to find out?"

"No!" I cried. "I don't want him getting the slightest hint…"

"Why not? After all, if he does turn out to be interested, wouldn't you want to know about it?"

"Well, yes, but… it's too dangerous. Suppose he hates gays? I wouldn't want to risk him getting even a sniff at the idea that I might be… I don't want him hating me."

"I'm pretty sure he won't hate you. He likes you – he's always saying what a good brother you are. Of course, there's a big difference between 'brother' and 'boyfriend'… So I take it you're not intending to tell him, then?"

"Definitely not," I said. "I don't want to have to hide in my room every time he comes round."

"I really don't think he'd take it that badly, but obviously it's up to you. I'm not going to out you to him, anyway."

"Thanks, Mark," I said, and I rolled over and hugged him.

Before I left the house Mark phoned Chris up and told him that I was about to leave, so at least Chris wouldn't think I'd dawdled on the way home. I didn't exactly run flat out, but I did jog, and while I ran I thought how lucky I was that Mark had turned out to be such a good friend. Quite what I would have done if Colin had found out… well, I was just glad that it wasn't going to happen.

Monday night was Chess Club, except that on this occasion we actually had a match, away to a school in Hastings. Most school teams travel to away games by coach, but there are only six players in a chess team, and so we generally use public transport – in this case, the train, because there's a direct train from where we live to Hastings. The teacher in charge of the team bought the tickets and then disappeared behind a newspaper, which left the six of us to entertain ourselves. So Danny and I grabbed a couple of seats at the far end of the carriage and I got my pocket chess set out.

"Is it still okay if I come round to your place tomorrow evening?" he asked.

"I don't see why not. I'm not going anywhere as far as I know. It'd be fun to play some more wide-screen chess. Except… Chris will be there, so you'd better not look as if you're having too much of a good time, or he won't let you baby-sit me any more."

"It sounds silly to call it 'baby-sitting," he pointed out. "You're more than two and a half years older than me."

"Chris will like it if you call it that, though," I pointed out. "If he thinks you look down on me he'll definitely want you to keep coming round."

We played chess for most of the journey, only putting the set away when the train reached the tunnel after West St Leonards. The school was a short walk from the station and just for a change the teacher in charge didn't manage to get us lost – in fact we actually reached the room where we were going to be playing ahead of schedule.

Our usual Board Two was missing – I think he was ill or something – and so I found myself promoted to playing on Board Three, with Danny next to me on Board Four. I've already commented on the fact that I look like a chess nerd, and it's fair to say that a lot of chess players look nerdy – a high percentage of us seem to wear glasses, for a start, and some players have other nerd characteristics like untidiness, bad haircuts and dodgy personal hygiene. But the boy who came and sat down opposite me was about as un-nerdy as you can get – he had no glasses, a nice haircut – quite long, dark blond hair – no zits, no halitosis, no… in fact he was stunning. He looked a year or two younger than me, which probably meant he was good at chess, because this was an Under-15 match, and if you're a lot younger than that – like Danny, for example – it usually means you can play a bit. He had blue eyes with long lashes, and I was already thinking that if I looked at him instead of the board I'd probably lose inside ten moves.

He seemed a bit nervous, though – in fact when a door slammed somewhere along the corridor he actually jumped and looked around with a scared look on his face. So perhaps he was new to the team and was worried about making a mess of it…

"Hello," I said, offering him my hand to shake. "I'm Kevin Stratford."

He said his name was Jeremy something – it sounded like 'mealfin', but when he wrote it on his score sheet I saw that it was written 'Millefin'.

"It's French," he told me when I asked. "Originally it was pronounced 'mee-fan', but I suppose somewhere down the years people just read it like it's written. According to my dad our ultimate ancestor came over with William the Conqueror, got injured in the Battle of Hastings and simply decided to stay where he was, and we've been here ever since. Supposedly, anyway. I'm not sure if I believe it myself."

"You don't look very French," I commented. "Blond hair, blue eyes…"

"I expect there's some Saxon or Viking in the family too," he said. "Anyway, I suppose we'd better start…"

He pushed his king's pawn forward two spaces and hit the clock, and I played the Sicilian Defence, hoping I'd know it better than him… and then there was a snort of disbelief from the boy sitting next to Millefin, and glancing at their board I saw that Danny had decided to play the Grob Attack. Boy, are you in for a shock, I thought, looking at Danny's opponent.

