A Boy Named James,
by Jolyon Lewes
Chapter 13
February 1965
Before I say any more about James I should explain that despite my sexual activity with him confined to stroking his superlative thighs and the occasional hug, I wasn't entirely bereft of more advanced antics but they weren't with him. On most Sundays during the school term I had an assignation with a boy called Jack. All boys had to attend church in the village for Sunday service at 11.00 am. This was over by noon and lunch in the refectory began at 1.00 pm, giving an hour's free time. Most boys, James included, would go to the common rooms to read, play games and generally mess about but young Jack would go straight from church to my room.
He was another boy who looked much younger than his age, seventeen and he was very naive, being teased about his childlike innocence in most matters. I can't remember how our arrangement began but it involved his coming up to my room and with no further ado, taking off his jacket and trousers and lying on my bed on his back, looking up at me and flashing his eyelashes while I took off my own trousers. I would then kneel astride him, tousle his fair hair and indulge in a bit of French kissing. In no time I'd have a raging hard-on so would move my hands to his juicy little bottom and kneed his buttocks with enthusiasm. We never touched each other's willies but it wasn't necessary because I would lie on top of him and ejaculate onto his belly usually making a mess on his shirt.
If he was able to spill seed he'd do it into his underpants and we'd lie face to face for a couple of minutes getting our breath back. Then he'd say thank you and I'd climb off him so he could put his uniform back on. He didn't seem to mind that his tummy was sticky and his shirt and pants were stained with semen and after thanking me again he'd leave my room and head off for lunch. I'd make sure my bedspread wasn't soiled and, giving him a five-minute start, make my own way to lunch. We didn't speak much during our assignations and rarely saw each other during the week.
He gave me a chance to do what I'd like to have done with James and I assume he got something pleasurable from these meetings. A few years later I met him by chance on a Tube train. We smiled and said a few words but that was it. We were like ships passing in the night.
But now, after that rather smutty interlude, it's back to the real thing, James. One of the first things he told me at the beginning of term was that on a day of Arctic temperatures in early January he'd had to attend a family christening in Cambridge in his Continental suit. Apparently, Linda had found on the jacket of his long-trousered suit evidence that he'd been sick so it had to go to the cleaners - again. James said he'd never felt so embarrassed, nor so cold.
I felt guilty about my malicious enjoyment of poor James's misfortunes at the christening but I can't deny that I enjoyed thinking about him in that suit again. Had his mother tightened his braces just before he entered the church? Of course she had. I decided that at my twenty-first birthday party, should it ever happen, I'd insist that James attend in his Continental suit. He'd be eighteen then and no doubt his parents would still insist he wore shorts at every opportunity.
In February we celebrated my nineteenth birthday by making a prolonged visit to a pub, using our bikes as usual but getting a lift back to school with a kindly local who had a Mini pick-up. Bikes in the back, James and I squeezed into the front passenger seat. And yes, we were in long trousers.
I knew I'd be spending the February half term at James's. The East Anglian weather that weekend was particularly cold. When we got to James's house we were given tea and then went up to his bedroom. Off came his school uniform and on went his grey prep school shorts. I changed into my long black cords. The house was cold so we put on thick sweaters. James told me his collection of prep school shorts had shrunk by one - the pair he'd worn on Christmas Day had given up the struggle and split at the centre seam, causing much hilarity among the assembled guests.
"Linda doesn't put out my clothes any more. I can wear what I like so long as it's bloody little shorts, unless my mother tells me I've got to wear one of my suits. Look, all my clothes are in my wardrobe now."
He showed me the shelves of shirts, sweaters, underwear, socks and sportswear and at eye height, a shelf holding what looked like dozens of grey cord shorts. Hanging on a rail were the light grey suit he'd earlier taken off, his dinner suit, his Continental suit, very coarse to the touch and even coarser to the touch, his tweed suit.
There weren't in fact dozens of grey cord shorts but just nine pairs, excluding the pair he was wearing. He pulled them out and lined them up on my bed.
"Like to choose a pair?" he said.
"You don't seriously want me to wear shorts all weekend?" I said, as my stomach tightened in that familiar old way.
"No - of course not! I want you to choose a pair to keep. You could wear it on our bike rides. And here as well, if you like."
"But what would your mother think?"
"It's her idea, Jols. She thinks you look good in shorts."
"But I'm nineteen!"
"Precisely. You're not old enough to vote so in her eyes you're still a boy."
