Johnny Come Home
by Rafael Henry
Chapter 17
The flat in Truro was a temporary arrangement until Sean, my dad and his partner Garth, could find a proper house, preferably near the Cornish coast. They opted for one in a village, a four bedroomed cottage with a couple of useful outbuildings, one ideal for my figurative sculpture, but it's not that close to the sea. I kept up my interest in sculpture feeding mainly off the drawings and photos I had made of John. I'm sure that the bond that had formed between Anna, Adrean, and their three boys and me was strong enough for us to continue to meet at least once a year down here in Cornwall. Besides it's a free holiday in a lovely part of the world. We also acquired a wooden hut overlooking Endellion Cove, an incredible stroke of luck. Such things are almost impossible to find, and if you do, expect to pay a ridiculous amount of money for it, in the certain knowledge that in a few years' time it will be worth double what you paid for it. In the meantime, my life is on hold somewhat. I didn't apply for a university course after leaving school, despite my A Level exam results being good; a top grade in IT, and the other two not far off. So, one grade A, and two grade B's. University means a Government loan which I don't like the sound of. Back in the nineteen sixties, my father went for free. Now we pay. The other consideration is what course I should go for. The obvious options would be one of Art, Music or IT?
Totally undecided, I answered an advert in the local newspaper for a job as technical support at the school up on the hill in Truro. I got it. The only other applicant was, as someone later told me, 'entirely unsuitable'. I was to be a general factotum going around the place sorting out the IT problems encountered by the various departments that had networked or stand-alone computers, plus anything else I can turn my hand to. Thus I spend about a third of my time in the Art Department as a technical advisor which meant doing anything useful and anything no one else could or wanted to do. I even have my own little office in the corner of one of the art rooms, a vantage point from where I can observe all the goings on, a regular little hub with an internal [and external] telephone so I can respond to any distress call at a moment's notice. I knew that there were advantages to be had if one made oneself indispensable. For a little extra income, cash always welcome, I modelled for the boys, initially for portrait work, head and shoulders, but later semi-nude, with just a pair of brief underpants and shorts over the top to protect the boys' innocence, such as it is. The shorts came from lost property, another job no one else wanted that I got lumbered with.
'That sounds like another job for Alex.'
You would be amazed what ends up in lost prop.
They had a Cash's nametape sewn into the back of the waistband; Duncan Grant. How appropriate! A very homosexual English painter. My chosen shorts, at least one size too small, from lost prop were made of that disgusting fifty per cent nylon that is semi-transparent, so my sexy white undies were very clearly visible underneath. At five foot eight, and in very decent shape, fully formed now where it counts, fore and aft, I cut, so I was told by Hillary, a pretty good figure for the boys to study.
It wasn't hard to locate Duncan Grant either. He turned out to be in Remove C, a class of twenty four twelve and thirteen-year-olds. He'd left said article of clothing in one of the changing rooms. They must have fallen on the floor and in his haste to catch his bus home, he hadn't the time to locate them. So in due course the duty cleaner put them into the lost prop bin, the first stage [of two] in their journey to the privacy of my bedroom. A nice little find.
So I had the complete run of the place, including the Headmaster's study, as he had constant problems with his own computer, and his fairly incompetent use of it. If he had a meeting, he would leave me to sort out whatever it was that needed sorting, usually something very simple. I then had access to all sorts of information I had not the slightest right to be seeing. One such My Documents folder was entitled, Files on Boys. Confidential .
I found his name in that folder, Duncan Grant. Oh really? How very interesting. And then a little further on, a letter to his parents, and their reply. And then his reply back with the decision. Duncan should stay of course, with reservations and strict understandings. The other person had been spoken to, but with no note as to that person's fate. Provided there were no more 'incidents of that nature', the matter was closed. Another romance snuffed out, perhaps?
The filing cabinet. I looked up the hard copy of Duncan's school record. The individual photo taken of him a few weeks into his first year at the school. That lovely smile they all put on for the camera, the prints in various sizes on their way to mummies, daddies and grannies, grandpas, uncles and aunts.
The precise nature of the incidents, more than one obviously, were not gone into in typed words, but with very little imagination, I can guess. It wasn't stealing or bullying. It wasn't poor behaviour or attitude to his work. The key words were all there; 'away from the norm', 'an unusual friendship' and so on. At least the Head Man had avoided the word 'unhealthy'. And then back to the photo of Duncan Grant. I feel very sorry for Duncan, but know this my boy, I'm on your side.
