SECOND EDITION
Published in the United States by FOREWORD
Boys often embraced homosexuality either with a passionate but quiet sincerity
or as an amusement shared between friends, a distraction from the rigours
of school life. It seems to have had little or no effect on actual sexual
orientation either then or later.
Sometimes at a school like E..., a boy appears of such exceptional beauty
and sexual fascination that he becomes a legend. It happened while I was
there. The boy's name in this case was S.... R..... Everyone was talking
about him, and most were lusting after him. Besides his unearthly beauty,
he also had a great gift as a footballer, and when he was on the field with
his house eleven, older boys from other houses would often gather round just
to watch his exquisite flying figure, groaning with longing as he tossed
the tarnished gold of his hair back from his forehead, or charged into the
scrum with arms flying. He appeared to have the unconscious power to uncover
a hidden vein of pederasty in the breasts of the most normal seeming male.
It was a long time before I was able to discover any great joy in life and
not until I was almost forty did I tell anyone about my schoolday passions.
For years I hated the happy memories, the frustrating contrast of past and
present. One day I could take no more and I burnt all my diaries, meticulous
records of every day school life. In retrospect I regret that but at least
I still have David's football sweater which he used to wear in goal.
All this acting it up — making a joke of it even to myself — it
was only a way to pretend it wasn't true. But it is.
CHAPTER 1 Special Friendships
His head throbbed, his heart leapt, Tom Brown was not amused. He was enjoying himself immensely, but he was not amused. If one more master told him that Dr Arnold wished to see him in his study, he would scream. He really would. Tom remembered what our Saviour had said and turned the other cheek. Dreamily he applied the bar of soap to it, wondering if he should do his bum hole again. He'd done it twice already. That should be enough. It should be as clean as a whistle by now. Anymore would be indulgent, and indulgence led to sin. Tom's semi-tumescent penis told him how close he was already to sin. He took his hand away from the danger area and applied the bar of soap to his chest. His nipples tightened and rose in response to his caresses. Drat! It was no good. Was there nowhere safe on the body of a twelve-year-old boy? The shower turned from warm to luke-warm to bloody freezing as Tom roughly twisted the brass handle. He hopped up and down on the spot turning his face up to the spray. It hit him like a handful of needles. Blinded, he dropped the soap, staggered out of the tiled cubicle, tripped over the raised step and went headlong across the bathroom. "Whoa, Brown, steady as you go." Tom felt himself supported by a pair of arms, strong arms, arms with hairs on them. He risked opening his eyes which still stung and looked up into the face of Lawton Major, the senior prefect in his House. He blushed profusely. "Sorry, Lawton Major. Tripped in the shower. Lost my balance. Thanks." Lawton held the boy at arms length, his hands resting on Tom's shoulders. A smile crinkled the skin round his eyes. Tom found it difficult to look away from those eyes. He had known that green eyes existed but he'd never seen them. Certainly not eyes like these: green with pinpoints of hazel. Big green eyes. Tom knew they were big. His own were big. He'd been called Bush Baby at junior school. He wondered if Lawton's eyes were bigger than his. He blushed again as he followed the senior prefect's eyes. They drifted from his face, downwards across his chest and tummy, downwards across his hips, his groin, his growing bits, legs, feet. They began the return journey, seeming to drink him in as they travelled across his naked, dripping self. Could eyes drink? Of course they couldn't. But there was that song. How did it go now? Uh, "Drink to me only with thine eyes…" or something like that. Anything like that would do. Anything to take his mind off… his penis! It was a little more than semi-tumescent now. Disaster! Catastrophe! Tom was getting a stiffie, a full-blown hard-on, and right in front of the senior House prefect. Lawton put the junior out of his misery. Grabbing a towel from a rack, he began to rub Tom down vigorously, beginning with that thick mop of brown hair that asked to be cut. Oddly enough, neither boy found the senior's action out of the ordinary. It would have been different if any other boys had been around but they had the bathroom to themselves. The number of sopping towels hanging from the rack told them it was unlikely there would be any other late-comers that evening. Tom found it comforting to have his hair towelled dry so roughly. This was the way his father had always done it, and as with his father, he submitted to Lawton's rough caresses. "Now then, my young cavalier, why so late? Everyone else is in his room. Reading hour started ten minutes ago." Tom's shoulders trembled as he explained. His voice trembled, too. "Sorry, Lawton. Out practising. Cross country. Camp next week, you know." The towel moved down across the boy's shoulders, his back, his chest. He kept on talking as Lawton moved around and dropped to his knees in front of him. "Want the House to do well. Can run a bit. Ran for my junior school." His voice trembled as he felt Lawton's hands though the towel. They were drying his hips, his stomach, his bottom – surely not between his buttocks – at least he was clean in there, clean as a whistle. Hands and towel ran the length of each leg. Then up to his crotch. Tom's big brown eyes widened as the hands dried his naughty bits, each stroke of the towel a caress. He wasn't semi-tumescent now; he was as stiff as a poker. There was nothing he could do. Lawton was a senior prefect. Tom was a sprat, a squirt, a junior, lowest of the low. He also realised there was nothing he wanted to do. Tom Brown closed his eyes, a hand on each of Lawton's shoulders, balancing himself. "There, that's you done, Brown. Get into your kit. You've got fifteen minutes SR left. I want to see you on your bed in two minutes." Tom opened his eyes. Lawton was striding from the bathroom. He turned and smiled. If Tom hadn't been stunned, he would have smiled back, but considering he still had a stiffie like a plate that might