David Clarke

Why I Hate Wearing Glasses

Chapter 11-14

Chapter Eleven

In which Kevin meets an unusual aristocrat and Jeremy receives an invitation.

Kevin

On Wednesday after school I went to Silvio's house. He lived in one of the estates on the edge of the town and he didn't go to my school, so I wasn't sure how to get there. But eventually I worked out which bus to take and in any case Silvio didn't seem too bothered that I was a bit late.

"Chris says you're supposed to do anything I tell you. Is that right?" he asked.

"Well, I suppose so."

"He says usually people make you clean their boots, so you can do that, I suppose. Come on."

He took me up to his bedroom, dug into a bag and handed me a rather muddy pair of football boots.

"We had Games this afternoon, so the mud should still be wet, and usually it comes off easiest like that. I've got some old newspaper somewhere…"

He dug a copy of the local paper out from under his bed, spread it out on the floor, and handed me a battered table-knife.

"I've got some homework to do," he said, "so you can just get on with it. Shout if you need anything."

He went and sat at a desk and I got on with cleaning the boots. As he'd said, the mud came off easily, and it didn't take very long.

"Where can I go to wash them?" I asked.

"Wash them? I never bother with that. They look fine as they are. Okay, wrap up the mud in the paper and go and chuck it in the bin."

When I go back from doing that the boots were no longer in sight and he was back at his desk.

"I don't think there's anything else I need doing," he said, "so you can go."

Well, that seemed far too easy.

"Okay," I said. "You don't need any help with your homework?"

"Not really. Tonight it's mostly copying up notes and stuff. Thanks for offering, though."

"Okay," I said. "See you on Friday, then," and I left him to it. If everyone I ended up working for was as easy to please as that, I thought, I wouldn't mind at all.

Thursday turned out to be almost as easy, because for once Jason had made one of his sarcastic remarks a little too loudly and was in detention. I went home with Luke and cleaned his boots and then took them back up to the bedroom.

"Nice job," he said. "Seriously. I suppose I really can't punish you tonight – and, besides, it's not as much fun as it is when Jase is here… but I suppose it would be a pity to waste the evening. Let's get undressed."

I'd been prepared to be told to strip, but that 'let's' came as a surprise.

Once we were both naked – and he had an erection when his pants came off – he lay down on the bed and told me to rub it for him, and so I lay down beside him, took hold of his small cock and started to rub it.

"That's nice," he said. "You do it better than Jase, anyway."

"Well, he's only done it for you once, and he probably isn't used to it."

"He's done it a lot more than once. Whenever we play video games now we have a rule that the loser has to wank the winner off. And I'm way better at most games than he is. Of course I sometimes do it for him even when I win, because I really like him doing it to me and I don't want him to get so pissed off with losing that he refuses to do it any more, although somehow I don't think that's going to happen… Anyway, he's getting better at it, but I like the way you do it best. Could you go a bit faster?"

I went a bit faster, thinking that this was useful information that I would certainly mention if Jason ever annoyed me too much.

"Yes, like that… you know, I think Jase actually enjoys doing it for me. He gets really hard when he's doing it. And if I don't do it for him afterwards, and I don't always, he always does it to himself. I make him do it here, in the bedroom, so I can watch. He says he doesn't like me watching, but I know he does, and when I tease him about how long it takes him to get there, or how small he is for his age, it seems to make him more excited, somehow. If he didn't like it he'd certainly try to duff me up afterwards, but he never does. And he never says no when I challenge him to a game, either, even if he knows it's a game where I'm loads better than he is. I'm starting to think he enjoys losing."

"You could find out," I suggested. "Next time you play, pick a game where you always win and say that the loser has to do anything the winner tells him to for half an hour. If he agrees to that you'll know he enjoys being made to do what you tell him. Then, over the next week or so, you make him do worse and worse things until he says no – and then you'll know exactly how far you can go. If you're right you might get quite a long way before he rebels."

"Yeah!" His eyes lit up. "That's definitely a good idea – I'll try that next time we play. All right, don't stop now, because I'm nearly there…"

Thirty seconds or so later he arched his back and climaxed in what seemed to be a highly satisfactory way.

"Nice one, Kev," he said, rolling off the bed and starting to get dressed. "Okay, your turn: get it good and hard and then we can see how long it takes you."

It was already fairly hard, but I got it a bit stiffer and started to rub it, but after a few seconds he sat down beside me, pushed my hand away from it and grabbed it himself.

"I want to see if I can get as much out as when you do it yourself," he told me. "Let's find out."

By now I didn't find this embarrassing at all – in fact it felt great, and so I just relaxed and enjoyed it. I'm not sure whether he actually got more out than I do on my own, but it felt way better, and in any case he was completely satisfied with the outcome.

When we got home from football practice on Friday evening our father was already there, so we ate a proper supper with him while he asked how we'd been getting on while he was away.

"No problems at all," Chris told him. "Everything's gone really smoothly."

"And has Chris been behaving himself?" I was asked.

"I can't complain," I replied, which was of course true, at least if I didn't want certain films of me to pass into the public domain. "Actually I haven't had to tell him to do anything – he does everything that needs doing without being asked."

"I'm glad to hear it.," he said, and Chris gave me a surreptitious nod when he wasn't looking.

We spoke for a while about what we wanted to do over the weekend. We had a game on the Sunday morning, of course, and I'd also arranged to continue with Lee and Freddie's 'tuition' on Saturday morning, though I said I wouldn't mind cancelling that. But Father said that a commitment was a commitment, and in any case he was impressed that I was prepared to use my knowledge to help others (I was supposedly helping with their French, as well as teaching Lee to play chess). We could go out in the afternoon, he said.

Lee had spoken to me at the end of practice and given me an address. "It's Freddie's place, and his parents will be out shopping tomorrow," he'd told me. "So we can have a proper lesson… you know…". He'd actually blushed at that point, which I'd found kind of sweet.

So on Saturday morning I caught the bus into town and then another one heading south, arriving at Freddie's place just after half past nine, as arranged…

Freddie

I'd been looking forward to this all week. Lee and I hadn't had a chance to practise what we'd learned the previous week, because although I had been round to his house one evening after school his mother kept hovering round us and so we didn't dare do anything we weren't supposed to. I wouldn't normally have been allowed to stay at home on a Saturday morning, either: normally when my parents go to do the shopping I have to go with them. But this morning I had a good excuse to stay at home, because I had someone older to look after me…

Anyway, I'd geeked myself up as much as I could, choosing the ugliest tie I own, wearing a sleeveless sweater over it and putting loads of gel into my hair to emphasise the parting, so that I looked like some of those pictures you see in books about the RAF during the Second World War. Lee, of course, was also wearing a tie – I don't think his mother ever lets him out of the house without one – and so when we opened the door to Kevin we looked even more like the Geekoid Brothers than usual.

"You look like you're in one of those historical programs on telly, like 'Reliving the War', or whatever it's called," Kevin told me. "Except I don't think boys of your age wore long trousers in the 1940s. You'll need to get some shorts and some long woollen socks. And a cap."

"I'm trying to look like a modern geek, not a boy from 1945," I told him. "Although I suppose it might be interesting to try to look like a kid from seventy years ago. I think the glasses are right, anyway. Maybe I'll do some research on how to be a kid from the war years."

"You wouldn't have a computer, for a start," he pointed out, "and so you might find it a bit harder to find out about sex. Are your parents out, or something?"

"Yes, they've gone shopping. They won't be back until just before twelve. And my sister went to a sleepover last night, so we probably won't see her until about supper time"

"What, and they left you here on your own? They must really trust you."

"Not really. I've got a baby-sitter – at least, that's what they call it. You'd better come and meet him."

He didn't look too happy about that, and I suppose I can understand why: when you hear the word 'baby-sitter' you tend to think of a girl in her late teens, whereas mine…

I led Kevin into our front room.

"This is the Honourable Henry Latimer," I told him. "He's my cousin."

Henry isn't all that impressive to look at. All right, he's taller than me and Lee, but he's sort of weedy and you'd never believe he's more than eighteen months older than we are.

"Is he the cousin you mentioned last week?" asked Kevin.

"That's the one."

"Why, what has he been saying about me?" asked Henry. His accent is even posher than mine and Lee's, but his voice hasn't even started to change and he sounds about as weedy as he looks.

"Oh, nothing much," I told him. "I just mentioned you in passing, that's all. So, Kevin, what are we going to learn about today?"

"Well…" He hesitated, looking at Henry.

"Oh, don't worry about Henry," I said. "You can trust him. Like I said, he's an Honourable, and if you can't trust one of those, who can you trust?"

"What does that mean exactly?" asked Kevin.

"His father's a Lord, and so as the eldest son he's The Honourable. He'll be a Lord himself when his father dies, so he's proper aristocracy, and that makes him a gentleman. And gentlemen never break their word, do they, Henry?"

"Not very often," said Henry, grinning at me.

"If you break your word to me, Lee and I will bash your head in," I told him.

There probably aren't too many people in the world that Lee and I could actually beat up, but Henry is so weedy that even the Geekoid Brothers could probably do him over. Not that we'd ever have to, of course: seriously, I trust Henry. He's sound.

"I thought you were at boarding school?" Kevin asked him.

"I am, but they let us out now and again. I've got an exeat for this weekend, anyway. Freddie told me a bit about you, and I wanted to meet you."

"I hope you haven't been telling everyone about this," said Kevin, looking less than happy.

"Of course not – Henry's the only one. But he happened to mention sex education lessons and how he doesn't get any, and so, since the subject had come up…"

"Well, okay," said Kevin. "But no more, all right? If anyone else turns up for a lesson I'm going straight home. I'd get into serious trouble if any of your parents found out about this."

"They won't. Anyway, come up to my room so we can use the computer. Did you manage to find any pictures for us?"

"Yes, a few," he said, and I'm sure I felt my heart speed up: we were actually going to see some proper pictures of naked people! I almost ran up the stairs to my room and had turned the computer on even before the others caught up with me.

I ushered Kevin into the chair in front of the computer, while the rest of us sat on the bed, from where we could see the screen clearly.

"Okay," said Kevin, taking a flash drive from his pocket and plugging it in, "today we'll see what happens at puberty. Like I said before, it's when you start to change from a boy into a man. I don't know about Henry, but neither of you two has really started puberty yet. It can start anywhere between ten and fifteen or even sixteen, but around twelve to thirteen is when most people start noticing things changing. So, do you want to start with boys or girls?"

I looked at Lee and Henry.

"Boys," I said. "We probably ought to know what's going to happen to us before we worry about what happens with girls."

"Okay. Well, you already know that boys don't all look the same, even before puberty: some are bigger, some are smaller, some have skin over the end and some don't. I know that Lee and Freddie look different from each other: what about Henry?"

"His one is small," I told him. "And he hasn't got any skin on the end, either. He looks like Lee, only a bit smaller."

"Right. Well, let's have a look at some photos, then."

I leaned forward, both because I wanted to see the screen clearly and because my thing had got hard and I didn't want the others to see it pushing my trousers out. Kevin opened his folder and clicked on the first icon, and the screen was filled with a picture of a boy of about my age, getting out of the sea. And you could see everything! Actually there wasn't very much to see – his thing was smaller than mine, and his balls were tight up against his body.

"Bear in mind he's been swimming, so probably when he's dry and warm it looks bigger," said Kevin. "More like these three, perhaps."

Wow, I thought: I'd never let anyone take a photo of me like that! There were three boys in this photo, their arms around each other with everything on display. The boy in the middle was a bit younger and his thingy was small, but the other two looked almost exactly like me.

"Some boys look like Lee," said Kevin, putting up a picture of a boy whose thing had no skin on the end. "But apart from the lack of skin, there's not a lot of difference.

"Not everyone starts out the same size. In this photo the boys are probably all different ages, but their penises are all about the same size. And in this picture the boys are the same age, but one is a lot bigger than the other. Again, it's normal, and it really doesn't matter if it's a bit bigger or a bit smaller.

"Anyway, all those pictures were taken before puberty starts. As for girls, there really isn't a lot to see before puberty," and he put up a couple of pictures of girls of around our age. "Their breasts haven't started growing, so their chests look the same as a boy's, and further down there's just this sort of fold of skin. Those two girls look about the same.

"As they get older their breasts start to grow – in this picture you can see a little swelling, and at the same time they start to get a little hair around the vagina."

It was sort of interesting to see what happened to girls, but I was much more interested in finding out what happened to boys.

"It's a bit different for boys. When you reach puberty your penis and testicles start to grow and you start to get hair at the base. Sometimes the hair comes first, and sometimes the hair comes much later, but in these pictures you can see both happening at about the same time: all these boys have penises that are getting bigger, and you can see where their hair is just starting, too."

These photos were really exciting: the boys were my age, or perhaps a year or so older, and they looked really interesting, especially the hair. I can't really say why, but I thought it looked good.

"How long is it likely to be before we grow some hair?" I asked.

"It varies. Any time between now and about fifteen – but, like I said, it usually starts by about thirteen. Don't worry if it hasn't started for you by then, though – I know a couple of boys older than that who haven't started puberty yet. Everyone gets there in the end. And once it's started it carries on until you look like the boy on the end of this photo – he's more or less full grown. Actually this photo is a good way to see the various ways it can happen: you've got one boy who hasn't started yet, one who's big but who has hardly any hair, one whose hair is well on the way but who still has a small penis, and one who is fully developed. And I guess they're all about the same age – so whatever happens to you, don't worry: it's normal.

"Later you get hair under your arms, and some people get hair on their chests, and eventually you have to shave unless you want to grow a beard. That comes quite a bit later, though, usually when you're in your late teens. Okay, any questions?"

"Yes," I said. "How far have you got?"

"Far enough."

"Will you show us? Please? I mean, you've seen ours, haven't you?"

Kevin

I really wasn't sure about this. Showing them the pictures hadn't been particularly embarrassing, but there were three of them here, and I thought that getting undressed might not be so easy. Still, I knew that I was supposed to do whatever Lee told me, and even if this request didn't actually come from Lee I knew he'd support it if I forced the issue. So I stood up and started to get undressed, and it was impossible to miss the excitement on their faces and, from the way they were sitting, not just their faces, either… Fortunately I was sufficiently unsure about this that I wasn't displaying any similar excitement when I took my boxers off.

"Gosh, look at that hair!" exclaimed Lee.

"It looks good, doesn't it?" agreed Freddie. "What does it feel like?"

I let him touch it.

"Wow, it's really soft… I like it. I hope I get some soon. And your balls are nice and big, too, even if your thing isn't all that long…"

"Hey, it's longer than yours!" I replied.

"Of course it is. You're older than us. But I think at least two of the boys in your last photo are bigger than this. Still, it's not bad, I suppose, and I bet it grows a bit when it gets hard. I think we should find out!"

Once Freddie had been working on it for a few seconds it started to react, and within half a minute it was as hard as it gets.

