"I had a farm in Africa." As the BA flight began its descent over Nairobi, Rupert Malroy recalled the opening line of "Out of Africa", a book he had read and re-read during the past term as a student in the Lower Sixth at King Edward College. Within a few hours he would be walking through grounds which had once been on the edge of Karen Blixen's estate, nestled below the Ngong Hills to the west of Nairobi. Having been selected as one of two students, alongside Simon Butler his friend since their days at Highdown Prep, to take part in the annual exchange with King George College, Nairobi, he had immersed himself in the study of colonial Kenya, the march to independence, the trials and tribulations of building a new nation and the exotic anthropology of a country which had no less than forty ethnic groups.
With the plane circling over the city Rupert looked out of the window to his left and supposed that they were now over the Nairobi National Park. Moments later, like all first time visitors to the Kenyan capital, he was taken aback to see giraffes poking their heads and straining the necks against the chain link fence which divided the airport from the neighbouring National Park. How exotic in comparison to the roar of the A4 motorway close to Heathrow.
Rupert was looking forward excitedly to the exchange term at King George College which was programmed to allow him to continue his LVI A level courses in Economics, Maths and Geography taking up from where he had left off at King Edward's. Chatting with Simon as the plane made its ways to the terminal building, Rupert thought of the last time they had changed schools, both of them anxious to pass common entrance and get into King Edward College. The touch of Simon's warm thigh against his own and the throb of the plane engines was provoking a pleasant swelling in his groin. His mind went back to the time, just before leaving prep school they had been given medical exams by Dr. Martin resulting in Simon leaving Highdown as a circumcised `roundhead'. Rupert had been congratulated by the doctor for the cleanliness and suppleness of his retractable foreskin. As a sign of things to come he had started to erect the moment the genital examination began and by the time Dr. Martin had finished pushing his foreskin up and down the shaft Rupert was already leaking milky fluid hoping to be brought to orgasm by the doctor.
The two friends had over the next few years at King Edwards watched one another grow and develop in those regions most important to adolescent boys. Rupert, happy with his uncut adolescent cock and its smooth gliding foreskin harboured however an occasional twinge of jealousy when he contemplated the always bare, always ready cockheads of Simon and the handful of circumcised boys who made up his form at King Edward's. From what he had read so far about Kenya and its people, there would be no shortage of bare helmets at King George College. He would now be a rare cavalier among the roundheads.
King George College, Nairobi had been founded back in the 1920's to provide an English education for the sons of colonial administrators and settlers. From the start the school had admitted the sons of tribal chiefs, preparing them for future service in the colony. Soon enough it had among its ranks the sons of the Indian middle class, a group of increasing importance in the commercial life of the colony. Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs added their own distinctive colours and ways to the already heterogeneous adolescent population of King George College. With two hundred boarders and a hundred or so day boys King George College considered itself to be still the premier boys' school in Kenya. From the prospectus which he had been sent it was obvious that the proportions had been reversed: majority African, a sprinkling of Asians and a few dozen white faces among the boys at assembly, on the sports field, in chapel and in classes.
Rupert had followed the traditional "private" route in England: day pre-prep at five in Chiswick, boarding preparatory at eight out in genteel Surrey and then minor public school at thirteen deep in the heart of Hampshire. The house system, cricket and rugger, chapel, panelled classrooms, dining rooms, gowned masters and dormitories, these had been his life for eight years now. Communal baths and showers, matrons and the occasional pain and thrill of a bamboo cane against tightly squeezed buttocks had all played their part in making Rupert the young man he was today. The homoerotic subculture of boarding life, the "kindly" interest shown by certain masters and the special friendships enjoyed out of bounds and occasionally in the warmth of a prefect's private room had added to Rupert's growing awareness that his interests lay in a certain direction.
As the plane taxied to a halt at the overcrowded airport Rupert caught sight of the native ground staff, muscular dark men making their way towards the plane. Clothed in a variety of fatigues, jump suits and mechanics overalls they were for Rupert a first glimpse of live, virile African manhood. Rupert had in mind a picture of these ebony boys semi naked in a rural village, their oiled skin gleaming in the sunshine as they danced and embraced in some primitive tribal ritual. Rupert's delight in the power of black cock went back to the age of eleven or twelve when at Highdown he had played with his Nigerian friend Ajubu. How he had loved to play with the boy's heavy four inches of circumcised dick at a time when he himself had barely two inches, even when stiff. Ajubu had let him kiss and lick the purple-black crown, reciprocating with slow hand wanks, his jet black fingers wrapped around the pale cock of his English friend.
