PZA

Boy Stories

David Clarke

Why I Hate Wearing Glasses

Chapter 15-17

Chapter Fifteen

In which Chris is surprised, Peter gets an unexpected visit and Danny has a new experience

Jeremy

We played wide-screen chess for an hour or so. It took me a while to get used to it – the hardest thing about it was remembering which fantasy piece can do what, and also remembering what each of the non-standard pieces (things like upside-down rooks, for example) actually represented. Kevin and his friend Danny had put together a little reference list, apparently as much to resolve arguments as to help them remember, and once Kevin showed this to me and put it on the table where I could read it, things got a bit easier. The first couple of games were still quite slow because I had to keep asking questions like 'How does a Berolina pawn capture again?' and 'Is this a bouncy bishop or a normal one?' but gradually I got used to it and then the games speeded up.

I lost the first three games, but then I started to get the hang of it and the fourth game was a lot closer. We were still playing it when Chris came home.

"Hello, Jeremy," he said. "I didn't know you were coming."

"Hello, Chris," I said, standing up. "I want a word with you."

I steered him out into the hall and closed the study door behind me, although I thought it altogether possible that Kevin would be trying to listen in – certainly I would have done so when he was speaking to Kenton if I'd known it was going to happen.

"Look, you've got to stop spying on Kevin," I began, "especially in his bedroom. It's…"

"Why?" he interrupted.

"What?"

"Why have I got to stop spying on him? We're trying to stop him from playing with himself all the time. Isn't that a good thing?"

"Of course not! Have you stopped since you put the cameras in?"

"No, but I'm not the one who was doing it all the time."

"So what? I'm sure you've had the same sex education classes I have, so you know there's nothing wrong with it. So it's going to stop, okay? I've already moved the camera in his room and turned everything else off, and it has to stay off, all right?"

"What's it got to do with you?"

"He's my friend. He stuck up for me when I was in trouble, so now it's my turn."

"So what are you going to do if I just tell you to fuck off?"

"You won't. I bet you don't even know what's been going on since you started sending him round to your mates' houses, do you? Because if you did I'm fairly sure you'd have stopped it happening – at least you would have unless you're a complete bastard, and I'm pretty sure you're not."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"What do you think Kev has to do when he goes round to one of your mates' houses?"

"I don't know… as far as I know he has to clean their boots and stuff like that."

"Suppose I told you some of them make him suck their cocks?"

"I wouldn't believe you… oh, come on! You're winding me up!"

"No, I'm not. They don't all do that, of course, but some of them certainly do. And perhaps you think it doesn't matter because he's gay and so he probably likes it, but it isn't funny having someone else forcing you to do something like that when you don't want to. Imagine if some girl blackmailed you into licking her… you know… and you didn't want to. How would you feel?"

"Yes, but… no, there's no way! If that was happening he'd have said something!"

"Not if he thought you were likely to stick some film of him wanking online, he wouldn't. As it happens I don't think you'd actually do that. Okay, I don't know you very well, but I saw enough of you and Kev together at Thorpe Park to know that you like him, and you wouldn't do something like that to someone you like. But he couldn't be sure, so he felt he had to keep on doing whatever they told him to. That's why you've got to stop it, because it's gone way beyond what you thought it would."

He looked at me for a moment and then turned and went back into the study, and I followed him. Kevin wasn't quite as near the door as I had expected, but probably we'd been talking loudly enough for him to have been able to hear anyway.

"Is that true?" Chris asked him.

"Is what true?" asked Kevin, managing to look as if he really didn't know what his brother was talking about.

"Is it true that some of those bastards have been making you do sex stuff with them?"

"Well, yes. What did you expect? If you give a horny kid a slave and tell him that anything goes, what did you think would happen?"

"Who?"

"I'm not telling you that. It wouldn't be fair. Besides, none of them did anything wrong from their point of view – after all, you told them that I had to do anything they wanted, didn't you?"

"Well, yes, but I thought… I mean, I never… shit, Kev, I'm really sorry – but why didn't you say something?"

"I didn't want you to think I was whinging."

"Yes, but… okay, Kev, Jeremy's right: we'll stop the whole thing right now. It was only supposed to be a bit of a laugh, that's all – we never knew it would end up with you having to… well, you know. I'll tell the others tomorrow, and you won't have to go and visit anyone this week. And I'll get Mark to come round and dismantle the cameras and stuff tomorrow afternoon."