not have been in order. Tom scrambled into his underpants, corduroy shorts, socks and slippers. He pulled on a regulation light blue Aertex T-shirt, not sure at all whose it was. He stepped to the sinks, found his toothbrush, squirted on some paste and brushed his teeth vigorously. Tom peered into the mirror, wiped away the steam and peered again. Big brown eyes peered back at him. Oval face, high cheekbones, normal lips, arching eyebrows, a few freckles, a nose that some called snub but his mother called cute. Did all that add up to a ‘bumboy,' a question that had been bothering him? He'd never thought of himself as a bumboy. He wasn't even quite sure what a bumboy was, but he recalled a conversation in the dorm. "Lane won't get the cane. He deserves it, but he won't get. He's Cornish's bumboy, so he won't get it." Another voice chimed in. "Better than being Mr. Clifford's tart." That had started it. Pillow fight! A real corker! Tom had joined in without the slightest idea what it was all about. He didn't care. A pillow fight was a pillow fight. You didn't really need an excuse, and once one had begun, it was open to all comers. There was a mystery to be solved. Why was Lane Mr. Cornish's bumboy and who was Mr. Clifford's tart? He'd started to ask, but that had only set off the pillow fight again until Lawton strode into the dormitory and asked for quiet. He got it, immediately. That was the trouble with public school. It was full of mysteries. Life had been so simple at junior school. You went in the morning; you came home in the afternoon. But here school life did not end at 3.15. It went on into the evening, into the night, and you'd hardly put your head down, when the gong clanged and it started again. It had taken Tom a few weeks to settle into the routine of the boarding house. He was an organised soul. He liked the rhythm of the day. It was still difficult to get used to some things. Mass showers in the morning and evenings remained a little uncomfortable. Twenty naked boys leaping around the bathroom did not make for order. Often there were two to a cubicle where it was bad form to close the curtains; sometimes two to a bath. Each bath could have taken three juniors comfortably: huge, iron, claw-footed Victorian relics that took twenty minutes to fill even with both taps going full blast. Tom was not particularly modest; he had two younger brothers at home and they often shared the bathroom, if not the bath at home. But these were bigger boys, the oldest juniors touching fourteen. Some of them had hair, a lot of it, in those places where, in theory at least, Tom would have lots by the end of his junior years. And some of them had big cocks, very big cocks. The word made him blush again. He was used to willy, even penis was fine, but there was something strange, alien, menacing about "cocks". They belonged to the world of men and Tom was perfectly happy being a boy. Of course he was used to erections; he'd been having them for years. But they'd nothing to do with him. They just happened. In bed, at the breakfast table, in class, at church. He just tucked his stiffie to one side, the left side, and got on with his life. But erections in the bathroom were of a different order. He couldn't believe how casual the boys were about their erections. Some of the bigger boys waved them about like trophies. Others made vaguely menacing advances to the smaller, prettier cherubs who laughed and ran around the bathroom chased by a cock that looked like a club in the grip of its proprietor. And there was the afternoon when someone whipped back a shower curtain and one boy was kneeling on the floor in front of another one and… The bigger boy had whipped the curtain closed and, amid raucous cheers, shouted a variety of curses that made Tom's hair prickle on his neck. His mind returned to Lawton. "… on your bed in two minutes." How long ago had that been? Day dreaming again. Tom ran a comb through his hair. It broke. He threw it into the sink, left the bathroom, turned right and sprinted the length of the corridor. He took the stairs three at a time. Too late. Lavender polish. Slip. Slide. Crash landing. Lawton caught the boy in mid-flight and held him. "Brown!" There was a note of exasperation in the prefect's voice. "I said two minutes, not twenty minutes. You've missed SR completely. My study 7.35. Now get your slippers and get along to tea." More mysteries. SRH, Silent Reading Hour, was not an hour at all; it was half an hour. And dinner was tea, though it was taken at 7 each evening. And now Tom had to be at Lawton's study at 7.35: lines, standing out, the slipper, the cane? It would not be true to say that Tom was not frightened. He was. But not very frightened. And he deserved the punishment, so he would take it, whatever it was. At least it would be during Prep, and of the few things in life that Tom Brown found stultifyingly tedious, Prep topped the list. Sitting there, trying by sheer willpower to make the hands of the clock move faster, was Tom's idea of Hell. Compared with Prep, a few strokes on the bottom from Lawton was Heaven. Tom wondered if his buttocks would be bare. Would he be bent over an armchair? Would Lawton finger the target before he struck? Would he be allowed to keep his shirt down at the front? Would Lawton see his penis? That wouldn't matter much. He'd seen it already. And he'd seen in it in a state that only Tom himself had seen before. Tom wondered… With a start, the boy realised he'd been day-dreaming. Twenty past seven. If he didn't get to the dining room, he'd be slippered on an empty stomach. He jumped to his feet. Drat! He had another stiffie. Where had that come from? No, don't think about it, just get to dinner. Tea, I mean, tea. Bloody hell! Trust Lawton to be late when I manage to get here on time, Tom sighed. He had bolted his tea. Sprinted to Prep. Obtained permission (a formality) from the duty master to attend the senior prefect's study. Leapt the stairs two at a time to the top floor, sprinted to the far end of the senior corridor, brushed himself down, straightened himself up, and rapped smartly at Lawton's door. No reply. He checked his watch: 7.35. He knocked again. No reply. He waited. He shuffled his feet and waited. He shuffled them some more and waited some more. Perhaps Lawton had forgotten. Perhaps he wasn't coming. Perhaps he should go down to Prep. No, anything but that. Not Prep. Tom