Walking the Wild Side
by Nigel Gordon
Chapter 2
I told my parents that I was going out for lunch on Sunday. When Mother wanted to know why, I told her I was meeting Tom to get some more information about Aston University. She was not happy about the fact I would be missing Sunday lunch. Mother still made a big thing of the whole family, all three of us, sitting down together for the meal. Dad told her to stop fussing, that I was at the age when I would start to make my own life outside of the family.
Friday was my day for swimming. Since as long as I could remember during the summer holidays, I had always gone swimming on a Friday. Usually it was with either John, Maddie's twin brother, or Simon, often both of them. We had all been in the same class at primary school and were mostly in the same classes in sixth form. It had started as kids, when our mothers dropped us off on a Friday morning at the swimming baths so they could go shopping together. Paying the costs of a couple of hours swimming was cheaper than employing child minders for the five of us.
Keith was the fifth. All our mothers being nurses at the local hospital back then. Keith Rogers had been the fifth member of the gang, but he had drifted away after our move to the comprehensive school, and he had left school at the end of last term, not opting for sixth form. Maddie was still part of the gang but had dropped out of swimming when she took up weight training.
If anything, John and Simon were my best friends, or at least they had been, but in the last couple of years they had grown more distant. Especially since they had got interested in girls. However, we still went swimming together.
So, I called round to pick up John just after eleven and gave him a pillion ride to the baths. Simon had his own bike and would meet us there. John and Maddie would not be seventeen till the middle of August, as neither could yet ride a motorbike and John said he would not be seen dead on a moped, Maddie did not care, all she wanted was wheels, so she had a moped. When we got to the baths Simon was waiting for us. All three of us had our trunks on under our streetwear, so it took only moments to get our stuff off, shoved into our bags and into the locker. A quick dash through the showers and we were out into the baths.
Surprisingly the baths were not as full as I had expected seeing that all the schools were out. It was the second week of the school holidays and I suspect most families were away for their annual holiday this week. Also, it was still a bit early; the main surge would come in after lunch, which was why we tried to be there in the morning.
I hate climbing down the steps into the water. When I was younger I would just run and jump in. That, however, was now not an option. First, they had started to clamp down hard on such activity for health and safety reasons. No running, no jumping in. Second, it was considered decidedly uncool behaviour amongst my peers. So I walked down the pool to the deep end, then dived in and glided underwater, coming up about a third of the way up the length of the baths. As I surfaced a voice behind me said nice dive. I turned to find myself facing Tom.
"Hi, Tom," I stammered.
"What's brought you here today?" Tom asked.
"It's Friday, we always come swimming on a Friday during the holidays," I replied.
"We?"
"John, Simon and me," I stated, looking towards the two boys who had climbed into the pool rather than dive and were now swimming towards me. "We have done since we met in primary school."
Just then Simon reached us. He surfaced and looked at Tom. "Hi, Steve."
This, I thought, is going to get confusing.
"Hi, Si," Tom replied. "You know that most of my friends call me Tom?"
"Yah, but I'm your cousin," Simon replied. "Anyway, you start calling me Simon and I'll start calling you Tom."
"You're Tom's cousin?" I blurted out.
"Yah, somebody has to be. Are you and Tom boyfriends?" Simon asked just as John reached us. I turned red.
"Why should you think that?" Tom asked.
"Well," Simon stated, "you're gay, Leo is gay, and you were together in Starbuck's yesterday."
Thank you, Marion, I thought. The photo had clearly circulated further than the girls.
"What do you mean I'm gay?" I asked.
"You are, aren't you?" John queried.
"Well, yes," I stammered. "But how did you know? I haven't told anyone but Maddie." I paused and thought for a moment. "I'll kill Maddie."
"No, you won't." John interrupted. "First, she never said anything. You should know Maddie is the one person around our gang who can keep secrets." That was true, she probably knew more secrets than anyone and never let anything out. "Second, she is bigger than you and a black belt, which makes her a damned sight more dangerous than you."
I had forgotten that. Maddie was about one inch taller than me but about five kilos heavier. No, that was not the weight of her boobs; she hardly had any; that five kilos was all pure muscle. She not only held black belts in Judo and Taekwondo, she also trained in other martial arts, including weapons, and did weightlifting in which she had won some competitions. She had been doing martial arts since she was ten and weights from fourteen. John and she started Taekwondo at the same time, though John gave up after six months. I remembered how Maddie dealt with the fourteen-year-olds who started to bully John, Simon and me when we moved up to the comp. There was no way I could kill her.