"That's a bit better," said Freddie. What is it, about five inches?"

"Almost," I said, honestly.

"And does it feel nice when I hold it?"

"Well, yes, but it's a bit embarrassing, too. After all, I don't know any of you very well, and I've never even met Henry until this morning."

"I suppose not. Still, after we've had a few more lessons with you, maybe you won't mind any more. What are you going to teach us next time?"

"I don't know… I suppose we should do a bit more about where babies come from and how to have sex."

"Really? That'll be amazing!"

"Well, that's enough for today, anyway," I said, pushing him gently away and getting dressed once more. "I'm not sure where we can meet next week, or exactly when, but I'll sort it out with Lee on Friday night."

"Wait a moment," said Henry. "Before you go… can I talk to you about something?"

"Sure, go ahead."

"No, in private."

"Okay. If Lee and Freddie go downstairs…"

"No, I don't trust them not to sneak back up and listen outside. Can we go for a walk in the garden?"

"If you like. Maybe that'll give Lee and Freddie a chance to do some of the homework I set them."

"Yes, all right!" agreed Freddie, enthusiastically.

So Henry led me down the stairs, out of the back door and on to the far end of the garden.

"So what's the problem?" I asked.

"It's not really a problem, but… you see, what it is…"

"Look, Henry, like I said in there – it doesn't matter if you haven't reached puberty yet, or if you're not very big. You'll catch up."

"No, you don't understand. All right, yes, maybe that is something to do with it, but… you see, although I'm about the average height for my age, I'm… well, Freddie calls me 'weedy', and he's right. Most people who meet me think I'm younger than I am. I'm actually thirteen and a half, but I know I don't look it, and if you saw me with no clothes on you'd really think I don't look it, because it is very small for my age. But I'm not worried about that at all – as you said, I'm sure that eventually everything will happen that's supposed to.

"I'm at boarding school, as you know, and I share a dormitory with three other boys, and all three of them are… let's just say that they're a lot bigger than me in that area. And so they tease me, a lot. You could easily call it bullying, except – and this is the problem – I actually rather enjoy it. I don't know why, but I like being stripped and laughed at, and I like all the other things they do to me, too, even though it's really rather embarrassing and humiliating. And it's starting to worry me, because I really don't think that can be normal. Do you think there's something wrong with me?"

"I don't really know," I said. "I suppose it depends what exactly they do. I can understand about people making you do things which you actually end up enjoying, though: that's happened to me a couple of times…"

I was thinking mainly about Mark here: when he'd first made me suck him I hadn't been keen at all, but that had worked out nicely – so much so that now I also didn't mind doing it for Dwayne, and if any of the other boys I was working for ordered me to do it I'd be quite happy to comply. But if it had involved actually getting hurt I thought I'd be a lot less enthusiastic.

"So what exactly do they do to you?" I asked.

"Well… they make me undress whenever I'm in the dorm, and they treat me as if I was about nine years old – for instance, they make me go to bed much earlier than we actually have to. I don't really mind that too much. And sometimes they play with my thingy to make it stick up and then torture it by flicking a ruler against the tip. That hurts a bit, but I suppose they don't do it too hard. But…"

He looked around and lowered his voice, even though there was obviously nobody anywhere near us.

"Quite often they…"

"What?" I asked.

"Well, they… they fuck me, all right? Sometimes just one of them, sometimes all three, one after the other. And I'm sure I'm not supposed to enjoy that, am I? But I do: it makes me feel good, and sometimes I get this strange feeling while they're doing it, and that's really nice. So I can't be normal, can I?"

"Does it hurt?" I asked, curiously.

"No… well, not now. The first time it did a bit, but they were quite careful – I think they were scared that if it really hurt me I might sneak on them. I wouldn't, of course: I'm not a sneak – but they didn't know that, so they were careful the first couple of times and made sure I wasn't too uncomfortable. They use some sort of cream to let it go in more easily, and now it really doesn't hurt. As I said, I like it."

"I don't think it necessarily means that there's something wrong with you," I said. "I've got a friend who's bought a sort of plastic willy to find out what it's like, and I think he's intending to get someone to do it to him sooner or later. And obviously he's expecting to like it, too, so there's nothing wrong with you for liking it when they do it to you."

"No, but I like it when they laugh at me and call me names, and I even like it when they spank me, even when it hurts a bit."

"Well, I suppose that does sound a bit strange, but if you enjoy it, what's the problem?"

"Well, first, because I don't think I should enjoy it. It sounds weird when I actually talk about it – after all, what sort of weirdo likes being bullied? And second, because I don't know what's going to happen next year. We've got the Common Entrance next term, and that'll decide which school I go to. And I'm a bit afraid that if people can tell I'm strange just by looking at me I might get bullied – seriously bullied, such as being beaten up – at my new school. You see, unless I do really well and get a scholarship I probably won't be able to go to the same school as the three boys I'm with now. My father might be a lord, but we really haven't got enough money, and he's already warned me he won't really be able to afford full fees for me in September. I might even end up at a state school, and I'm absolutely sure I'd be beaten up there if people found out about how weird I am."

"Don't worry," I told him, "you look perfectly normal. You might not have quite as much sex as you're getting at the moment, but nobody is likely to beat you up just because of what you look like. On the other hand, if you do end up at a state school you might have to try to lose the posh accent."

"I do not have a posh accent… do I?"

"Just a bit. So have Lee and Freddie, come to that, so you probably don't notice. Yer'll 'ave ter try ter talk like wot I do. Of course, if all goes well you'll get your scholarship and be able to stay with the boys who are bullying you now…"

That afternoon Father took us to the cinema and then out for a pizza afterwards. We get through a few pizzas at home, of course, but it was nice to actually eat in the restaurant for once. On the Sunday morning he came and watched the game (we beat Duskett Rams three-nil), and on Sunday afternoon we had a family afternoon at home, which meant that I was spared a visit to Dwayne, but also that I didn't get to go and visit Mark, either.

It turned out that Father was really impressed: not only had we not burned the house down, but we were getting on with school perfectly normally, getting our homework done and generally behaving in a very responsible way. He was also impressed with my decision to help out at Chris's football club.

"I didn't really have any doubts about leaving you on your own," he told us, "and now I can see I was right. Kevin, I'm really impressed with the way you've kept everything going here."

"That's as much down to Chris as me," I said honestly. "We share the work and he's worked at least as hard as I have. And we haven't argued once, either."

Of course this was because I couldn't afford to start an argument if I didn't want some extremely embarrassing material to find its way onto the Internet, but I didn't say that.

"Mrs Jordan tells me you've kept the house clean and tidy, too," Father went on. "I'm really pleased with you, and so next Saturday I think we should have a special day to celebrate. How do you fancy a day at Thorpe Park?"

We looked at each other. Because Father is away so often we don't often get a chance to go anywhere as a family, and we hadn't been to an amusement park in absolutely ages.

"Yes, please!" we said in unison.

"Good. And you can each bring a friend too, so who do you want to bring with you?"

"Oh," said Chris. "Well… either Colin or Mark, but I'm not sure which. It's a bit hard to decide. Can I let you know later?"

"It's okay," I said. "I'm happy if you bring both, and we'll count the second one as my friend. I like both of them, and they both know me, so if we do it like that we won't have to disappoint either of them."

"That's nice of you, Kevin," said my father, "but I really meant for you to bring someone from your year. It's not really fair if Chris gets to choose two people."

"I really don't mind," I assured him.

"Well, in that case we'll go by taxi, and then we'll be able to take both of you and three friends. So Colin and Mark can both come, and you can pick someone as well. So who's it going to be?"

That was a good question, because I wasn't exactly overflowing with friends. I liked Colin and Mark, even though they were really Chris's friends, but about the only boy in my form I could consider a friend was Jason, and I thought it would be a little unfair to take one Microbe without the other. And in any case Jason would probably be too small to go on most of the rides… I'd have invited Danny Engel, but that would have meant admitting to Chris that we were friends – and then I remembered that Danny wasn't available on Saturdays anyway, because of synagogue and stuff.

There really wasn't anyone else in my form that I considered a proper friend, and I was just about to tell Father that I wouldn't invite anyone when I had a thought.

"I think I know someone," I said, "but I need to check to find out if they're free. I'll just go and ask…"

Jeremy

Of course I thought he was winding me up at first – after all, I'd only met him once, in less than ideal circumstances, and in the course of that meeting he'd watched me being beaten by a boy two years younger than me and then watched me crying like a baby. I wouldn't have been at all surprised if I'd never seen him again. Okay, he had contacted me on Skype the following evening, but he'd had someone else with him, the kid who played on the next board to him in his chess team, and so although he'd seemed friendly enough and we'd played chess quite nicely, part of me at least thought he just wanted to show his friend, and later his brother, the snivelling little baby he'd been with the previous evening.

And yet here he was now asking me if I wanted to go to Thorpe Park with him the following weekend. It didn't make any sense.

"Why me?" I asked. "You must have plenty of friends you could take."

"No, not really. First, I'm a geek, and second, nobody who looks at me ever sees anything except the glasses. Pretty much anyone who hangs about with me gets accused of being a guide dog."

"Take them off," I said, and after a moment he shrugged and removed them. And, as I'd already realised when he'd taken them off just after we finished our match at school, without his glasses on he looked really good.

"You look really nice without your glasses," I told him. "Maybe when you're a bit older you can have laser surgery or something, and then you won't have to wear them any more. And I reckon you'll get loads of friends, too, because you don't look geeky at all – you look sort of fit."

I realised what I'd said and went red – you're not supposed to tell other boys you think they're good-looking. Suppose he thought I was coming on to him? He'd cut the connection and I'd never see him again. Fortunately he couldn't see my face without his glasses on, because it would have been a dead giveaway, I'm sure.

"You're having a laugh, right?" he said. "I mean, someone else said the same thing, but you have to be taking the piss. It doesn't matter anyway, because I can't do anything without my glasses on, and I'm pretty sure they don't do laser surgery on kids. Anyway, what about Saturday – you want to come or not?"

"If you're sure, then I definitely want to come. I've never been to Thorpe Park. I'd better go and see if I'm allowed, though – be right back."

I went and asked my parents, and they were only too happy to think I'd made a friend, and so they said yes straight away.

"Good," said Kevin, when I told him this. "It'll help if you can get a train… oh, hang on, I don't suppose you have any money for the fare, have you? Well, okay, I'll sort out the ticket for you online and mail it to you. And you won't have to worry about tickets for the rides because it's one of those places where you pay at the gate and then get to go on everything without paying any more money. I'll find out from my father what time he wants to leave and fix you up with a ticket that will get you to our local station in time for us to pick you up. You might have to get up a bit early, but hopefully you won't mind that too much."

"No, definitely not," I assured him. "Thanks, Kevin – I really mean it. I can't remember the last time I did something like this."

He put his glasses back on to say goodnight, which was a pity, but perhaps I'd be able to persuade him not to wear them all the time the following Saturday – after all, they might fly off if you're on a ride…

I suppose I still looked happy the following morning, because when I got to Kenton's house in the way to the station he looked at me suspiciously.

"You're in a good mood this morning," he said. "Has someone sent you some money or something?"

"No," I said. "I swear that's not it. No, I just had a nice Sunday, that's all. Don't worry, I'm sure you can make me miserable again before we get to school."

He stopped and stared at me.

"All right, what happened?" he asked.

"Nothing… well, one of my uncles is taking me out all day next Saturday, so you won't be able to beat me up in front of that kid with the glasses after all."

"No? Maybe I'll ask him to come on Sunday instead. Or perhaps I'll just save it up for the week after and add interest."

"You don't have to do that," I said. "I'm sure you'll find a way to beat me before the weekend – you always do. But now that I don't actually owe you any money, can you not do it at school, please?"

"Why not? I thought it was only fair to let my mates join in, and I'm sure they'll want to do it again."

"Yes, but… well, if you do it in school time you might get caught."

"Not if we're careful. And if we do I'll just blame you."

"All right, then I'll make you a deal: keep it just between you and me and I'll go with you to the woods any evening this week."

"Now you're talking! Okay, you're on. I'll check the weather forecast and find out when it's most likely to rain, and then we'll go that night. You might even get a cold and have to stay in bed next Saturday."

I really hoped that wouldn't happen: I was determined that nothing was going to spoil the promised day out with Kevin…

We know now that Kevin isn't exactly awash with friends, if he's reduced to asking someone he's only met once to come to Thorpe Park with him. On the other hand, Jeremy really is quite attractive, so perhaps it isn't such a bad idea.

Chapter Twelve

In which Kevin gets a bit more practice and Jeremy unburdens himself.

Kevin

Things got back to normal on Monday: father went back to work, telling us that he'd be back on the Friday evening, and Chris and I went to school as usual. Nothing much happened at Chess Club on Monday evening – there was no match this week – and unfortunately Danny wasn't able to come to visit again on Tuesday, so Chris and I spent that evening watching TV at home.

On Wednesday I went round to Silvio's house again, and once again he let me do a pretty slipshod job on his boots. By now I was starting to take a pride in my work: I spent plenty of time on Chris's boots, which I'm sure looked far better than when he cleaned them himself, and it was the same whenever I cleaned Mark's, or the Microbe's, or anyone else's: I liked to get them looking as clean as possible. But Silvio obviously didn't care – he just got me to get rid of the surplus mud and that was it, even when I offered to wash them and so on.

"Got any homework I can help you with tonight?" I asked, once he'd put the boots away.

"No, but… is it really true that you have to do whatever we tell you? I mean, I know you said it was, but there have to be limits, no?"

"Not really," I replied. "Obviously you can't order me to commit murder or anything like that, but I don't suppose you'd want me to anyway."

"No. So how many of us are you working for at the moment?"

I had to stop and think about that. There was Chris of course, and then Mark, the Microbe, Dwayne, Lee… that was it for the team, but of course there were quite a few others, like Dwayne's brother, and Danny, and Jason, and Freddie and his cousin…

"A few," I said. "Six from the team including you, anyway."

"Oh. See, Dwayne told me something, and… well… I wondered if it was true."

"It's probably true," I admitted. "What did he say?"

"He said… look, is it true that he made you suck his cock?"

"Yes," I admitted. "But he also promised not to tell anyone!"

"I expect he thought that as you have to do what I say anyway I'd have worked it out for myself… except I wouldn't have ever thought of doing something like that. But, seeing that he told me it feels awesome… do you think you could do it for me?"

I looked at him. He was quite a small kid, shorter even than Mark and probably no more than an inch taller than Luke the Microbe, so I didn't think there was any danger of him being big enough to choke me.

"Well… okay – but I don't want you to go spreading it about," I said. "Obviously it's not something I want my friends to know about."

"No, of course not!" he agreed quickly.

"All right. Get undressed, then."

"What, completely?"

"Yes – I need to be able to get at you all over if I'm going to do it properly."