"Thanks, Chris," said Kevin. "I might keep going round to Jason's on Thursdays, though, because it's good being able to do our homework together. And I promised Lee and Freddie one more lesson, too, so I'll probably do that next Saturday like we planned."

"And of course you're going to delete any films and photos you've got of Kev too, aren't you?" I put in.

"Well… okay, yes, I suppose we should," said Chris. "You must think I'm a total shit."

"No I don't," I assured him. "If you'd said 'Tough, he's got to keep doing it,' then I might think that. But you didn't know what was happening and you've stopped it as soon as you found out, so no, I don't think you're a shit at all. I think you're okay."

"So do I, in case you were worrying about it," added Kevin. "And, to be honest, it wasn't all bad. I've learned some interesting stuff and made a couple of good friends, too – though I won't mind if I never have to clean another pair of football boots."

Chris was still looking a bit awkward, so I grabbed Kev and steered him back to the table to carry on with our game. And eventually I lost again, though at least this time I'd lasted long enough to make a decent game of it.

Kevin

Of course I was actually in two minds about this: I'd reached the stage where I didn't actually mind sucking Dwayne and Silvio, and I'd definitely miss the visits to Mark's house. We could just carry on with them, I suppose, but Chris would certainly wonder why. Perhaps we could come up with some excuse like wanting to play video games or something…

On the other hand, perhaps I could now come clean about me and Danny being friends, because he was another person I didn't want to disappear from my life. We'd have to say that being stuck with each other had actually worked out and made us friends, or something like that – which I supposed was probably the truth, anyway.

Chris was very quiet over supper: it was obvious that he didn't know what to say to me. I tried to keep the conversation moving by talking about the next day's football, but he answered monosyllabically and didn't even seem to want to look at me. When we'd finished eating he just collected the dirty dishes and disappeared into the kitchen, so I followed him and waited while he put them in the dishwasher.

"Chris, it's OK," I said. "I'm not mad at you or anything. Like I said, in a lot of ways it's worked out okay – I like helping out with the football, for a start, and I wouldn't be friends with Jason Temple if it hadn't happened. Nobody's given me a hard time about it, either. You know what I was like before: I'd spend most of my spare time sitting in my room watching TV, and I hardly ever left the house except to go to school. Now I actually have a social life."

"You still should have said something."

"Right, so you expected me to go 'Guess what? I suck cocks!'? It's not really something I wanted people to know about. I told Jeremy because he was having some problems and I sort of wanted to show him that I could understand that because I had problems of my own, but I sure as hell haven't told anyone else. Besides, if I ever get a boyfriend, at least now I'll have some idea what to do if we get that far. Maybe if I do it well enough he'll manage to live with my glasses."

"Well, all right, but it still wasn't right to make you do it."

"Well… to be completely honest, it's not like I refused or anything. I'm pretty sure that if I'd said 'No way!' or something they wouldn't have pushed it, at least not without checking with you first. I mean, I didn't exactly volunteer, but I didn't really try to get out of it either. So it's not your fault, okay?"

He still looked worried, so I went and hugged him. I can't remember the last time I hugged my brother, so it made an impression, and when I stepped away afterwards the worried look was gone. For the rest of the evening he was more or less his normal self.

Jeremy and I played some more chess and then we all watched TV for a bit. At nine o'clock it was time for Jeremy to head back to the station.

"You can stay over if you want," I offered. "We've got a spare room, and then maybe you could come and watch Chris play football in the morning."

"I'd like that," he said. "In fact I'd like it a lot… except I don't think I'll be allowed, not without planning it properly in advance. If I phone home my mum is sure to want to speak to yours to make sure it's all right, and if she finds out that your parents aren't here she'll definitely say no. She likes you, Kev, but she still wouldn't be happy about me staying here without at least one of your parents at home. But we can probably fix it up for during the holidays, especially if you can get your dad to speak to her."

"Mum will probably be home for Easter," I said, "and I'm sure she won't mind calling your mum. We'll definitely have to arrange something."

Instead of sending him on the bus I called a taxi for him and gave him the money for the fare, promising to Skype him the following evening. I hoped very much that he would be able to stay over during the following week.

Jeremy

I didn't actually read the Alex Rider book on the way home. Instead I was thinking – about Kevin, mostly. I hoped that speaking to his brother the way I had would improve things for him – it was fairly obvious that Chris hadn't known what Kevin had been going through and I was confident that he would now put a stop to it – so perhaps I'd managed to repay Kevin a bit for getting Kenton off my back.