My own opponent started confidently enough, but he still seemed nervous about something and every time there was a noise, inside or outside the room, he jerked in his chair. It affected his concentration, too, because after ten or eleven moves he blundered away a bishop, and a couple of moves later he lost the exchange, and three moves after that he resigned.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't give you much of a game."

"That's okay," I assured him. "Do you want to have a look at it?" Most chess players like to indulge in post-mortems.

"I suppose so, but I know where I went wrong – throwing bishops away isn't usually a good idea."

We went and gave the result to the teacher in charge and then moved to a board on the far side of the room to play through the game again, but before I sat down I asked if he could show me where the toilets were.

He glanced out of the window and then said, "Come on, then," and led me out into the corridor, along to the end of it and out into the yard.

"Over there," he said, pointing to a door on the far side. "Can you find your way back okay?"

"Yes. I'll see you back in the room in a couple of minutes."

I walked over to the toilet. I supposed this would have been an opportunity to do what I'm not supposed to be doing, but their toilet cubicles didn't look any better than the ones at our school, and I decided that I wasn't that desperate, so instead I just had a pee, washed my hands and strolled back across the yard.

As I stepped back into the corridor I heard a yell from the first classroom on the right, followed by a crack and another yell. I opened the door and stepped inside.

Millefin was lying face down across a pair of desks, with one boy holding his wrists and another his ankles. His trousers and underpants had been pulled down to mid-thigh and a third boy was beating him with a belt, while a fourth had his mobile phone out and was recording everything. All four boys looked younger than me, which gave me the courage to intervene.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Piss off and mind your own business!" replied the boy with the belt.

"This is my business," I said. "I'm supposed to be playing chess against that boy. Let him go."

"I don't think so. He owes me money."

"How much?" I asked.

"Two quid."

"Is that all?"

"It's the principle," said the boy. "He was supposed to have paid me on Saturday, and he's been avoiding me all day, so now he needs a reminder about paying on time. You can go and wait outside – we'll let him go and play his stupid game when we've finished."

I dug into my pocket, found two pounds and handed them over.

"Now it's my problem," I said. "You've got your money, so you can go now – or maybe I should go and find a teacher?"

"Nah, we'll go," said the boy, pocketing the money. "Flip him over, boys!"

The boys holding Millefin's ankles and wrists turned him over so that he was lying on his back.

"Next time I'll whip your balls," said the boy with the belt, dropping it on Millefin's chest.

"You can't do that – he hasn't got any!" commented the boy with the camera, grinning.

The four boys laughed and went out, and I helped Millefin to stand up, trying not to be too obvious about checking him out, although in fairness there wasn't a lot to check: he might have been a little bigger than Jason Temple, but not much. It was pale, thin and lacking in hair.

He managed to pull his pants up, and then got his trousers up, rethreaded the belt through the loops and buckled it. Then he wiped his eyes.

"Thanks," he said, quietly. "I'll get the money back to you somehow."

"Don't worry about it," I said. "Are you okay?"

"Just about."

"Come on, then – we'd better get back."

So we walked back down the corridor together. I realised I'd been lucky: despite my situation and the number of boys who now had the right to order me around, so far none of them had wanted to beat me. And now I'd witnessed it happening to someone else I was really keen to make sure that situation didn't change…

So Kevin's secret is out, at least to Mark. But now he's met someone worse off than himself, and this encounter is going to have consequences.

Chapter Ten

In which Kevin eats a bacon sandwich and he and Danny try something new.

Jeremy

We went back to the chess club room and spent the next fifteen minutes analysing our game, although to be honest there wasn't much to analyse: once I threw my bishop away it was all over. But at least by the time we'd finished I'd just about recovered

I thought it was really nice of the boy in glasses not to laugh at me: if anyone in my form had found me being beaten by Year Seven kids I would never have heard the end of it, but he seemed sympathetic, and the way he'd bailed me out with that two pounds was really unexpected. I decided I would definitely try to repay him, although I had no idea how, because I had no spare money at all at: everything I got went more or less straight to Kenton.

"I meant what I said back there," I said. "I'll repay you. I'm just a bit short at the moment."

"You really don't need to," he said. "It was obvious you needed the money more than me… so… well, if you don't mind me asking… has that happened before?"

