Opposites Attract

by Hamster

Part 1: Rupert

Rupert Harrington-Smith, known to everyone as Harry, was a very fortunate sixteen year old boy. He came from a privileged family who lived in a beautiful Georgian terrace house in Islington. His father worked in the City in the banking sector, his mother was an interior designer. Their house had been completely remodelled and was modern with a spacious living room, a large dining room and a state of the art kitchen that opened up onto a terrace and a long garden with a lawn and herbaceous borders on either side. Upstairs were several en suite bedrooms, the bathrooms fitted with stylish showers. The couple entertained frequently, with Rupert's mother renowned as an excellent cook, serving expensive wines and liqueurs to their guests so that they were considered pretty much an A-list when it came to dining out. It was a life of luxury, Rupert never lacked anything and it meant he never had to mingle with people who weren't in the same social circle. He wasn't stuck up, he was just comfortable with people of similar backgrounds, and he knew nothing else.

As a younger boy Rupert had attended a private school and his nanny had walked him there in the mornings, met him after school, and looked after him until his parents came home from work. But at age seven his parents had decided to send him to a prep school in the country where he boarded until he reached the age of thirteen. Then he transferred to be a boarder at an all boys public school, one of the best but not quite elite.

Because his school was expensive, the facilities were excellent. There was a modern classroom block, and each boy was assigned to a House where they slept in double rooms until they reached the Sixth form when they had their own rooms. Each House had good recreational facilities including pool tables, ping pong, darts, board games and a wide selection of DVDs for music and films. Each House had a Housemaster who oversaw the boys, made sure they were content, settled inevitable disputes, and mentored them as they grew up.

The school offered a wide range of elective subjects to complement the core courses, it encouraged arts and music and sports, taught pupils to be independent and creative, and had hired excellent teachers and coaches. The food was very good, with a wide selection of dishes at every meal so that they catered for all diets, allergies and religious restrictions. Outdoor facilities included an Olympic length swimming pool, a hard surface running track, and separate fields for rugby, football, hockey and cricket. There were clay tennis courts, a fives court, basketball courts and a fitness circuit. And there was a horse barn where a few boys kept their horses and rode in an arena laid out for showjumping.

All in all, the school provided a pretty luxurious life for the boys, and there really weren't many complaints from them. After all, most boys, including Rupert, had been boarders since they were seven or eight, and they recognised they had a much better life than many of their counterparts at less well equipped establishments. Equally important, parents who were paying almost obscene amounts of money for their boys' education felt comfortable insofar as they knew their sons were well treated, were being given a good education, and could be almost certain of going to the best universities when they had finished their A level exams.

Rupert had taken full advantage of the privileges on offer. He had excellent marks in almost all subjects, although his favourites were literature and art. He played the violin reasonably well, he spoke passable French, he participated in school plays, he was quite good at tennis and hockey, he sang in the school choir, he was in the debating society, and was considered to be a model pupil by his teachers. His parents were delighted with his progress, and lavished him with the latest electronic gadgets and phones as rewards for his outstanding school reports.

To add insult to injury for average boys, Rupert was very, very good looking. Some would say he was very handsome, others would say he was beautiful. He must have had Nordic ancestors as he had an elfin look with blond hair that was almost white, cut and feathered so that it was always tidy, slightly longer in the back but never below his collar, cornflower blue eyes with long, curved eyelashes, red lips and a set of gleaming white teeth. Recently he had had a growth spurt and was now about 5'8", slim but with shoulders that had broadened a bit, a delicate musculature, nice legs with just a smattering of fine blond hairs you could hardly see, and ivory white skin where he wasn't tanned from vacations in France and the Greek islands. If he walked down a street, heads turned to look at him, men and women, boys and girls. He could have been a model, but his parents didn't want him to be part of that world.

But when you watched him as he walked along, you soon got the feeling that he was a little effeminate. He didn't quite mince when he walked but he walked with shorter steps than you would expect for a boy of that height. And if you looked closely you could see his fingers were very long and delicate with beautifully manicured nails, his gestures were not quite what you'd expect from a regular adolescent boy, not that he had limp wrists but it was very nearly like that. In addition, after classes when boys could shed their regulation blue blazers and school ties and wear clothes of their own choice, he normally dressed in pastel shades of shirts and hoodies rather than the primary colours most boys favoured.