He looked a little nervously at the bedroom door – clearly at least one parent was in the house – but then he decided that it was worth the risk. He stood up and began to get undressed.

I'd expected a body not unlike the Microbe's, but once again I was underestimating the Mediterranean factor. I knew that Silvio was Italian – how could someone with a name like Silvio Cittabianca not be? – but still the hair came as a surprise: he had little thin curls of it at the base of his penis. The organs themselves weren't all that big, but he was definitely a bit bigger than either Microbe, even though he was still some way short of the likes of Mark and Dwayne. And once it stiffened up – which it did without any intervention from me – it looked good.

"Sit on the edge of the bed," I instructed him, and he went and did so.

By now I'd had enough practice with Dwayne, and especially with Mark, that I was getting quite good at this – at least, that's what Mark had told me on our last evening together – and so I did my best to make him enjoy it, stroking him all over his body and taking my time over the actual sucking, although once I had his foreskin down and was getting to work on the head I was fairly sure that he wasn't going to last too long. I slowed down a little, but it didn't delay things for very long – and he had enough to taste, too.

"Thanks," he said, once he'd got dressed again. "But I don't think we ought to be making you do stuff like that. It's a bit bad."

"I don't mind that much," I admitted. "The first time I had to do it I didn't like it much, but now I'm okay with it. It's better than spending ages cleaning boots, anyway."

"Really? I can't imagine doing anything like that."

"Neither could I until a few weeks ago. Anyway, if you liked it I don't mind doing it again."

"Oh, I liked it – it was incredible. So if you're sure you don't mind I will probably ask you to do it again."

So that was another name added to my list of people I could practise on. It was just a pity that the person I would really have liked to practise on probably wasn't in the market – at least, if Mark's assessment was correct, he wasn't. Still, maybe Mark was wrong…

Thursday night at the Microbes' was back to normal – Jason was there this evening, and when we played cards I lost, which meant I didn't get to see either of them naked, and also that I had to give them a public demonstration, though by now this was a lot less embarrassing than it had been the first time. Actually I quite enjoyed it.

Father had arranged a seven-seater taxi for us for the trip to Thorpe Park. Because the park doesn't open until ten o'clock we didn't have to leave home that early, even though we had to divert to the station to pick Jeremy up on the way. Actually that worked out nicely, because I fixed it so that he and I ended up on the back row of seating, behind Chris, Mark and Colin, and that allowed me to look at both Colin and Jeremy without Chris spotting it and making snide comments.

Jeremy looked pleased to see me – in fact he looked happy and relaxed for the first time since I'd met him…

Jeremy

I still found it hard to believe that this wasn't a wind-up of some sort: I'd half expected Kenton to have been waiting for me at my local station, or for there to be nobody to pick me up at the other end. And so when Kevin appeared and asked how I was I expect I looked pretty relieved, even though I tried hard not to let him see that I was surprised to see him. Anyway, he introduced me to his father and to his brother's two friends and then we got into the back of the vehicle, which was one of those seven-seater people carriers.

As far as I was concerned, this was perfect, because it meant that the only person who could see me was Kevin, and that meant that if I said something stupid, at least everyone wouldn't see me blushing like a girl. Of course, the best way to avoid saying anything stupid was not to say anything at all, and as Kevin's brother and his friends were talking about football I had the perfect excuse to keep quiet, because I'm really not that interested.

After a bit Kevin got a pocket chess set out of his bag, and that kept us going for most of the rest of the journey, and so when we reached Thorpe Park I'd actually managed not to make a fool of myself at all. Perhaps today really was going to turn out OK, I thought.

Kevin had told me that his father was fairly rich, and this was obviously true because he'd bought us all Ultimate Fastrack tickets, which basically meant that we could jump the queues – or at least use a much shorter one – for all of the big rides. On the other hand it gave me far less of an excuse for chickening out if I didn't want to go on something: if we had ordinary tickets I could say that I thought the queue for a particular ride was too long, but with Fastrack tickets I couldn't do that.

Once we were inside the park the three younger kids headed off towards the Colossus, which turned out to be a scary-looking roller-coaster. I wasn't sure that I really wanted to do this, but Kevin clearly did, because he called "Come on!" and ran off after his brother, and that didn't leave me a lot of choice if I didn't want to look like the world's biggest wimp. I looked at the places where you go upside down and the sort of corkscrew bit at the end where you go upside down over and over again, and I wondered how hard Kevin would hit me if I threw up all over him.

Somehow I forced myself to get onto the ride next to him… and actually it wasn't half as bad as I'd expected. In fact I enjoyed it. And so when Chris led us off towards the next big ride I didn't mind a bit. I did wonder what Kevin would say if I grabbed his hand at a scary moment, but I decided that it wasn't worth the risk.

By the time we'd been there an hour I was starting to regret that the newest ride wasn't due to open for another two weeks. It had a massive vertical drop at one point, but I didn't think that would worry me half as much now as it would have done when we first entered the park. Perhaps I wasn't really such a wimp after all…

We stopped at about one o'clock to get something to eat. Of course I didn't have any money, but Kevin had already told me not to worry about it and paid for both of us as if he had a bottomless wallet. I felt a bit awkward about it, but he told me to forget it.

"Come on," he added, "let's go for a walk. It would probably be a good idea not to go on another big ride until we've had a chance to digest our lunch a bit."

His brother and the other two were heading in a different direction, which was both good and bad news. Yes, I was glad of a chance to spend some time with Kevin on our own, but I was scared I'd do or say something stupid and mess everything up.

We found a comparatively quiet corner and sat on a wall.

"Thanks for coming," he said quietly. "I really like Colin and Mark, but they're still Chris's friends rather than mine, and if you weren't here I'd feel like I was just trailing round behind them like a spare part."

"I'm glad you asked me," I told him. "I wasn't really sure about it – I've never been to a serious theme park before, just little funfairs and things like that, and I wasn't sure if I'd have the guts to go on anything. But I'm glad I did."

"Good. Then maybe next time we go to Alton Towers you might be able to come with us. We haven't been there in ages. Perhaps at Easter, if my father actually decides to take any time off work… or if not in the summer. So… what sort of a week have you had?"

"You mean, did I get beaten up by Year Seven kids again? Well… no – at least, not like you saw a couple of weeks ago."

"So what did happen, then? Because it's obvious that something did."

"Why would you care?"

"We're friends, aren't we? Or on the way to being friends, anyway."

Not if you find out about me, I thought.

"It doesn't matter," I said.

"It does to me. Look, Jeremy, if you're not going to talk to me, who are you going to talk to?"

"Why do I need to talk to anyone?"

"Because you can't carry on the way you're going at the moment. It's messing you up big time. Maybe I can help."

"And maybe you'll just walk away and spend the rest of the day avoiding me."

"Why would I do that? Look, everyone does stupid things. I certainly have – in fact you wouldn't begin to believe how stupid I was a few weeks ago. So whatever happened and whatever you did, I'm not going to walk away from you, okay?"

I thought about it. On the one hand, I hardly knew him, and if he did walk away in disgust there wouldn't be any long-term fallout because he didn't go to my school or live anywhere near me. The rest of this afternoon would certainly be awkward, but after that I'd never have to speak to him again. But on the other, this was really the first time in ages that I'd had a chance to do anything with anyone, and if there was any chance of doing this again, whether to Alton Towers or anywhere else, I didn't want to throw the opportunity away.

"It's okay," he said, when I kept quiet. "You don't have to tell me. But if you change your mind later, I promise I'll listen, and I won't walk away, either. So… what ride do you want to try next?"

"We haven't tried the Detonator yet," I pointed out.

"Okay. We're probably less likely to puke on that than on another big roller-coaster."

He stood up, and at the same time I made a decision: I wanted to tell someone, because he was right when he said that my situation was messing me up. And, as I had already worked out, if he reacted badly it wouldn't be half as bad as if I told someone at my school and they spread it everywhere.

"No, wait," I said. "If you really want to know what the problem is, I'll tell you…"

Kevin

"All right," I said, and I sat down again. "And I promise I'm not going to react badly – at least, not unless you're about to tell me that you like strangling babies, or something."

"You swear not to tell anyone?" he said.

"Who am I going to tell? Nobody else round here knows you."

He took a deep breath. "All right, then," he said. "I'm gay."

I tried not to let any emotion show on my face, because I simply couldn't believe that I could be this lucky… and then reality threw a metaphorical bucket of cold water over me: even if he was gay, he was hardly likely to fancy a boy wearing glasses like mine.

"Are you sure?" I said. "I mean, I've seen you undressed, remember, and so I know you're not too far into puberty yet. Maybe you'll start noticing girls when you've grown a bit."

"I don't think so. I notice boys now, and that wasn't happening a couple of years ago. Yes, I know some people seem to go through a phase of trying stuff with other boys, but that's not what's happening. I look at boys and want to get close to them. Yes, I'd quite like to try some stuff with them too, but this isn't really about sex. So… look, I don't want to embarrass you, so let's just say I'll meet you back here at twenty past five."

I realised that my expression probably wasn't very encouraging, so I gave him a smile, put my arm round his shoulders and gave him a brief hug.

"Let's not," I said. "Let's say that we're going to spend the rest of the afternoon together instead."

"You mean… you really don't care?" he said, staring at me.

"Oh, I care, but not in a bad way. You really thought I'd walk away?"

He nodded.

"Not everyone is like that," I told him. "Is this why Kenton's giving you a hard time, then?"

He nodded again. "It's my fault," he said. "There's a small lake in the woods where we used to swim, and one day when we were getting changed afterwards I noticed that he'd started to get some hair. I commented on it, and then I reached out and touched them – I just wanted to see what they felt like. Then he noticed that I'd got an erection, and he basically lost it, calling me a fucking queer and… well, you get the idea. He got dressed in a hurry and stormed off.

"Next morning at the station we told me that he hated perverts and that if he spread it round the school I'd get beaten up every day, which is what I deserved. But he said that because we used to be friends he wouldn't do that as long as I gave him my allowance from then on. And so I've been paying him to keep quiet about it for the last six months or so. But just taking the money isn't really enough for him, so every now and again he takes me to the woods and…"

He broke off.

"It's okay," I said, gently, putting my arm round him again. "You don't have to tell me. I get the idea."

"No, you don't. He doesn't just beat me – he makes me do other stuff too. Really bad stuff."

"Tell me," I said gently.

"He makes me…I have to suck his cock," he said, looking at the ground – presumably he expected me to be disgusted and he didn't want to see my face.

"Okay," I said. "Um… do you enjoy it?"

"What? No, of course I don't – it's disgusting!"

"Oh. But I thought… well, isn't sucking something that most gay boys do?"

"I don't know – I've never met any. But I bet that if they do do it, they do it somewhere warm and comfortable, and they do it because they want to. I have to do it outdoors in the woods, and I don't have any choice. Kenton likes it – he gets excited every time – but I think that's more because he hates me and likes to see me naked and on my knees in front of him. I don't know whether I do it properly or not, because nobody's ever told me how."

"But would you want to do it if you had a proper boyfriend?" I asked. "Suppose it was someone you really liked, and you were on your own in the house and could do anything you wanted. Do you think it would be different doing it like that?"

"I don't know. I suppose it might, but it's never going to happen, so I've never wasted time thinking about it. And even if a miracle happened and I met someone, Kenton would mess it up for me. He messes up everything."

He was trying not to cry, so I put my arm around him and hugged him again.

"Not everyone is like Kenton," I told him. "In fact, most people probably aren't like him. You were just unlucky. You see, you're not the only one who made a mistake. Six or seven weeks ago my brother caught me wanking. Okay, you might say, that's embarrassing, but surely everyone does it? Well, they don't all do it while holding a photograph of their brother's football team."

He stared at me.

"That's right," I said. "I'm gay too. Nobody knew before then, because I sure as hell hadn't ever told anyone, and looking the way I do there was no chance of anyone, male or female, ever trying it on with me, so the issue had never arisen. Chris hadn't known either until then."

"So what did he do?"

"He thought it was funny. He told one of his friends – Mark, the little dark one – and between them they came up with this scheme to try to stop me wanking… anyway, the short version is that every time I mess up someone else on the team gets to order me about. Chris hasn't told any of them that I'm gay, just that he's trying to stop me playing with myself, and every time I do he tells someone else about it. Usually that means I have to clean their football boots, but a couple of them have made me suck them, so I do know what that feels like, except I've only had to do it indoors and in private."

He stared at me again.

"So how many people know you're gay?" he asked.

"Four now, including you: Chris, Mark, Danny – the kid who plays chess on the next board to me – and you. Danny worked it out for himself, but he doesn't care at all; Mark is probably an even better friend now than he was before he found out, and Chris and I still get on as well as we ever did. That's why I think you were unlucky with Kenton, because nobody who knows about me has reacted badly at all."

"I suppose it's good to know that, but it doesn't really help me much," he commented.

"Yes it does! Now you've got someone you can talk to completely openly without having to pretend, and you know that I'm not going to walk away, whatever you tell me. If you like I can come and visit you, and you can come up to see me at weekends if you want – we'll sort out something for the fares. You're not alone any longer. And I'm pretty sure that Mark and Chris won't care about you being gay either, if you decide to tell them – except that we can't tell them today. Colin doesn't know I'm gay, and I don't want him to know either. I like him a lot, and I don't want to risk him reacting badly. Okay, he probably wouldn't – I don't think he's anything like Kenton, even though Mark says he likes girls – but I'd prefer not to take the risk. Is that okay?"

"Sure. I wasn't intending to tell the others anyway – there's no reason they need to know, is there?"

"Not really. Anyway, the important thing is that you can call me any time, and Skype me in the evenings, and we can get together at weekends… if you want to, that is?"

"Well, yes, it would be nice. I don't want to waste too much of your time, though."

"It wouldn't be a waste, I swear – in fact I'd like to have a chance to talk to another gay boy. It would mean that I could be honest and open, too, like we could talk about boys and stuff. I can't really do that at the moment."

"Okay," he said. "I'd like that too."

'Great. Now – shall we go and get Detonated?"

Jeremy

As we walked towards the Detonator I thought about what Kevin had said. I wouldn't have guessed that he was gay – he didn't look gay, and he certainly didn't act it. But then I didn't think I did either, most of the time, so perhaps people usually can't tell just by looking at you. Anyway, I liked the idea of spending time with him, both online and in person, and he was right when he said it would be nice to be able to speak openly about my feelings and stuff… except of course it wouldn't be possible to be completely open. I'd never be able to tell him that I thought he looked really nice, or that I'd like to go out with him, because if I did he'd fall about laughing: who would want to be seen with a baby like me? It doesn't matter that I'm fourteen – it would be embarrassing for a normal-looking boy like Kevin to be seen with an immature little kid who looks about ten. So I'd have to keep my feelings to myself, and that would be really difficult.

Still, just having a proper friend would be nice, because I didn't think I'd had a real friend, one that I saw out of school, since I messed things up with Kenton. I'd just have to be really careful not to mess things up again with Kevin.