As for the idea of sleeping over during the Easter holidays, I thought that would be really good. Kevin had a nice big bed… but of course he wouldn't be interested in actually doing stuff with me, so I supposed I'd end up in the spare room. Even so, it would make a nice change. And perhaps it would help us to stay friends long enough for me to reach puberty at last, and then maybe he'd start to think that perhaps we could become proper boyfriends, assuming that he hadn't died of old age by then.

It was bloody unfair. I was fourteen, so why did I still look like a ten-year-old? Okay, I knew it would have to start growing eventually, but I was already getting to the stage where I was thinking of contacting the Guinness Book of Records to ask what the all-time record for a late puberty was, or even sending for some of those products I kept getting spam emails about, the ones that are guaranteed to add three inches to the size of your erection. Yeah, right.

Of course I'd done some research online and discovered that there wasn't anything that I could do to speed things up. Doctors wouldn't prescribe anything to help until you reached the age of sixteen, and there doesn't seem to be any magical ingredient you can eat or rub into your skin or inject yourself with, so all I could do was to wait it out…

The following afternoon I went to call on Kenton, something I hadn't done – at least not voluntarily – for a long time. But his mother didn't seem to have any idea how our relationship had changed over the previous six months – after all, she could see that we were still spending time together, and obviously she had no idea how that time was being spent – and so when she answered the door she didn't look surprised to see me at all. Instead she just sent me up to his room.

"What do you want?" he asked when I put my head around his door.

"I just came to see if you're okay," I said, coming into the room and closing the door behind me.

"Yes, I'm okay, so you can go now," he said.

Instead I went and sat on the chair in front of his desk and swung it round to face the bed, which he was lying on. He'd been listening to music on his MP3 player, and as soon as I sat down he put the buds back in his ears and set it playing again, which was as clear a hint as anyone could ask for. But I wasn't there to take a hint.

I went and sat on the bed next to him, picking up the MP3 player and turning it off. I knew that might be a stupid thing to do – if I made him angry he'd probably hit me, and for a second or two I thought he might. But then his shoulders sort of slumped and he lay back again.

"Look, just get lost, Millefin," he said.

"I don't think so," I replied. "It would be stupid for us both to just sit around indoors all afternoon. Why don't we go to the woods or something? It's not too cold."

He stared at me. "Are you serious?" he asked.

"Sure, why not?"

"You mean, you're volunteering to let me beat you up and stick it in your mouth and that?"

"Well, you don't have to do that, but if it'll cheer you up, then I suppose so. Although I'd sooner we just played the sort of games we used to before I messed everything up. Look, Pete… I've never really said sorry for that, but I am, really, and not just because of what you've done to me since. I'm sorry I messed it up for you, too. I just wish…"

I tailed off, but he didn't seem keen to say anything either, so for several seconds there was silence.

"Come on," I said, eventually. "Let's go out and do something."

I stood up, and after five seconds or so he sat up, put the MP3 player away in a drawer next to the bed, slipped his shoes on, stood up and gestured to the door.

"All right," he said. "But don't forget that this was your idea."

"I won't."

I led him downstairs and then waited in the hall while he got his jacket on and told his mother we were going out for a bit. We went out of the house and I led him off in the direction of the wood. He still didn't seem inclined to speak, so I kept quiet myself until we reached the little clearing near the lake, and then, because he still kept quiet, I started to get undressed.

"Stop," he said. "Not here. Come with me."

He led me off further into the woods. I didn't realise where he was taking me at first, but then I recognised the large dead tree off to the left, and a little further on we came to the place where we'd started building our fort. We hadn't got too far before the day when I'd messed everything up, and I hadn't been back since – I'd never wanted to come into the woods on my own, and when Kenton had made me we hadn't been anywhere near here. But now I saw that he must have gone on working on it, because it looked far better than it had the last time I'd seen it. He'd manage to rig up the old piece of tarpaulin as a roof, he'd used the two old doors and the lumber we'd scavenged to give it two solid-looking sides, and he'd gone some way towards blocking off the bottom end with a lot of roughly interwoven bits of branch and twig.

"Bloody hell," I exclaimed, as he took me round to the front, which was still completely open. "Did you do all this yourself?"