"So does that mean she'll keep you in shorts till you're twenty-one?"
"Probably." He was smiling so I didn't think he was serious.
Mainly to please him I started to look at the collection of shorts, trying to find the longest. It wasn't easy but I found a pair that seemed slightly longer than the rest and picked it up.
"That's not fair," he said. "You can't have those. Pick another pair - you know my bum's bigger than yours. That's about the only pair that doesn't look indecent on me!"
So I chose another pair, thinking it would be suitable for any secret bike rides I might do in the future.
Strange though I found the regime at James's house, I was made most welcome and was even beginning to feel at home. On Friday evening James's sister Joan came from London for the weekend and on Saturday we all went to a very smart restaurant to mark my birthday, which had taken place a week or so earlier. It was kind of James's parents to be so generous and I enjoyed it very much. My enjoyment was enhanced by the knowledge that James too was enjoying himself, having been allowed to wear his long-trousered suit rather than shorts.
Back in his bedroom he described the incident on Christmas Day when the shorts he was wearing split at the seams and had to be thrown away.
"Hey, that's the answer!" I cried. "You say your mother wants to get every bit of wear out of your clothes so why don't you hasten the end of your prep school shorts by getting them to split?"
"Or I could grow too fat for them to fit," he said. "But that would take months and I've no intention of getting fat."
"You could wear them and do those funny squats and star-jumps like you do in the gym. That could get the shorts beyond their elastic limit and hey presto - a wrecked pair of shorts!"
"Nice idea, Jols. Or I could writhe about with you on my bed and that might have the same effect."
"That would be nice," I said. "A sort of supergrope."
"Don't count your chickens," he said, grinning cheekily.
On Sunday morning James forced himself into the tightest and shortest of his grey cord shorts. They left nothing to the imagination. He didn't even bother to try to tug the hems down like he did with his other shorts. I was surprised that his parents didn't comment on the huge chunk of bare bottom exposed by his shorts. Nor did Joan but I suppose they still thought as he was very much the baby of the family he didn't warrant any modesty.
We weren't going to church so James and I spent some time in the garden. Behind the summerhouse he got me to watch while he did lots of gymnastic exercises, as I'd suggested the night before but his shorts showed no sign of failure. We both admitted we were disappointed..
At 1.00 pm we all gathered in the drawing room prior to Sunday lunch. This time even James was given a glass of sherry. He sat with his right leg crossed over his left one and his tiny shorts had ridden so high that if the scratch on his right hip made a year ago by the brambles,had still been there, I'd have been able to see all of it. I tried not to look at him for fear of getting a hard-on I'd be unable to conceal.
As we walked to the dining room I couldn't fail to see that over three inches of James's right buttock were exposed. Those shorts were even more revealing than the ones in his Continental suit. As he took his seat at table there was a ripping sound.
I heard James mumble "Thank God for that!" Then he winked at me.
"Oh not again!" said James's mother as Joan failed to stifle a giggle.
James went upstairs and returned in cord shorts that were less tight but little longer than the ones he'd just wrecked.
"I've an idea," said James's father after lunch. "Let's have some cine films this afternoon. You'd like them, Jolyon."
I heard James groan.
James erected a screen in the drawing room and closed the curtains. Joan poked the fire, Mrs Ellis brought in a tray of coffee and Mr Ellis set up the projector. James sat between Joan and me on the sofa
The first scenes were shot in the summer of 1963. There was lots of tennis but the camera hadn't been held very steady so the players' movements seemed a bit jerky. I easily identified the fifteen-year-old James among the young players, all in immaculate white tennis kit. There was no sound. Then there was what looked like a garden party, with elegant ladies in flowery dresses and straw hats and men in cream linen jackets. There were children as formally dressed as their parents. Then a lingering shot of the only boy not in long trousers. It was, of course, James and yes, he was in his Continental suit. He was standing, with a tray of drinks in his left hand. His right hand was trying to tug the rear hem of his shorts down. How often I'd seen him do that!
The camera continued to linger on James and he turned to face it with a look that said 'Why me?' I experienced another surge of Schadenfreude. I know I shouldn't have felt malicious enjoyment at his misfortunes but I couldn't help it.
I glanced down at his bare thighs, shining in the light reflected off the screen. I thought they must be the most-viewed and most delicious thighs in the county.
The film flickered and paused and Mr Ellis attended to it. When he restarted it he said "Last Easter." More family scenes in the garden and then he said "You'll like this bit, Jolyon."
