Ships that Pass in the Night - Rick's Story
by N Fourbois
It was a defining moment in my life, that first week when I started at the city grammar school, and although I wasn't to know it then it was the week I met my life partner. I've got to admit it, but the only thing that interested me in those days at the age of eleven or twelve was sport in general and rugby football in particular. I had been playing rugby since the age of nine and was looking forward not only to the new season of club rugby, but also being able to represent my school in the U12 team. I was delighted to be transferring to my new school. The little village school I had attended was limited and limiting, not that I would have used those words in those days, for the notion was only really set in my subconscious back then. The winter teamsport there was soccer which I definitely viewed as second rate once I started to play rugby and the academic work was scarcely challenging. It took a little time for a small country boy to realise that the ethos of his new school was centred on academic work, not the sports field, and with what I achieved later I look back with gratitude on that ethos and to the people who helped me there.
And so as this small country boy walked out one morning to start at his new school, he spent that Tuesday, and the rest of the week, looking forward to the first games lesson on Friday afternoon, the longest week of his life. Even then my impatience was not to be rewarded. We walked to the changing rooms in the pavilion on the sports fields and instead of getting changed we had to sit down as best we could in a cramped space for a talk. All I could do was watch the year above, already changed, run out onto their pitches and start the warm-up and lesson. That's what I wanted to do. The head of games introduced himself and his staff who would be looking after the U12 XV when it got that far, colleagues and two senior boys who were delegated to help with the training. That's when I started to pay attention. It wasn't so much that I needed to know whom to impress if I were to gain a team place, and with sixty boys in the year group that gave me a one in four chance, but that my wandering eyes strayed towards one of the senior boys and I stared at him as he stood there legs apart, hands behind his back, in typical army at ease position. His school rugby kit was immaculate, his thighs muscular and sun tanned, his white shorts short and form-hugging, and his presence imposing. As my eyes looked into his I noticed his were looking at me, perhaps into mine, and as our gaze met he smiled. Only when I tried to smile back did I realise that my jaw had dropped to the extent that I had difficulty in doing so.
The introductory talk continued with dos and don'ts: compulsory showers, correct and clean kit, punctuality, off-games notes. It became clear that a large number of the group had not played rugby before, which necessitated going back to basics, and the seriousness of the lecture was only broken at the end when one callow youth whose name I did not know, in the hope of receiving some pity, naïvely asked what would happened if it was raining, only to be unhesitatingly informed 'You get wet'. Looking around at those who laughed and those whose faces displayed horror I could immediately see the year group divided into wimps and hearties. I suppose I was a hearty.
At last we were allowed into the changing room to get changed. It straightway brought back the associated smells from my rugby club, sweat, disinfectant, boys and their feet, liniment. I loved them all for their association with the game I adored. As at the club, so at school, I noticed that I was the only one to be wearing purple underwear. I think my mother must have bought up the entire stock of it in the country. According to the regulations just promulgated the others obediently put on their speedos to be worn under their shorts, but being a seasoned rugby player, not to mention cricketer, I defiantly donned a well broken in jockstrap, rather pretentious, for in those days I didn't have much to fill it with. Not that that prevented me from parading round the changing room under the pretence of getting a drink of water. After all, one boys' changing room is very much like another. I wanted to wear my white shorts as I did at my club, or perhaps nearer to the truth like those senior boys, but as I was to learn later, that was a question of status. Senior teams wore white shorts, juniors dark blue. Finally after much chivvying we were sent out and jogged across to our training area. Okay, because it was back to basics there was very little new for me, but I tolerated that as a labour of love and because of other advantages. We did a lot of partner work, both in the warm-ups and training, and as so often happens in those situations your first spotter becomes your work partner for the rest of your schooldays and so it was with Ollie. We were in the same class, I knew his name, we had the same interests (ie sport), we were the same height although he was slightly more solidly built than me, and on the four days of that term we'd gone to lunch together. But with his dark brown eyes and dark brown hair we were also opposites. The beginners had to get used to a different shaped ball, oval rather than round, and so that first session dealt mainly with ball-handling skills. Leaving the contact until l
ater was psychologically sound - lull the wimps into a false sense of security. There was always staff around to help us, coach us and correct us. Even at this early stage they were obviously talent-spotting for the school team. I don't know why, but for some reason I went all coy whenever my idol of a senior boy came near me.
"What's your name?" he asked me.
"C......, sir."