tiptoed along the corridor. He peered down the stairwell. He listened for footsteps. None. He listened again. A door opened. He turned. Lawton was at his study door. "Brown! You're late. Get along here smartish." Tom broke into a sprint, checked himself, then sprinted again. It was a long corridor running the full length of the house. He arrived at Lawton's door, apple-cheeked and audibly panting. "Get in." Tom stood on the carpet in front of Lawton's desk. He let his glance slide around the room. No sign of a cane. The slipper then. The senior prefect wore slippers, leather slippers, and a dressing gown, a rather tatty, woollen dressing gown. At 7.30 in the evening? Another mystery. Surely he wasn't wearing pyjamas underneath his dressing gown. "This place is a mess. I'm having a shower. Tidy it up." And Lawton was gone. Now to the average boy, Lawton's room was anything but a mess; it was in depressingly good order. But Tom Brown was no average boy when it came to messes; order was his passion, his obsession, and he immediately saw what Lawton meant. That picture was not straight. There were ashes in the hearth. The waste paper basket was not empty. Shoes had been thrown in a heap. A school blazer lay on the couch. "This beats Prep any day." Tom tore into the room as Napoleon had torn into the Austrians at Marengo: organised, orderly and irresistible. History was Tom's favourite subject; it had so many lessons to teach. Chaos collapsed before him. Order was restored. The door opened. Lawton came in, a bath towel round his waist, dressing gown over his arm. He let the dressing gown fall to the couch. Tom picked it up and hung it on a door peg. Lawton looked around and gave a satisfied murmur. He undid the bath towel and let it fall to the floor. "Tea." This was not a request, but for the moment Tom stood non-plussed. They'd just had tea, or was that dinner? Since the towel had dropped he had a problem keeping his eyes on Lawton's, but then he noticed Lawton's finger pointing behind him. The younger boy turned. Ah! A teapot in the hearth and beside it an electric kettle. He stooped and plugged the lead in. He looked in the pot. Yes, there was tea. "… done a good job." He realised Lawton was talking to him. He turned. The older boy was towelling his head vigorously. For a moment he thought about taking the towel and doing it for him. "…tea? Or do you want to go down, to Prep, I mean?" Tom shook his head, then realised he could not be seen. "Tea, please, Lawton, if it's not too much trouble." Lawton's finger was erect again, no, not erect, pointing. "Sit …" The rest was muffled. Tom sat on the couch. He could hardly sit in the senior prefect's armchair. He sat directly facing the older boy's crotch. He couldn't avoid it any more. Lawton had big eyes and a penis to match. It swung heavily between his thighs. His arms were hairy. Tom remembered that, but not as hairy as his crotch. Thick black hair stretched across his groin, then crawled down the inside of his legs, disappearing under his balls. Tom was fascinated. The big cock kept on swinging, keeping time with the towelling of the prefect's hair. Tom wondered if Lawton got stiffies. That must be a helluva sight if it was that big when it was soft. Big balls, too, very big. How did Lawton get that lot inside a cricket box? Tom leaned forward for a closer inspection just as Lawton whipped the towel from his head, wrapped it round his shoulders and began towelling them. Both boys went beetroot red. Lawton turned away and kept on towelling. Now his buttocks swung in time to the towelling. Tom's eyes opened wide, not at the sight of the swinging buttocks, perhaps not entirely at those, but at the realisation he had another stiffie. Not now, please, not now, I've got to make the tea, I've got to stand up. He wrestled his penis to the left. "… my fag." Lawton was talking to him again. What was he talking about? Fags? Cigarettes? Surely the senior prefect did not smoke. The towel hit him in the face. "Wakey, wakey, Brown. I asked you if you'd like to be my fag." Lawton was wrapping the dressing gown around him. The damp smell of his body filled Tom's nose. His hard-on hardened. "Pour the tea." He stumbled to the hearth, bent almost doubled, and quickly kneeled. He stirred the tea. "It's not quite ready." He played for time. Lawton was in his armchair. "Well, how'd you like to fag for me?" The shilling dropped in the gas meter of Tom's mind. Fagging, that's what they called it. It was slave-labour really, but if you were a junior you had no choice. It was tradition, and the entire edifice of the public school system stood on the foundations of tradition. "'Course, you'll have to miss an half hour of every Prep after half term. Getting my tea and toast ready." "I'll do it. I'll be your fag." Lawton was taken aback by the boy's enthusiasm. Still, he was senior House prefect, so Brown obviously realised the honour being done him. As for Brown, he was doubly delighted; not only would he miss half Prep every evening but the gist of this Sunday's compulsory letter had been done for him. "Dear Mum and Dad, I'm going to be a fag …" That would do. The usual request for a food parcel, the inter-House rugby scores, and a Your loving son, would be more than sufficient. Tom sat in the hearth, eyes shining. "What a curious chap?" thought Lawton. "A bit all over the place, but he does make me laugh. Good-looking, too. Though some of that hair's got to go." He pushed his own hair into place. For some reason he wanted to look well for this boy. Why, he didn't know. It was as mysterious as his impulse to dry the boy this afternoon. What if someone had walked in–another prefect, a master, another junior? Lawton watched the boy stir the tea. "Shit! I'm getting a hard-on." He blushed, relieved that Tom was facing the other way. He pulled his erection up against his stomach. What was happening? He'd never been a bumboy when he was a junior, not that invitations hadn't been issued, and he'd never taken one as a senior, not that surreptitious offers hadn't been made. It was all rather silly, all rather dangerous. And why now? For a rather common little oik who made him laugh. But those eyes… Stop it! That hair… Stop it! That smile… "For Christ's sake, stop it!" "Uh, stop what? Sorry, Lawton, I'm just making sure the tea's stewed properly." "Stop calling me Lawton." Lawton was desperate. "My name's Robert. My