He nodded. "It took a bloody long time, too," he said. "I wasn't going to – in fact the first time I came back here after you'd tried touching me up I was going to destroy the whole thing. But then I thought, no, I'd make it into my place instead. Do you really mean you haven't been back here since?"

I shook my head. "I sort of went right off these woods," I told him. "The only times I've been back since has been when you've made me."

"Oh, right. Well, it isn't finished yet, obviously, but what do you think? I even managed to get hold of an old groundsheet, so we can actually sit down inside without getting wet and muddy."

He took me inside, and I was really quite impressed.

"I need to find a way to close off the bottom end properly," he said, "and maybe rig up some sort of door for the front, but if I can I reckon I could sleep out here."

"So why show me?" I asked. "I mean, yes, it's awesome, but it's nothing to do with me any longer, is it? This is your place now."

"Yes, but it means that if it's raining I can make you suck me without me getting wet. And anyway I thought it might be fun to force you to act as a slave-worker: you do all the work of making this place wind and rain-proof while I stand over you with a whip, and because I'd make you work naked you'd get ripped up by the brambles, too…. actually I should have thought of that ages ago. Come inside."

We went into the fort and sat on the groundsheet, and I was even more impressed by the job he'd done on it.

"I wouldn't mind helping you finish this," I said. "Obviously I'd prefer not to have to do it naked, but I will if that will make you feel better. Of course what we could do would be to put up a small tent inside, where we are now. You'd have the tent to keep out the wind and rain, and the tarpaulin would act as a flysheet, and the doors would act as a windbreak. I haven't got a tent, though. Have you?"

"Yes, but I wouldn't want to leave it out here all the time. Someone might nick it."

"Perhaps we could get one at the army surplus shop," I suggested. "I bet they'd have something basic and fairly cheap. Or we could get one in Millets."

"I bet that would be a lot more expensive. But we could look on eBay. There might be something cheap there."

I hardly dared say anything at this point because it sounded as if he was actually contemplating us doing something together again.

"Of course, you know I haven't got any money," I reminded him.

"Yes, but if I did find a cheap tent I'd be using some of your money to buy it with anyway," he pointed out.

"True," I said. "Look, Pete…"

"Shut up," he interrupted. "I know what you're going to say, but there's no way we can go back to where we were."

"I know," I said. "I wasn't going to suggest that. I was only talking about helping you to finish it, not about us playing here afterwards. I know you won't want to do that…"

Peter

Actually I'm thinking about us doing exactly that. Since Four-Eyes raised the issue I've been thinking about it a lot, and while I've got plenty of mates at school, none of them live all that close to me. Of course that's why I'd spent most of my weekends with Jeremy before… well, before. What I liked about him was that even though he was quite a bit older than me he'd never tried to boss me about – in fact he usually let me decide what we were going to do and then happily went along with it. Of course I've always been a bit stronger than him, but I don't think that's why he let me make the decisions. I think he genuinely saw us as equals.

He's not stupid, of course, and he quite often had good ideas for things we could do, and actually building the fort was originally his idea. He found this spot and saw the potential of it, and at the time I really liked the idea of us actually camping out here. Of course that was before I found out that he's queer, and once I did find that out I decided that there was no way I would ever risk falling asleep next to him in case he started molesting me in the night. Except that now I don't think there's any risk of that at all: now that he knows how I feel about it I'm pretty confident that he'd keep his hands to himself, even if I passed out right in front of him.

I found it really hard to handle, that time he touched me, because I've been brought up to think of queers as being disgusting and perverted, and the idea that my best friend could be like that completely messed with my head. I simply couldn't understand why anyone would choose to do stuff like that – it just seemed sick, and for quite a long time I couldn't even look at him without it disgusting me. But according to Four-Eyes it isn't his fault and he didn't choose to be like that, and that made some sense to me – after all, who would want to be a pervert? So I did a bit of checking up online, and everything I found out there seemed to confirm that it had nothing to do with choice, and that probably Jeremy had just been born like that, like Four-Eyes and his crap eyesight.