"Once or twice," I mumbled. More like a dozen times, although it had never happened at school before: usually it happened at home, or in the woods around the village. I really hoped it wasn't going to happen at school again.

"And how come you owed him money? I mean, if you need money, couldn't you find someone to borrow from who's a bit less of a bastard?"

"It's not really as simple as that…"

I really didn't want to talk about it, no matter how sympathetic he seemed – after all, in an hour at the outside he'd have gone and I'd never see him again, so what was the point in humiliating myself by telling him my troubles? Although it was a pity, because he actually seemed to care – a lot more than anyone else would, anyway.

"Okay," he said. "Let's go and see how the others are getting on, then."

He stood up and started to walk down the line of tables looking at the games that were still going on. The Board Six game was over – we'd won that – but we were getting beaten, as far as I could tell at a quick glance, in three of the other games, so I thought that probably we were going to lose the match. So at least I wouldn't be the only loser…

"Would you like another quick game while we wait?" I asked.

"Okay," he said. "Looks like some of these have got a way to go yet."

He grabbed the clock we'd used for the official game and we went back over to the far side of the room.

"Maybe this time you should give me a piece or two to start with," I said.

"I don't think so. I doubt if you'll play that badly again. You were worrying about that kid coming looking for you, weren't you? Because you looked sort of jumpy. It's not easy to play if you can't concentrate."

"That's true, but you can still give me a piece if you like. Or you could try playing without your glasses."

He laughed. "If I take my glasses off I can't even see the board," he said. "Try them and you'll see what I mean."

He passed them over and I put them on, and they were really powerful – if I'd tried walking wearing them I'd have bumped into everything, because they distorted everything I looked at.

"Crikey, those are strong," I said, taking them off. "Your eyes must be really bad. It's odd, though – they look perfectly normal."

Actually with his glasses off he looked completely different – almost handsome. He had nice blue eyes, and a nice smile, too… and then I realised I was staring at him. I handed the glasses back in a hurry, because if he realised that I'd been looking at him in that way I was pretty sure that he wouldn't be nice and sympathetic any longer.

We played a couple of games, and by then the rest of the official games were over (as I'd expected, we lost by four and a half to one and a half, so nobody was going to blame me, at least) and then packed up to go home. As Specs and his team had come by train I found myself heading in the same direction as them, and that was just as well because Kenton was waiting for me at the station. If I'd been on my own he would probably have beaten me up again, but he couldn't really do that with the other team there. So I stuck close to Specs until the train arrived and then sat in the same carriage as him. The bad news was that they were going a lot further than I was, and once we'd got off the train there'd be nothing to hold Kenton back, because he lives in the same road as me and so gets off the train in the same place.

"I don't suppose…" I said to Specs as we approached my station. "I know it's asking a lot, but…"

"What?"

"Well… could you possibly get off the train and walk home with me? It's not very far, but Kenton – the boy who was beating me – is on the train too, and I know he'll have another go at me otherwise. Please? You could come in and have something to eat if you like and then catch the next train…"

He looked unsure, and I couldn't really blame him, because the trains only run once an hour, and so it really was a lot to ask. But I just couldn't face another doing over, not twice in one evening.

"Well… I'll have to ask if it's okay," he said, and he went and talked to his teacher, coming back just as the train drew into my station.

"He says I can," he said, picking up his bag. "But I'm going to take you up on the offer of tea if I do."

"Of course!" I said at once.

"Okay, then…"

Kevin

I'm not sure why I'd agreed to do this. It wouldn't matter about me getting home late, although Chris might well think I'd bunked off somewhere to do what I'm not supposed to. Still, I felt sorry for the boy – and he really was quite nice-looking…

"I'll see you tomorrow," I said to Danny. "You can come home with me and Chris if you like – I'm sure we can stretch supper to fit one more… oh, unless… I mean, there's stuff you can't eat, isn't there?"

"Yes, there is. Perhaps we can arrange it better next time – like you can come to me, because I don't suppose you worry about what you eat. I'll go home for supper tomorrow and come round to yours afterwards."

"Okay. I'm looking forward to it," I said, and I followed Millefin to the door and out onto the platform. And as soon as we turned to head for the exit I saw the other boy getting out of the next carriage along.