friends call me Rob. You can call me Robert. Not outside, of course. But in here, when you're fagging for me. And I'm going to call you Tom, and if you don't like it, you can lump it. Speaking of which, two lumps for me." Tom giggled. "And stop giggling. You're not a girl. No, you're certainly not a girl." Now if Tom Brown had been your average, well-drilled public school junior, he would have been horrified. No junior in his right mind ever addressed a senior prefect by his first name, not unless he was lying under him or on top of him. Even then it was trespassing on the bounds of familiarity. But Tom was new to the system. He had been dismayed to find that so many of the boys, young and old, addressed each other by their second names. Even when they lay in bed at night. It came as a relief to find that someone wanted to call him by his first name, and that he could call him by his first name. He poured the tea. "One for yourself, Tom, biscuits are in the tin." He ran ‘Robert' round his mouth several times: Robert, Robert, Robert. He liked the name, liked it better than Rob. He'd once had a dog called Rob; it went deaf, it got distemper, it died, but he didn't tell Lawton that. Tom rose (his hard-on had eased) and passed a chipped mug of tea and two digestive biscuits to Lawton, to Robert. He took his own mug, a chipped partner's of Robert's, and one digestive biscuit to the couch. The boys looked at each other over the steaming brims. "Now Brown – Tom – tell me about yourself." "Well, Lawton – Robert! – what would you like to know?" Tom proceeded to describe an entirely ordinary boy. The more he spoke, the more fascinated Robert became. Tom was not a product of the prep-public school system. In fact, he had arrived at School a year late from the despised state system. The boy's grandfather had died in Australia leaving him pots of money with the single condition that Tom went to a good public school for his secondary education. With misgivings, his mother and father had agreed, and Tom found himself abruptly uprooted from his town school to a mansion ‘somewhere in the south of England'. "It's all a bit new," said Tom, "but I'll get the hang of it in time." Robert passed the biscuits. "I'm sure you will." So began one of the strangest friendships in the school, one of the warmest, one of the most special, and one that stayed out of common sight for a remarkable time, given that there were boys and masters who were dying, almost literally, to get into Robert's flannels and Tom's corduroys. Later that evening, as Tom lay abed in his six-boy dorm, the muffled conversation went something like this. "And he didn't slipper you." (Lance Clifton) "No, he didn't." "And you didn't have to do lines?" (Fitzroy-McKean — nobody had asked his first name) "No, I didn't." "And he didn't try it on?" (Graham Carruthers — every school has one) "No, he didn't." (To be entirely truthful, Tom did not understand the question, but he didn't like the smirk in Carruthers' voice, so he opted for a negative.) "Well, damn and blast, what did he do?" (Theo, Tom's best friend) "He made me his fag." "O hard luck." (Lance Clifton) "Slave labour." (Fitzroy-McKean) "Lucky you." (Graham Carruthers) "G'night, Tom." (Theo). "G'night." "G'night." "G'night." "Shut up in there!" (Duty master). Tom Brown lay in bed playing the bathroom and study scenes on the screen of his imagination. His hand slipped into his pyjamas. He manipulated himself to erection. At least he was in charge this time. He reconstructed Robert's body. His gaze ran over every inch he could remember. He tried to imagine what Robert's erection would look like. Scary! His own erection was throbbing. His balls were tight up in his groin. The head of his cock was slippery, the shaft sweaty. He withdrew his hand and sniffed his fingers. There was a new smell, a strange smell, and he knew what it was: it was sex. With a terrific effort of will, he kept both hands above the duvet. He imagined Robert's big green eyes, the dimple on his chin, his smile. Tom fell sound asleep, sucking his thumb. The smell of sex comforted him. Robert Lawton lay in bed working his hard-on. He desperately tried to focus on the assistant matron. She wasn't pretty, she wasn't young, but at least she was female. He couldn't hold the image. It kept dissolving into Tom. He fought and fought, but as the cum raced up his shaft and spurted onto his hands, he gave in, he gave in – and thought of young Tom Brown. Tuesday morning meant a double period of English. Nobody was late for English. Tom and his Form scampered across the lawn to the former stables which now housed the English block, ruled over by Mr. J.P. Cornish. The air was warm, the grass still burned from summer, and the lake sparkled in the distance. More than one boy sighed. What a waste of a beautiful morning, what a waste of a beautiful day. But nobody was late for J.P. Cornish. They scampered and scrambled into the block. The English master was by no means conventional; there was never any knowing when he would leave the beaten track and invite his Form to attempt something hatefully novel. It was on such occasions that Tom Brown groaned and figuratively beat his breast. His view was that, as he was English, it was absurd to make a study of the subject. English or Prep, Prep or English? Between his dislike for either phenomenon Tom could not have stuck a pin. Nor was Tom enamoured of Mr. Cornish. Not that sir was unkind to him, but some of the looks he received from the English master made Tom feel as if he were being undressed by those unblinking grey eyes. Now if it were Robert Lawton… Tom attempted to kick himself under the desk but succeeded only in kicking Theo. "Ouch! What was that for, you blighter?" Any response Tom might have made was cut short by an announcement from Mr.. Cornish. "I want you each to write me a poem. You may choose your own subject, your own metre and your own treatment. All I ask is that each one of you produces something. I shall regard with an evil eye only those boys who dare tell me they are unable to do anything." "May it be on any subject, sir?" asked Peter Lane, brushing his blond fringe from his eyes. Tom perked up. Peter Lane was said to be Mr. Cornish's ‘bumboy'. Tom still wasn't sure what ‘bumboy' meant, but it had something to do with bums and boys, a connection he hadn't made at his junior school. "Yes, Lane, any subject." Did