Of course, that means that I've been giving him a hard time… okay, let's be honest and call it bullying, because it is – over something he can't do anything about, which is no better than if I went about kicking in the Paki kid in my year just because he's a Paki. So obviously the right thing to do would be to stop, right? Well, yes, but…

There has to be a 'but', and in this case the problem is how totally awesome it has been being able to make Jeremy do whatever I wanted. I don't think I'm really a bully – like I said, I'd never push Younis around just because his father is from Pakistan, because that would obviously be wrong. But being able to make Jeremy strip and suck me off gives me the most incredible kick, and of course the actual sucking is the most unbelievable thing I've ever felt. So I suppose you can understand why I'm reluctant to give it up, even though I realise by now that I've been treating Jeremy really badly.

Still, I've decided to show him what I've done with the fort, and now that he's seen it I'm seriously thinking that it might be a lot more fun camping out here with him than on my own. I admit I like the idea of stripping him naked and standing over him with a whip while he tries to finish the job on the windbreak at the bottom of the fort, and I'm pretty sure that he'd do it if I ordered him to, so maybe… And I'm not that worried about him sleeping next to me, either. I can always tie his hands to a stake or something to keep him from trying to grope me, although, like I say, I don't think he'll do that anyway…

"As it happens, I was thinking about us doing that," I tell him. "Don't get me wrong: what you did was well out of order, but… well, all the time I was working on this I kept thinking that it would have been better if we'd done it between us. Course, in one way that just made me more pissed off with you, because you'd been the one to fuck up us being friends. But loads of times I wished that we could go back to before you did it, or that I could completely forget it had happened or something…

"So maybe we could still do some stuff together sometimes, just to see how it works out. Suppose I said that I'd stop nicking your money – and I'd stop giving you a hard time on the way to and from school, too, like I'd stop calling you a perv and stuff, if you don't mind still giving me a suck sometimes… I mean not too often or anything… and maybe I could still strip you off sometimes, 'cos that's well funny, but only when we're out here, not at school or anything…"

"And if I agreed to that then we could go back to doing stuff together?"

"Just to see if it works out," I say.

"Well, I don't like it when you make me suck out here, because I'm always scared someone's going to see…"

"What about if we did get a tent to put in here?" I ask. "Nobody would see then, would they?"

"I suppose not. It's better doing it indoors, like we did last time, because that's a lot more comfortable, but I suppose our parents don't go out and leave us on our own very often. But I suppose it would be all right in a tent. And really I reckon you should be able to go on calling me names if you want, provided we're on our own. I mean, I am a perv, so I can't really argue if you call me one."

"Yes, but… well, it's like Four-Eyes said – being bent isn't the only thing that matters about you, so perhaps I shouldn't go on about it all the time. So, what do you reckon – do you want to try us doing stuff together again sometimes?"

"Yes, of course I do, provided you don't mind me being gay. I mean, I won't ever do anything gay when we're together, obviously."

"Except sucking my cock," I remind him.

"Yes, but I probably won't ask to do that."

"I don't get why not. Don't you reckon my knob tastes awesome?"

"I don't have anything to compare it with," he points out. "It doesn't really taste bad, not even when you spunk up, but I don't know whether it's supposed to taste bad or not. Maybe if I ever grow up to look something like my age I might eventually get a boyfriend, and then maybe I'll be able to compare him with you."

"I reckon it'll be years before you grow up," I say. "But if you do I don't think I want to hear about you doing sex stuff with another boy. That'd be well gross."

"Then I won't tell you. Anyway, you're bound to get a girlfriend before I get a boyfriend, because you're well buff compared to me. And maybe when you get a girl to suck you off you'll be able to tell whether I do it well or not. And I won't mind hearing about that, to be honest. I'd like to think of you having a girlfriend."

"Why, because you reckon I'll stop making you suck once I've got a girl to do it instead?"

"No. I'd like to hear about it because I reckon it would make you happy."

I'm not quite sure what to say to that. I'm amazed that he still wants to be friends after the way I've treated him lately, but it sounds as if he genuinely still likes me. Okay, maybe he reckons it's completely his fault that we'd stopped being friends, but I think that my reaction was partly responsible, too, especially now I know that he hasn't chosen to be the way he is.

"All right, then we'll give it a try," I say. "So how about we celebrate by you sucking me off?"

"Well… do you want to come back to mine? Only it's a bit cold out here, and my parents aren't likely to come upstairs, so it should be safe enough."

I think about it. He's right to say it isn't all that warm…

"Okay," I say.

So we go back to his house and when we get into his room he closes the door and pulls a chest of drawers in front of it so that nobody can burst in on us – although it is true that his mother only ever came into his room once while we were there in the past, and that was just to ask if we wanted a snack. And even then she knocked first. Still, I suppose it's better to be safe…

"All right, then," I say. "Get undressed."