"What do you want here, Four-eyes?" he asked me aggressively.

"My money, obviously," I replied. "I live miles away and I don't want to have to come back for it, so Blondie's going to take me home and give it to me now. Right?" I said, trying to glare at Millefin.

""Well… I mean… sure, if I can find it…"

"You'd better," I said.

"Oh. Fair enough, then," said the other boy. "But if he doesn't cough up, let me know, and maybe you can come and help me sort him out at the weekend."

"I'd like to, but my dad's at home this weekend so I won't be able to get out. Saturday week, though – I should be free then, and if he hasn't come up with the money by then I won't mind helping you out."

"Great! Okay, look for me on Facebook – my name's Peter Kenton – or if you can't find me, we're in the phone book. We're the only Kentons in the village."

I didn't think he'd need my help, or that of the other boys who had been with him earlier: he was only a couple of inches shorter than me, and looked strong and fit for a Year Seven boy. He was about the same height as Colin, but where Colin looked like a god – at least to me – Kenton just looked ordinary, with nondescript mid-brown hair and muddy green eyes.

He turned and jogged off, and Millefin led me out of the station and along the road that led away from it. After about three hundred metres he indicated a house on the right.

"That's where Kenton lives," he said.

We walked on another fifty metres or so and he indicated another house.

"And this is me," he said. "As you can see, I have to walk past Kenton's place on my way to the station every morning, and he's usually waiting for me. He doesn't usually hit me or anything, but he does make it a miserable journey. I could go the other way and catch the bus instead, but that takes ages, and in any case I'm sure that if I tried avoiding him like that he'd take it out on me at school."

"And you have to put up with that every day?" I asked. "What about at school – are you in the same class as him?"

He glared at me.

"How old do you think I am?" he asked.

"Well… eleven or twelve, I suppose."

"I'm in bloody Year Nine," he replied, bitterly. "I'm fourteen. Yes, I know I don't look it, or act it, either. But that's why I can't really complain about Kenton: if I started claiming that a Year Seven kid was bullying me… well, you can imagine how much sympathy I'd get."

"You'd get some from me," I said. "It's not your fault you're small for your age. I've got a friend – he's in the same year as me – and you, of course. His name is Jason, but people call him the Microbe because he's a lot smaller than you. I think he said he was about four feet nine [1.45 m]. So really things could be worse for you."

"Not much," he said, unlocking the door and ushering me inside. "I bet he doesn't get beaten up by eleven-year-olds. Anyway, you'd better come and meet my mother."

He took me through to the kitchen and introduced me, and his mother seemed both surprised and pleased to see me, giving me the impressions that Millefin didn't very often take friends home with him. He requisitioned some bacon sandwiches, and while the bacon was cooking he took me up to his room, dumped his bag and took off his blazer.

"I'm supposed to do my homework as soon as I get in," he said, "but I suppose I'll get away with it tonight with you here. And, look, thanks again for getting me past Kenton. I couldn't have taken another session with him this evening."

"Isn't there anything you can do to stop it?" I asked.

"Like what? I don't have a lot of big strong friends – I fact I don't have a lot of friends at all, and the ones I have got don't live anywhere round here. I'm stuck with him until I leave school, unless we move away before then. Like that's ever going to happen."

His mother called that the bacon was ready, and he went out and came back again a couple of minutes later carrying a plate of sandwiches, a bottle of Coke and two glasses. And those sandwiches were nice: the bacon was crisp and there was plenty of it. I sometimes make bacon sandwiches myself at home, and I like the bacon to be almost burnt, not limp and greasy.

"Thanks," I said afterwards. "That was great. Look, I probably can't do a lot to help you, since I don't go to your school or live anywhere near you, but if it helps to talk about it, I really don't mind listening…"

Jeremy

I still didn't think that talking about it was going to serve any useful purpose, but on the other hand I wasn't likely to see Specs again, and on that basis it couldn't do any harm either. And maybe talking about it would make me feel better…

"We used to be friends," I began. "I know he's quite a lot younger than me, but he's quite tall for his age and I'm small, and besides, there aren't a lot of other kids round here of my age. I mean, there are some, but I don't know any of them. He's got other friends – kids like him always seem to be popular – but most of them live a little distance away, and so quite often at weekends he used to hang out with me instead.