Rupert didn't mind if people thought about him as slightly effeminate because he knew he was gay. He'd known from an early age, and he was perfectly happy to go to an all boys school. He didn't like girls, he found them shallow and flighty, and he wasn't physically attracted to them. Admittedly, he'd been in all boys schools for the past nine years, so he hadn't had much opportunity to meet girls, but when he looked at porn online heterosexual videos did nothing for him, while homosexual ones fascinated him.

Further, and to his great joy, boys were required to shower after sports, using the large communal showers in the sports centre. This gave Rupert the chance to check out all the boys two or three times a week. He loved seeing the range in sizes of boys' cocks, ranging from small and hairless ones to pubescent boys with their first growth of pubes, and then upwards to older boys who had more hair on their legs, arms and armpits and in their groin. And Rupert could look with impunity because everyone knew he was gay. Most boys were very cautious about staring at other boys' junk, but Rupert didn't need to be. When he was about twelve he had been caught staring at an older boy's rather attractive cock, had been accused of being gay, and hadn't bothered to deny it. He did that on purpose because Rupert already knew he liked sex and messing about with other boys, and he decided, rightly or wrongly, that if other boys knew he was gay, he might get more chances to mess about.

It turned out Rupert was correct in his assumption because it wasn't long before Rupert got a reputation for being an available bottom. Adolescent boys aren't always keen on being a bottom when it comes to anal sex, but Rupert had learned to like it and almost craved it. And most boys, gay or straight, were happy enough to be a top when the opportunity arose. Rupert had one rule about choosing who could take advantage of him. He decided that he would choose who could join him in bed, and he never agreed to sleep with people who asked. His modus operandi was to have a look round the naked boys in the shower, decide who he would like to sleep with, give him a nod and a wink, and wait until after lights out for the lucky boy to slip into bed next to him. And because Rupert had had a lot of experience, it's probably true that the lucky boy went back to his room hoping that Rupert would invite him back soon, because sex with Rupert was always good. He bordered on being a slut but because he was selective in who he slept with he wasn't considered freely available.

The one activity that Rupert really enjoyed, other than being a bottom, was drawing. He had a real talent for composing accurate drawings of people, animals, flowers, trees, cars: you name it, he could draw it. It helped Rupert that he had an almost photographic memory, so even if he hadn't got time to complete a sketch before the subject disappeared, he was able to complete the work later without difficulty. Other pupils loved to look at sketches Rupert had made of them, and it became a minor source of income for him. He had drawn a sketch of a boy who had taken it home and shown the slightly creased image to his parents. They liked it so much that they got in touch with Rupert and offered him a hundred pounds if he could make a fresh copy. He did so, and he got several other commissions.

Rupert would let other boys go through his sketchbook. But he never let them know about his other secret sketchbook: that was kept hidden in a secret place under lock and key. The reason was that Rupert had decided to keep a sort of almanac of his sex life. Each page was devoted to a boy who had slept with him. There was a sketch of the boy's face, a full length sketch of the boy in the shower and, as lifelike and lifesize as possible, a sketch of the boy's penis when it was fully erect. Some boys had several pages devoted to them because Rupert wanted to keep a record of how the boy matured, starting with those small hairless cocks and passing through one or two stages before reaching maturity, or leaving school. Rupert treasured the secret sketchbook, he felt it was his finest artistic creation.

One summer afternoon when boys were allowed to go outside for walks or pick-up ball games, or go swimming, all with little or no supervision, Rupert decided to go to the horse barn and draw one of the horses that belonged to a friend of his. He had made a deal that if he sketched the boy's horse for him, his parents would pay him for it. As it was warm, he dressed only in a tee shirt, shorts and Crocs. He picked up his sketchbook and walked up to the horse barn. He had hoped that the horse he wanted to sketch would be out on the pasture where the horses grazed, but he found the horse was in his stall inside the barn. He called out, but nobody answered, so he entered the barn, sat on a hay bale on the floor opposite the stall where the horse was, and started sketching.