Tom catch a note of warmth in Cornish's voice? The English master was not in the habit of repeating himself but had made no objection to Lane's request for confirmation. "Now I shall give you boys half an hour and no more to come up with preliminary sketches for your poem…" He placed his gold hunter on his desk "…the remainder to be done in your own time. Deadline Friday 2.30. I'd like these for the weekend. Lane to collect them in and bring them to my study. Any subject. Those were my words. The world is before you." The mere thought of trying to write poetry brought out perspiration on Tom's brow. He cleaned his nib on a wad of blotting paper and found his mind as blank as the pristine sheet of paper before him. Perhaps not entirely blank. He risked a study of Lane whose head was already bent over paper, blond fringe concealing his face, pen scratching away. The boy pushed his fringe back yet again. Tom continued his observations. Straight hair, blond fringe, strong eyebrows, colour of eyes indeterminate. Small ears, small nose, symmetrical face, widish lips, rather red, small chin, dimple (not nearly as deep as Robert's, Tom felt with some satisfaction). Medium height and strong shoulders. An entirely ordinary boy, and not especially bright if he had to visit sir for extra tuition two or three times a week. What was so special about Peter Lane that he could be Mr. Cornish's bumboy? Exactly what qualifications did you need to be a bumboy? Tom sighed and returned to his blank page. Unconsciously he edged closer to Theo until they were sitting thigh to thigh. Theo bumped him back in friendly recognition. Tom was not the only one observing Peter Lane. Mr. Cornish glanced up from his papers. He was having difficulty with a piece of Solon. Sixth century Greek pederasts could be a bugger to translate: Boys in the flower of their youth are loved, the smoothness of their thighs and soft lips is adored. Should that be is or are adored? His gaze fixed on Lane, chin resting on hand. He let his imagination drift back to the first time he'd known the smoothness of the boy's thighs and the softness of his lips. Late June, a few days before the end of term the end of the school year. He'd been on duty in School House. The boarding house was uncommonly quiet, nearly every boy having taken the opportunity of Saturday afternoon in town. Cornish wandered among the dorms. The smells were intoxicating. Boy smells everywhere. He picked up a pair of underpants here, a jock strap there, holding them tightly across his nose and mouth, breathing in the smells of boyhood. On the first floor, junior boys, he'd been surprised by the sounds of a shower going full pelt in the bathroom. He entered to find Peter Lane stepping from a cubicle, towelling his head vigorously. He stepped over and turned the shower off. "Waste not, want not, young man." "Sorry, sir, didn't realise anyone was here." "And why is anyone here, Lane? Hasn't the entire House gone into town?" "Yes, they have, sir," said the boy, towelling shoulders and chest. "I'm just out of San. Hay fever." As if to confirm the ailment, the boy sneezed. "Sorry, sir." He continued to towel himself, apparently unaware of the effect he was having on the master. "Bit breezy in here, sir. Can we go to my dorm? I'd like to ask you something, if that's permissible?" Cornish followed the boy to his dorm. Lane moved to the window and drew the curtains. "Keep out the breeze, sir." He continued to dry himself, drawing the blue-striped towel up each leg, bunching his genitals as he dried in the space between his legs. "Well, Lane, how can I help?" "It's that comprehension you set us, sir. I'm having trouble with it. Thought you might go through it with me. I'll just get the book, sir." The boy leaned over a bed and began fishing down the side nearest the wall. "It must be here, sir. I was doing it in bed last night. Fell asleep before I got finished. It must be here. Could you help me, sir?" The boy dropped the towel and buried his head down the side of the bed, his pink, innocent bottom high in the air. Cornish moved across to him. His hand moved towards the twin objects of his desire. Fingers brushed skin. He drew back as if he'd touched a hot plate. The boy stood and turned. "Can't seem to find it, sir. Maybe later. Well, better get my teeth done." He flashed two rows of perfectly even, perfectly white teeth. "You can come and talk to me while I brush, sir. I'll show you what you can do with a little toothpaste. It's really cool." Returning with a jerk to the present, Cornish resumed his work with the papers in front of him. He had been working on Greek boylove since he'd left Oxford ten years earlier. He flipped through the papers and found the quotation he was looking for: Schoolboys are hardly so well-educated in kissing, their embraces are awkward, their love-making is lazy and devoid of pleasure. Whoever had written that, and he suspected it was Achilles Tatius, had never known a boy like Peter Lane. His gaze drifted across the boys. Tom… what's his name? Brown, yes, Tom Brown. How could he forget a name like that? There was a good-looking boy, all the more attractive because he seemed unaware of his beauty. The boy looked up. Their eyes met and held. The boy blushed and lowered his head. "Yes," thought Cornish, "I like to test the originality of my boys. Possibilities lurk within every one of them, and I must explore new ways of giving these possibilities the chance of realisation." He returned to his papers refreshed by the possibilities young Tom Brown offered him. Tom sighed. His paper was still blank. He felt Theo nudge him with a thigh. He sighed deeply again. He felt Theo's hand brush his thigh. Tom thought nothing of it. It was comforting. He felt Theo's hand brush his thigh again, this time the hand stayed there. Brushing, caressing, comforting. He turned to Theo. Their eyes met. Theo's face was expressionless. Tom smiled. Theo relaxed and smiled back. He turned his face back to his exercise book. The hand remained where it was, squeezing gently. Tom felt his cock stir. He sighed again. Another of life's little mysteries was in the making, but not that day. Tuesday and Wednesday flew by. Still Tom's exercise book lay unsullied by a syllable of poetry. It was not until Thursday evening that a solution of sorts presented itself. Called to Robert Lawton's study to make tea during Prep, Tom was far from