The rest of the afternoon was fun: we went on the rides we'd missed in the morning and then went on some of them a second time, and the only thing I chickened out of was the Slammer, and the speed with which Kevin agreed that we didn't have to try it suggested that he wasn't too keen either.

At about four o'clock we ran into Chris and his two friends and after that we all stayed together, and by the time we left to get the taxi back I was feeling really good – I hadn't had a day out like this in… well, probably ever. It wasn't until I was sitting on the train on the way back home that I sort of fell back to Earth, knowing that I was looking at another week of school and another week of Kenton. Still, at least now I knew there was someone who cared and who I could talk to.

The following afternoon Kenton came round and called for me, and because I know better than to annoy him I went with him.

"So where did you go yesterday?" he asked me as we walked up the road towards his house.

"Thorpe Park," I told him.

"Shit, I've always wanted to go there. Was it any good?"

"It was amazing! I had a really good time."

"Bet a little poof like you was too scared to go on any of the big rides, though."

"No, I wasn't! I went on everything… well, except the Slammer. I did chicken out of that. But I went on everything else."

"Oh… hang on, how could you afford to go to Thorpe Park? Have you been keeping back cash without telling me?"

"No, my uncle took me and he paid for everything. I thought I told you that."

"Oh, yeah, you did mention something like that. It's not fair, though – I wish I had someone to take me. My dad would never take me somewhere like that."

"Maybe if I go again I could ask if you can come with me," I said. "Then maybe I can show you that I'm not scared to go on stuff."

"Yeah, like you'd really ask if I could come!"

"Why shouldn't I? We used to be friends, and if I wasn't gay we probably still would be. I know you hate queers, but that's not the only thing there is about me. Besides, I didn't ask to be gay. It's not like you can choose it, you know."

He stopped and looked at me.

"I don't know exactly what happened to you this weekend," he said, "but you've changed. I've never heard you stick up for yourself before. I mean, it doesn't really change anything, because I still hate queers, and now you've actually admitted it I can't see any reason to ease up on you. Still, it's not too warm today, so I'll give you a little reward for standing up for yourself: my parents are out, so today you can suck me off in my room instead of in the woods."

Well, I supposed that was something, so I went back to his house with him, waited while he checked that his parents were still out and then went up to his room and got undressed without waiting for him to tell me to.

"If you really wanted to stick up for yourself you ought to try saying no to me sometimes," he suggested.

"Yes, that's a great idea," I replied. "Then you'd just round up your mates and strip me off at school again, like you did last time. If it was just you, maybe I would fight back, but it's not worth it to get beaten up by three or four of your mates."

"You know I can beat you up and strip you on my own," he pointed out. "I've been able to do that since I was about nine. But it's more fun sharing it with my mates."

"Not for me."

"Tough. That's what you get for being a queer. All right, lie on the bed and I'll warm up your arse for you."

He took my belt, doubled it and used it to whip my bum six times. I'm not sure if he was holding back or if it was just easier indoors, but for some reason it didn't seem to hurt as much as usual. Then he got undressed – and today he stripped off completely – and sat on the edge of the bed.

"Come on, then," he said. "Do a good job and maybe I'll leave you alone until next weekend."

I wasn't sure if I believed him, but it was worth trying, all the same – and in any case it was a lot better doing this indoors in the warm than out in the woods. So I took hold of his erection, kissed the tip the way he liked me to and then slid it slowly into my mouth. I was sure he was getting bigger: the little hairs were a bit longer and there were more of them, the balls seemed bigger and his erection must have been almost an inch and a half longer than mine, and a fair bit thicker, too. I just wished I could start to grow a bit.

I worked away at it fairly slowly, stroking his balls and generally trying to make this feel good, and he wriggled about, pushing my head down and occasionally insulting me, which suggested to me that he was enjoying it. And before too long – rather sooner than usually seemed to happen outdoors – he reached the special moment, and I felt a little of his stuff squirt into my mouth. I waited five seconds or so and then slipped it slowly out of my mouth. There was a box of tissues on his desk, so I grabbed one to spit into and then passed him the box so that he could wipe himself down.

"I'm sure your dick's getting smaller," he commented, grinning at me.

"I don't think so. You're definitely a lot bigger than me, but… well, you know mine looks bigger when it's hard."

"Not by much. And why isn't it hard now? I thought queers liked sucking dicks."

"I wouldn't know," I said. "I've only ever sucked yours, and I don't really enjoy that much – although it's a lot better doing it here than out in the woods."

"It is, isn't it? Okay, it's a laugh making you run about in the woods naked, and probably we'll do that a lot more when the weather gets properly warm, but for sucking it's a lot nicer indoors. I'll have to persuade my 'rents to go out every weekend. Anyway, why don't you like sucking me? Is it too big for you?"

"No, it's not that. It's just hard to do something like this with someone who hates me, that's all. I bet if some really ugly girl forced you to do stuff with her you wouldn't enjoy it."

"Are you saying I'm ugly?"

"No! No, of course not. You look alright, you know that. I'm just saying that you'd hate it too if someone forced you to do sex stuff, that's all."

He stood up and got dressed. When we were out in the woods he sometimes pissed on me after I'd sucked him, but today he just told me to get dressed as well.

"Okay, Gaylord," he said, once I was dressed. "You did a good job there, so I'll leave you alone this week. But next weekend I'm definitely going to invite that kid with the glasses to come down and watch me teaching you a lesson. That'll be well funny."

"No, come on, Kenton, please?" I begged. "You said you'd keep it to yourself as long as I paid up."

"Yes, but you didn't, did you? You had to go trying to cadge money off total strangers, and I think that deserves a little extra punishment. Anyway, you can go now – I don't want a pervert stinking up my room."

I knew there was no point in arguing, so I left. But I really hoped that Kevin would stay away the following weekend – I thought I'd die of shame if he saw what happened to me in the woods…

Kevin

On Sunday we played North End and very nearly lost, just scraping a draw in injury time, and Mr Clifford wasn't at all happy about it. The post-mortem wasn't a lot of fun at all, and I just kept my head down in the corner until he'd finished letting off steam. It didn't help that North End's showers weren't working, so I didn't get any chance to admire the attributes of the team – instead everyone just got straight back into the normal clothes and went off to take showers at home. Our father was still with us – he was going back to work on Monday morning – so I didn't even get to travel home in the same car as Colin.

Chris grabbed the shower first, which I thought was fair enough, and at least he had the decency to leave me some hot water. On the other hand, he didn't have the decency to leave me to shower in peace: instead he leaned on the wall with a towel wrapped around his waist and watched me.

"The camera steams up too easily," he explained, "and I wouldn't want you to think you could get away with anything."

"I don't do it in the shower," I told him.

"Really? You should try," he said. "It feels nice. I tried it for the first time on Friday, and it's good."

I stared at him.

"You… you actually admit you play with yourself too?" I said.

"Obviously. Most people do, I think. But not all of us do it in public."

"My bedroom isn't in public," I pointed out.

"It is when there's a camera in there. Besides, you're older than me. You should have grown out of it by now."

"I don't think anyone grows out of it. Would you stop doing something that feels really good?"

He shrugged. "By the time I'm your age I hope I'll have a girlfriend to do it for me," he said.

"You probably will, too: you're the sort girls go for. And perhaps if I had a boyfriend I might not need to do it myself any longer either. But that's hardly likely to happen, is it?"

"You never know," said Chris. "I know the glasses are a massive turn-off, but otherwise there's nothing wrong with you, and you've got a nice personality – pretty much all the boys in the team like you, including the ones you've been working for. You'll just have to hope you find a nice gay boy who's even more blind than you are."

"Like that's gonna happen," I said.

"You never know. Or I could set you up with Clive, if you like. A lot of us think he isn't really gay at all, but we'd find out pretty quick if you tried it on with him."

"Er, no! If he isn't he'll probably be disgusted, and even if he is he won't want to go out with Binocular Man, will he?"

"I suppose not. We could ask, though. In fact, next time you mess up I'll make sure it's Clive who gets to join in next. And for all we know he's the one you actually fancy, so that might work out for both of you."

"Just leave it, okay?" I said. "I'm not going to tell you who it is, and I don't want anyone else knowing about it, either."

"Okay. But seriously, Kev, I wouldn't mind if you had a boyfriend. It wouldn't gross me out or anything. It might even be sort of cool."

"Really?" I said sceptically.

"Yes, really. You know we all like Clive, and I don't suppose there's anyone in the team who would have a problem with it if they knew you were gay… except maybe Dwayne, because they're not supposed to like gays in Jamaica. But he was born here, so he's probably more English than Jamaican, and he likes Clive anyway. So if you do get lucky nobody's going to hate you for it.

"Okay, I'll go and let you have a shower in peace, and if you want to try it in the shower I won't count it, even if the camera doesn't get too steamed up."

"No; it's okay," I said. "You can stay if you want, or you can go and get dressed and then come back if you prefer. It's not often that we have a proper sensible conversation… so have you actually asked any girls out yet?"

"Not yet. I probably won't for a bit longer, either… look, I'll go and get my clothes, then I can get changed while we're talking. Back in a minute."

He went out and returned half a minute later. I wasn't wearing my glasses, of course, so I couldn't see very much, but I assumed he'd collected a set of clothes.

"So why don't you want to ask a girl out yet?" I asked.

"I'm not really ready. I sort of like the idea of having a girlfriend, but most of the girls I know are just weird. Not that I know very many, of course, what with going to an all-boys school. It must be a lot easier for gay boys to get together."

"No, it damned well isn't! If you tried to get off with a girl who didn't fancy you she'd just say so and walk away. If I tried to get off with a boy who doesn't fancy boys at all I'd probably get punched in the mouth – or, if I was really unlucky, he'd threaten to spread it all round the school unless I paid him protection money for the rest of my time at school."

"Do you really think it would be that bad if people at school knew? I don't think it's a big issue these days… okay, I know that's easy for me to say because I'm never going to be in that position, but even so, I reckon most of the kids in your class wouldn't care either way. Yes, there would probably be a few idiots, but who cares what they think?"

That was interesting, and of course I found myself wondering if Jeremy's school wouldn't be exactly the same: maybe nobody would care much about it if Kenton did open his mouth.

"Maybe you're right," I said. "I still don't think I'll be rushing to out myself, but maybe I shouldn't be so scared about it. Maybe everyone will react like you and Mark. Perhaps I should try telling someone – Jason, maybe – just to see what happens. Or maybe I'll wait until you get a girlfriend."

"You're two years older than me," Chris pointed out. "So you ought to try to find someone before I do."

"Well, maybe, but really I'm happy enough as I am for now. But if I do decide to try opening up at school I'll tell you about it first – that way you can come and visit me in hospital if I choose the wrong person to tell."

"I'm sure you won't," said Chris. "Anyway, I'm going to go and find out what's for lunch. I'll leave you in peace, and I'll point the camera away too, so you can try doing it in the shower and see what you think. This is a free one, so there's no penalty. Have fun!"

I could just about make out him turning the camera away and then I heard the door close, and at that point I thought, why not? And in due course I discovered that Chris was right: this felt really nice…

So now Kevin knows about Jeremy and Jeremy knows about Kevin. Does this mean that they'll spend most of the next chapter in bed together? Sadly not. Life is, as I have observed before, never that easy.

Chapter Thirteen

In which Jason is worried and Kevin has news for Peter.

Kevin

Because my father was still at home I missed out on visits to both Dwayne and Mark again this week. I hoped that I'd be able to find some time with Mark before too long, because experimenting on stuff with him was not only fun, but useful too: if I ever did manage to get a proper boyfriend I'd be able to make him feel good. Of course the chances of actually finding someone who wouldn't be massively turned off by my glasses didn't seem good.

I wondered about Clive. Maybe if he really was gay… but even if he was, I was sure the glasses would put him off. After all, Jeremy was gay, and I knew it would be pointless to try anything with him, even if he did say he thought I looked okay with the glasses off. In any case, I couldn't actually do anything with the glasses off, so if I ever did manage to persuade someone to go out with me it would have to be someone who didn't mind my specs – and, as Chris had suggested, probably only another specs-wearer would fall into that category. So I supposed I would have to start looking at everyone I knew who wore glasses and hope that one of them turned out to be gay.

Of course Jason wore glasses, but despite what his brother had told me I didn't think he was gay. Besides, although by now I liked him a lot, I didn't really fancy him. As for the other chess players I knew who wore glasses… no, thanks. I supposed that for now I'd just have to settle for a session with Mark now and again.

But at least I could still look: even if Colin did like girls I could still look at him and fantasise, and it was no hardship looking at Jeremy during our Skype conversations, either. And perhaps one day he really would be desperate enough to go a bit further with me… yeah, right.

We had another chess match on Monday evening, but this one was played at our school and nothing of interest happened either before or after it. This time I drew, and Danny won using the Grob Attack for the second match in a row.

"Sooner or later you're going to come up against someone who either knows it, or is good enough to give it the thrashing it deserves," I said afterwards.

"Well, perhaps, but it hasn't happened yet, has it? I mean, if you were trying to learn some openings as black you wouldn't waste a lot of time on openings which you don't think you'll ever meet, would you? You're probably right to say that sooner or later I'll meet a decent player who will work out how to beat it even though he's never seen it before, but until then I think I'll keep using it. It's fun seeing the look on the other person's face when I do it, too. Most of them seem to think I'm either mad, or that I don't know how to play chess at all."

"Then maybe I should try learning a mad opening too," I said. "If it works for you…"

"Ah, but are you a good enough player to get away with it? I really don't think you are."

"Hey, watch it! Any more cheek from you and I'll teach you a serious lesson next time you come round!"

"I'd like to see you try!"

"You just wait! So – can you come round again tomorrow?"

"Sorry. We're going out. But I'm going to try to keep next Tuesday free – and perhaps we can do something in the holidays, too… if you want to, of course."

"Of course I want to! I really like you coming round, even if you are crap at wide screen chess."

"Guess who's going to lose next time we play?"

"You are, obviously!"

And so on and so forth. It was odd how much I had come to like Danny – after all, we really didn't have a lot in common apart from chess. Different age, different religion, different circumstances – and yet when he talked about it being 'almost as if we were brothers' the previous week it had felt right. Sparring with him over a chessboard was a lot of fun.

Because Danny wasn't available Chris and I both spent Tuesday evening indoors, although once I'd done my homework I spent quite a bit of the evening talking to Jeremy online. He looked a lot happier than he had the first time I had seen him: although Kenton was still sniping at him on their way to and from school he said it didn't bother him quite as much as it had when he had felt completely isolated. He persuaded me to spend a fair bit of the conversation not wearing my glasses, which I wasn't entirely happy about, for two reasons: first, it meant that I couldn't see him properly – and he was definitely worth looking at – and second, it suggested that he thought I looked so gross with my specs on that he could hardly bear to look at me. He didn't actually say so, of course, but what else was I supposed to think?