Part 2: Tom

Tom Williams was a farm boy. His dad had farmed for a while but when he found it too demanding physically, he got a job looking after horses, and he'd trained Tom as his apprentice. When Tom left school his dad managed to get Tom a job as the stable boy at the equestrian centre of the boarding school, with responsibilities to keep the stables and saddlery clean and tidy. It wasn't too demanding physically apart from lifting hay bales and mucking out the stalls, and it wasn't at all challenging mentally. That suited Tom just fine, and he did a good job for the equestrian centre.

He'd gone to the local primary school, followed by a spell at the comprehensive. He was a really bad student, he didn't want to learn, he was known as a persistent truant, he had a reputation for being a bully, he was disruptive in class, he was caught smoking and even drinking many times, so the school authorities were perfectly happy to see him leave at the first opportunity. He could just about read and write, but was hardly able to do anything involving numbers.

Tom would be best described as a chav or a lager lout. Friday and Saturday nights were spent drinking, kicking beer cans around, shouting and singing, harassing innocent passersby, trying and sometimes succeeding to fuck one of the slags who were part of the group of rather undesirable young men and women that hung out together. Tom liked fucking but he didn't get laid that often. The highlights of his life were periodic fights with similar groups of people in neighbouring villages, none of which were serious but did result in a number of cuts and bruises.

Tom had been warned on the very first day at the school that he was not to have contact with any of the boys except those who had horses, and even then he was told to keep contact to the bare minimum. If he could restrict his conversation with the boys to 'yes, sir' or 'no, sir' then he would do well in his job. If he showed any sign of aggression to the boys, then he would be fired on the spot. Although that sounded very difficult, Tom didn't have a problem. He was naturally taciturn to the point of being gruff, and he disliked the boys he met. He thought them stuck up, elitist, rude and, sometimes fairly, to be little faggots. But he had learned that he just had to obey their orders, and get on with the job without complaining.

Tom hated faggots. He hated blacks and Asians, he wanted them all to go home. He was glad that somebody had the balls to make Brexit happen so we didn't have to listen to all those frogs and krauts and eyeties telling Britons what they could and couldn't do. He thought the country would be better if it was run by white for whites, and that there should be no place for homosexuals and lesbians or anyone else with deviant or alternative lifestyles. The concept of transexuality was beyond him. Why would anyone want to change their sex? It's hardly surprising to find that Tom liked the National Front, and that he thought Nigel Farage would be a good person to lead the country.

You could pretty much tell Tom was a farm boy just by looking at him. He had dark, messy and somewhat greasy hair, weather beaten skin with a few scars from fights in other villages, signs of moustache beginning to grow on his upper lip, he had stubble on his chin and cheeks most days because he didn't normally bother to shave, he had dirt under his fingernails, his street clothes were shabby, they didn't fit very well, he had nice bovver boots that helped in the fights, he always wore a hoodie with the hood half covering his face. He was the sort of person that made ordinary citizens cross the street or suddenly go into a shop to avoid close contact.

The one thing Tom had going for him was his physique. Farm work meant you had to be strong, and he was strong. He had no problems lifting hay bales, bags of feed, saddlery or shovelling shit into the cart. So he had filled out his 5'10" frame. His biceps were large, his legs were strong and, despite the prodigious amounts of canned beer he drank, he had a pretty good six pack. His legs were pretty hairy, as were his forearms. He was starting to get chest hair, and had a well defined treasure trail leading from his thick pubes up beyond his navel. But his prize possession was a thick and long cock that reached well over seven inches when he was fucking one of the slags behind the garage in the village. And, other than drinking beer and having fights, thrusting his rigid pole into slags' cunts was his most enjoyable activity. And most of the slags were happy enough to let him fuck them.

So one Saturday, a beautiful warm summer day, Tom was working in the barn. He was dressed in a tee shirt that may have been white once but was now pretty grubby, and a pair of jeans that were nearly worn out and also pretty grubby. His biceps stretched the arm holes of his tee shirt, which he had rolled up to make sure he didn't get hay or horse shit into his armpits. He was occupied with transferring a new delivery of hay bales into the hay store at the end of the barn. He was covered in sweat, and his tee shirt and the upper parts of his jeans were soaked. He loaded the last hay bale into the store, wiped his brow, and then went to check on the condition of the two horses that had stayed in the barn.

He went through the door into the central corridor, and the first thing he saw was a slight, blond little faggoty looking boy sitting on a hay bale and doing something with a pencil and a book. Tom was tired, he was thirsty, he wanted to go home and get ready for the evening's drinking, and for once, he forgot the rules.