"I'm not a sir. You should call me E.... You only call the masters sir." I looked up into his face and our eyes met, just as they had during the initial briefing, and he softened. "But you can call me Tim. What's your other name?"
"Richard," I said still completely under his spell. Then batting my eyelids I added, not intentionally cheekily, "but you can call me Rick."
"Rick it is," he said in that rich and sexually charged voice of his and he smiled before going through the same process with Ollie. Same process did I say? Oh no, with him it was just a factual question and answer conversation. It was a moment the detail of which I have never forgotten and it was only with later experience and hindsight that I realised that was the first time in my life that I had ever acted the tart; and it certainly wasn't going to be the last.
After a necessarily shortened session we were sent back to the changing room to get showered and changed. It had been a typically hot September afternoon - the last days of summer with no sign yet of autumn which gave us the false impression that all our rugby sessions were going to be like that - and so we were all hot and sticky; or if we weren't we had been shirking our work that afternoon. For many it was obviously the first time that they had taken a communal shower and some were showering in their speedos. For me it was the first opportunity to indulge myself in one of my rugby club traditions - checking out the talent. Ollie had changed next to me and I was suitably impressed. The two seniors came in to make sure that everyone was showering and ordered the speedo boys to take their speedos off. They didn't dare disobey. As I stepped out of the shower I came face to face with Tim. He smiled, but couldn't disguise the fact he was checking me out at the same time. I smiled back and minced like some male model on the catwalk back to where my clothes were. Then another club tradition. I stood on the bench to get dressed, ostensibly to keep my feet and clothes dry from the water on the floor dripped from people who had showered, but in fact a form of preening by those who were proud of their bodies, and of course I would always put my socks, shirt, tie and pullover on before ever attempting to put on that monstrosity of attire, my purple briefs.
I was pleased to get home for the weekend. The schoolbus dropped me on the main road at the point nearest to my village nestling in the valley. It would have been near impossible for a bus to negotiate those lanes and on the rare occasions one did make an appearance in the village it used the roads from the other end which required a long detour if coming from the city. My mother would then pick me up and take me the last two or three miles home by car. I did my homework, not that we had a lot in those days. That was a pleasure to come. I had Saturdays free until school matches started after half term. If the family wasn't doing anything I could always kick a ball around with the village lads and then it was club rugby on Sunday. I went to bed early that Friday evening, absolutely knackered after a combination of a longer schoolday, excess expenditure of nervous energy getting used to a new environment and one hundred percent effort in rugby training, but despite that I could not get to sleep for as I lay in bed my mind kept on going over the events of the day, or more precisely of the afternoon. I could not get Tim out of my mind. It was hero worship I realised looking back. I kept picturing him in my mind - handsome, strong, a fine body, even his buttocks outlined in those white shorts I found attractive - and there was the special treatment I appeared to receive from him. I'll get stick for that from the other boys if I'm not careful, I thought. I noticed something else. While I was thinking of him my dick had stiffened and it felt nice when I touched it. Sure I'd had stiffies before. Who hadn't? Usually in the morning when I woke up and I was bursting for a pee, but I didn't want Mum or Dad to see me like that while I made my way to the bathroom. Of course I had been told by the other boys at the rugby club about stiffies and what the older boys do about them, but I'd never felt any need to do it myself. I must have gone to sleep eventually for the next th ing I knew the sun was shining into my room and I could smell the smells of cooked breakfast wafting up from the kitchen. Thinking back to the previous night I realised that this was one of the times I missed having a brother or sister to discuss such things with.
So at the age of eleven, about to become twelve at the end of that September, this was my first encounter with Tim. I did not appreciate that a seed had been sown for although we knew the rudiments of sex - country boys see it all around them - we had no real conception of what love was beyond the love of one's family, let alone of love between two boys. All I knew that autumn was that I liked Tim, his appeal went beyond our mutual love of rugby and sport in general, that when I saw him I went all tingly inside and that in my idle moments I thought, or more precisely fantasised about him. That year I lived for those twice weekly games sessions, and not only did I make the school team at flyhalf, but I was invited to captain it, probably based on the fact that I had three years' experience of the game under my belt already. I continued to love my club rugby, but that existed in a parallel universe to school rugby on Sundays and ne'er the twain shall meet. At that age it was easy enough to shrug off the exertions of Saturday school matches and still give one's best the next day. However, strangely enough it was something that happened at my club that propelled me along the way that eventually was to lead dedicating my life to Tim.