"And then, about a year ago, we fell out. It doesn't really matter why, but after that he changed completely…"

"What happened?" he interrupted. "I know friends fall out sometimes, but they usually make it up again eventually. Why couldn't you do that?"

"We just couldn't," I said. "It doesn't matter what happened, except that it was my fault and it completely ruined us being friends. Since then he's… well, I was going to say he's hated me, but I don't think that's quite it, because if he completely hated me he could treat me a lot worse than he does. For a start, he knows pretty much all my secrets, but as far as I know he's never told them to anyone. That's the main reason I give him my allowance, of course, to keep him quiet. As long as he gets the money he more or less leaves me alone, at least at school.

"But sometimes I have to buy stuff – like last week, when it was my dad's birthday, for example – and then I can't pay up when he asks. It's happened before, except usually he deals with it himself: he takes me into the woods and beats me up there. Today's the first time he's done it at school, and with his mates, too…"

"You mean he's blackmailing you?" asked Specs.

"Well, yes, I suppose so. If he'd settle for a bit less it'd definitely be worth it, but it's really difficult when he takes almost all the money I get. I'm supposed to be saving up to go on holiday in the summer, only of course I'm not, because I don't get a chance to save anything. I don't know what I'm going to do when…"

I could feel myself starting to lose it, but there was nothing I could do to stop it, and I began to cry. I expected him to walk out in disgust at what a baby I was being, but instead he got out of the chair, came and sat next to me on the bed, put an arm around me and hugged me. And I turned to face him and sort of fell into his arms, and his other arm came round me too so that he was hugging me properly. I cried against his shoulder for a couple of minutes, and I thought how unfair it was that the only person who had shown me any sort of sympathy was someone I'd never see again. Of course, if he ever discovered the whole story that sympathy would evaporate pretty quickly…

"Sorry," I said, wiping my eyes on my sleeve.

"No, it's fine. I'm glad I was here… is there really nothing you can do?"

"I don't think so."

"Well… I suppose I could help you. If I tell him you didn't pay me back and I come back here on Saturday week to help him beat you up, like he suggested, we could get him out in the wood somewhere and then we could beat him up instead. Maybe if he finds out what it feels like…"

I shook my head. "No, that's a really bad idea," I said. "First, he'd be sure to take me to pieces once you'd gone, and second, he'd probably consider that I'd broken our deal, and then he'd tell everyone at school everything he knows about me."

"Would that be so bad? I suppose everyone has secrets, but it can't be worth all the shit you're going through, surely?"

"I think it can. Things are bad now, but they could always be worse."

He didn't seem to know what to say to that, but he kept his arm round me, so obviously he was still sympathetic. And that felt really nice, and I would have been quite happy to stay sitting like for the rest of the evening… except he had a train to catch.

"I haven't got a Facebook account," I said. "I deleted it, because I thought maybe Kenton would… anyway, I don't use it any more. But I've got Skype, so maybe… if you don't mind… well, perhaps we could talk to each other sometimes… We could play chess, too, if you like…"

"Well, I haven't got a Skype account, but there's no reason I can't get one," he said. "That would probably be better than just texting – at least you can see each other with a video call."

"Great!" I said. "I'll give you my address."

I went over to my desk and wrote my Skype address and my mobile number on a piece of paper and handed it to him.

"'Sharkey1000F'?" he queried.

"I'm the Shark with a thousand fins. You know that 'mille' is French for a thousand? Well, I thought it was cool when I chose it, anyway."

He chose not to comment on that.

"What was your first name again?" he asked, so I took it back and wrote 'Jeremy Millefin' above the address.

"Thanks," he said, taking it back and putting it in his pocket. "I suppose I ought to go and catch my train. Maybe I'll call you once I get Skype set up on my computer."

"That'd be good," I said.

I took him back downstairs. He nipped into the kitchen to thank my mother for the sandwiches and then came back to the door where I was waiting for him.

"Bye, then," he said. "If I think of a really cunning plan I'll let you know."

He headed off down the path and I watched him go. I didn't really expect him to contact me again, especially if he ran into Kenton on the way back, because I was sure that once the beans had been spilled, that would be the end of that. Why is life so bloody unfair?

Kevin

I headed back towards the station, and I'd got a short way up the road when a voice yelled, "Hey, Four-eyes!" and Kenton appeared leaning out of an upstairs window of the house I was passing.