"If it wasn't Maddie then how …"
"Leo." John answered, "it's been obvious since you were fourteen. You were never into girls the way Si and me were. Anyway, when we were playing around with our mutual wank sessions, you were far more into it than we were. It was clear you were gay."
"But you never said anything," I pointed out.
"What was there to say?" John asked. "You were still Leo, nothing had changed. In fact, I was glad you were gay."
"Glad?"
"Yes, you are by far the best-looking guy in the year, and if you were gay you would not be trying to get the girls, so no competition for us. Don't think we would have stood a chance if you had been after them.
"So are you and … Tom an item."
"No, we are not!" we both stated together, then laughed.
Tom said he had to get back to swimming. It was part of his endurance training which he needed to keep up during the vacation. He was aiming to do fifty lengths. We did though agree to meet in the leisure centre café later.
John, Simon and I horsed around in the pool for a while. I did some real swimming, at least five lengths, but basically we were just swimming around in circles, not doing much, and going up onto the low boards to do some simple dives. It was the way we had spent our holiday Fridays for the last five years, so why change it? Tom joined us when he had finished his lengths and we had a game of tag.
The pool started to get busier so we decided that it was time to leave. In the café Tom and I got sandwiches and a drink, though John and Simon just had a quick drink and said they had to leave. I found this a bit surprising as usually, when we went swimming, we would hang around together for the rest of the afternoon. When I mentioned this to Tom, he smiled.
"I think, Leo, they wanted to give us some time alone. Don't know about John but I know Simon has quite a romantic streak in him. I hope you don't mind me calling you Leo. I heard John use it, and with your blond hair is suits you a lot better than Peter."
"No, I don't mind, it is my name. But why should they want to give us time alone?"
"Maybe because they could see I fancy you," Tom replied.
"You do?"
"Yes. You may not realise this, Leo, but you're a gay guy's wanking dream. You're good looking, fit and young, plus you're intelligent. It is not often that you get all four together."
"And you really do fancy me?"
"Yes. But the problem is, Leo, I want something more than a quickie with you."
"I'm not sure I understand," I responded.
"Look, Leo, most of the guys on that site are looking for one thing: Sex with a capital S. They just want to find someone whom they can have a quick bonk with, cum and move on. I know; I have done exactly that. Turned up at some bloke's place, gone in, stripped off, fucked him, dressed, then left, all in ten minutes."
I must have looked a bit shocked.
"Don't look like that. Leo," Tom continued. "It's not all that surprising. Men want sex. Sometimes you get it where you can. Then it is just a quick mechanical release. However, it can be a lot more. You can take your time and give yourself up to providing your partner pleasure. Your pleasure is not important; what is important is that your partner is pleasured. When you do that, sex becomes more than a quick mechanical release.
"If you are really lucky you find somebody to have sex with that you love. Then it becomes an act of love and that is probably the best thing ever."
"Have you ever done that?" I asked.
"Yes, but it did not last. His family were strict Muslim and when they found out about us they packed him off home to Pakistan. I've not heard from him since. I've had a partner, Mark, for the last couple of years but we both knew from the start that we were no more than fuck buddies. We split up when we graduated." There was sorrow and pain in Tom's voice. I reached across the table and put my hand on his. He looked up and smiled. "Thank you, Leo. You know, I think I might be falling in love with you and that is probably not a good idea."
"Why not?" I had to ask, as to be honest I was starting to have some feelings about Tom.
"Look, I am going to be at university doing my master's, then a doctorate, and you're still at school here. How much time are we going to be able to get together? A relationship, especially in its early stages, needs a lot of input and a lot of time together. Also, there is the age difference. You're what, four, five years younger than me?"
"How old are you?"
"I'm twenty-two in September."
"You're four years eight months older. So what? My dad is ten years older than my mother."
"Yes, but with gay relationships things are not quite that simple. People would think I was cradle snatching. Anyway, that does not answer the distance problem."
"You're only in Brum. I can get there in an hour on my bike. We could be together at weekends and some evenings even. I'm sure you could get here sometimes, Tom."
"Look Leo, we both need to slow down a bit. I think you might be getting a bit of a crush on me. Quite common for gay youths to get infatuated with the first gay person they can openly connect with. It's not uncommon for gay men who find themselves advising younger gay men to get infatuated with them, also."
"So you say we should not do anything?" I asked.
"You mean sex?"
"Yes."
"Probably best to stay clear for the moment, though it is very tempting."
"Well, Wilde said the only thing to do with temptation was to give in to it," I commented.