After a match or training session one member of the team or squad was delegated to collect the flags and balls from the pitch. It worked on a rota and so it was fair and no big deal. There had been a full range of junior matches that day - the seniors, that is the adults, played theirs on a Saturday - and so the changing rooms were at full capacity. On the next pitch Huw, an U14 player, was doing the same thing as me after his match and we arrived back at the clubhouse together. After we'd handed all the stuff in to the groundsman we went to get showered and changed. After all, if you weren't muddy you hadn't been pulling your weight in the game. We were met by the head coach who said
"Sorry, lads, the hot water's run out in the changing rooms. You'd better fetch your kit and change in the referees' dressing room." (They only ever had outside refs on a Saturday and the staff had their own facilities.) "The hot water's on a different system." We fetched our clothes and our sports bags and took them along to refs' changing room. "Bolt the door, lads." said the head coach. "Anyone could barge in there." In true cavalier fashion Huw said
"Rick, be a pal and go and get the showers going so they're the right temperature," while he rooted around in his bag for his shampoo, conditioner and body gel. Being the younger I obeyed. I enjoyed having the shower to myself instead of competing for space with the others. Finally Huw was ready and he made his entrance and what an entrance. Old habits die hard and naturally I was checking him out. I had never seen such tackle on a boy and I stared, mouth open of course. "You like it, Rick?" he asked as he let the hot water trickle over his body, down his chest and onto his dick. I stammered something that got the message across that I did. "You can touch it if you like. I don't mind." Absolutely enchanted I reached out and fingered it lightly, then lifted it up trying its weight, and then it stiffened. Huw smiled. "You can touch my balls if you want." They weighed heavy in my hand too. I noticed that I was getting a stiffie, but nothing to compete with the rampant monster in front me. "Have you ever had a wank?"
"No," I replied, although I'd talked about it with other boys.
"Make a fist and wrap it round my shaft. Now move it gently to and fro. That's right." I could see from his face that he was enjoying it as I slipped his foreskin back and forth over his cockhead. "Faster," he said. I obeyed and he cried out as suddenly a gush of white liquid shot out. The noise of the shower drowned his cry. The blast of hot liquid hit my face and because as so often when aroused I had my mouth open it got into my mouth and I liked the strange taste. We used his body gel to clean ourselves up. "Thank you, Rick. I owe you one when you're a bit older." We dried ourselves, got dressed and went to join the others for lemonade and biscuits, as if nothing had happened.
I felt that I'd grown up a little that day. I'd lost my innocence, but that was not an expression I knew back in those days. It also occurred to me that I hadn't done anything I didn't want to do and that Huw hadn't in fact touched me. By the way, he did repay the debt, and with interest, but I didn't call it in until the cricket season. However, I always put it down to that encounter of the close kind in the referees' dressing room that triggered off puberty in me. Not long after I noticed that the skin above my dick was no longer smooth; there was a kind of downy fuzz there. As I watched it with patience over the coming week or so, it darkened and coarsened and it wasn't long until I had a fully fledged tuft of pubic hair. It was about that time too that my voice deepened, became huskier, my dick and my balls became looser and at times uncomfortable in my trousers, despite or maybe because of the purple passion killers, and I kept on having to adjust them.
"Leave them alone, Richard, or they'll drop off," I suddenly heard my mother say one day with unaccustomed impatience and sharpness and after that I had to re-arrange them surreptitiously by putting my hands in my pockets.
"Pocket billiards?" said Ollie at school during morning break.
"Yeah," I retorted croaking away in my still unsettled voice. "Why? Do you want to play a game?"
"Are you asking?"
"I'm asking," I said carried away by the banter and before I knew it, there in the middle of the crowd in the middle of the quadrangle he walked up behind me and plunged his hands into my trouser pockets. It gave me a stiffie. A little crowd on inquisitive onlookers had gathered around us and broke out into rhythmic clapping. Because of the unwanted attention Ollie had to take his hands out quickly in case a prefect or a member of staff came along, but that was my first sexual encounter with Ollie and we were determined to find a quiet place to do it again as early as possible and if he was going to that to me I wanted to do it back to him. That was towards the end of the Spring term.
Easter that year came far too soon for me. It was early anyway, and that meant the end of both the school and the club rugby seasons. We had our last Friday training session, followed by our last match on the Saturday before breaking up in the middle of the following week. Tim was at the training session on Friday, immaculately dressed in those tight, brilliant white shorts that betrayed the outline of the straps on his jock across his butt cheeks. He took me on one side and said he wouldn't be out on the training sessions next term. Something about exams and the games master wanted different personnel to help.