"What?" I asked.

"Did you get your money back?"

"No."

"There's a surprise. Wait there."

Thirty seconds later he emerged from the front door of the house and came to join me on the side of the road.

"I'll walk back up to the station with you," he said. "So what was his excuse?"

"He said he'd already given you everything he had. Actually he said he gives you all his money every week. Is that true?"

"Ah, he's been giving you the sob-story, has he? What did he tell you exactly?"

"Basically, that you and he used to be friends but he messed up somehow, and now you're blackmailing him."

"It's not blackmail… well, not really. I'm just protecting his reputation – and I can tell you that it needs protecting. Did he tell you how he messed up?"

"No."

"Then I won't, either. If he wants to tell you himself, that's his business, but since I'm taking his money I'm going to keep my mouth shut."

"I suppose that's something, then. But he's really messed up about it: the reason he couldn't pay you on Saturday was that it was his dad's birthday last week and he needed some money to buy him something. Is there any way you could ask for a bit less?"

"Bloody hell, he's got you feeling sorry for him, hasn't he?"

"Well, yes, a bit. What do you do with him when he can't pay?"

"Oh, I take him out into the woods and have some fun with him. If you want to come and watch next time I won't mind – after all, he still owes you money. Maybe when you see what a whiny little shit he is you'll stop feeling sorry for him. Trust me, he deserves a lot worse than I give him."

"I might, at that. Saturday morning, or afternoon?"

"Afternoon, usually. Call me on Friday evening and I'll let you know."

"Okay."

I said goodbye, carried on to the station and caught the train home. Chris didn't seem entirely willing to accept that I hadn't stopped on the way home, but I think I just about convinced him.

After I'd done my homework I went up to my room and set up Skype on my computer, but it was a bit late by then and I wasn't surprised when Millefin – Jeremy – failed to respond to my request to exchange details. I decided to try again the following evening.

Danny came round at about half-past six the following evening. We greeted each other as 'Stratford' and 'Engel' and did our best to suggest to Chris that chess was the only thing we had in common. We played a couple of games of blitz (and Danny refrained from playing the Grob – perhaps he was afraid I'd looked it up and discovered how to counter it. I hadn't, but I was quite happy not to meet it again).

We were setting up the double board for a game of what Danny called 'wide-screen chess' when Chris stuck his head around the door.

"You're not going for a bit, are you?" he asked Danny.

"No, I don't have to be home until half-past nine"

"Okay, in that case I'm going round to Mark's for a bit. You don't mind keeping an eye on Kev for me, do you?"

"No. I'll baby-sit any time you want me to."

That got a laugh out of Chris, and I managed to manufacture a scowl, which changed into a smile as soon as we heard he front door close. Being cautious I stuck my head out into the hall to make sure that he'd really gone, but he had.

"Now we don't have to pretend we don't like each other," I said. "And that's good – I don't really like calling you 'Engel'. So, is there anything else you'd prefer to do instead of playing chess?"

"No, I'm happy to play chess for a bit longer, and I especially want to see if I can remember how to play this version. And at least we can talk to each other now… so what happened last night? Why did you get off the train?"

"The boy I was playing was in trouble: he needed me to save him from being beaten up."

He laughed. "Come on, Kev, you can't fight!" he said. 'You're like me – you haven't got any muscles at all!"

"I don't think he expected me to fight – I was more like a witness. He thought the other boy wouldn't beat him up in front of an audience. And it worked, too."

"Yes, but you must have got home really late. I don't think the trains run that often."

"No, they're only once an hour. But it was worth it, because his mum really knows how to make a bacon sandwich. I'd offer to make you one, but I suppose you're not supposed to eat bacon, are you?"

"No. I know some Jews don't take a lot of notice of the dietary laws, but we always have, so I've no idea what bacon tastes like."

"You're missing out. It tastes beautiful. Anyway, he's okay, and I ended up feeling a bit sorry for him. He wants to stay in touch, so maybe I'll try talking to him online this evening. So – ready to get thrashed?"

"I don't think so. Didn't I win last time we played this?"

"Do you want to make a bet, then?"

"I don't bet money – it's a really bad idea."

"Hah! You just know you're going to lose."

"No, I'm not. All right, then – whoever loses this game has to take all his clothes off and stay bare for the next half hour."