"What the fuck are you doing? Get out, NOW!"

The boy jumped, he hadn't heard the farm boy coming, and the shouting scared him. "Um, I'm just drawing this horse. I'm not doing anything wrong!"

"It's not your fucking horse, so you're not allowed in here. Get out!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…"

"OUT! RIGHT NOW! And if I see you again, I'll deal with you properly. I'll enjoy taking my nice big dick and shoving it into your faggoty little lilywhite arse!"

Rupert took a long look at the dirty sweaty farm boy, who looked a great deal bigger and stronger than he was. Secretly Rupert fancied a bit of rough stuff, something he never got from the boys at school. He'd seen it on videos, and when he looked at the farm boy, he got an image in his head of being in the hay store on a horse blanket, while this well built looking thug fucked him. And once he'd got that vision in his head, he couldn't get rid of it.

"Is that a promise or a threat?" And he quickly got up and ran to the end of the barn. Then he stopped, gave a little wiggle with his bum, turned round and cupped his crotch. "See you soon!". And he disappeared.

Tom looked at the little faggot wiggling his arse and grabbing his junk and was disgusted. 'Jesus fucking Christ!' he whispered to himself, then he shrugged his shoulders, forgot about it, and tried to finish work quickly before going down to meet his mates and start getting drunk.

Part 3: Inevitability

Rupert thought about his brief encounter with the farm boy. It was like he'd seen a glimpse of an alien world. In Rupert's world everyone was nice and neat and tidy, they wore clean clothes (except for rugger and football), they used soap and shampoo and deodorant so they always smelled nice, they rarely shouted at each other and they did intellectual things like play chess and practising speaking to each other in French or German or Latin. Their lives were quite cerebral, with relatively low levels of drama and stress. Rupert had spent his whole life like that, he was very comfortable with it, but at the same time he had a little feeling in the pit of his stomach that his life was bland, lacking in real excitement. And when he went to bed the night of his encounter with the farm boy, he got hard thinking what it might be like to be fucked by somebody completely different, someone from a different walk of life, someone who was rough and dirty who would dominate him. So it was with those thoughts he relieved himself, he came quickly, and then fell asleep.

That feeling that his sex life was lacking excitement was strengthened a couple of days later. He had picked out a boy to sleep with who had one of the larger cocks, and when they went to bed he tried to get the boy to fuck him as hard as possible while pretending that it was the farm boy fucking him. But that didn't work. The boy who fucked him wasn't rough enough, he smelled of deodorant and aftershave, he wasn't really dominant. So Rupert began to think about how he might be able to meet the farm boy again and have sex with him.

In the end he came up with a plan. He had no expectations that the farm boy would find him attractive, and he had no expectations that, if they did have sex, the farm boy would indulge in any foreplay. Rupert was pretty certain that if he pissed the farm boy off enough he might get angry enough to fuck him, and if so he'd just plunge his cock into Rupert without any preparation, and that would hurt like hell. Fortunately, one of the things Rupert had done with the money he earned from drawing boys or their horses was to purchase a set of butt plugs and some penis dildoes of different sizes. He kept these carefully hidden and locked away but he used them quite frequently because boys in the dorm rooms didn't have much time to rim or finger Rupert before they fucked him. So most nights he would prepare himself in advance so that boys could enter him fairly quickly and without much pain. Sometimes he judged the size of a boy's penis incorrectly and it would either hurt more than Rupert really liked or, worse, he would be too open and hardly able to feel the boy's cock inside him.

The morning of his planned encounter with the farm boy, Rupert opened himself up with the largest of the butt plugs, got himself wide enough to use the largest of the dildoes, and spent the rest of the day with the butt plug firmly inside him. Then, taking his sketchbook with him, he went up to the horsebarn while his schoolmates were watching the first eleven play cricket against one of their rivals.

He had dressed as provocatively as possible. He had a pure white polo shirt with a little rainbow logo that he hoped made him look sweet and innocent, a pair of beautifully tailored pale pink shorts that emphasised his bubble butt and pushed his junk up and out to form a nice bulge in the front, a pair of rather girly light pink bikini briefs that could hardly contain his junk, and a pair of pale green crocs. He had washed and shampooed and conditioned his hair so it was light and bouncy. And when he was out of sight of his classmates he slipped on a rainbow bracelet onto his wrist. He wanted to look like a little gay tart, and he had succeeded. If he stood on any street corner in Soho he would have been picked up in minutes.