"Read my cricket's not up to the standard of my rugby," he said with a tinge of regret in his voice. "But we'll see each other around school anyway," he smiled. That smile would always light up the dullest day. The session went well. It was not too hard for we were at the peak of fitness after two terms' training and playing. We did some penalty moves and tackling practice. The team that took its tackles never lost a game, or so we were told. Tim made sure he was holding the tackle bags for my group and like a young colt I doubled my efforts to impress him. The last match was at home, thank goodness, and I was delighted as well as surprised to see Tim on the touchline as I led my team out for the last time. The seniors played hockey in the Spring term and the hockey season had already ended. I was proud of my men. The results had been mixed, but we had never let ourselves down. So much the better because the squad consisted of half a dozen who had played before and the rest had never played rugby in their life. The best seemed to be the soccer converts. Now just as the season was ending they were learning to play as a team and the results improved, and we had six more seasons together. That afternoon, I've got to admit it, I didn't play for the school, I didn't play for the team, not even for my parents, I played my heart out for Tim. What's more my goal-kicking was better than it had been for the whole season, school and club, and I scored a try. We won our last match and I often wonder whether we would have done if Tim hadn't been there. After the match we showered, changed and entertained our opponents to tea. We were asked to stay behind after we'd seen the visitors onto their coach and our games master gave a short speech about the season to us in front of our parents. Then one of the parents gave a reply on their behalf and to my astonishment presented me with a rugby ball signed by the whole squad (except me, of course). I had to
make a short speech on behalf of the team where I thanked everybody, and Tim and his fellow senior featured prominently in that speech. Thanks again to my rugby club experience I could hack that, even without preparation. Gradually everyone dispersed and Mum and Dad were about to take me home when I realised there was a gap on the ball, just in time for Tim to sign it before he went off to catch his bus. In the car they swore they knew nothing in advance about that presentation.
I went to bed early that evening. I usually did on a weekend when I had a match on both the Saturday and Sunday. I tried to read before putting the light out, but all I could think about was that afternoon, Tim being there, my try, winning, the presentation and Tim. I found I was unconsciously running my fingers over my newly acquired pubic hair. Then as I thought about Tim, again my dick stiffened and I touched it and my balls. I'm sure they felt bigger. I thought back to that time with Huw in the referees' shower and I did to myself what I'd done to him. The picture of Tim in his white shorts returned to my mind's eye. I wonder what he looks like in the shower. I bet he's even bigger than Huw. The feeling in my dick was growing more and more intense when suddenly there was a huge explosion inside me and I saw stars. I was covered with warm sticky jizz, my own this time. I had just achieved my first wank and I dedicated it to Tim. I scooped some up on my finger and tasted it. It was different from Huw's. Suddenly I was overcome with irresistible tiredness. I put the bedside light out and fell asleep, content in my own stickiness.
When I woke in the morning the stickiness had dried. Even my pubes were stuck together. I had to get into the shower. As the hot water trickled over my body it tickled my dick and aroused it. I thought of last night and felt like doing it again. I must keep this for tonight and I turned the cold water on to dampen my ardour. My dick shrivelled and my balls disappeared up inside my body.
So in the Spring of my first year at senior school I became a "man"! We talked about it amongst ourselves. A number of us became "men" during that year, even more in the second year. To be a "man" we had to have successfully jerked off; that was the status symbol of the junior years and there were searching questions if anyone suspected that you were claiming to have passed this rite of passage without having done so. Ollie and I kept very much in step with each other as we went through adolescence although I seem to remember that because his hair was dark he started shaving some time before I needed to. We were best friends and we shared our secrets. However, I still had some business to complete with Huw.
Village cricket was not so well organised and structured as club rugby. For a start the age groups weren't separated so rigidly. I only played for the village in the holidays when I had no school commitments. Because a cricket match can last several hours and whatever time it began it would usually go on until seven my parents wouldn't allow me to play for both teams in term time and the school came first. In July and August there were usually regular team members away on holiday and they were more than willing to allow me to make up the numbers. This one August Sunday I'd got out early - a silly wicket really. I'd taken my eye off the ball and was bowled. We were batting second and so it was just a matter of hanging around until the end of the game. I was lying back on a grassy bank watching the game when Huw came and sat down beside me after his innings had ended with a catch. We got chatting and the subject of an unfulfilled promise from the rugby match last season came up.