I stared at him. "Are you sure, Danny? You're going to look very silly if my brother comes home early."

"It won't be me looking silly. But, okay then, we won't do it here. If we go upstairs to your parents' room we'll be able to keep an eye out of the window, so we'll see your brother coming up the drive long before he gets here."

"Well, if you absolutely insist on getting shown up, it's fine by me!" I said.

He offered me his hand. "Shake on it, then."

So we did, and then he grinned at me. "You're going to feel such an idiot," he commented.

"Let's wait and see who the idiot is."

Danny

I'd been looking forward to playing chess with Kevin, but I'd been expecting his brother to be around all evening, and that meant that I hadn't expected us to be able to… well, do anything to do with getting undressed. But I really wanted a chance to find out more about what had happened during my previous visit, and so as soon as I saw an opportunity I grabbed it. I didn't think Kevin would mind – it was obvious that he'd enjoyed us being undressed last time, and I knew I was right when he agreed to the penalty for losing as soon as I suggested it.

Of course I'd have been happy to see Kevin undressed again – it was interesting to see what an older boy looked like – but really I wanted him to touch me again. Maybe this time I could work out why it had felt so interesting. And so I more or less set out to lose. Actually it's quite hard to lose at chess without making it obvious that you're trying to, but with the wide screen version there was more of an excuse – it was easy to pretend to forget which of your extra knights was actually a zebra and which was a camel, for a start, and that made it possible to act as if you thought your piece was protected when actually it wasn't.

Anyway, I managed to 'blunder' away a rook after about fifteen moves, and after that Kevin was able to beat me without too much trouble. He was obviously happy about it, too.

"Oh, dear, Danny," he said, "you're going to have to show me your complete lack of muscles again."

"Best of three?" I asked, hoping he'd say no.

"Not a chance," he replied. "We didn't say anything about best of three before we started. Come on, we're going upstairs."

We went up to his parents' room and had a quick look out of the window to make sure that Chris wasn't on his way back, even though we didn't expect him back for ages yet. The drive was empty.

"We'll hear him close the front door even if we do miss seeing him on the drive," Kevin pointed out. "That'll give you plenty of time to get dressed again – after all, this is the last place he'll look for us. So… I'm waiting…"

Trying to look reluctant I started to get undressed, but by the time I got down to my trousers there was a genuine reason for me to be reluctant, because my penis had gone hard. Of course Kev had seen it like that before, but it was still a bit embarrassing.

"Come on," he encouraged me as I hesitated. "No chickening out now."

I had no intention of chickening out. I removed my trousers, folded them up and put them on the chair with my other clothes, and then slipped my boxers off and turned to face him.

"You look nice," he said. '"Come here."

He was sitting on the end of his parents' bed, and so I went and stood right in front of him.

"You really do look nice," he repeated. "May I?"

"Go ahead," I said, and he took hold of my erection and stroked it slowly, and once again it felt wonderful – possibly even better than the first time, because now I was prepared for it and it didn't come as such a shock.

"Lie on the bed," he told me, and so I did.

"No, lie on your stomach."

I thought that might be a bit less interesting, but I did it anyway, and he started stroking my back.

"Your shoulder-blades really stand out," he said. "It's like they're the start of wings. Are you an angel in disguise?"

"Only by name," I said. "Angels are supposed to look perfect, and I don't really think anyone would ever say I look even close to perfect."

"Well, you look good to me."

"Yes, but you're almost blind!"

He slapped my bottom, but not too hard, and then started stroking it, and that felt good too.

"You like this, don't you?" he said, after a minute or so.

"Well, yes, if I'm honest… but how can you tell?"

"You're sort of purring."

I hadn't been aware of that at all.

"Turn over," he said, and so I did that and he started to stroke my chest.

"I don't know what your dietary laws say, but whatever it is, they're not doing you any good," he commented. "I think I ought to take you out to a decent restaurant somewhere and force you to eat everything on the menu."

"I think that would just make me ill," I said. "I think I eat normally, anyway. I'm just naturally skinny."

"I'm sure it isn't natural to look like a skeleton. Still, at least one part of you isn't too skinny."

He took hold of my penis again, squeezing it gently and then letting it slip through his fingers, and that really did feel good. He examined my balls, stroked the little hairs at the base of my penis and then played with it some more, running his finger round the scar left when I was circumcised and tickling underneath the head.