When he reached the horse barn he peeked inside the main door to see if the farm boy was there. Rupert couldn't see him, but then he saw him out in the paddock so he slipped inside the barn, picked up a blanket, went into the hay store, spread out the blanket, then went back into the main aisle of the barn, sat on the same hay bale, took out his notebook and pretended to be drawing. Shortly after that the farm boy walked into and saw Rupert.

"What the fuck? I told you to get out!"

"You said if I came back you were going to fuck me, so I'm all yours!" Rupert stood up, gave a rather limp wave to the farm boy, wiggled his butt and cupped his junk. "I bet you can't wait to get your dick inside me!"

"Get lost, you little faggot!"

"Why? You're going to love sticking your thing into my nice warm tight arsehole and shagging the hell out of me."

"Fuck off! I'm not gay!"

"I never said you were. I thought you'd be a good fuck, that's all."

"I can't stand you little poofters, flitting about the place like they were perfect. And anyway, if I fucked someone like you I'd split you open and you'd scream like a pig having it's balls cut off."

"You wouldn't split me open, I can take you, I bet you're not that big! In fact, I bet you're so small you can't please anyone. Yeah, that's right, Mr. Minidick!"

That made Tom mad. He grabbed Rupert by the arm and half dragged him into the hay store and kicked shut the door. "I'll show you!"

Rupert watched as Tom unbuttoned his jeans, pulled his zip down and pulled his half hard cock out of his boxers. "See? It's big, very big, and even though it's going to hurt you like hell I'm going to fuck you because I hate faggots like you."

Rupert got out of his shorts and took off his tee shirt in a flash so he was only wearing his little pink bikini briefs. Tom could see the little bitch was already hard, with a damp spot already forming. "Oh, you really want it, don't you, you little slut!"

"Wait. Two things, then you fuck me." Tom watched with amazement as the boy pulled a butt plug out of his arse, grabbed his pink shorts and took out a little bottle of lube, leaned over and lubed up Tom's now completely hard cock, put some in and around his hole, lay down on his back, pulled his legs up and grabbed his ankles. "Now fuck me! Hard!"

Tom couldn't resist. He aimed his just over seven inches of cock at Rupert's hole, pushed hard, and went right in up to his pubes. It hurt Rupert, but not as much as he had expected. Soon the pain went away and he started to begin to relish the feeling of this steel hard cock pumping in and out of his hole. And he loved the smell of the farm boy, a mixture of sweat and horses and hay, and he loved the strong grip of the farmboys hands as he pumped into him, and he loved it when the farm boy called him a little faggot and a dirty slut, and a no good poofter, and this made him even more turned on. So he kept on begging the farm boy. "Harder, harder!"

Tom started to really ram his cock into the boy, and he was surprised when the boy thrust back at him every time he sank his cock into that tight chute. The slags he was used to tended to just lie there, sometimes even smoking or taking slugs of beer while he fucked. This was a totally different experience and he found to his amazement it was better sex than anything he'd had before. He'd expect the little fag to cry and scream and beg him to stop, but instead he was being encouraged to go harder and faster.

All good things come to an end. After he'd had the farm boy inside him far longer than any of his schoolmates, Rupert began to feel the beginnings of his orgasm. And when he came, he cried out 'yesssss' very loudly, and spurted more spunk out than ever before, all over his face and chest and stomach in three huge ropes, and then dribbled more into his pubes.

The contractions of Rupert's hole when he came gripped Tom's cock and soon he started pumping his own spunk into the little fag's arse. When he had finish cumming, he tried to pull out, just like he would when he fucked a slag, but the boy had grabbed his arse and help him inside. And Tom felt the boy use his muscles to contract around his cock, and it felt good.