His reverie was quickly interrupted by the instructions for de-boarding, first in English and then in Kiswahili. The clipped vowels and hard consonants of the east African tongue rang in Rupert's ears over the chatter and noise of two hundred passengers, anxious to get out of the plane. His travelling companion Simon was as keen as any to get out of the cramped and stuffy cabin and was already on his feet hauling down hand luggage from the overhead lockers whilst Rupert continued to gaze down upon the young men who were now within yards of the plane manhandling luggage bins onto airport trucks.
"Come on Rupert, we're off." Simon Butler led the way down the narrow gangway and through the sky walk to the low ceilinged immigration hall where they presented their passports to cheerful looking inspectors who wished them an enjoyable stay in Kenya, "Karibu sana." How different from the sullen reception so often accorded to foreigners arriving in the old country from former colonies or anywhere else for that matter. Down the stairs and it was hardly ten minutes before the distinctive red and blue tags of BA luggage labels began to flutter in the breeze of the arrival hall. Standing alongside the belt Rupert and Simon could see over the customs desks a group of older schoolboys in uniform accompanied by two masters, one European and an African. Travelling in their own school uniforms the English boys were not difficult to recognise, standing out as they did from the herd of passengers: an assortment of middle-aged British holiday makers off on beach-safari combinations, returning Africans, and the inevitable backpackers in dressed down contrast to the business-men sharply suited and ready for a deal even before they left the airport.
With nothing to declare the boys were quickly through the customs check and being greeted by their hosts in a hail of jambos and karibus from the boys of King George and polite welcoming handshakes from their masters, Mr. Wasike (Deputy Head) and Mr. Grimshaw (Classics) . Rupert was immediately taken by the smart handsome young men who were to be his new classmates, all dressed in smart uniforms: lightweight grey jackets and trousers, sky blue shirts and dark gold-blue ties. Whoever tailored the trousers had taken care to cut them close enough at the groin to give some indication of the treasures which lay hidden beneath: how stylish compared to the totally unglamorous loose fitting English black uniforms work by Rupert and Simon.
Suitcases piled into the school van, the group was soon heading up the airport road towards Nairobi. Rupert's first thought was that it differed little from London's north circular with its hardware depots and car showrooms broken up by the occasional hotel or out of town supermarket. But soon enough they were on the edge of the city centre and turning left out on to the Ngong Road, heading for the countryside, or what passed for the countryside given the speed of Nairobi's sprawling growth. How familiar it all seemed. Neither of the boys had been to Africa before. They had of course enjoyed holidays around Europe and even America. Here, everything seemed to be a little too English: the semi detached houses, the municipal housing blocks, the detached bungalows all surrounded by colourful, manicured gardens. The little corner shops and the garden centres, the petrol stations with familiar names and even the traffics lights and signals all seemed to have been transplanted from far away.
Old uncle Percy's jokes about "Surrey on the equator" seemed to be true after all. Great uncle Percy, Rupert's father's uncle, had enjoyed the fading days of Empire as a District Officer out in East Africa and was a fund of alternatively terrifying and hilarious anecdotes about life among the noble tribesmen of the Rift Valley and the foibles of their English colonisers.
Without appearing to obvious about it Rupert could not help but let his gaze fall upon the crotches of the Kenyan boys sitting opposite him in the van. As it was, with Simon squashed up and one side of him and his left leg sandwiched against someone who had introduced himself as Peter Obiamo, Rupert was comfortably swollen in his groin. Glancing across at the heavy bulges opposite him, Rupert had his mind already on the after sports shower room and the intimacies which might be available in VI Form study bedrooms.
Looking up once more Rupert pointed out to Simon the road sign which pointed to Karen. "That's where she had her farmhouse. We can't be far away now." On the van drove and the houses, bungalows and scattered shops became less numerous as suburb turned to open country. This was beginning to look like the Kenya which uncle Percy had so often described. Across the dusty fields with their scrubby bush and dried out river beds one could see In the distance, woodland, the edge of the Embakasi Forest, which as far as Rupert knew was still home to both primitive man and beast, a world apart from downtown Nairobi with its malls and high rises.
At long last the van drew up to a line of stone pillars and wrought iron gates over which was proudly displayed the crest and title of King George College. Up the long drive they proceeded towards the main building of the school. Three stories high with a large chapel tagged on at the west end it was in fact no different from the buildings in which that Rupert and Simon had spent so many years already. With its curious blend of Gothic, Tudor and Georgian architecture it could have been transplanted from any of the Home Counties. Dotted around the spacious grounds were smaller buildings which were undoubtedly homes for some of the masters and locales for the various activities which make up boarding school life.