his naturally cheerful self, staring gloomily into the hearth even as the senior prefect made light conversation. "What's up, old boy?" a slightly exasperated Robert asked Tom. "Something getting you down? Why so morose this evening?" Tom had never heard the word ‘morose' but he knew it applied to him. "I'm sorry, Lawton – I mean Robert – it's this damnable poem I have to write for Cornish. I don't like poetry. And I can't write poems, I just can't." The boy's vehemence impressed Robert. So did the tears forming in the junior boy's eyes. For a moment Robert found it hard to breathe. He knew that Tom was good-looking. He was honest enough to admit to himself that was part of the attraction. But at that moment the boy was close to beautiful, and Robert Lawton was not quite sure what his response to beauty should be. He wanted to slip from his armchair, slide down onto the carpet next to the boy, and press him back until he was lying beneath him. Then Robert could lean over him and look into those big, beautiful eyes, and then he could… Pull yourself together, Lawton. What's wrong with you? He knew other senior boys indulged in juniors. Until now he had not been seriously tempted. What was it about Tom Brown? Robert had even investigated the topic; in the sealed section of the library, reserved to masters and prefects, he'd found a history of Ancient Greece that dealt with the subject. One observation in particular had amused him. Apparently Athenian vases showed that only the adults were supposed to derive satisfaction from intercourse with boys, the boy usually looking as if he were solving some academic problem. Robert laughed. Tom had an academic problem, but Robert did not propose to help him solve it by buggering him on the carpet during Prep. "Stop worrying. I'll write a poem for you." It had popped out just like that. "I'll write it so badly, it could only have been written by you." Robert completed his offer with a grin. "O, would you Robert? Would you really?" Tom's eyes shone. In ordinary circumstances, both Tom and Robert would have shunned anything that smacked of the dishonourable. But these circumstances were not normal. Tom was desperate, and in his own way Robert was desperate, too. During tea, the boys considered the morality of what they proposed to do. Neither was entirely happy with it, but they could forgive each other this one lapse. "After all, it's only poetry," mused Tom; a sentiment Robert could not wholly agree with since he was proposing to read English Literature at Oxford. Tea over, the boys sat side by side on the couch, scratching out possibilities on scrap paper. Once again, Tom felt another boy's thigh pressing against his own; this was real comradeship. He half-hoped Robert's hand would drop on his thigh to brush, caress and squeeze, but even Tom realised the implications of such a gesture from the older boy. He knew that Robert liked him, but a senior prefect couldn't like a junior that much – could he? Autumn, nightingales, ancient mariners, Arthurian knights, the wind, the sea, the woods by night. One by one, Robert took Tom through a whole range of possibilities, each one seeming more absurd to the younger boy who finally collapsed in a fit of giggles. "You see, I told you, they're all silly!" Tom lay back on the couch, giggling uncontrollably. "A poem about conkers might be good, but a poem about a chestnut tree – daft, simply daft." "Look here, Brown, I'm doing all this work and…" Robert looked down at the junior boy, lying there, laughing, tears in his eyes. "Right, that's it, Brown, you've asked for it and now you're going to get it." Robert threw himself on Tom, his fingers tickling the boy's sides furiously. Tom gasped out laughter, tears running down helpless cheeks. "Oh stop, do stop, Robert!" He tried to wriggle his way out from under the older boy, laughter coming thick and fast from both of them. Robert pinned him down with his body, stretched Tom's arms above his head. Tom was not about to surrender. He bounced his body up and down, wriggling as hard as he could. But it couldn't last. Finally, he collapsed under Robert and lay there panting, gasping for breath, chest heaving. Robert, too, was breathless. He lay alongside the boy, listening to their hearts pounding. How many minutes passed, neither boy could say. This was so comfortable, so warm, so secure, so right. Even the hardness in their crotches… Robert had a hard-on. Tom had a hard-on. It was impossible to ignore one's own, and just as easy to detect the other boy's. Tom moved to free himself. His erection brushed Robert's erection. The heat from each boy's cheeks burned into the other. Robert moved his hips in small circles; again and again his erection brushed the hard penis beneath him. What to do? This was an impossible situation for both of them. Tom closed his eyes. Robert smelled so good, felt so good. He wanted to lie there forever, or at least until Prep was over. And if Robert wanted to do things to him, well, Robert was a senior prefect and Tom was his fag. Who was he to question the order of things? Perhaps if Tom had opened his eyes and smiled, Robert would have done what his body was telling him to do. But the closed eyes added a note of uncertainty. What if Tom was disgusted by him? What if Tom only wanted out of the room? What if Tom never wanted to fag for him again? Robert sprang up and straightened his erection. "Right, Brown, you deserved that. Now up you get. I can't concentrate with you lying there. In fact, I can't concentrate with you in the room at all." Tom sat up. He daren't look down. He knew his stiffie was pressing against the fabric of his corduroys, but to look down would only draw attention to it. "Now get back to Prep, and let me get on with the poem. When do you need it?" "Tomorrow afternoon, 2.30, please, Lawton." Tom stood up. Robert did not. "Well, I'm off for the weekend tomorrow. Leaving after lunch. So just pop in here and get it. It will be lying on my desk. I'll type it on the Underwood in the library. No handwriting involved. Now off you go." Tom stepped towards the door. "And, Brown…" Tom turned to the boy, "… it's Robert to you." Tom grinned. "And, Lawton…" Tom opened the door, " … it's Tom to you." He closed the door behind him and skipped all the way back to Prep. Tom could hardly wait for Friday morning to go by. He caught a glimpse of Lawton in the Quad and was studiously