Still, apart from that I enjoyed our conversation, even if we didn't talk about anything very important, and at least I got to look at him for most of the time we were connected.

When I went round to Silvio's the following evening I found that he'd already dealt with his boots himself: he said he wanted to be able, to spend as long as possible being sucked. So I did my best to oblige, stopping frequently to tease him by stroking or kissing other parts of his body. I only realised I'd gone a bit far when he was getting dressed again after what he said was a particularly good orgasm.

"Kevin," he asked me as he did up his belt, "are you gay?"

"What makes you think that?"

"Well, all that stuff you did tonight – and it's not as if you've made any effort to get out of sucking me, either. I don't think I could do that even if I had agreed to do whatever I was told."

I wasn't quite sure what to say, firstly because I hardly knew him, and secondly because I'd always had the impression that Italians pride themselves on being seriously macho men – in which case they might easily not like gays very much. So I said nothing.

"It's okay," he said. "I don't care if you are, and I'm not going to tell anyone, because if I did you probably wouldn't do that for me any more, and I really don't want you to stop because it feels unbelievable."

"Well… okay, I suppose I am," I said. "But I've never had a boyfriend or anything, so I don't really know what being gay is supposed to be like."

"I expect it's like being interested in girls: most of the time you can only think about them, and even if you get a girlfriend she probably won't want to do very much. I reckon you'd have to be really lucky to be able to have sex before you're at least sixteen."

I don't think I'd ever really thought about that. Ever since I'd realised I was gay I'd been under the impression that life was much harder for us than it was for hetero boys, but perhaps I'd been wrong: first it had been Chris telling me that getting off with a girl wasn't easy, and now here was Silvio saying the same thing. Of course, knowing that it wasn't easy for other people to find a partner didn't make it any easier for me, but at least it suggested that I wasn't quite as isolated as I'd thought. Perhaps all boys had trouble in this area, and not just gay ones…

Jason

I really didn't understand how it had happened. Two months previously my sex life had been confined to having a quick wank in the bathroom now and again, but somehow everything had changed. It was nothing to do with puberty, that was for sure: my pathetic little prick hasn't grown a millimetre since Christmas (I know, because I keep measuring it in case), and I'm starting to think that Luke will get pubes before I do. I fucking hate being a midget…

But ever since Kev Stratford started coming round things have got a lot more interesting. I suppose it really got started the night he made me and Luke toss each other off, because that's when I found out that my kid brother is a randy little sod: until then I hadn't thought that he even knew what his prick was for. And then we started playing video games for forfeits…

I must have been a right pillock to agree to that, because he spends way longer on his PS than I do, but I suppose everybody thinks he's better at everything than his kid brother, and since the bet was that the loser had to toss the winner off, I went for it: having someone else do it felt way better than doing it yourself, even if the 'someone else' was my kid brother. Anyway, I lost, as I should have known I would, and I had to toss him off, except he wouldn't let me just do it – no, I had to strip naked first 'to make it more embarrassing', he said.

So I stripped off and he took the piss out of me for a bit, commenting on how small my bits are, mainly… and for some reason that made me go hard. So when Luke had finished laughing he made me stand still while he measured it, and when he found out it was still only three inches he laughed some more. And this is where it gets weird, because I found that I really liked seeing him like that, laughing and having a good time, even though it was me he was laughing at.

I guess it's not always easy being a kid brother. As it happens, me and the Microbe have always got on fairly well, but I suppose I've pushed him about sometimes, and told him what to do, and whenever we've had an argument I've always won because I've threatened to beat him up if he doesn't just shut up. So… maybe I thought he deserved a chance to be on top for a change or something, but whatever it was, I sort of got a kick out of watching him. And then he stripped off as well and lay down on the bed, and I tossed him off. And he loved it, and actually I enjoyed doing it to him, too – at any rate, mine was still well stiff when I finished.

Of course, that just got him teasing me some more, and when I said I was going to the toilet to deal with it he said no, I had to do it right there in front of him. I could have just walked out – he's hardly big enough to stop me, and the forfeit had only been to toss him off, but I sort of wanted to let him go on teasing me, and so I did it lying on the bed.

And since then it's happened several more times. Once or twice he's wanked me off after I've done it to him, and that feels nice, but usually he makes me do it to myself. And it's fun… but it still worries me a bit, and so I'd just about decided that I had to talk to someone about it, and the only person I could think of was Kevin. He was due to come round to mine that Thursday, so instead of him going home first and then coming round to mine later, I invited him to come straight home with us after school and stay for supper.

Of course, the problem with sharing a room is that it's difficult to have a private conversation, but once Luke and I had changed out of our school uniforms I said I wanted to show Kev how the attic conversion was coming along, and that meant that I was able to get him up the new staircase and into the roof space while Luke stayed in our room. I led Kev up to the far end, the bit that's going to be my room, or the Microbe's – assuming it gets finished before we both die of old age, that is – and we sat down on a couple of the old kitchen chairs my dad keeps up there.

"Look," I started. "I reckon we're mates now… I mean, we are, aren't we?"

"We are as far as I'm concerned," he said.

"Good, because I've got a problem… well, it's not really a problem, more… see I don't want people to think I'm weird…fuck, this is difficult."

"Just tell me what's bothering you," he said. "I won't care, because I already think you're weird."

"Fuck off, Six-eyes," I said, giving him the finger. Those glasses of his count as four eyes just on their own, I reckon. "Anyway, look…"

I finally managed to tell him about me and the Microbe and how I didn't mind him taking the piss out of me, and how I kept challenging him to games even though I knew I'd probably lose.

"I mean, that has to be weird, doesn't it?" I ended.

"Well… I suppose it is, a bit. But I know how you feel, sort of – after all, Chris has been taking the piss out of me since he caught me wanking, and I've got to the stage where I don't actually mind any more. At least we talk to each other a lot more now than we used to. We're probably tighter than we used to be, and that's good. And I know you and Luke get on pretty well – at least, from what I've seen when I've been here – and if you like someone, maybe it's not so weird to want them to be happy.

"Put it this way: would you act the same way if it wasn't your brother? Say you and me played video games – would you want me taking the piss out of you when you lost?"

"Well, no… except maybe if it was you it wouldn't bother me that much, 'cos, like I said, we're mates. But I still wouldn't challenge you to a game I thought I was going to lose."

"There you are, then: you're not really weird, you just like your brother and want him to be happy. There's nothing much wrong with that."

"Well… maybe you're right," I said. I wasn't completely convinced, especially since I knew I'd actually fantasised about Luke doing much worse stuff to me, but Kev was right to say that I didn't think about anyone else like that. So perhaps I was subconsciously trying to make up for years of telling the Microbe what to do, and stuff.

We went back down to the bedroom, and after supper, once Kevin had cleaned Luke's boots, we got the cards out. We were using the marked cards, and so of course Kevin lost, and that gave us another opportunity for us to watching him tossing himself off. And of course it also gave the Microbe a chance to draw some distinctly unflattering comparisons between Kev's physique and mine.

"Bet you won't be able to do that for years!" he commented as Kevin spurted onto himself.

"Well, you won't be able to either," I retorted.

"Bet I can do it before you!"

"I don't think so."

We let Kev get dressed and go home, and then Luke challenged me to a video game, and soon I was the one with no clothes on. He teased me some more, measured me again, pointed out that mine was about half the size of Kev's and then pushed me onto the bed and started playing with it for me.

"I wonder if you can get drugs to stop someone having puberty?" he mused. "It'd be well funny to make you take them so you still look like this when you're twenty. And by then I'd be twice as big as Kevin, so I'd be able to show you up every day. God, you'd be so ashamed…"

I thought that would be going too far – way too far – so perhaps my weirdness is limited after all. Although I did wonder how I'd feel if Luke did reach puberty before me. Part of me absolutely hated the idea – God knows I want to start growing right away, not after my brother – but there was just a little whisper in my brain that said that it might be interesting if that happened, provided I was only just behind him, of course. And if he was going to carry on wanking me off as well as he was right now, it would almost be a price worth paying. So the weirdness might have limits, but it's definitely still there…

Kevin

Nothing out of the ordinary happened at football practice and nobody looked at me in a funny way, so it looked as if Silvio had kept his mouth shut. Dwayne collared me at one point to make sure that I would be coming round to his house on Sunday afternoon – of course he'd missed out for the previous two weeks – and I assured him that I would be there, and Lee took me to one side and told me to go to Freddie's house the following morning for our next sex education lesson.

But after supper that evening I did get a bit of a surprise: my mobile rang, and it turned out to be Peter Kenton.

"I didn't give you my number, did I?" I asked.

"No, I got it from Millefin – basically I told him that either he gave it to me, or me and my mates would strip him naked and drag him all round the school. He seemed to think that giving me your number was the better choice."

"And would you have actually done it?"

"Probably not. It would have been well funny but we might have got suspended, or even excluded, and my dad would have gone into one if that had happened. Anyway, I wanted to ask if you can come down tomorrow afternoon. I'm taking Millefin for a walk in the woods, and I thought you might like to come and watch. Unless he's given you your money back, of course. Has he?"

"No, not yet."

"There you are, then. Check what time the trains are and text me what time you're coming and I'll meet you at the station. Try to get there for around three if you can."

Once he'd hung up I opened Skype and tried to call Jeremy, but he was offline. I kept it open in case he was still having his supper, and while I was waiting I checked the trains and found that I could catch one that would get me to Jeremy's local station at quarter to three. I decided that I wasn't going to go unless I had a chance to discuss it with Jeremy first, though, and so I basically twiddled my thumbs until Jeremy came online half an hour later.

"Oh, God, no!" was his reaction when I told him about Kenton's invitation. "Don't, please? I really don't want you to see… well, you know."

"I think I should come," I replied. "You know I'm not going to laugh at you, and actually you'd also know that I'm on your side, so it would be like having some moral support. And maybe I can persuade Kenton that putting you through all that is going too far."

"That wouldn't work. I don't think anything will make him give it up."

"You don't know unless we try. And you said yourself that he could have made life a lot harder for you, but hasn't, so maybe there's a part of him that still likes you. We'd just have to find a way of bringing that part out."

"I think it's just that as long as he keeps it quiet he can go on taking my money," he said.

"Well, anyway, I want to try, so I'm going to be there," I told him. "It's not like I haven't been in the same situation, more or less, remember? And nothing is going to make me think badly of you, whatever he makes you do."

He argued for a bit longer but eventually accepted that I'd made my mind up. I wasn't sure that I would be able to find a way to make Kenton ease up on him, but I was determined to try.

On Saturday morning I went to Freddie's place once again, but this time his sister was babysitting, and that meant that we had to be a lot more careful. Not that I'd got any new photos for them – while I was sure Mark could have found me some material depicting actual sex, I was pretty sure it would be illegal and I hadn't wanted to ask him to do that. So I settled for explaining the mechanics of what went where, referring to the photos I had shown them the previous week.

It would be fair to say that neither of them showed a lot of enthusiasm for trying it out.

"That seems weird," said Lee. "Why would anyone want to do that? I mean, I understand that you have to if you're married and want to have a baby, but otherwise, why? It sounds disgusting!"

"I suppose it does, but it's supposed to feel really, really good. Obviously I've never done it myself, so I don't know for sure, but that's what people say. I mean, it sounds a bit disgusting when you talk about touching another boy's willy, but you both know that feels nice, so perhaps it's a bit like that."

"Yes, but I don't know any girls – actually I don't even like girls," said Lee. "And I'd never let a girl see me undressed."

"You might find that you feel differently about it once you reach puberty."

"I don't think so. I think I'd much rather just go on doing things with Freddie."

Of course that was the perfect opening for me to tell them about some other things he could do with Freddie, but something held me back: I wasn't sure if I ought to be encouraging them to do things that were out-and-out gay in case they did start getting interested in girls in a year or to, in which case they might wish they hadn't done too much with each other.

But on the other hand, they might be going to grow up gay, or at least bisexual, in which case maybe I should tell them about stuff they could do with each other… I couldn't make up my mind, so I decided to play safe and say nothing unless they actually asked me about it.

We spent most of the rest of the morning playing chess – which was, after all, one of the excuses for me being there. But as I was getting ready to leave Freddie grabbed me and asked if they could come to my house again the following week.

"And can you find some more photos?" he added. "I enjoyed looking at those."

"I'll see what I can do," I promised.

After lunch I caught the bus to the station and then took the train I'd looked up the previous evening. I'd texted Kenton to tell him when I'd be arriving, and when the train reached his station I found him waiting in the ticket office.

"Where's Blondie?" I asked.

"We'll pick him up on the way. So why did you decide to come? The train fare must have been more than the £2 you're aiming to get back."

I shrugged. "I didn't have anything else to do and I thought it might be interesting to see what happens," I said. "Even if I still don't really understand why you're so mad at him."

"Maybe he'll decide to explain it to you later. Just accept that he deserves a lot worse than he's going to get from me."

We walked on as far as Jeremy's house. Kenton rang the bell, and Jeremy himself answered the door. And he really didn't seem happy to see me…

Peter

The expression on Millefin's face when he sees Specs standing beside me is well funny – he looks like someone has just told him his balls are diseased and they'll have to be cut off. Not that he'd notice the difference, because his balls are pathetically small and I don't think he knows what they're for anyway. But he certainly doesn't look happy.

"What are you doing here?" he says.

"I had nothing else to do," says Specs, "and I thought I'd come and see what happens to you when you don't pay up on time. Of course, if you've got my two quid I'll just take it and go back home."

Obviously Millefin hasn't got it.

"Come on, then," I say, "let's go for a little walk in the woods."

He's lucky it's a nice day – it's actually warm for the middle of March. In a way that's a pity, because I like seeing him shivering, but on the other hand it means that I won't get cold later on when I take some of my own kit off. And I can always make him jump in the pond if he looks too comfortable.

So I head off back up the road to the place where you can climb over the fence, and they both follow me without saying anything. Getting over the fence is easy – even a little poof like Millefin can do it – and once we're across we head on through the field until we meet the track, and once that's taken us into the wood I lead them off to the right, to where we used to play when it was hot, because there's this little lake there that you can swim in. And of course that's where it happened… anyway, I take them down to the little clearing that's about twenty yards from the water. There are trees all round, so nobody can see you unless they creep up on you, and I didn't think anyone was likely to do that.

"Did you bring a towel?" I ask, and Millefin shakes his head.

"Well, I could just make you go in anyway and then drip dry," I say, "but I was thinking ahead, so I've brought one. Well, don't just stand there: get your clothes off!"

Normally he doesn't argue – he just gets on with it. But today he's much more reluctant: he's obviously not happy with an extra spectator. Or Specs-tator, which I don't say because Millefin's got no sense of humour. So he's standing there dithering, and so I go and cut a nice piece of springy stick from one of the trees. I swish it a couple of times, and he gets the message and starts to strip.