"Are you up for it, Rick?" I nodded. "I know where we can go." We got onto our feet and Huw led me over to the scorebox on the other pitch. It was never locked and we disappeared inside. It was dark, but our eyes soon got accustomed to the gloom. I was already half hard in anticipation. He undid my cricket whites and felt me through my jockstrap. "My, you've grown since the rugby season." I smiled feeling flattered. Unless you get the ruler out every week it's not really something you notice for yourself.
"Are you going to toss me off, Huw?"
"I've got something better than that for you," he replied, slipped my jock down to my ankles, knelt down in front of me and started licking my balls and my cock. The feeling was indescribable and only got better when he started taking my cock in his mouth. Finally I could hold back no longer and shot my load straight into his mouth. He was a gentleman and swallowed. "You taste good, you know, Rick." I dressed and made to go. "Hey, where are you going? We're not finished yet. Wouldn't you like to do me?"
"Will you let me, Huw?"
"Of course. I wouldn't want it otherwise," and he lowered his whites and his jock. Somehow he didn't look so big as he had the time before. I did to him what he'd just done to me except that when he came off I couldn't hold him and his spunk spurted all over my face. It felt so hot. I wiped it off with my handkerchief and we slipped quietly out of the scorebox. I went into the pavilion to wash my face in the changing room. Huw and I returned to the grassy bank and reclined there watching the rest of the game. That night I lay in bed thinking about what had happened with Huw. It made me stiffen up again, but in those days I was so inexperienced that I didn't dare touch myself, afraid I might run out of spunk.
The following term I returned to school. The newness had worn off to be replaced by the feeling of a little seniority. Ollie and I took up where we'd left off as best mates even though we hadn't seen each other over the summer holidays. We still had to wait until Friday afternoon for our first games lesson, but since we were the big boys now we went to the sportsfields, got changed and as we ran out onto the pitch saw this year's entry of new boys getting the 'You get wet' talk. Our first school match was in a week's time and were we unfit! Even me although I had already started training with the club. I think we were all aching as we tried to ease our discomfort under the showers. That was the first opportunity Ollie and I had had for checking each other out. We were both impressed with what we saw and I could have sworn that he had been shaving and styling his pubes.
"Are you two gays… I mean guys at it again already?" I heard Alex's voice shout at us. Ollie put his hand up between his legs and lifted up his balls.
"You're not doing so badly yourself, either, Alex," he said.
I just said "Arrange the following words into a well known phrase or saying. Off… piss!" I lost that encounter. Both Ollie and Alex got the best part of the deal. I wasn't selected as captain that season. Mixed feelings. It's a blow to the ego to be deselected or sacked, but it meant I could concentrate on my own game. Still, we had a different games master in charge and looking back over all these years I can now appreciate that he had to organise things his way. Of course it was two different seniors who were helping out. In fact that year the only times I saw Tim was when we bumped into each other in the corridors or the dining hall. His activities were largely confined to the sixth form centre which was strictly off limits to us lowlife in the school hierarchy.
It wasn't until that night when I was lying in bed contemplating whether to give my right wrist some nocturnal physio and going over the events of the day that it struck me what Alex had said: 'Are you two gayboys at it again already?' Of course we bandied the word gay around in normal conversation amongst ourselves. Sometimes it meant no more than stupid. But it was obvious that Ollie and I were regarded as gay. This was a revelation. It had never occurred to me that what I had done with Ollie or Huw was gay. I was suddenly reminded of having lost my innocence. On the other hand it didn't worry me. What concerned me more was that we had a 'voluntary' rugby training session at school the next day, voluntary that is, unless you wanted to be in the team the following Saturday in which case it became highly compulsory. If you didn't want your team place there was always someone else who did. In fact I fell asleep without getting as far as the intended exercise for my wrist. I caught up with that in the shower in the morning.