ignored. Tom was not disturbed; that was part of the unexpressed understanding. Immediately after lunch he made for Robert's study. The boy was gone, but as his fag, Tom had unrestricted right of entry. The room seemed curiously bare without Robert, and Tom felt a painful twinge of what life might be like without the presence of his mentor. "Where is it?" Robert's desk was cluttered with paper, some handwritten, some typed. Tom rummaged about in the papers. The poem, the poem, where was the bloody poem? His eye was caught by a short piece of verse, typewritten. It looked like verse to Tom. Short lines, half a dozen of them. He quickly scanned the lines: pomegranate, peach, fig… in a word fruit. Yes, this must be it. A short poem about fruit would be fine. At 2.25 precisely he handed the poem to Lane who was clutching a sheaf of papers. The boy sped off towards the English block. Friday afternoon, 2.30. School was over. There was a free hour till sports at 3.30. Tom was relieved and elated. How could he repay Robert? The study was a mess, at least the desk was. He would give the room a thorough tidy-up. Robert liked everything neat and tidy. He would be delighted when he returned on Sunday evening. He would know who had done it. Tom glowed in anticipation. Peter Lane walked into the English block. It was quiet and empty. The cleaners would not arrive until Saturday 1p.m. He hoped Mr. Cornish would be there to receive the poems from him. He hoped the English master would read his first; he had spent hours on it. He wanted to please sir who'd grown a little remote, a little distracted of late. Peter was eager to please the man who gave him so much pleasure. He was in luck! Mr. Cornish was at his desk. "Ah, Peter, good lad, just put the poems done there. I'll have a look at them in a moment." Peter put down the papers. "Friday afternoon, sir. I'm free till half past. Tidy the room, sir?" "Yes, go ahead. Not too much noise though." Cornish glanced at the boy. My God, he was pretty, temptation made flesh, but wild, unpredictable, precocious. Those looks, that body, that smile spelled danger. He picked up the poems. Most of them would be second rate, the rest third. He flicked through them. Most were brief, dismally or mercifully brief, depending on your perspective. And the briefest was by… Tom Brown. That was the name scrawled above the half dozen typewritten lines. Let's see. The English master read the poem. His incredulity grew. He read it again. Was this a joke, a warning, a threat? He read it once more: A pomegranate just splitting, a peach just furry,/ a fig with wrinkled flesh and juicy bottom,/ a purple cluster (thick-berried well of wine),/ nuts just skinned from their green peelings – these/ the guardian of the fruit lays here for Priapus:/ for this single shaft in the wilds, the seed of trees. Cornish found himself trying to recognise the poet, but it was almost impossible when in translation. He shook himself. "That's not the point. The point is, where did Brown find it? Does he understand what it's about? And if he does, why hand it in to me?" He looked around the room. Where had Lane gone? He heard the boy's voice from the stock room. "Sir, can you give me a hand, please? I need a hand." "I will give him a hand," thought the English master, happy to be distracted for the moment from the mystery of Brown's poem. "I will give the boy a helping hand, but that is all. I give my solemn promise." He stepped towards the stockroom like a man mounting the gallows steps. Meanwhile, Tom was happy, busy and happy. Most of the papers on Lawton's desk were in some kind of order now, probably all wrong, but they looked in good order and that was half the battle. Tom wanted to lie along the couch. He wanted to remember what it felt like. Robert on top of him, pressing him into the crushed velvet, their hard pricks pressing against each other. Tom already had a hard-on. He didn't care anymore. It was his hard-on. If he wanted to lie on the couch and play with it, whose business was that but his? And if he wanted to dream of Robert while he was touching himself, that was his business, too. One more piece of paper to pick up. Tom picked it up. He would not have given it a second glance, but he needed to determine the best pile for it. It was a sheet of typewritten paper. There was a small piece attached to it, a handwritten note addressed to… to him! To Tom… to:
Dear Tom, It was unsigned. It didn't need to be signed. Tom read the poem. It was about rugby in the rain. It jogged along like a nursery rhyme, but two of the rhymes didn't work. It was awful, gloriously awful. Tom himself would have found it difficult to write anything worse, if he'd been able to write a poem at all. But if this was his poem, what had he given in to Cornish? He had to change the poems over. He had to get the first back. Tom raced down the boarding house stairs. He sprinted across the Quad. He ran across the grass, a privilege reserved only to prefects. His luck was in. The English block was in sight. School seemed deserted. Tom ran into the English block. He hoped no one was there. He felt sneaky going into his Form room like this, but that's where Mr. Cornish kept his papers, and he had to exchange the poems. The room was empty. Tom stepped over to the desk. The poems were there! Perhaps sir hadn't looked through them yet. He leafed through them till he found the six typewritten lines. That was his scribble at the top. He stuffed the poem in his pocket, took out the new one, smoothed out the paper and slid in into the pile. There! It was done! He might be in trouble for trespassing but he hadn't lost Robert's own poem. His attention was snagged by noises from the stockroom, vague, indeterminate noises. Little grunts and moans. Some light, some deep. He stepped to the closed door. What were those sounds? Tom was reminded of the only poem he'd ever liked. Something was "whiffling and burbling" behind the door, and apparently enjoying it too. Tom stood awhile in uffish thought. Instinct told him not to open the door. And mystery upon mystery, he found himself getting an erection. Resisting temptation, Tom hurried from the block, back to Robert's room. He hoped Robert wouldn't mind. He lay down on the battered old couch; the smell of the older boy enveloped him. He tried to resist temptation, this time his own memories. [O, dear Reader, how he tried!] But he was only