I wonder if Specs is going to say anything. I know Millefin's been whinging to him, so maybe he's hoping Specs is going to stick up for him. But he doesn't – instead he just stands there watching. I don't suppose he's seen an older boy being ordered to strip by a younger one before.

Eventually Millefin gets down to his underpants.

"Why are you wearing boxers?" I ask. "Those are meant for bigger boys than you. You really ought to be wearing frilly pink knickers or something. Maybe we'll have to buy some for you. That would be well funny when you have to change for Games or PE."

I wouldn't actually do that, of course. Yes, it would be funny as hell, but some teacher would be sure to notice and start asking questions, and even if Millefin didn't want to grass me up they'd probably get it out of him in the end. But the expression on his face is worth it on its own. Maybe we'll have to get a couple of pairs he can wear at weekends.

Finally he takes them off.

"Now turn to face us so we can see what a big boy you are!" I tell him.

Of course he's nothing like 'big' – it would be pretty average on a ten-year-old. It's thin and pale, and although he can get it up to a massive three and a half inches – just about – when it goes hard, right now it's small and floppy. Specs is staring at him – perhaps he's never seen a fourteen-year-old with one that small before, and Millefin is staring at the ground and trying not to cry. This is definitely better with an audience…

"Put your shoes back on," I tell him. "We're going for a walk."

We've done this a couple of times before, leaving his clothes behind here and walking further into the wood. It makes him nervous for some reason.

"How come he gets to wear shoes?" asks Specs.

"There's too many brambles and things," I tell him. "We did try doing it without the first time, but he got thorns in his feet, so now I let him keep his shoes on. I might make him take them off once we get out into the field, though."

That makes Millefin look up, because I've never made him go away from the trees before, but he has the sense not to say anything. So once his shoes are done up we head away from the pond, and this time I take him right out into the field. Actually it's not so much a field as a piece of open ground between two arms of the wood, and it's also at the bottom of a slope, which means that we're probably not going to be seen by anyone unless there are other kids playing in the woods somewhere.

Once we're out in the open Millefin starts holding his hands over his balls, but I'm not having that, and so I get a piece of string out of my pocket and use it to tie his hands together behind his back. Now he tries to walk sort of stopped over, but I'm not going to allow that either, and so I flick at his bum with my stick and tell him to stand up straight. He gets the message and starts to walk normally, but he's definitely not happy.

We reach the far side of the open space, but instead of going into the wood I take us up the edge of the trees until we reach the top of the slope. Here we're in full view of the railway line.

"Next train should be along in about fifteen minutes," I point out. "Let's try to find a nice tree to tie him to, so everyone on the train gets a good look."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," says Specs. "If the driver sees him he'll probably report it. I don't think we really want the cops coming after us, do we?"

"Perhaps not," I agree, though I'm not sure that I'd have actually done it in the first place: it would be a bit risky, especially now that everyone has a mobile phone. If someone on the train took a photo they might be able to identify him, and then we'd all be in the shit.

So instead I take them back into the wood, following the path that marks where the old railway used to be. It was closed long before we were born and the rails were taken up, but you can still follow the course the line used to take. Millefin's a bit happier to be back under the trees, although we have met other people on this track from time to time, so it's nothing like as safe as our place next to the little lake. It'd be funny if we met some kids, but I'm listening carefully because it would be bad if we met any grown-ups.

Before the track reaches the south end of the wood I take us down the embankment and into the thickest part of the wood, and you can see Millefin relax a bit. But I'm pretty sure that won't last once we get onto the main event of the afternoon, and so I lead them both by the shortest route back to the clearing. I take a quick look around the edges to make sure nobody's hiding there and then undo my jeans.

"Oh, no," says Millefin, and now he looks like he's about to burst into tears, "not today, please!"

"'Fraid so," I say, and I shove my jeans and boxers down to my ankles. I'm usually hard when we get to this stage, but today it's even harder than usual – I suppose I really like the idea of making him do this in front of an audience. And again Specs doesn't say anything or try to stop me, though he is staring at my dick. I hope he's comparing it with Millefin's…

Kevin

I knew this was coming, of course, but even so I wasn't really ready for it, and I didn't have any idea what to do. Should I try to interfere or not? In the end I decided not to, mainly because I knew that if I did Kenton would simply take it out of Jeremy sometime later when I wasn't around, but also because if I was going to have any realistic chance of talking him into easing up on Jeremy I had to avoid antagonising him.

Of course I should be honest here and admit that this was interesting: Kenton had a really big one for his age, and it looked extremely hard, too. I found myself thinking that I wouldn't mind swapping places with Jeremy… And of course, although I'd done this myself several times and even been on the receiving end a couple of times, this was the first time I'd had an opportunity to watch other people in action.

"How big is that?" I asked him.

"Just under five inches," he replied proudly.

"Not bad," I said, thinking that this made it bigger than anyone I had seen so far, except maybe Dwayne, who was about the same size.

Jeremy begged in a rather half-hearted way not to have to do it – obviously he knew Kenton wasn't going to let him off – and then shuffled forwards on his knees and started to suck it.

I could have taught Jeremy a few things to try, although I don't think he was actually trying to do anything other than get it over with, in which case the techniques I'd learned with Mark might not have been called for. But it didn't take them long to finish even without extras: pretty soon Kenton tensed up and shoved his hips forward, pulling Jeremy's head towards him at the same time, and the expression on his face suggested that Jeremy was doing an excellent job.

Afterwards he pushed Jeremy away and pulled up his boxers and jeans.

"Fancy a go?" he asked me.

"No thanks," I said. "Getting sucked off by a boy seems a bit gay to me."

"Suit yourself," said Kenton, not rising to the bait: I'd expected him either to defend what he'd just done or to out Jeremy, but he did neither, just telling Jeremy to get dressed.

"You can go," he added, once Jeremy was dressed. "You didn't whinge once today – well, not really – and that was a good suck, too, so I'll let you off getting whipped. Doesn't mean you'll get away with it every week, of course…"

"Okay, thanks," mumbled Jeremy, and he jogged away without looking at me.

"I'll walk back to the station with you," said Kenton.

"Okay," I said, and followed him as he took me back to the track but then followed it away from the road instead of following it back towards his house.

"So you see what a laugh it is having a slave?" he said.

"Well, yes, I suppose it must be good being able to push him about, especially with him being older than you. Except…"

"What? Okay, what's he told you? Has he been whinging again?"

"No, not really. I mean, it's obvious he doesn't like doing any of that stuff, but he didn't really complain the last time we spoke. I think what he really hates is… well, after seeing what I just saw I'd expect him to hate you, but he doesn't. What he hates is the fact that you're not friends any more."

"That's his fault."

"Yes, I know, and so does he. That's probably why he doesn't try too hard to get out of doing what you tell him – he sort of thinks he deserves it for messing being friends with you"

"And he's right, and all."

"Is he? Does he really deserve losing all his allowance, and getting made to suck you all the time? That seems a bit much to me."

"That's because you don't know what he did."

"I do, actually. He told me. And I can see it was a shock to you, but it didn't exactly cripple you for life, or turn you into a raving queer, did it? And it's not like it's his fault he's gay, either. Nobody asks to be gay – it's like I didn't ask to be born with crappy eyesight, but it still happened. Besides, so what if he is gay? It's not that unusual – it's supposed to be one in ten, or one in twenty, depending who you believe, so what's the big issue?"

"But it's wrong! It's disgusting!"

"Yes, I suppose it is for you, but if a boy admired my physique – which is about as likely as me becoming Pope, but still – I'd be flattered. And I think most people feel like that. There's a boy in my brother's football team who's gay, but nobody has a problem with it, and everyone seems to like him. So why is it different for you?"

"Yes, but he touched me!"

"So what? I've just watched him touching you for about three minutes non-stop. It hasn't turned you into a queer, has it?"

"No, but that's not the point! I don't want some poof perving over me!"

"He's not 'some poof'. You were his best friend. And since I got involved in this I've found myself wondering how come you still haven't really taken him to pieces. Back there, when I said getting sucked was gay, it was the perfect opening for you to say something like, 'He's the gay one', but you still didn't. And it would be as easy as anything for you to get your mates to come round here at the weekend and join in, but you haven't, and he says you haven't even told your mates he's gay. Seems to me like you're protecting him."

"Course I am – that's what he pays me for, isn't it?"

"Oh, come on – he knows that he couldn't do anything about it if you got your mates involved. The one thing he's frightened of is having it spread all over the school that he's gay, and that's why he's paying you to keep it quiet – except I really don't think you'd do that even if he stopped paying you."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I think there's a part of you that still likes him. I think if you really hated him the way you make out you'd treat him far worse – you'd torture him, and you'd bring your mates round to join in, and you'd probably out him at school as well, even if it did mean that he stopped paying you."

"Yeah? Then how do you explain me asking you to come, then?"

"I think you wanted to find out how it felt doing it in front of someone else, and you picked me because I don't go to your school and so couldn't drop Jeremy in it even if I turned out to really hate queers."

He didn't say anything. By now we'd skirted round the edge of the trees, but this time heading north, and we'd just picked up the course of the old railway again. He led me along it into the trees once more.

"Tell me the truth," I said, stopping. "Am I right?"

He shrugged. "Not really," he said. "Yes, I suppose you're right about some of it, but not everything. And there's no way I'm going to give it up. If you'd ever been sucked you wouldn't, either, because it's an amazing feeling. And being able to make him run about in the woods naked is fun, too. I love being able to control a boy who's so much older than me."

"Okay, I get that. But you're still careful not to let anyone else see him, aren't you? I could see the way you were listening out while we were following the track earlier."

"Yes, but only because if we got caught they'd make us stop doing it, and I'd probably get into trouble."

"Okay. But do you still like him? Even a little bit?"

"Well… yeah, I suppose so – but I hate him being a poof. It's sort of taken us being friends and pissed all over it, and I can't forgive him for that."

"It's not his fault, Kenton – being gay, I mean. And he feels a lot worse about it than you do."

"Why doesn't he stop being queer, then?"

"You can't stop being queer. Like I said, it's like asking me why I don't make my eyes better so I don't need glasses. If I could, I would, trust me. And probably if he could stop being gay he would, too. I think it's going to be hard enough for him growing up gay without his best friend beating him up for it too."

"We're not best friends any more."

"But you were, and you could be again. Look, maybe he won't mind going on sucking you, or even playing with you out here naked sometimes, but… come on, nicking all his money? Isn't that going a bit too far?"

He opened his mouth, but then closed it again without saying anything. Instead he started walking again, and before too long he left the course of the old railway to follow a much narrower path which emerged into the turning circle at the end of a cul-de-sac.

"Look, just think about it," I said, as we reached the far end of the cul-de-sac that turned out to be right next to the entrance to the station. "You liked him before. Nothing's actually changed, you just found out about something that he can't do anything about. I know I only just met him, but he seems okay to me…"

"For a pervert," he said. "All right, you say he can't change what he is, but I really can't forgive him for fucking things up like he did."

"Try," I said. "Because even if he did mess with your head, it was months ago and he doesn't deserve to go on suffering like he is. Anyway, it's none of my business, I suppose, even if you did invite me here, so you'll have to sort it out yourself. But think about it, and try to imagine how he feels."

I turned and walked into the station car park, and after a moment he headed off in the opposite direction. I didn't know whether I'd helped or not, but I'd thought it had to be tried.

Will Peter take a blind bit of notice of Kevin's comments, or is he having far too much fun? All will be revealed – but not just yet.

Chapter Fourteen

In which Freddie goes retro and Jeremy puts his foot down.

Kevin

I waited until Kenton was out of sight and then retraced my steps, back along the cul-de-sac and through the woods until I picked up the main track again. I followed this all the way beck past a farm until it met the road some way south of Jeremy's house – by going that way I'd avoided walking past Kenton's house.

Jeremy opened the door himself, and without saying anything took me straight up to his room.

"Why did you come?" he asked. "You knew I didn't want you to see that."

"I had to," I said. "I wanted to know exactly what was going on, and I wanted a chance to talk to Kenton, too."

"Oh, God… I bet you've made things worse!"

"I don't think I have. Look, Jeremy, I couldn't just stand by and leave you in this mess without trying to do something about it, could I? What sort of a friend do you think I am?"

"It would have been better if you'd stayed out if it. If he thinks I've got a friend he's bound to make things worse for me…"

He looked as if he was trying not to cry, so I walked him to the bed, sat him down on it and parked myself next to him, putting an arm around his shoulders.

"It's okay," I said. "It's not going to get worse. For a start, I gave him the impression I was going to go home and not get involved again, so he's not going to do anything worse to you. But actually I think I gave him something to think about – and in fact I got him to admit that he doesn't totally hate you. He even said that there's a part of him that still likes you. It's just you being gay that he can't handle, and I'd guess he's probably got his father to blame for that, because a lot of kids today don't really seem too bothered about it. I'm guessing Kenton's dad seriously hates gay people and says so, often and loudly, in front of him. The only way to deal with that is to show him that you're nothing like the sort of caricature his father probably hates."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"I don't know. Sorry, Jeremy, you're going to have to work that out on your own. But there's definitely hope. Part of him wishes you were still friends, I'm sure."

"I wish I could believe that."

But he'd managed to pull himself together again, so I gave his shoulders a quick squeeze and then stood up.

"Do you have to go?" he asked. "Couldn't you stay for a bit?"

I checked my watch.

"I suppose so. I can always get the later train. So what do you want to do?"

"I don't really mind. I don't get to have people round any more, and it would just be nice to… well, anyway… we could play video games if you like."

"Okay. I'm not much good – there are kids at school who seem to play games all night long, and so they're unbeatable, but I only play occasionally, if I can't think of anything else to do. And just lately I've been far too busy with other stuff to have any spare time. So, what games have you got?"

We played for about an hour, after which I had to leave to get the train home. He was a lot better than me, which I'd sort of expected: if you don't have any friends I suppose you have loads of time for games. But he was nice about winning, unlike some people I can think of… my brother, for instance. And when I left he looked a lot happier than he had an hour previously, so I suppose I'd done some good.

On Sunday we played an exciting game against Gorsefield United, which we ended up winning five-three. Predictably, Mr Clifford had a lot more to say about the three goals we let in than the five we scored (okay, maybe I shouldn't say 'we' – after all, if the team had been depending on my football skills I'm fairly sure that Mr Clifford would have been a lot less happy). But he did at least acknowledge that the team had won.

This week things were back to normal, which meant that I was round at Dwayne's house after lunch. Once again he'd managed to get rid of his brother for the afternoon, and this time he seemed confident that he wouldn't be back for a long time.

"We got all afternoon," he said, starting to get undressed. "So today we can take it nice and slow."