Eventually Tom softened and he slipped out of the boy. He rolled over so he was lying next to the boy. They were both looking at the ceiling of the barn. Rupert's normally tidy hair was mussed up, his gorgeous cornflower blue eyes were open wider than normal because of the intensity of the orgasm he'd just had, and he had a very happy and contented look on his face. Tom lay there spent. He was still breathing heavily so his mouth was half open, his hair, as normal, was mussed up, and he was in turmoil inside: he'd just had the best sex of his life, and it was with a faggot. If his friends ever found out, he'd be scared because they'd never want to see him again after they'd beaten him to pulp. They lay like that for several minutes, staring up at the ceiling, each lost in their own thoughts.

Still lying on his back, Tom watched with amazement at this little ponce who had been fucked really hard and hadn't whimpered or cried out calmly sat up, got onto his knees, picked up the butt plug and reinserted it so he wouldn't leak spunk out onto his briefs and shorts, he got a handkerchief out of his shorts, wiped off the spunk from his face, chest and stomach, leaned over and wiped the farm boy's cock clean, then he stood up, picked up his girly bikini briefs and pulled them up, adjusted his junk so he was comfortable, stepped into his shorts, did up the button and zip, dusted his shorts off to make sure there wasn't any hay on them, shook out his polo shirt to get rid of any hay, pulled that on over his head, took off his rainbow bracelet and put it in his pocket, picked up the handkerchief and the bottle of lube and put those back into his pockets, slipped on his crocs, finger combed his hair back into respectable condition, picked up his sketchbook, looked around to see if he'd left anything behind, moved towards the door of the hay store and then he turned around. Not a word had been said between them since they had finished having sex.

He looked at the farm boy who was watching every move that Rupert made. He was still lying on his back, wearing his dirty tee shirt and his jeans and boxers pushed down below his knees, still wearing his wellington boots, and his now limp cock lying sideways in its thick nest of pubic hair.

Rupert smiled at him. "Same time next week?" Tom just nodded.

Part 4: Opposites Attract

And so began a rather unusual relationship between Rupert and Tom. They were never in love: Tom was completely straight and couldn't ever fall in love with another man. And their relationship wasn't really emotional because they never discussed their feelings for each other. But what there was, other than really good sex, and what bound them together, was a great deal of mutual respect. During one of their early encounters in the hay store, Rupert learned that what Tom really wanted to do was breed and train horses, but when his father had approached the manager of the local stud farm, he was told Tom needed to have his GCSEs before the owner would hire him. When Rupert learned this he coaxed and cajoled Tom into enrolling at the Community College on the understanding that Rupert would be his coach and tutor, and help him pass those exams.

So, in addition to their sexual activities in the hay store, which they managed as often as possible (not often enough for Rupert but school activities got in the way), Rupert got permission from the Director of the Equestrian Centre to spend an hour a day tutoring Tom.

Rupert developed a great respect for Tom. He learned how much Tom loved horses, and he was greatly impressed how Tom seemed to talk to the horses, and the horses seemed to understand. Whenever Tom walked into the stables the horses seemed to smile and all wanted Tom's attention. But more importantly, Rupert developed respect for Tom who persevered at his studies despite the fact he wasn't a good student. But Tom wouldn't give up, the goal of getting his GCSEs was too strong an incentive to give up, so he stuck at his lessons even though it was really hard for him. That determination made Rupert even more committed to helping Tom, and Tom responded by drifting away from his village friends, he stopped drinking and fighting, he stopped screwing the village sluts, and he spent more and more time at home studying.

Tom developed a great respect for Rupert. He learned that underneath that facade of a wimpy pansy dressed in pastel clothing, Rupert was tough as nails. Tom knew he hurt Rupert from time to time when they had sex, but Rupert never once showed any sign of weakness. Tom had expected him to simper and squeal and cry, but Rupert never once flinched. Tom began to understand that although Rupert was as gay as a goose, he was also a kind, gentle and generous person. He spent hours at Tom's side helping him with his studies when he could have been off playing with his friends at school, he was as patient as you could imagine when Tom struggled with English and Maths, and never once criticised Tom for his slowness in understanding his assignments. Tom slowly lost his prejudice against gay people because he saw that underneath everything, Rupert was a regular human being. Okay, Rupert preferred sex with males rather than females, something Tom never really understood, but otherwise he was just a normal person.