In my second year PSE (Personal & Social Education) improved. The previous year we had a woman teacher, strangely called Mrs Gooseherd, but that's by the way. She exhorted us to tell her everything 'in confidence' with the result that no one, particularly the boys, told her anything. It seemed that she was just interested in gleaning gossip for her own titillation. In the second year the boys were separated from the girls as we embarked on a more advanced course of sex education, us with a male teacher, the girls with a female one, and occasionally we would combine for discussions on topics of mutual interest. It was during that year that it became clear to me that not only might I well be gay, but also Ollie and three or four others in the class, well over the ten per cent average which was considered the norm, but then that's what averages are about. Ollie agreed with me on the topic and we were certain that Jack and Ben were while it was generally acknowledged that David was just a perve, and as such bi. I think it must have been the quality of the teaching, for we 'gayboys' did not feel outcasts and certainly none of us were ostracised or bullied. On the other hand Ollie and I were socially accepted for our sporting ability while Jack and Ben were accepted on their ability in music. But to repeat the point this was that time in our lives where Ollie and I both realised and admitted to ourselves and to each other, that we were gay, and what's more we were enjoying our limited experiences of it.
I don't know if it was the same for other year groups, but I certainly noticed that while the boys and the girls 'got on' together there was not a lot of cross-socialising. In our second year that could be put down to our age, but it continued through until we left school at eighteen. It must be said that we boys were very sport orientated, while the girls were interested in whatever the girls were interested in. Even when our str8 companions started pairing off it was with girls from other years or outside school. We boys had a very strong community spirit of all for one and one for all and it worked for us all the way through. I think it was why at this age I could put the idea of being gay to the back of my head. It wasn't important and any sexual encounters were either on the level of checking each other out or horseplay. Things, however, were in the third year to become a little more intense. To begin with Tim became out form prefect and so I saw him every day at registration. I never asked the question whether he had requested us as his tutor group, probably for fear of his saying no. I confess I talked to him a lot, loved being in his company and was teased mercilessly for it, but I didn't care. I had too much of a crush on him to perceive that he might conceivably share some of that passion, although with hindsight I don't think he would have tolerated me if he didn't. I was too busy tarting in front of him to realise that at times he might be tarting in front of me. There was no sexual contact between us, contact maybe with little touches here and there and eventually during that year my sexual experiences were going to be provided by Ollie.
He organised a party for the boys of the tutor group and the rugby squad at his house which was reasonably large with its own land attached. It had to be to accommodate his family. He was the youngest with two sisters and a brother. It was down to our age I suppose that as a group of teenagers we talked dirty about sex, particularly jerking off and blowjobs and we were so hyped up at that party that I ended up giving Ollie a blowjob in front of everyone circled around us and clapping us one. It would have been the talk of the school, had not in the course of the continuing jollifications Jack fallen as he tried to get over a small fence and broken his ankle. Although well hidden Ollie's parents were on hand and Jack was duly dispatched to hospital and his parents alerted. Ben offered to go with him or he would have had a miserable night on his own - as opposed to a miserable night with Jack in A& E. We had planned a sleepover and when everything finally quietened down Ollie took me up to his room, locked the door and I spent the night on/in bed with him rather than in a sleeping bag on a hard floor. There we could exchange blowjobs without being disturbed. Although it didn't happen that night it did lay the foundations for going further as we began to spend more time together whenever rugby allowed, for although we played for different clubs we made sure our priorities were right - rugby first, sex second. We might be gay, but we were also full-blooded teenagers with our heads screwed on properly.
My third year at senior school was probably the happiest year of my school life. We weren't at the bottom of the heap, yet we had few responsibilities. The work load would increase dramatically the following year as we seriously started out on our GCSE courses. Socially we were a good mix and Tim was my heartthrob and form prefect. I have to admit to a large gap in my heart when at the end of that school year Tim left to continue his studies at university. My parents noticed that I was still down when we disappeared off on holiday and it came to a head when we were sitting on the beach in Spain.
"Richard, is everything okay?"
My natural reaction was to say "Yes, why are you asking?" They gave me the answer that I expected, that I was not my usual ebullient self and hadn't been since school broke up. I have always had a good open relationship with my parents and we could talk.
"Is it something that happened at school?" my father asked. I nodded - that was the extent of the communication for the moment.
"Tell us if we're barking up the wrong tree," said my mother "but we've been talking to Ollie's mother." My heart started to race in an adrenaline rush. OMG, what was going to come out now? This would have been during a school cricket match. In our year school sport was quite a social event for the parents and now that they had known each other for three years the social bond was very strong and of course the mothers gossiped. "Mrs S..... told us her daughter had said something and when they asked their elder son he confirmed it - that Ollie was gay and when she talked to him about he said he thought he was." At that stage I just dissolved into tears, got up and ran into the sea so that the people around us couldn't hear me. At least you can't tell the difference on a face between the salt water of the sea and the salt water of tears. After five minutes my father came into the water, put his arm round my shoulder and gently led me back to where we had our parasol and loungers. He laid me down on the middle one and handed me a towel. The sea had made me feel better.