Last time I'd done this he'd fairly obviously not expected me to do it, and he'd been putting on an act for me – exaggerating his street language and issuing orders. This time he didn't even order me to get undressed. Of course I did anyway, and so did he – last time he'd just pushed his jeans down, but this time he took everything off and sat on the edge of the bed to wait for me. I took my time about getting undressed, but still he didn't say anything – perhaps he was afraid I'd change my mind if he said the wrong thing.

When I'd finally finished putting my clothes into a neat pile on his chair I dropped to my knees in front of him and admired it. He was clearly already very much in the mood, and so I was able to get straight on with it, although this time I made no attempt to get the final inch or so into my mouth, and I also took it very slowly, working away at it happily for a couple of minutes while making sure he didn't get too close. Then I took it out of my mouth and leaned back.

"Of course, you do realise I don't have to do this any more, don't you?" I said.

"What? But you told me…"

"We had a deal, Dwayne. The deal was that I'd go on doing this for you if you didn't tell anyone else about it."

"We were talking about my brother, weren't we?" he asked, but it was obvious from the look on his face that he knew this wasn't true.

"The deal was that you wouldn't tell anyone, including your brother," I reminded him. "And you broke your word, didn't you? So give me one reason why I shouldn't just walk away now."

"But I only told one… no, you're right," he said, surprising me. "But I wish you'd just said that at the start instead of getting me…"

"That wouldn't have been half as much fun!" I said. "But you're right: it would be a bit nasty to leave you like this. So maybe I'll finish it for you this time."

He showed no intention of arguing, so I leaned forward again and resumed operations. I tried not to overdo the expertise the way I had apparently done with Silvio, but I still made sure that it lasted a while and that he enjoyed it, and when he finally erupted – and this time I remembered to grab a tissue and spit it out – it was obvious that he'd enjoyed it.

"I'm gonna miss that," he said as he got dressed. "And I know I shouldn't have told Silvio. But him and me are tight, and I just wanted him to find out how it feels. He says when you did it for him he'd never felt nothing like it, so I suppose it was worth it. You should always share good stuff with your friends."

"I can understand that," I said. "Anyway, I'm hoping Chris is going to let me stop doing this stuff at Easter, so you probably wouldn't be missing out on much if I did stop now. But I suppose I could do that again next week – provided that you don't tell anyone else about it, of course. No matter how good a friend he is."

"No, of course I won't, I swear!" he said, almost falling over himself to grab the promise before I changed my mind.

"Okay, then, I'll be back next Sunday – unless I hear anything about it in the meantime, of course."

"You won't! I promise!"

"Good. Then I expect I'll see you at training on Friday."

I made my way back home, wondering why I hadn't taken the clear opportunity to tell him I wouldn't be going back. Yes, I know I'd been telling myself that I was just practising for when I got a boyfriend, but since I knew that the likelihood of finding one was about the same as my chances of playing for Manchester United I thought that perhaps I ought to admit, even if it was only to myself, that I was doing it because I enjoyed it. And it can't be good to actually enjoy sucking other boys off, can it?

Of course, worrying about whether or not I was turning into some sort of sex-mad pervert wasn't enough to stop me from going round to Mark's house after supper…

Mark

I'd missed my Sunday evenings with Kev recently. Of course one of them had been due to our trip to Thorpe Park, and I hadn't minded that at all, but I was glad to see him again this evening. As soon as he arrived I took him up to my room and closed the door.

"Where are your boots?" he asked.

"I've done them," I told him. "Just get undressed and then we can do something more interesting."

He didn't seem to have any problem with that, and in fact as soon as his boxers came off it was clear that he was looking forward to it. I got my own clothes off at top speed and them we both got into my bed and I pulled the covers over us. It wasn't particularly cold, but I wanted to know how it would feel actually sharing my bed with someone. Of course we'd already done this in his parents' bed, but that is a full-size double and mine is only a single, and I have to admit that there wasn't a lot of room in it for two people: I thought actually sleeping like this would be next to impossible. It was cosy, though, and since all I wanted to do to start with was cuddle a bit the lack of room didn't really matter.

"So how did your sex education lesson go?" I asked.

"Not too bad, thanks. They liked the pictures… look, is there any chance of you getting me some more? I wasn't going to ask, and you can say no and I won't mind at all, because what I want is… well, a bit more explicit, and I don't suppose you can get that sort of thing legally…"

"I'm not sure," I said, though actually I didn't think it would be too difficult – there are plenty of places where you can find pretty much anything, if you know where to look, although I didn't want to make a habit of downloading anything that might be considered hard core. I know how to clean up the computer, but even so…

"What's it worth?" I went on.

"What do you want?"

"I'd like at least one day during the holidays where it's just you and me, preferably at your place, if we can persuade Chris to go and spend a day with Colin or someone. That will give us a chance to try just about everything, including… well, you know – what I bought the plastic one for. Do you think that'll be possible?"

"I don't see why not, although I don't know how much longer we'll have before my mother comes home. Chris spoke to her last night and apparently gran is getting a lot better. Once she can move around the house on her own I expect my mother will come back. But even if she does we might be able to sort out something for when she goes shopping, or something."

"That sounds good enough," I said.

For a while we just lay quietly, and it felt really good.

"Tell me something," he said. "If I got lucky and found myself a boyfriend… would it bother you?"

"Why, do you think that's going to happen?"

"Not really, but it could. So, would it?"

"No, I don't think so," I said. "Why would it?"

"I just wondered. See, Chris said it wouldn't bother him, and I'm pretty sure he really meant it, too, so I just wondered how you would feel about it."

"I think I'd probably just say something like 'Good for you'," I said. "Why do you think I might not want you to?"

"Well, if I had a boyfriend I might not be able to go on doing this," he pointed out. "And I know you enjoy it, so…"

"I would miss it," I admitted. "But do you think that having a boyfriend would stop you having fun with other boys?"

"I don't know, but… well, probably. I think if you're going out with someone you ought to stop doing stuff with other people."

"Oh. Well, in that case I suppose I'd just have to try to find a replacement for you, wouldn't I? At least until I can get a girlfriend, I mean, and we both know that isn't likely to happen till I grow a bit. Just make sure you warn me before you ride off into the sunset with the boy of your dreams."

"I should think you'll be safely married by then," he said.

We lay quietly for a little longer, and then I rolled out of bed, went to my cupboard and rescued the plastic willy from its hiding-place.

"I'd like you to use this on me," I said. "That way I'll be a bit more ready for the holidays, if we do decide to… you know, do it properly, then. Hold on and I'll get the Vaseline."

I checked that the coast was clear, nipped into the bathroom and came back with the little jar of lubricant. By the time I got back Kev was sitting on the side of the bed ready, and to judge from his mid-section he was quite keen to get on with it.

I handed him the Vaseline, folded up a small towel to put between me and the duvet in case of accidents and knelt down at the side of the bed, spreading my legs, and a few seconds later I felt the tip of the dildo pressing against me. By now I'd done this myself a few times, but somehow it felt better with Kev doing it for me – maybe not being in control of the situation is what makes it exciting… in any case, it felt good once it was inside me, and as he manipulated it the feeling got better.

Once again I found myself wondering what this said about me. It wasn't a worry, exactly, but the fact that I enjoyed this as much as I did clearly suggested that I'd also enjoy being on the receiving end of another boy. Maybe that wasn't a bad thing, but it wasn't something I'd want everyone to know about.

I trusted Kev, though – and maybe he wouldn't mind doing this for me sometimes even if he did get a proper boyfriend. It wasn't really like asking him to use his own penis on me, was it? Of course, I didn't really think there was much chance of Kev finding a boyfriend, so probably it wouldn't matter…

And at that point it started feeling so good that I just stopped worrying about it and simply enjoyed it. I really can't explain why it felt so good or why I was getting more and more excited, but I was, and pretty soon I was having to fight to stop myself from spurting all over the towel. And it only took a few seconds more before…

"Okay, stop," I said, once I was more or less back in control of myself. "You can take it out now. Thanks, Kev – that was amazing!"

I took the towel and the dildo through to the bathroom to clean up.

"Do you want a go?" I asked as soon as I got back.

"No, thanks, not tonight," he said. "Can we just cuddle a bit more? Maybe if we give it a while you'll be ready for something else. Maybe I can suck it for you."

"Well… okay, then," I said, getting back into bed. "But it's okay for you to get to feel good too if you want."

"I know. Move over."

He got in beside me and we snuggled up, and this definitely felt nice. Maybe I'd have to try to talk my parents into getting me a bigger bed, although I have no idea how I might persuade them that I need one – it's not as if I'm bursting out of this one. Maybe if Kev does get a boyfriend I'll have to look around for someone smaller to take over from him, someone who can fit in here more easily. I wondered briefly if either the Microbe or Silvio would be in the market, because they're probably the only members of the team who are shorter than me. Still, given Kev's chances of finding a boyfriend I supposed that I probably wouldn't have to worry about it for a long time yet.

After a bit I'd recovered enough for some more action, so Kev sucked me, very slowly, and it felt awesome. I felt a bit guilty for not doing it for him, but he assured me that I didn't need to, and that he was actually perfectly happy just doing it for me. And you really can't argue too much when someone says something like that, can you?

Kevin

Nothing much happened that week. Danny came over on the Tuesday, but it was raining and so Chris decided to stay at home, and that meant that Danny and I had to endure a frustrating evening of pretending not to be friends and doing almost nothing except playing chess.

On Wednesday Silvio had once again cleaned his boots before I arrived, but this time he seemed almost reluctant to ask me to suck him. Instead he wanted to talk about Dwayne.

"You're not too mad at him, are you?" he asked. "I mean… you're still going to… you know… do it for him, aren't you? Because I swear I haven't told anyone, and I won't, either, and I'm sure he won't tell anyone else…"

"Well, I admit I wasn't too happy about it," I said. "But I don't think this is going to go on past Easter anyway, so as it's only another couple of weeks or so…"

"Oh," he said, looking disappointed. "Why's it going to stop?"

"Because Chris has more or less said he'll let me off at Easter."

"Oh," he said again. "But… you don't have to stop if you don't want to, do you?"

"What, you think I like doing this?"

"Well… I suppose not. And I bet I'll never find anyone else willing to do it, either."

"Cheer up, there are still two or three weeks left," I pointed out. "So shall we get on with it?"

It's a measure of how much the thought of losing my services depressed him, because this time when he removed his boxers his penis was soft, and like that it looked really small. But I set to work on him and soon had it up to its more respectable erect size, and after than he just seemed to be enjoying it as much as he had the previous time I'd done it for him. I drew things out for as long as I could, and the final result seemed to be entirely satisfactory

Afterwards he thanked me sincerely and managed to stop himself from begging me to carry on beyond Easter, though it was clear that he wanted to.

As far as I could tell from my visit to Jason and Luke the following evening, they were less worried about losing my services, mainly because they now seemed to be having a lot of fun on their own. They didn't actually tell me anything new, but watching their attitude to each other was revealing: Luke cheeked his brother incessantly, and Jason meekly just took it. It was a pity Mark couldn't rig up a hidden camera in their bedroom, because I'm sure the resulting film would have been fascinating viewing.

After training on Friday evening Mark slipped me a small USB stick when nobody was looking.

"Be very careful with this," he said. "Make sure nobody finds it, and give it back to me when you finished with it so that I can erase it properly. It ought to make your next lesson really quite interesting."

When I went up to my room to investigate it later that evening I found that he hadn't been joking, either: there were photographs, and even some short films, illustrating just about every activity between boys and girls, and between boys and boys, that I could imagine. I wondered where on Earth Mark had found this stuff, and then decided that it was probably better not to know. I wasn't going to show all of it to Lee and Freddie, that was for sure, so I opened a new folder on the stick and copied into it some of the less shocking material.

Next morning I got a phone call from Freddie straight after breakfast. At first I thought he was calling to cancel the morning's lesson, but instead it turned out that his parents wanted to go shopping as usual but that Freddie's sister wasn't at home, and so he wanted to know if I could go round and babysit.

"I think they want to buy my Easter eggs, so they don't want me to go with them," he added in a whisper. "So can you? Please?"

"Only if you and Lee promise to do whatever I tell you," I said sternly.

Freddie made a rude noise and asked me to wait, and a few seconds later a woman came on, announced that she was Freddie's mother and asked if I would be prepared to look after the boys for a couple of hours while she went shopping. Considering that she'd never met me I wondered why she was apparently prepared to trust me, but I supposed that Freddie had been feeding her some sort of nonsense about me being a responsible person or something, because she seemed only too happy when I said I wouldn't mind.

In an attempt to look responsible I actually put on a clean shirt and a tie, but I probably needn't have bothered because Mrs Chalfont just took one look at me, nodded, and said she'd be back by half past eleven, or twelve at the latest, and then ran out to get in the car, which her husband already had running on the drive. I watched them drive away and then closed the front door and took my jacket off – she hadn't even seen the tie.

"Where are you?" I called, since the boys were nowhere in sight.

"In Freddie's room," called Lee from the top of the stairs.

I hung the jacket up in the hall and went up to Freddie's room. Lee was there, dressed neatly as usual, but there was no sign of Freddie.

"He's in the bathroom," Lee told me when I asked. "So, did you manage to find us some more naughty pictures?"

"Maybe," I said. "You'll have to wait and see."

"That means 'yes'," he said. "Yippee!"

I'm not sure when I last heard someone actually say 'Yippee!' – actually I'm not sure if I'd ever heard anyone say it. It suited him, though: he seemed to be stuck in some sort of time warp from a time when children were sweet and innocent and well-behaved – the Fifties, perhaps, although I suspect that if I asked my grandmother about it she'd probably tell me that kids have never been sweet and innocent and well-behaved. But Lee was a mother's dream: neat, nicely-pressed clothes, shiny black shoes, and a clean, well-scrubbed face. Of course, his enthusiasm for more 'naughty pictures' rather contradicted the sweet outward appearance…

It was a couple of minutes before Freddie came in to join us, but he was well worth waiting for: if Lee looked like a child from a non-existent age, Freddie was unmistakably out of the nineteen-forties. He'd clearly been listening the previous time we'd talked about his appearance, because now he was wearing long grey socks, grey shorts that ended closer to his knee than to his groin, one of those elastic belts with an S-clasp, a grey sleeveless pullover over a thick grey shirt, a horizontally-striped school tie and, best of all, a school cap.

"What do you think?" he asked me.

"You look pretty amazing," I said. "Where did you find all that stuff?"

"My dad knows a man who does amateur dramatics, and he knows a shop where you can find period clothes," he told me. "I had a bit of money saved up, so I thought, why not?"

"Okay, but are you ever going to actually wear that kit in the street?" I asked.

"Well… I might. Otherwise it would be good for fancy dress parties – I could say I was going as Just William."

"Who's just William?" I asked.

"It's a series of books for boys written ages and ages ago, and the hero is this eleven-year-old… at least, I think he's eleven… anyway, they're set back before the second world war, so he dresses like this. The BBC filmed some of the stories a year or so back, so I know exactly what they looked like back then. Lee's dared me to come to school like this, but I don't think that would be a very good idea. Our headmaster doesn't have a sense of humour.