I like seeing him naked because he gets so embarrassed about it. I suppose it is a bit embarrassing, not having reached puberty at his age, but there's nothing he can do about it so really he ought to just accept it and not make a song and dance about it. Course, I don't tell him that, because getting him embarrassed has been half the fun.

So he gets undressed and this time he doesn't really hesitate at all.

"That thing really isn't getting any bigger is, it?" I comment.

He just shrugs.

"Well… it will," I tell him. "It does for everyone, sooner or later."

He stares at me, and I suppose I can understand why, because this has to be the first time I've ever said anything positive about it. Anyway, I get undressed myself, only this time I'm not quite so sure about this, and so it isn't hard.

"Look," I say, "maybe…"

"No, it's okay," he says. "Sit on the bed."

So I sit on the bed and he kneels down in front of me, and… well, I thought the last one he did, in my bedroom, was pretty good, but this is completely awesome because he keeps stopping, drawing it out for… well, I'm not sure how long, but I'd guess at least half an hour. And at the end it has to be the best ever.

And this time when he stands up afterwards he has an erection, and I don't care – in fact I'm sort of happy to see it, because if he liked it maybe he'll go on doing it even if I don't make him. So we both get dressed, and then he turns his computer on and says "Let's see if we can find a tent, shall we?" and I think that's a really good idea…

Kevin

Pretty much as soon as we got to football that Sunday morning Chris went and spoke to both Dwayne and Silvio. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but obviously I could guess from the way they were looking at me. But after the game it was difficult to talk to them, because the team had only drawn with Callingford Rangers and Mr Clifford spent a very long time indeed making his feelings known. Afterwards everyone was pretty subdued and they didn't show any sign of wanting to hang around, and Colin's mother was no exception: we got bundled into the car and driven off before I was able to grab a word with Dwayne.

"What did you say to them?" I asked Chris once we were back home.

"I asked if they'd been making you… you know. Dwayne admitted it straight away – he said you hadn't tried to get out of it and so he thought it would be okay. Silvio said he knew he shouldn't have done it and just said sorry. Anyway, they both know you won't be going round to theirs again."

All the same, after lunch I went round to Dwayne's. He seemed more than a bit embarrassed when he answered the door, and for a moment I thought he wasn't going to invite me in, but in the end he did.

"Didn't expect to see you," he said as we went up to his room.

"I thought I ought to make sure you know that I didn't drop you in it," I said. "I never said anything to Chris – it was one of my friends who told him about it. And when Chris asked I told him that I didn't think you'd done anything wrong. So if it helps, I'm not pissed off with you, and really I don't think Chris is either: I think he reckons it's his fault, and he just wants to try to share the blame around a bit."

"So why did you agree to do it?"

"I wasn't sure that Chris wouldn't post his films of me if I didn't."

"What, you really think your bro would do that to you?"

"Well, not now, obviously. But it's hard to think clearly when you've got something hanging over you like that."

"Maybe. I don't suppose you want to do it again, then?"

"No, thanks. It's not exactly something you volunteer for."

Of course I would have been quite happy to volunteer, but it would be absolutely obvious that I was gay if I did that, and I wasn't really ready to come out just yet. Okay, I'd admitted it to Silvio, but I thought I could trust him not to tell anyone else. As far as Dwayne was concerned, now that I no longer had the excuse of compulsion I thought it would be sensible to say no.

"Of course, you and Silvio could always do it for each other," I suggested.

"No way! I'm not queer, and I don't think Silvio is either. Only queers suck."

"Then why don't you ask Clive?" I suggested. "He seems to want everyone to think he's gay, so why don't you challenge him to prove it?"

"Yeah, but maybe he's just winding us all up."

"Even if he is, there's nothing wrong with asking him, is there? Except maybe it would be best if Silvio asks him first."

"Why's that, then?"

"Well, you're pretty big… you know. You might scare him off. Whereas Silvio is a lot easier to handle."

"Well… maybe."

"It has to be worth a try," I said. "Maybe he really is gay, and he keeps telling everyone because he's hoping someone will give him a chance to do something. If he says yes, everyone's happy, and if he says no you're no worse off than you are now."