All three of the Removes [I agree, an odd name for a class of boys, but that's the system] had Art on a Tuesday afternoon. They could opt for different activities, but the boys who had a bit of a flair for drawing had no choice. They would work from the life model, ie. me. There were ten of them, including Duncan. These were the elite, the chosen ones who had talent, the ones who would receive just the right amount of everything, mainly encouragement, something in my view of paramount importance. The boys set up their easels in the same place each week so I knew exactly where he would position himself in the circle around me. Sometimes I couldn't see him as he worked, but usually I could. I hadn't noticed it, but there's a small tear in the shorts I wear for modelling. Duncan must have recognized it as a unique identifying feature. He'd lost those shorts a month ago.
The boys had been lectured on the subject of the nude in art. I was in my little 'office' at the time. After all, this was a subject I had been very involved with. I have kept up my website, adding any new plaster figures, still based on the images I had of John in his early transitional stage from boy to youth, and still, by the bye, getting messages from my admirer, 'R' in Phoenix Arizona.
'Have you done anything new Buddy? Do send pics when you can.' Signed rather alarmingly, 'Love R.' I could now lie in bed of a night dreaming of taking the plane to the US, and visiting 'R'. After a sumptuous dinner out and not too much wine which might interfere with his performance and disappoint me sexually, we would make passionate love, several times a day. Each night for about a week, the imagined image of R would melt away after five m minutes in favour of Duncan's face, and his imagined naked body, all ready for me. The things we think about in bed, eh?
Prior to the lecture, illustrated with a number of projected slides, Hillary, the principal drawing teacher, had approached me with a question.
'How would you feel about exposing more of yourself Alex darling?'
Yes, darling. I'm not a pupil, I'm a very minor member of staff, and therefore I could consent to sex with her. She paid me compliments which suggested an interest in me, carnally speaking.
'You look great this morning Alex. I think it's those jeans. They really show off that bottom of yours off nicely.' Stuff like that. In very gentle terms I put her right about my sexuality.
'Oh, that's fine darling. No problem at all.'
With regard to the nudity issue, I had no issues with that either.
'Shorts and no underpants?' I said, teasing her.
'No darling, underpants and no shorts. So the boys can see a bit more of you?'
'I have an athletic supporter. What about one of those?'
'Perfect. For now. But I'm sure there's a lot more to come.'
Perhaps she's working her way up to offering to fellate me? I haven't breathed a word to a living soul about fucking, excuse that crudeness, the lovely Anna on three successive Thursdays. Actually, in my little mind, I was fucking John at the time. Those noises he made. He knew exactly how and when to make me come. It was a mixture of pretend discomfort, not pain, and overwhelming pleasure. It was a game of his, and it always worked. A penis between two firm and lubricated buttocks, both of us rocking away. The result was a foregone conclusion, spread in and around with tickling fingers.
Hillary had not warned the boys what to expect. I'm sure she thought it rather fun to play with the boys' heads in this way. They were mightily embarrassed. She placed me on my back, one knee raised and my head up right in front of Duncan, poor boy. He had a foreshortened view up between my legs right to the top, and underneath. Hillary was naughty like that. She clearly liked to intimidate the boys just to see how they would react. Very naughty.
Duncan went several shades of deep pink. I don't like my own body hair in certain places so I don't have any. It's as simple as that. There's one more step to go.
'Were you ok with that Alex?' She asks me after the class, as she goes through the boys' work in a pile on the table.
'Fine Hillary. Are they not ever allowed to see the model nude? I suppose they are a bit too young?'
'Good point. I'll make enquiries.'
She did. All the relevant parents were consulted, with cogent arguments made in favour of the idea. Two boys dropped out of the group, but later returned to the fold, but Duncan was not one of them. By this time Duncan knew something about me and I knew quite a bit about him. I had found out the nature of his friendship that the establishment considered worthy of censure, and who it was with. I looked up his school record, the Head being at yet another meeting. This time his machine had frozen. What a blessed nuisance for him! Never mind, I can fix it. Every boy has a file kept in his office for security. That's a joke. Every detail, medical info, allergies, any letters home, the replies, copies of reports and so on, it's all there. There was a witness to the incident in question. He was required to write down in statement form exactly what he saw. I read it, some four pages of it. Poor Duncan, he must have been mortified. Humiliated.