"Yes, Ollie is and we've talked about it and I think I am too. No, I know I am. So now you know," I added defiantly.
"We wondered, especially as he's your best friend," said my mother.
"I think it's time for an ice cream," my father suggested before things got too fraught. As we walked up the beach to the café Dad kept his arm round my shoulder which I now realise was a symbol of his acceptance of me as I was, as I am. While we were sitting over our ice cream sundaes, I could explain, not about Ollie and me, - after all my parents didn't tell me about their sex life, so I felt under no obligation to talk about mine - but about Tim, how I adored him and looked up to him and how now he had disappeared from my life. When we returned to our sun loungers, carefully draped with our towels in case there were any predatory Germans searching out sunbeds for theirs, I felt that a burden had been removed, that this little hiccup in my life could have turned out a lot worse and in general I was relieved. I could start to enjoy the holiday. I was now out to the family, by default I was out at school and with the strength of support I received I was ready to face the world which basically meant being out at the rugby club and out in the village. To be honest I didn't notice any change in people's attitude towards me. Perhaps that was a token of the respect my parents were held in.
Back to school in September, now in the fourth form (Year 10), harder work, but it was the rugby season again. Even over the short space of the summer holidays we had all conspicuously grown and U15 rugby was a noticeably tougher game. The highlight we had to look forward to was a short tour to Wales over half term, three games in five days. Apart from the matches, which we lost 2-1, a further proof of our growing up were a couple of sexual adventures which are chronicled in the parallel story to this. After that Ollie and I believed ourselves really grown up and able to take on the gay world. It was probably to our good that we never had our bluff called. We always remained best friends, but we never became boyfriends or lovers, not that that stopped us from doing stuff together, but more importantly it didn't stop us from doing stuff with others. (School)life continued as it does. Fifth form, U16s, senior rugby, coaching the juniors and **yeay** white shorts, GCSEs, sixth form, 2nd and then 1st XV rugby, A-levels and afterwards like Tim I left school, except unlike him to the best of my knowledge I didn't leave any broken hearts behind.
But interspersed in all this I had that significant school trip to India, significant for the fact that while I was getting my kit together who should I meet in the gents' outfitters, but Tim. That was some years on, but I had never forgotten him. Indeed it created a spark that rekindled an old flame. He hadn't altered except that we were now of almost equal height. I recounted that I was going to India to help construct a school in the foothills of the Himalayas, followed by a bit of tourism including the Taj Mahal. I was overjoyed to say yes when he asked me to send him a postcard and he gave me his address, and that was it except for the flame rekindled in my heart. After India I went off to university, after graduating I studied law as a postgraduate. I took part in LGTB activities (as well as playing rugby), but apart from odd weekends and one night stands I couldn't settle with a regular boyfriend. The strange thing was that while the rugby players easily accepted a gay in their midst - your standard of rugby was what they judged you by and I'm not saying I didn't get the piss taken out of me for, thank goodness, rugby players stubbornly remained non PC - it was harder for the LGTB types to accept a butch rugby player. I could not get Tim out of my head and while at home for one of the vacations I was sorting through my belongings which included stuff from India. That's when I came across the scrap of paper with Tim's name and address on it. I literally sat there, it could have been an hour, it could have been half an hour, until I worked up the resolve to telephone him. My parents were away on business, so I was a free agent. When he answered the phone I don't know who was the more overjoyed.
Naturally I had changed since the time I was a junior boy at school and was better prepared to manipulate the issue. I'd be in town the following day, but with parents away I was stuck for transport for although I could drive, I had no car. Buses couldn't negotiate the narrow lanes and so it was a three mile walk between our village and the main road. We had a neighbour who worked in the city and I could get a lift in with him and back again when he commuted, but once Tim said he would take me home the opportunities were boundless and that's when I started my scheming. At the time I overlooked the fact that I had made one great assumption, and even this late in my plans I did not question it, my assumption that Tim was gay. My gaydar would have warned me if he hadn't been and also wasn't he as keen to see me as I was to see him? I had to be devious, but not only that. I had to think on my feet as the possibilities presented themselves or disappeared. Although not a chess player myself I came to appreciate how chess players' minds worked, anticipating all the possible moves and countermoves. If only I could get him to stay the night… But first I needed to be sure that he was gay. Or did I? From my school and university days I still remember that great feeling of satisfaction I used to gain from getting a str8 guy into bed. Anyway, all that was speculation, to be resolved when we finally met and he took me into a hug and kissed me on the cheek. I pushed my luck by returning the kiss on his lips. From that moment on it was all downhill. I just needed to persuade him to stay overnight. A glass of whisky would provide a very good reason why he shouldn't drive home that night and when he left his car keys on the kitchen table, that was simply manna from heaven, the perfect reason why he should stay - lost car keys - an affirmation that we were in fact destined to spend the night together. By the following morning we had bonded, confirmed by the note I was to receive, not only thanking me for hospitality, but also for the little services and considerations over and above the duties of hospitality, 'with all my love, your affectionate Tim'.