When I got back home Mark was already at work disconnecting and boxing up his cameras, and that gave me the perfect excuse to go back to his place with him – he wouldn't have been able to carry all the boxes on his own.

"We're going to need to find an excuse if I'm going to keep coming round here on Sunday evenings," I commented as he packed everything away in his bedroom.

"So you do want to keep coming, then?"

"Of course, at least until I find a proper boyfriend, and that isn't likely to happen any time soon."

"Great! Look, why don't you get undressed, and then we can discuss it in comfort."

I did that and so did he, and then we snuggled up in his bed and tried to find a good cover story, although thinking about it wasn't too easy because of the various pieces of distracting behaviour that were going on. We thought about me helping him with his homework (not entirely believable because there weren't really any subjects where Mark needed help), him teaching me about computers (better, but Chris knows that I'm not all that interested) and playing video games (which I'm crap at, a fact that Chris knows well). Then I thought of my usual standby.

"How do you fancy improving your chess?" I asked him.

"Yes, okay – but do you think Chris would swallow it?"

"I'll do the swallowing a bit later," I said, grinning at him as I pulled him on top of me. "But I don't see why not, especially if you start coming to Chess Club on Monday evenings as well."

"I don't think I'd mind that too much," he said.

"Good, then that's settled. So now let's just practise a few other things…"

We practised quite a few other things before I did the swallowing I'd promised him, and by the time I got home again I was feeling pretty good: at least I'd be able to go on practising, even if the chances of finding a proper boyfriend who could look beyond my glasses still seemed fairly remote.

The following evening Mark came to chess club, and once I'd told Danny it was okay for him to admit that we were friends the pair of us played some games against Mark, who turned out to be not too bad, just a bit lacking in strategy (he mainly seemed to move only in response to his opponent's move, instead of having a plan of his own). He and Danny seemed to get on fairly well, too, and in fact when Danny came round the following evening he commented on it. Chris had gone round to Mark's again, leaving Danny and me on our own, but this time there had been nothing said about babysitting. And once Chris had left Danny said:

Danny

"So you don't have to do what your brother tells you any more, then?"

"No," said Kevin. "Jeremy told him about what sort of stuff I was having to do, and Chris got very unhappy about it, so now I'm free. So I won't have to spend ages cleaning other peoples' football boots any longer."

"And Chris wasn't happy about you having to do that?"

"No, it wasn't that, it was… well, maybe I can show you later on. But first perhaps we ought to see how easily I can beat you at wide-screen chess."

"You were just lucky last time," I said, as we started to set the board up. "Tonight I'm going to murder you."

We started playing and this time I wasn't trying to lose – I wanted to make Kevin undress for a change.

"That was interesting, yesterday evening," I commented. "I don't think I've even spoken to Thamnoboskou before, except for that time when he and your brother talked me into keeping an eye on you, and even then it was Chris who did all the talking. But he's alright, isn't he?"

"I like him a lot," said Kevin. "Okay, he was part of keeping me under their control – he set up all the cameras and stuff, for a start. But going round to his has been a lot of fun. He's taught me quite a lot about myself, too."

"Good stuff?"

"Definitely. Look, maybe I can invite you and him both over during the holidays, because if there's someone else here who can play chess I'll be able to thrash you at Kriegspiel as well as at wide-screen."

"You can't even beat me when you can see my pieces, so you've got no chance when you can't!" I said.

"Don't get too cocky, or I might have to spank you later on!"

"You can try," I said. "Anyway, I wouldn't mind Mark coming over, as long as we get a bit of time on our own too. And it'll have to be the first week of the holidays, because the second week is Pesach."

"It's what?"

"Passover," I explained. "It's a massive festival and it lasts all week. Okay, I might be able to get out for a bit during the middle of the week, but I expect my 'rents will want me to stay at home."

"Okay, then I'll try to find some time in the first week. What did you want to do?"

"Oh, just the usual: beat you at every sort of chess you can think of."

"Then you're going to have a really disappointing holiday," said Kevin. And ten moves later he lost the game we were playing. I could have done a lot of crowing, but instead I just stood up and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Up to your parents' room. That's where we usually go when someone has lost, isn't it?"

"Best of three?"

"What do you think?" I said, and I headed for the stairs. Of course he followed me without arguing, and when we got to his parents' room he started to get undressed straight away. As I'd half-expected, when he took his boxers off his penis was hard, so I got him to lie on the bed, face up, and sat down beside him: I wanted to do to him what he'd done to me last time.