If they ever find out, I'll be sacked for sure, or worse. I took the hand written pages out of the file, screwed them up and put the little ball of paper in my pocket. How dare they. Well, I dare.
The records of the other persons concerned is not in the same place as the boys' files, but don't worry, I'll find it. It's quite possibly be somewhere in his desk. That big bottom drawer looks a likely location. So where's the key?
Anatomically speaking, I'm probably at my peak. I have a circumcised penis I'm quite happy with, and interestingly [for me] uncircumcised John was happy with it too. When Quintus last saw it, it was a very different animal, and despite its relative immaturity at the time, entirely acceptable to him I'm sure. I agree; hair is ugly in the wrong places. My modelling career began early. I know I'm prone to bouts of exhibitionism, born out in the pleasure I take from exposing myself. I guess I still like being looked at, especially in that way, and always have done. Undressing on a beach was always rather special, knowing there were people who might care to look at a nude boy. Standing there naked, trying to get one's underpants the right way round, with a swelling ten-year-old penis is really quite amusing. Really, you say? Oh yes, when that boy over there, also naked and having his body dried after a sea bathe, is watching; and his dad too. Whatever Quintus wanted, I would have given him. I prayed nightly that he would soon open my box of jewels and run his hands through the treasure, and take his pleasure from it.
The boys were standing at their easels, paper clipped to large drawing boards, [drawing pins were never used] waiting for me to emerge from my little office- cum changing room with a towel wrapped around me, no doubt a little nervous of possibly their first sight of a naked youth.
'Do you think he'll have a hard-on Fred? When he comes out?'
'No of course he won't. That's not allowed in life classes.'
'You got one. I saw it.'
'That's different. Did you ever get one?'
'Sometimes. It just comes by itself.'
'Do you think you'll get one this afternoon?'
'No of course not. He's a bloke isn't he.'
'Do you wish it was a girl?'
'Yeah, but we can only have blokes here.'
And so their inane question and answer session goes on, in whispers behind their drawing boards.
Duncan is waiting, a hand in his trouser pocket.
I stood in the middle of the room still with the towel around me, waiting for the moments of truth to come. I shall reveal myself to Duncan.
'Are you ready Alex?' Comes the call from Hillary.
Deftly I undo my wrapping and cast it aside. I have to look somewhere and my direction of choice is straight at the unfortunate Duncan Grant. I time it perfectly. As I remove my cladding, I see the boy's eyes go south to my groin, and stay there. I'm not entirely flaccid down there, not quite, but not enlarged enough to cause Hillary any concern. Duncan looks away, adjusting the position of the clips holding the paper on his board, and then looks back again, and again it's not my face he's looking at. He looks pretty in his dark navy jumper with the pale duck egg blue vee line around the neck, pale blue shirt and no tie for this occasion, plus the grey trousers. I do like a decent school uniform. S. Endellion's was very snazzy indeed. My last school, a state school, The Nonsuch, masquerading as some sort of Academy, had an indecently ugly arrangement. More or less everything black, apart from the shirts, a grubby off-white, and the boys' knickers, one assumes. Mind you, one can buy black pants nowadays. Perhaps I'll come round to them if I meet the right person who prefers black to white, but he'll have to be special . Simon Perret had good taste, or his mother did, and so did John, directed by me latterly. I'm sure Duncan Grant is wearing something nice, if my find was anything to go by, under those smart grey trousers of his, new this term having been released from the mandatory short greys worn by the first year boys, leaving expanses of their cute summer holidays tanned legs to behold, just a few frustrating inches from boy heaven subjected at that age of enlightenment to endless 'pocket billiards'.
With my towel restoring my dignity, I had a look around the boys' drawings during my rest time. It's far harder work, this modelling business, than people would believe. I can only rest my aching muscles every half hour.
I delayed looking at Duncan's work until the end of the session. Though I shouldn't really say it, or think it, I consider myself well qualified to judge a drawing. I know I have a strong feminine side so you might think I would prefer delicate super-sensitive line work, but that's not me at all. Give me a piece of charcoal and a large sheet of cartridge paper and I'll let rip, leaving fragments of material crushed into the floor. A caretaker's nightmare.