"Yes, and look what happened to him."
"Good point," I responded. "So no chance of a quick wank? My parents are both out."
Tom looked at me surprised, then thought about it for a moment. "This is probably a mistake but OK, let's go to my place. My family is in Italy for another week."
It ended up being more than a quick wank. We were at it nearly two hours. Tom taught me to kiss. I don't mean a quick peck on the lips, I mean to kiss deeply, properly. You know, where your mouth and their mouth becomes one and you explore the whole space with your tongues. He also sucked my cock, something I could not do to him, not ready for that yet. I'm also not ready to lick his arse, though he licked mine and stuck his tongue into it, said it was called rimming. It ended up with him spreading lube over both our cocks and bellies and me lying on top of him, rubbing our cocks between us. Tom told me it was called frottage. That ended up with me cumming in the biggest blast of my life. Sex with somebody else was definitely so much better than wanking off on your own.
I left Tom's just after four but had to walk back into town to pick up my bike, so it was just gone five when I got home. Mother was in the kitchen getting dinner ready.
"Maddie was round looking for you," she informed me as I came in.
"Did she say what she wanted?" I asked. "Though it couldn't have been important; otherwise she would have called me."
"She did, so did I — your phone's off."
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and checked it. It was off. I had switched it off at Tom's and forgotten to switch it back on. "Sorry, its dead; must have forgotten to charge it last night."
"Well," mother instructed, "you better go and put it on charge and phone Maddie."
I fed Blackie, then went to my room and put the phone on charge. It needed it anyway even though it was not flat. Then I used the landline to call Maddie. She wanted to know if I would like to go to the cinema with her and some mates. I agreed to go and we arranged to meet up at seven.
The film was OK, not something I would have gone out of my way to see but entertaining. What was not OK was the grilling I got about Tom. Apparently, John and Simon had gone back to John's and spent the afternoon telling Maddie how we were making moon eyes at each other over the table in the leisure centre café. Maddie wanted to know all about it and what I had been up to all afternoon. I am sure she will end up working for one of the intelligence services, probably as Grand Inquisitor! Thinking about it, some of the things she carries in her bag looked like instruments of torture.
If I had been a gentleman, no doubt I would have escorted Maddie home to make sure she was safe. Though in practice it would probably have been more sensible for Maddie to escort me home to make sure I was safe. After all, she is the one who knows how to look after herself. In fact, we went to the burger joint after the cinema, where I got the inquisition and then split to each make our own way home. Though we do not live that far away from each other, on opposite sides of the area of grass and trees the town calls a park, we are on totally different bus routes, so it made sense to split up in town.
I got to the bus stop and found I had just missed the nine thirty, which left me with an hour wait for the next bus or take a mile and a half walk. I choose to walk. As I started I remembered to switch my phone on, having switched it off in the cinema. It immediately started to beep with messages. I checked them. One was from Master James confirming he was coming into Cromford in the morning and that we were to meet up for a coffee. Reading the message, I felt that I better agree, as I had already scotched one meeting with him and had implied that I would meet him. It would not be polite to drop out of this one.
I toyed with the idea of going onto the site from my phone, but decided against it. It would not be long before I was home, and I could do so then once my parents were in bed. As things turned out I did not have to wait when I got home. There was a note on the kitchen table that they had gone over to my aunt's and would not be back till late. That meant I could get on the site the moment I got in.
Master James was online and we messaged back and forward for a bit. We had arranged to meet at Mario's, the only decent eating place in the Lowcross retail park. It was one of these new developments by a major road junction, just off the motorway. Not many people from Cromford went to it, as it was a bit difficult to get to from town even though it was technically within the town boundary. Mostly it served people coming from the south of Birmingham, Worcester and even Oxford, who had easy access to it via the motorway. I was fairly happy with meeting up there as there was little likelihood of anybody I knew seeing me.
Authors deserve your feedback. It's the only payment they get. If you go to the top of the page you will find the author's name. Click that and you can email the author easily.* Please take a few moments, if you liked the story, to say so.
[For those who use webmail, or whose regular email client opens when they want to use webmail instead: Please right click the author's name. A menu will open in which you can copy the email address (it goes directly to your clipboard without having the courtesy of mentioning that to you) to paste into your webmail system (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo etc). Each browser is subtly different, each Webmail system is different, or we'd give fuller instructions here. We trust you to know how to use your own system. Note: If the email address pastes or arrives with %40 in the middle, replace that weird set of characters with an @ sign.]
* Some browsers may require a right click instead