That academic year I buried myself in my post grad work. If I could not make love with my Tim, I did not want to have sex with anybody, although admittedly it meant Madam Palm making a frequent visit. University rugby therefore became my passion. Every letter, phone call and e-mail I received from him encouraged me to be patient. The Christmas vacation was short and we only saw each other once. Again our relationship seemed to have Heaven smiling on it when that heavy snowfall cut the village off from the main road. Although I was convinced we had bonded we had never declared ourselves to be an item and with the benefit of hindsight I discovered that Tim was so apprehensive about imposing himself on me lest he might scare me off. At the same time I believed it had to be a matter of slowly, slowly catchee monkey. If only I had known…
Finally the time came when I had no more studies, did have an advanced professional qualification, but no job, and had a ten day holiday to be shared with the boy, or rather the man, I loved. I know I had an agenda - hidden is not quite the precise word, secondary maybe - for those days together and I trusted Tim would have the same one.
It ended up that we had made the right choice, the right combination of something to see and something to learn, the responsibility of being at the right place at the right time, conducive accommodation and company mixing with other people so that we didn't turn in on ourselves, and of course generous free time. Because of an early checking in time for our flight we had to stay overnight in a hotel close to the airport and this set the seal on sharing a bed and naturally our bodies. Perhaps it came as a surprise to me that Tim could be so inexperienced in matters sexual. How could such a good looking convinced homosexual young man go through school and university so unscathed, but perhaps I should be pleased, nay honoured, to have such a discerning boy as my partner. Those first few days in Lithuania tried my patience, I must admit, but patient I was determined to be because so much depended on it, and I make it clear that the impatience was with myself, not with Tim. Klaipeda will always be impressed on my memory as the place where Tim and I first conjoined and Tallinn as the city where we bought and exchanged necklaces, amber in a silver pendant on leather thongs. We considered it premature to exchange rings, finger rings that is, cockrings might come later, but we were so ardent for one another that we didn't need them. My stratagem had succeeded, but it couldn't simply stop there for it had become patently clear how compatible we were together. We now had to look to the future. I was settled insofar as I now had a job, it was in the same city as Tim's and that would form no barrier to our meeting. Did I really want to stay at home with Mum and Dad? After five years of university I had developed the taste of freedom and I knew they had too. If this holiday continued to work out, was it so far beyond the bounds of either reality or imagination that Tim and I should live together? In many ways our time in the Baltic states became a bit of a blur for me, but I could not forget the final ni ght when we invited our self-professed str8 waiter at the mediæval feast back to the hotel and initiated him in the ways of us gayboys. I don't want to be accused of evangelising, but seducing a str8 guy is for me a highly satisfying achievement. Our teamwork convinced me that Tim and I were a couple made in heaven. It wasn't until the flight home that I finally plucked up the courage to ask him if I could move in with him. His reaction was a mixture of 'why didn't you ask before?' and 'why didn't I manage to ask him first if he'd like to move in?'. Squashed up in our seats we put our arms round each other and tried to snuggle together held as we were in our seat belts. The chap in the aisle seat smiled to himself as if he fully appreciated the situation. To confirm the arrangement I telephoned my parents from the airport to say that I wouldn't be home that night, but would be staying at Tim's and would see them in the morning. For me that was highly symbolic of the union we had made. On the practical side it convinced Tim that we would have to buy a double bed before I came to live there on a permanent basis.
We spent a busy July doing it ourselves getting his house ready. While I was free until my job started in August Tim had to return to work, but at least we could sleep at my parents' house while they were away on holiday. From August onwards there was very little to say except that we had every expectation of living happily ever after.
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