'Who the fuck's made all this mess?' He says leaning on his mop.
I have. Now clean it up you thick cunt. Oooh Alex. Language, please!
That's my nasty side. The side that made John cry out [very occasionally I can assure you] as I finished off by the slick sides of his bottom. Maybe there's a bit of animal in a good lover, or is it naturally human to want to dominate another in that gloriously sexual way? If Quintus ever got up the courage to make love to me like that, I would have shouted joyously up to the rafters as he pumped his seed onto my wriggling tummy……or elsewhere. That deliciously arrogant and dismissive Simon Perret made no sound as his moment arrived, or moments, just that one time in the long grass, something I found dull and uninteresting, as lovely looking as he was. Sexual sounds are important to me. I need to know , to be told how he's feeling as we go along, please . With John I might get a succession of words……. ow ow no no please no oh ow yes go on go on please no no no oh yes go go on yes now please, please go on go on…….. and on I did go . The incredibly long deep sighs after his own climax. And of course the essential mini-mess at the end. Satisfying sex should make a satisfying mess. I knew from an early age I was going to enjoy anything sexual, from little casual touches on his or my body, to the long awaited full and productive orgasm. Like me, John enjoyed surveying the messes, mainly me, we both made. It was an essential part of it. But our lives were destined to diverge the way they have. I miss his lovely brother Richard too, and Anna with her slippery quim to caress my cock, and Adrean up to a point, all hairy and full of warm sperm. And now there's the beautiful little Sis, a meeting of my mess and Anna's internal egg, as we banged our pubic bones together, my eyes tightly closed with John in my head.
As Hillary, the drawing teacher, turns the sheets over we get to Duncan's drawing at the bottom of the pile. With the two electric fires still burning bright orange, the room feels warm still, and with the boys gone, I'm in no hurry to retire to my 'office' to change.
'I like this Hillary. It's got guts.'
'There's an interesting bravura there don't you think?' Hillary comments after a few seconds of thought, her long brown hair falling in front of her face.
'I agree. And there's some convincing structure there too. He's not ignored the truth.'
'I think he's flattered you.' She says, raising an eyebrow.
'No. Well he probably has.' I said, laughing.
'There's certainly some attention to detail. He's an interesting boy.'
'Do you know so, or just think so?'
'I think so.'
'I hope I didn't embarrass him. He's good to observe as he works.'
'No, not at all. I noticed too. He likes you. Shall I arrange a time for you to give him a crit? Would you like that?'
'I would, but would he? I've got a funny feeling about it.'
'About it; or him?'
'Both, perhaps.'
'So are you free these days?'
'Yes, completely, but I've had some recent history which I have left behind somewhere obscure in eastern England. If I said sixteen and thirteen, would that mean anything too you?'
'You being sixteen? Yes? Would it help to divulge?'
'To you?'
'Umm. Only if it helps?'
'I think it would.'
I looked at Duncan's drawing again. I think that life drawing makes one more body conscious, and Duncan's work contained a focus that I thought not only unusual but interesting.
'So this Duncan. What do you know about him?'
'There have been problems, all over now, but tricky at the time. He's a quiet one, rather brooding, but bright, and as you can see, a promising artist. A little unhappy I think.'
'That's a shame. I feel for him. I'm a bit lost myself at the moment.'
'Duncan might want to love you. Benefit even. Or is that notion impossible?'
'Not at all, but there's a discrepancy in terms of age. I'm almost eighteen now. People wouldn't understand.'
'I would. He just needs a little love that doesn't hurt or attract retribution. Something platonic perhaps. You've taken to him. I can see that.'
'A bit of divine love?'
'Umm. Something good for the soul.'
'So what do I do about lust then?'
'Just remember how fragile that person is. If you're good, you'll look after a fragile thing.'
We spent the evening at the Spread Eagle pub while I told my story, such as it is, with nothing left out, even the stuff about Quintus. Fucking boarding schools. They are such risky places, emotionally. Living so close to one another is bound to lead to difficulties if you are a certain kind of person like me. Oh well. I was sent there wasn't I? I didn't choose it.
'You will talk to Duncan won't you?' Says Hillary, gripping my hand.
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