"Anyway, have you got some more pictures for us to look at?"

"Maybe," I said again, wondering if I'd get another 'Yippee'. But instead he said "Awesome!" which seemed a bit out of character.

"I don't think they said 'awesome' in 1940," I pointed out. "Don't you have to say 'smashing' or 'spiffing' or something like that?"

"I don't know. I suppose I'll have to get lots of old books and start reading them if I want to find out. Actually that might be quite fun. I wonder if I could persuade people I'm really from 1940 but I fell through a wormhole in time, or something? I'd have to make sure I didn't say anything too modern, and I'd need to pretend I don't understand computers and stuff… but it would be really funny if I could get good enough at it to fool people. I'm definitely going to practise."

"I'll help," said Lee. "Every time I hear you say something that is too modern for 1940 I'll hit you."

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

"Why don't you get a second set of clothes for Lee?" I suggested. "Then you could both be time travellers and you'd have to learn to speak 1940 together. That way it would be fair – if one of you gets something wrong the other one can hit him."

Freddie

Actually I thought that was a great idea – after all, we were already both so geeky that anyone meeting us for the first time would be sure to think we were weird, and I was fairly sure I could learn not to say anything twenty-first century. And Lee's pretty bright, too – I mean, I'd never admit that to him, but he is – and so I'm sure he could learn to pretend to be a time-traveller.

"I think Lee would have to change his name," Kevin went on. "I don't think people were called 'Lee' in 1940. Freddie's OK, but not Lee. Though if you went to a good school back then I think you'd probably use each other's surnames, so you'd have to remember to call him 'Woodford' instead of 'Lee'."

"My second name's George," said Lee. "That would be all right, wouldn't it? I mean, even the King was called George back then."

I was surprised to hear that Lee seemed so ready to go along with this – I'd expected him to say it was silly. But I knew that he did have a sense of humour, even if he didn't show it very often, and perhaps this sort of thing would appeal to him the same way it did to me.

"Of course, if this was the 1940s I'm sure there wouldn't be any sex education," said Kevin. "So perhaps I ought not to show you any more pictures."

"All right, I'll stop pretending it's 1940," I said. "Just until you go home, anyway."

"Then hadn't you better take all those 1940 clothes off?" suggested Lee, grinning at me.

"I don't think so," I said. "At least, not unless you're going to get undressed as well."

Normally I wouldn't have minded getting undressed – after all, they had both seen me undressed before. But if there were going to be some more pictures to look at it was a certainty that my thing would get hard, and that would be a bit embarrassing if I was the only one with no clothes. And I wasn't too surprised when Lee said that he'd prefer to keep his clothes on.

"Then I'm keeping my clothes on, too," I told him. "But I will take my cap off if you like."

I removed my cap and threw it on top of my chest of drawers. Of course even without the cap I still looked like a boy from 1940 because I had my hair gelled into a parting again. I was definitely going to have to persuade Lee to try a nice old-fashioned hairstyle.

"So what have you got for us this week?" I asked, looking at the screen.

"Well, so far all the pictures you've seen were basically just shots taken in naturist resorts or at the beach," said Kevin. "But this time they're a bit more… well, explicit, I suppose."

He opened his folder and selected the first picture, and I found myself looking at a picture of a fair-haired boy of about my own age with his hands on his hips looking at the camera. He was naked, and I suppose this photo might have been taken at a naturist resort like the ones we'd seen before, but the difference was that in this picture the boy's thing was stiff, with his foreskin open a little and the head visible beneath it.

Lee gave a little gasp – I'm fairly sure that he'd never seen a picture like this before either, and I wondered how the photographer had persuaded the boy to let him take the picture – although the boy looked proud of himself, so maybe it hadn't been that difficult. And the next half-dozen or so photos were also of boys showing themselves off – some a little smaller, some a little bigger, some like mine with skin and some like Lee's without.

"Remember what I said last time," said Kevin. "It doesn't really matter how big or small it is. Some people say that girls prefer a long one, and some think they prefer a thick one, but probably they won't mind too much as long as it makes them feel nice. You remember I told you that's why it goes hard, so you can get it in? Well, even a fairly small one, like his, for example," (the photo showed a naked boy on a beach, and his erection looked no bigger than Henry's) "is probably big enough to make a girl feel good. So you can tell Henry not to worry about being small.

"And now here are some pictures that you two can recognise."

Up came a number of pictures of two boys holding each other's stiff things. When Lee and I had done this it had always been standing up and facing each other, but the boys in this picture, and the ones that followed it, were lying down side by side.

"We'll have to try doing it like that!" said Lee, demonstrating that he was on exactly the same wavelength as me.

"If you like I'll go downstairs and leave you to try it out," offered Kevin.

"No, that's all right," I said. "You can stay if you like – maybe you can give us some advice. Are there any more pictures, though?"

He hesitated. "No, not this week," he said. "Maybe next week – after all, that's likely to be the last lesson, so…"

"Oh!" interrupted Lee. "Why's that?"

"Because my brother is going to let me stop having to work for people once the Easter holidays start," said Kevin.

"Yes, but you could carry on if you wanted to, couldn't you?" I asked.

"It's funny – that's what everyone has said so far. But there isn't a lot more to tell you, anyway – at least, nothing you need to know right now."

I took that to mean that maybe there would be some more stuff for us to learn in the future, and since that suggested that maybe Kevin wouldn't mind coming back to teach us when he thought we were ready. I decided to just keep quiet for now. Instead I stood up and started to get undressed, gesturing to Lee to do the same. By the time we were in our underwear Kevin had removed the USB stick from the computer and then turned it off.

"Wow, where did you get those?" Lee asked me, looking at my 1940s underwear, which were made of a sort of white cotton with little holes in. The vest didn't look very different from a modern one, but the pants were vaguely boxers, but shorter and looser. "Does that shop even stock old-fashioned undies? I wouldn't have thought there would be a lot of people wanting those, because if you were in a film about the war I don't suppose you'd actually take your clothes off in it."

"Maybe you'd want to go swimming in a canal, or something," I pointed out. "I think kids did that sort of thing back then, and if you were poor you probably wouldn't have swimming trunks."

"I think they'd probably swim naked," said Kevin. "But I suppose you couldn't have a lot of naked kids in a film – at least, not one that was going to be on at the cinema."

"I suppose not," I agreed. "But they came from that shop, anyway. They feel a bit odd to wear, but you sort of get used to them."

I pulled them off and lay down on the bed, and Lee finished undressing and came and positioned himself next to me, and for the next ten minutes or so we experimented with the most comfortable position for holding each other. It was fun, and I didn't mind Kevin being there at all.

"Try this," he suggested. "Freddie, lie on your back, and Lee, lie on top of him facing him… yes, like that. Now if Freddie puts his arms around you and you both relax, it should feel nice."

It did, too: Lee and I have been friends for ages, but I'd never felt as close to him as I did right then. I stroked his back and he put his head right next to mine, so that we were cheek to cheek, and it felt absolutely perfect. I wouldn't have minded staying like that all day, and Lee showed no signs of wanting to get off me, either. I don't know how long we were lying like that, but eventually Kevin said that we probably ought to get up and put some clothes on before my parents came home.

"Thanks for showing us that," I said as I got dressed in my normal clothes, rather than the 1940 kit – my parents already think I'm a bit odd, and I didn't want to freak them out completely… or not just yet, anyway. "If you know any more stuff like that, please can you show us next week?"

"Maybe," he said.

I hope he meant it: life has certainly got more fun since I first met him…

Kevin

I had no plans for the afternoon, so as soon as I got home I turned on the computer, discovered that Jeremy was online and asked him if he wanted to come and visit. He said he's really like to, but of course he didn't have the money for the rail fare. This time I couldn't book a ticket for him online because my father wasn't at home and so I couldn't use his credit card, and obviously I haven't got one yet, and that meant that the only way to do it would be for me to visit him instead – although I supposed that I could travel down to his station and then buy him a ticket so that we could come back to my house together. It was a bit of a waste of money for me to go there and come back on the next train, but I wasn't exactly short.

Jeremy was waiting for me at the ticket office. I bought a return ticket for him and then we went out to wait on the platform.

"How's your week been?" I asked him.

"Not too bad. Kenton's more or less left me alone this week. He's been really quiet – in fact yesterday I actually asked him if there was something wrong. He said no, so I said, 'You can tell me if there is,' and he said, 'What, so you can gloat?' and I said, 'No, so I can help. You don't gloat when your friends are in trouble,' and he said, 'We're not friends, Millefin,' and I said, 'No, but we were, and as far as I'm concerned we could be again,' and he didn't say anything, so I shut up.

"When we got off the train I walked back to his place with him. I asked if he wanted to see me over the weekend and he just shook his head and went indoors. But either he's got some other problem, or else… well, maybe he did take some notice of what you said to him last week."

"I hope so," I said. "Still, even if he doesn't want to be friends with you, at least it's something if he stops pushing you about, isn't it?"

"Yes, of course. I just wish…"

"That things would go back to how they used to be? I don't think they can," I said. "Not really. I should think the best you can hope for is that he'll leave you alone. Anyway, let's talk about something else. We'll be on holiday in a week's time. Do you think you'll be able to come and stay with me for a couple of days? It would give you a break from home and keep you out of Kenton's reach."

"Well, yes, if you've got room for me," he said straight away. "I don't want to be a nuisance, though."

"I wouldn't have asked you if I thought you were a nuisance," I said. "And we've definitely got room. We've got quite a big house."

The train arrived and we made the journey back without talking a lot, but without the silence being uncomfortable, either. I caught him looking at me a couple of times, and the second time I removed my glasses and tucked them into my jacket pocket.

"Why'd you do that?" he asked.

"Well, I know you think I look kinda gross with them on…" I began.

"No, I don't!" he interrupted. "I know I've said a couple of times that I think you look really good without them on, but that doesn't mean you look gross wearing them! Anyway, I know you can't see much without them, so put them back on – please?"

I did so.

"Thanks," he said. "Look, I'm sorry: I shouldn't have asked you to take them off when we were on Skype. It wasn't because I think you look bad with them on, because you don't. It was more that you look absolutely amazing without… well…"

He tailed off, looking embarrassed.

"If you think I look amazing you obviously need glasses yourself," I said. "Anyway, don't worry about it. Although I admit I prefer being able to keep them on, because that way I can see you properly. Without them you're just a blur."

"I reckon if you weren't wearing those big magnifying lenses you couldn't see me at all," he said. "I'm a midget."

"No, you're not," I said. "You're not a lot shorter than me."

He gave a snort of derisive laughter.

"Seriously," I said. "Look, stand up."

It wasn't too easy on the swaying train, but he managed to stand up, and when I stood up in front of him the top of his head was level with the bridge of my nose. Okay, I'm by no means the tallest boy in the class, but even so…

"I'd guess there's about four inches between us," I said. "That's hardly worth worrying about – and you're taller than some of the kids in my year. If you were in my form nobody would assume for a moment that you didn't belong there. It's true that you're probably slightly shorter than average for fourteen, but not by that much. I think you worry too much about it. You look perfectly normal to me – in fact you're a whole lot better than normal…"

I decided to shut up before I said something really embarrassing – and I was sure that the last thing he wanted was to have an ugly lump like me lusting after him.

"We'll be there in five minutes," I said, wanting to change the subject. "What time do you have to be home?"

"I don't think it really matters too much," he said. "Just as long as I let them know when to expect me. They're only too happy to see me out with someone else instead of sitting in my room all weekend."

"Good," I said. "We'll check what time the last train is, and hopefully it'll be late enough for us to be able to spend as long as we want together."

So we checked the timetable when we reached my local station and discovered that the last train didn't leave until twenty to one in the morning. That was clearly too late, so we settled on the 2150 as being the one to aim for. Then we caught the bus back to my house, and when we reached the end of the drive Jeremy stopped and just gaped.

"When you said you'd have room for me… you weren't joking, were you? Is your dad Richard Branson or something?"

"Nothing like that," I assured him. "He usually tells people he's 'something in the City'. The only bad thing about it is that he's away a lot, and at the moment my mother's away too, looking after our gran, so right now Chris and I have the place more or less to ourselves. Come on."

I took him inside and gave Chris a shout, but there was no answer, and then I spotted a note he'd left for me on the hall table.

'Gone over to Mark's,' it said. 'Back for supper. If you get back before me, behave yourself!!!'

"Cheek!" I commented under my breath.

"Chris has gone out," I told Jeremy. "Come on up to my room, and then we can decide what we're going to do."

Jeremy followed me up to my room, parked himself on the bed and asked the obvious question.

"Oh, it's there to stop me playing with myself," I explained. "Remember I told you that Chris and Mark decided to fix it to make it difficult for me? Well, that camera is part of the system they rigged up. There's a microphone under the bed, too."

"Why do you put up with that?"

"Because if I don't they might put the films they've got of me online."

"No, they won't!" he said. "I've met them, remember? And I'm sure they'd never do something like that to you. You said yourself they're both still okay with you, didn't you? So I think it's about time you stood up for yourself."

He took the chair from in front of my desk, placed it under the camera, stood on it and moved the camera so that it was pointing at the ceiling. Next he looked under the bed, followed the cable from the microphone as far as the wall, where Chris had apparently drilled a hole between his room and mine for it, and then went out of the room. He came back a couple of minutes later.

"I've turned the whole system off," he told me. "And I'm going to talk to your brother when he gets home. This is completely out of order – your room should be your place where you can do whatever you want. I bet your brother wanks in his room.

"So, what are we going to do?"

"Whatever you like," I said. "We could play chess if you want – Danny and I have invented a new version I could teach you."

"Yes, okay."

I got up and went to my cupboard to get the two chess sets and boards, and while I was doing that Jeremy went over to my bookcase.

"Hey, you've got the third Alex Rider," he commented. "Do you think I could borrow it? I haven't read that one yet."

"Sure," I said.

"Great! It'll give me something to do on the train going back… hey, why have you got a webcam in your bookcase?"

"I haven't… have I?" I said.

"Yes, you have… and it's connected to this laptop down the back of the bookcase. Is it yours?"

I shook my head, so Jeremy delved down the back of the bookcase and retrieved not only a laptop, but an external hard drive too.

"That's got to be Chris," I said, staring at them. "The bastard! That's how he filmed me in the first place!"

"Well, he isn't going to any longer," said Jeremy, disconnecting the camera and the hard drive and putting all three items in his bag. "We'll hold these to ransom until he hands over any film or photo he's got of you and swears not to try filming you in future. Now let's go and play chess."

He headed for the door and I followed him, thinking that he'd changed a lot from the mousy kid I'd first met at his school. Maybe helping him to stand up to Kenton had done a lot of good. I was quite looking forward to seeing what happened when Chris got home…

How is Chris likely to react to Jeremy pulling the plug? You'll find out in the next chapter.

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