human, only a boy, and the lump in his trousers carried more weight in the scheme of things than the lump of grey matter in his skull. He sighed, gave in, and squeezed his cock to full erection. The feeling was good, and it was getting better all the time. He knew something was going to happen, it shouldn't but it would. He was helpless to stop it. He pulled his prick free from his underpants and shorts. He'd never seen it so hard, so red, so… beautiful. His mind was full of images. Of Robert and himself, of Robert stretched out on top of him, their hard-ons rubbing together. He wished Robert were here now, naked, with a hard-on, on top of him, and he was naked, too, and he had a hard-on, and their cocks… "Oh… oh… oh…" Tom swung his hips round to face the back of the couch. His cock was spitting white stuff, liquid, spurts of creamy white liquid, no, not white, silvery, gooey… and it felt good, no it felt fantastic… and he never wanted it to end… he wanted it to go on and on and on… He lay there exhausted, hips drawn back from the mess he'd made of Robert's couch. His hard-on had faded but the stuff was still dripping out. He stuffed his cock back into his underpants. He could wash them out later. That stuff did wash out, didn't it? He lay there and looked at the mess. The stuff, his stuff, was sliding down the crushed velvet fabric. It didn't disgust him. Maybe it should, but it didn't. But he needed to clean it up. He had to get up and clean it up. Tom lay there fingering himself, but gently. Why was it so sensitive afterward? Why did it still feel so good? He felt it hardening again. No, he couldn't! He mustn't! He didn't! With a supreme effort of the will, Tom slid from the couch, keeping well away from the goo. He had to clean that up right away. Then it would dry in time before Robert got back on Sunday. It had to clean up. It had to dry. Please, oh please, let it clean up and dry. If it does, I promise I'll never do it again. Even as he made the promise, Tom knew he couldn't keep it. Not all promises can be kept. Mr. Cornish was learning that, too. He sat in the empty stockroom, cursing and celebrating his weakness with little Lane and his "problem." His thoughts drifted back to young Tom Brown. Brown, Tom Brown, what kind of boy was he? If he was anything like that little prig in Hughes' novel, he would be of no interest at all. But this Tom Brown was different. He had a sense of humour, a shy one, but it was there nevertheless. That was one of his attractions. But the poem. What to make of the poem? He fished through the pile again. Here it was, headed Tom Brown. He read it again. And again. Had he been hallucinating? This was not the same poem. This had nothing to do with the vice of the Ancient Greeks. Playing rugby in the rain/ For some of us it's just a pain ... He could not face the poem again. It was truly awful. The rhyme in the last two lines were either a feeble attempt at assonance or the boy had no ear at all. There was nothing for it; he must summon Brown. He must determine what the boy knew, and how and when he knew it. From there, he would do whatever needed to be done. He had heard there were teaching opportunities in Greece. Teaching English as a foreign language to young, olive-skinned, brown-eyed… Stop it! Cornish summoned Tom during Prep and plunged to the heart of the matter. "Brown, you did not write the first poem you submitted to me. Who wrote the lines for you?" Tom shuffled his feet but stood his ground. It was warm in Mr. Cornish's study. The heavy curtains were pulled. Lamps were lit on either side of the master's desk. Tom remembered a painting he'd seen in a book: When did you last see your father? it had been called. He knew exactly how the boy in the painting felt. And he was being asked a far more difficult question. "I'd rather not say, sir." "Good for you, Brown. Betraying a friend is a far worse crime than one you have committed. And there's no need for you to betray your accomplice. I have determined where the poem came from. I recognised it by what we literary people call internal evidence. There's only one poet I know with quite that satiric touch. I digress. But why what particular poem? Did you read it? Do you understand it?" "I'd rather not say, sir." In truth, what Tom meant was he hadn't the faintest idea what to say. He'd lost track of the conversation a while back. "Good for you, Brown. I can accept that. Some secrets are better kept. You can keep a secret, can't you, Brown?" Brown nodded. That was the answer expected of him. Masters were always happier with the answer they expected. "Now we come to a more delicate matter." How handsome this boy was. There was nothing of the girlishness that made, correction, that had made Lane so attractive. This was a handsome boy who clearly would make an even more handsome man. "I shall be straight with you, Brown, as you have been straight with me. I believe you exchanged the poems this afternoon. Peter Lane was working for me in the stock room. He usually does on Friday afternoons. (Damn it, why had he said that?) What you may have heard, or think you may have heard, was nothing more or less than that. Comment, please." Tom's brain was working furiously. He had to think. What answer did Cornish want? "Were you there?" asked Tom. "I didn't see anyone. To tell you the truth, sir, I was so worried about the poem that I couldn't think of anything else. But, sir, you have my sincere apologies for barging in like that – if I disturbed you, I mean. It's none of my business, so I've put the entire thing out of my mind." Tom was stunned. That was the longest speech he'd made to a teacher in his life. "Well done, Brown. The truth is always best. I wasn't actually there at all though you may have heard Lane fooling around. I was simply testing you out. Let's put this entire business out of our minds. I include the business of the poems, too. We need not discuss it with anyone else. Do you understand me, Brown?" Tom Brown nodded. He was mightily relieved. He would not get Robert into trouble after all, and he had managed to wipe his stuff from the covering on Robert's couch. Cornish extended his hand to the boy. They shook hands; the matter was over. "And one more thing, Tom. I really enjoyed your rugby in the rain poem. Not a bad effort at all — for a beginner. Keep it up, my boy, keep it up."
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