Obviously I'd never done this before, and there was still a part of me that thought that touching another boy's genitals was pretty disgusting. On the other hand, when he'd done it to me it had felt really nice, and I wanted to find out how it would feel from the other side. And so I reached out and took hold of his erection. It felt warm and alive and… well, a bit strange, if I'm honest. Still, I knew what had happened when he'd rubbed mine, and so I started to do the same thing.

"Wait!" he said. "Get undressed first."

"How come? I won, didn't I?"

"Yes, but this is a lot nicer if we're both undressed. Trust me."

Of course by now I trusted him, and so I got undressed and then sat down beside him once more. And he reached out and took hold of me, and that felt really good, even though he didn't actually rub it or anything. So then I started rubbing him again, and this time he didn't try to stop me, just squeezing mine gently so that I would feel good too. It didn't take very long, either: fairly soon he warned me that he was getting close, and a few seconds later three or four little spurts of whitish stuff shot out of his penis. I supposed that this was what mine would be like when I was a bit older, and I also supposed that Kevin was mature enough to make a girl pregnant, though obviously it wasn't likely that he'd do that, what with him not liking girls…

"Thanks, Danny," he said. "Could you get me a couple of bits of toilet roll from the bathroom?"

So I nipped into the en-suite and brought back some toilet paper, and he wiped himself down and then went and flushed them.

"Okay, your turn," he said when he got back. "Lie on the bed."

So I did that, but he pulled me across until I was lying right on the edge of the bed, and then he knelt down on the floor next to me.

"Now," he said, taking hold of me and squeezing until it was nice and hard, "I'll show you another way to do this."

He leaned forward and slipped it into his mouth, and I was so shocked that I shoved him away so hard that he fell over.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked.

"Wow, Danny, you swore!" he pointed out, getting back up onto his knees. "You never swear!"

"That's because I've never had anyone do that before," I said. "How could you? It's totally disgusting!"

"No, it isn't. I can see that it looks that way, but I promise that it isn't disgusting at all. See, this is what I was talking about earlier: it's what some of Chris's friends made me do. I'd never even thought about it before Chris caught me… you know, playing with it. But obviously some of his friends had been thinking about it, because some of them ordered me to do it as soon as they found out I had to obey them. I didn't like the idea at first, but it didn't take too long to get used to it, and now I don't mind doing it at all. Chris has said I don't have to do it for anyone from now on, but there's nothing to stop me volunteering to do it to make my closest friends feel good. And everyone I've done it for says that it does feel good, so if you'd like to lie down again, you can find out for yourself what they're talking about."

"No! There's no way I'll let you do something as bad as that!"

"Danny, it's not bad. It's something that a lot of gay boys like to do for each other because it feels good. You're my friend, and I'd like to make you feel good. Let me try – please?"

"You swear it's what you want?" I asked.

"I swear."

"Well… okay, then. But you can stop whenever you want."

"Oh, don't worry, I'm not going to stop."

So I went back to my previous position at the edge of the bed and he set to work. He used his hands as well, stroking me all over, but it was what he was doing with his mouth that really mattered, and that felt awesome. And it wasn't just the physical sensation, either: I couldn't get over the fact that he was doing this because he really liked me – in fact he'd called me one of his closest friends, and I'm pretty sure nobody has ever called me that before.

Gradually the sensation grew and grew, until eventually I couldn't hold it back any longer. And if the feeling I'd had when he did it by hand had been earth-shattering, this time it pretty much shattered the entire universe.

He could obviously tell that it had happened to me, because he stopped moving, waited a few seconds until he was sure it was all over, and then slipped it out of his mouth and helped me to sit up.

"Was it okay?" he asked.

"Sit on the bed," I told him, and when he did I came and sat on his knees facing him, put my arms around him and hugged him.

"Kevin," I said, "that was the most unbelievable thing that has ever happened to me. And it was completely awesome."

And then I kissed him on the cheek.

"Why did you do that?" he asked.

"Well, because you're gay," I explained. "I thought it was the best way to show a gay boy how happy I am to be friends with him."

So he hugged me back and then kissed me on the forehead.

"And that's to show you that even though I know you're not gay I still want you to know that I really like you too, and I'm glad we're friends."

And that has to be about the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.

Now things are really looking up: not only is Kevin free, but it looks as if Jeremy's situation might be improving too.