It was James dressed as a Roman emperor for the fancy dress party he'd told me about. He stood facing the camera, wearing a laurel crown and an ankle-length, sleeveless gown of shimmering cloth you could see through. Over the gown was a broad, purple sash and under the gown he was wearing a sleeveless shirt-like garment that finished at his crotch and had a gold- coloured rope around the waist. He wore nothing on his legs but had sandals on his feet.
James did a slow twirl for the camera. It was easy to see through the gown that the shirt thing reached only halfway down his bottom and you could see his little white underpants. He was holding the gown as if to keep it closed but can't have realised it made no difference - you could see everything. Harry Potter's invisibility cloak made him invisible, James's gown made him all too visible.
Mr Ellis stopped the film and put it into reverse, so we saw poor James twirling again but in the opposite direction. There was laughter. It wasn't cruel laughter but it must have hurt James and I instinctively patted his thigh to show support. Realising what I'd done I quickly pulled my hand away before anyone else could see. The film went forwards again and this time I joined in the laughter. This was Schadenfreude par excellence.
The cine film was now showing scenes during a garden party but of James there was no sign so he must have been at school. There was then a quite lengthy sequence apparently taken in September 1964 on Mrs Ellis's birthday. We saw about a dozen guests meeting in the garden for drinks before a black tie supper. The men were in dinner suits and the ladies in very smart dresses. James was there, smiling away in his dinner suit and looking immaculate.
Joan leaned towards me and "You'll love this bit, Jolyon."
Sandwiched between Joan and me, James said "No, he won't."
What we saw next was James holding a bottle of champagne. He looked at the camera and gave a cheerful smile and then began to shake the bottle, never a wise thing to do, especially with the bottle pointing at your chin. Sure enough, the cork shot out and James and his smart dinner suit was sprayed with champagne. We all laughed, bar James.
"Another trip to the cleaners for one of your suits, James," said Mrs Ellis.
A rather burly young man with about three chins was seen opening a bottle properly and refilling people's glasses. He looked pleased with himself and, I thought, rather smarmy. Soon afterwards the scene shifted to indoors and there were shots of people at the dining table. I saw that a glum-looking James was sitting beside the smarmy man and was no longer wearing a bow tie but an ordinary tie with blue stripes. Of course, he'd had to change his clothes and a minute or two later I was able to see he was in his Continental suit!
The meal was over and the action was now in the drawing room. James was seated on an occasional chair facing the camera and on his right was the smarmy man talking to him in what seemed an animated fashion. James had his knees apart and I glimpsed a flash of white between his legs, his underpants. As if on cue he suddenly crossed his right leg over his left one and I fancied Mrs Ellis must have just said 'legs crossed, James.' The poor boy looked very humiliated.
When the cine film was over James suggested another trip to the summerhouse. Sitting on its veranda I tried to get him to talk about the fancy dress costume but he wouldn't. He did, however, thank me for patting his leg.
"I knew when you did that you were sympathising with me. People are always touching my thighs and I hate it but you're different. You can do it any time."
"Thank you. After the champagne incident I noticed you had to wear the Continental suit. That must have been a blow to your morale."
"You're not kidding. I had a miserable evening but everyone else thought it was dead funny."
"Who was that smarmy-looking bloke talking to you?"
"Oh, that's CPS. He's the worst groper of all."
"So he must have been thrilled to see you in those shorts."
"Absolutely! He had a permanent hard-on. You couldn't miss it!"
"Talking of which, may I have a quick grope?"
"Be my guest. I can see you're having naughty thoughts."
James's thigh was firm and smooth; unbelievably smooth, in fact. I was in Heaven. I'd only run my hand slowly from his knee to the hem of his shorts twice before he spoke again.
"Bloody hell, it's happened again! That's two of us with whopping hard-ons! What's it about you that's so special?""
I had no comment to offer so I stroked his thigh once more and told him this man CPS clearly had good taste.
James said the man was a filthy pervert so I said no more other than that I was glad James didn't think of me as a pervert.
"You're not a pervert, Jols, you're my saviour. You say the things I want to hear and you always ask before you touch me."
"Not always," I said. "Look, we'd better get back. Your mother wants us all to watch a play on TV."
At bedtime James and I were getting ready for bed. He'd already given me one pair of his cord shorts but now he wanted to give me the pair he'd destroyed earlier.
"You don't need to wear them, you could just keep them as a souvenir."
So keep them I did, for many years, unwashed and lovely. In fact, I treasured them.
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