Their relationship lasted the rest of the school year. Rupert was headed for the Royal College of Art where he was going to pursue a career of graphic design, and he desperately hoped Tom would be successful in his GCSE exams that summer. On his last day of school Rupert went to say goodbye to Tom. They didn't have sex, but for the first time in their relationship they hugged. Rupert shed a few tears, Tom almost cried, they each thanked the other profusely for everything, and then Rupert walked back to school. Their relationship, strange as it was, was over.

Rupert was in London in late August, living at home until his university course started when he hoped to move into a flat with some of his classmates. He was so nervous, he couldn't sit down, he was desperately hoping for a FaceTime call from Tom because this was the day that students learned their GCSE results. He paced up and down, he just couldn't relax, he was a complete nervous wreck. The longer he waited, the more he feared Tom wouldn't call because he'd failed. He even raided the liquor cabinet and had a large gin and tonic which, if anything, made him even more nervous. The results had been out for hours and Tom hadn't called. Rupert began to fear the worst, his heart bled for Tom, so he had another stiff drink.

It wasn't until very late in the afternoon when he got the FaceTime call. Tom was in heaven: he'd passed, barely, but he'd passed, and he'd already called the manager of the stud farm and he'd been told he could have a trial starting next Monday to see if he'd fit in. Rupert just burst into tears, tears of joy, and this time Tom burst into tears as well. The two of them looked at each other and just cried. There was almost nothing they could say to each other, they once again thanked each other for everything, and then they hung up.

Four years later Rupert was driving from London to spend a few days with his partner Martin at Martin's home in Devon to celebrate Easter. He'd thought of stopping at his old school to catch up with some of his former teachers, but when he saw the sign for East Hampton Stud he abruptly changed his mind. He drove up to the stud farm, looking at a large number of very healthy looking horses in their paddocks along the driveway, parked in the visitor area and went into the reception. He asked to see the farm manager, and was directed to a nearby building.

The manager, Mr. Rawlings, greeted Rupert. "Good afternoon, sir, what can I do for you?"

"I'm sorry to bother you, sir, but it's actually a personal matter. A few years back you hired a young man, Tom Williams, and I was wondering what happened to him."

The manager laughed. "Tom Williams? Oh, he's still here, he's the best employee I've ever had. He knows horses better than anyone I've ever known. Do you want to meet him?"

"Yes, please!"

Mr. Rawlings walked over to the side door, opened it, and yelled "TOM! VISITOR FOR YOU!"

A few moments later Tom walked through the door, looked at Mr. Rawlings, then he saw Rupert. "HARRY!" And he rushed over and gave Rupert a huge hug.

"Excuse me, Mr. Rawlings, sir, this is the man what made me do all those exams so I could come and work here. Without him, sir, I wouldn't be here, I'd still be mucking out stables at that school of his. I owe him my life, sir!"

"Well, well, is that so? Harry, I think we both owe you. Tom here is a genius when it comes to horses, and I expect one day he'll be running the show here, and if you really got him through those exams, then we're all indebted to you."

"Thanks, Mr. Rawlings, yes, I suppose I did push him to get those exams. I know nothing about horses, but I always felt Tom understood them completely, and I wanted him to fulfil his dreams. I'm so happy it's worked out so well for everyone."

"Tom, why don't you and Harry take some time out and catch up. Have some tea while you're at it!"

"Thank you, Mr. Rawlings, sir, I'd like that."

And so Rupert and Tom sat down over a cup of tea. Tom learned Rupert had passed his exams at university with first class honours, had been appointed as a lecturer at the Royal School of Art, and had started his own graphic design company. He also learned that Rupert had a partner, Martin, a banker who was a couple of years older than Rupert, and that they were planning to get married.

Rupert learned that, in addition to loving his job and getting promoted and having a decent wage, Tom had met a girl and they'd fallen in love, they'd gotten married and were expecting their first baby in a couple of month's time.

"Harry, I'm the luckiest man in the world. I love my job, I love my wife, I'm going to be a father, it's all perfect. And it's all thanks to you." Then Tom looked rather sheepishly at Rupert. "Um, look, Harry, I'm not much of a religious person, I don't go to church or nothing, but, um, I'd like to ask you a favour."

"Of course, Tom, anything you want, it's yours."

"Um, would you be the godfather to our baby when it's born?"

Rupert almost burst into tears. "I'd love to, Tom, I can't think of anything I'd rather do!"

The End

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