"Danny," he said, hesitantly, "I know you think it's wrong to play with your own penis… but how do you feel about letting someone else play with it?"

"Well, I'm sure that's supposed to be wrong, too," I said. "But that does feel nice, so I don't mind if you go on doing it for a bit longer."

He took hold of it a little more firmly and started to move his hand up and down.

"That feels nice," I said. "You can keep doing that if you like."

He kept doing it, and it felt really nice, and then I could feel something happening inside me. I wondered if I should ask him to stop, but it felt good rather than nasty, and it was getting better, and then I could feel everything tightening up, and I think my bottom came right off the bed…

Kevin squeezed gently a couple of times and then let go, and I when I looked down at myself I could see that the tip of my penis was wet, and there were a couple of little drops on moisture on my tummy, too.

"Was that okay?" asked Kevin. He looked a little anxious now, but I nodded and smiled at him.

"It was nice," I told him. "Is that sperm?"

"Just about," he said. "I'm not sure if you could actually make a girl pregnant yet, but if you can't you soon will be able to."

He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped me down.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "Because sometimes people feel a bit strange afterwards."

"No, I'm fine. I think I need a pee, though."

I stood up and headed for the door, but he called me back.

"Use the en-suite," he said, pointing to a door in the corner of the room. "Just in case Chris comes home while you're in the loo."

I glanced at my watch, which I was still wearing.

"I don't think he'll be back for a while," I said, "but perhaps it's best to be sure."

I peed and washed my hands, thinking that if that was what it felt like when you did it to yourself I could understand why Kev does it so much – although I thought doing it yourself wouldn't feel quite the same, somehow…

Kevin

As soon as he came back into the bedroom I threw his boxers to him, but he threw them straight back.

"We agreed half an hour," he reminded me. "It hasn't been that long yet."

"I don't mind letting you off the rest," I said, but he shook his head.

"A deal's a deal. And, anyway, I don't mind letting you look at me undressed. I don't really know why, but I can sort of tell that you think I look nice naked, and that makes me feel good, even if I think you must be even blinder with your glasses on than without them, if that's what you think.

"Can we try something? Take your glasses off and then sit on the bed."

I did that and he came and sat on my lap facing me, so that we were looking at each other. Well, he was looking at me, anyway. I was looking at a blur.

He put his arms around my shoulders, and I put mine around his waist.

"This feels nice," he said. "It feels funny sitting here naked, but for some reason it feels good, too, sort of like you were my big brother and you were looking after me."

"Have you actually got a brother?"

"No, but if I had one, I'd like him to be like you. I trust you, somehow."

We stayed sitting like that for five minutes or so, and it did feel good – in fact I was disappointed when he stood up, glanced at his watch again and picked up his boxers. Once he was dressed again I took him along to my bedroom and turned on the computer. As I had hoped, Jeremy Millefin had swapped Skype details with me, so I checked that my webcam was working and then gave him a call.

"You okay?" I asked, when he answered.

"Yes, I'm fine. Kenton had a go at me for whining to you last night, but otherwise he left me alone. I hope you weren't too late getting home last night."

"No, it was fine. My parents are away at the moment anyway, so there was nobody here to moan at me. Fancy a game?"

"Yes, all right. Just give me a minute to set up the board."

I ran downstairs to get my board and the clock, and once we were both ready we got started. Danny and I consulted before each move, but since we were playing blitz we didn't have a lot of time for that. We won the first game and were halfway through the second when Chris came into the room – I hadn't heard the front door close after all, so it was a good thing he hadn't come back twenty minutes earlier.

"Who are you playing against?" he asked me, so I introduced him to Jeremy, and after that Chris left us to it. We won the second game too, and then Danny said that he had to go, so I said goodnight to Jeremy and cut the connection.

"Did you have a good evening?" I asked Chris, once Danny had gone.

"Not bad. If Engel is free on a Tuesday we could do that again. Of course, I could understand it if he didn't want to waste an evening looking after you, but perhaps I'll be able to talk him into it."

Somehow I thought that might not be as difficult as Chris expected…

Danny has changed his mind about Kevin and they've both decided they like cuddling – which seems to me to be an altogether reasonable point of view.

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