Once out the van the half dozen boys who had made up the welcoming party at the airport disappeared leaving Rupert and David with Mr. Wasike, the Deputy Head outside the Headmaster's office. The entrance hall was no different to that of any traditional English school: plaques and portraits, heavy panelled doors leading to offices and parlours, the broad staircase up to classrooms and dorms and the distinctive smell of polish tinged with the aroma of institutional cooking wafting through from the dining room.
Hanging in a pair one side of the hall were massive portraits of King George V and his majestic Queen, Mary, dressed as they had been for some Indian durbar. On the opposite wall was a picture of a very young Queen Elisabeth II and her handsome consort Prince Philip. Mr. Wasike was happy and proud to tell English boys that their Queen had been not too many miles away from St. George's when news of her father's death had been broken to her. "My father was a boy here at the time.....those were the days before Jomo Kenyatta. The whole school lined the road to Wilson Aerodrome to see the new Queen when she had to go back to England instead of carrying on her journey to Australia."
Mr. Wasike was broken off from his nostalgic discourse by a secretary who announced "Dr. Wamura will see you now." Master and boys entered the large mullion windowed office, an office impressive in its decor and spaciousness. The Headmaster of King George College was appropriately imposing: Dr. David Osoko Wamura, smartly and expensively suited, got up from his chair to welcome the trio and immediately bade them sit, pointing over to deep leather chairs.
"Delighted to have you with us etc. etc. etc." Dr Wamuru was effusive in his welcome, explaining as if the boys did not already know, the historic colonial links between King Edward's College in England and King George College in Kenya. He himself had been at King Edward's before taking his degree in London and doing research in Oxford, the mention of which set off a trail of reminiscences about the dreamy spires and the delights of choral evensong in college chapels.
Dr. Wamuru, with appropriate gravitas, reminded the boys that they were not here on safari but to study. The school had since its foundation been an examination centre for the Oxford Overseas Board and still provided a traditional programme of solid academic O and A levels.
"You must throw yourselves in. Make lots of friends and keep yourselves busy. You do play rugger don't you? Perhaps you'll make one of the teams. We don't have football here apart from the boys who kick a ball around for fun at the weekend...... We are a Christian institution and though the Indians don't come to chapel they do attend assembly. You are confirmed aren't you? We have Matins every Sunday and Divine Service once a month. I'm sure Mr. Wasike will explain your timetable details to you. Let me give you your house names before you go off to settle in. Now, where are we? Ah yes. Mr. Butler you shall be in Kent House and Mr. Malroy, you are assigned to York House. It does mean you'll be living apart from each other but I think that's all for the best. Make you mix."
Picking up the phone Dr. Wamuru called for the Housemasters of Kent and York to come and collect their new charges from his office. Ten minutes later Rupert was making his way across the grounds towards Sandringham Villa, home of the York VI formers. Smiling to himself, amused by this pastiche of empire, Rupert listened attentively all the same to the information being rapidly communicated by his new Housemaster, Mr. Alocheke, a tall slim Kenyan, who it transpired would also be his A level Economics teacher: like the Head and his Deputy, an old boy of the school, though from a somewhat more recent generation.
The VI Form villas were bungalow style houses each with four or five shared rooms, common room, kitchenette and bathroom. Mr. Alocheke knocked on the door of Room 3 before opening the door to announce the arrival of the new student and introduce him to his roommates. The three VI formers stood up from their work tables to greet their Housemaster and the new student. Firm handshakes followed in quick succession: there was Peter Obiamo whose strong muscular body had been pressed up against Rupert in the school van on the journey from the airport, Moses Minamara, a stocky jet black adolescent and Sayeed Hussein, a ravishingly handsome Indian whose enigmatic smile could melt rocks.
Mr. Alocheke having gone through the formalities left Rupert in their capable hands, assuring him that his roommates would take care of introducing him to the daily routines but reminding him to report to Mr. Wasike for his timetable after breakfast the next day.
The room contained two pairs of bunk beds and Peter Obiamo pointed to the top of one of them saying "You are to be on top of me." Rupert's filthy mind immediately conjured up quite another interpretation of the words but he managed not to grin as he slung his shoulder bag onto the neatly made up bed. Between the beds and the outside wall were the small wardrobes which each boy had for his personal effects and below the window, a miniature coffee table and two lounge chairs. For study there were two desks to be shared, and a large bookcase bolted to the inside wall. The desks were strewn with papers and books suggesting that Rupert had arrived in the middle of afternoon prep.
The roommates returned to their studies whilst Rupert unpacked his case and arranged his things. By the time he had finished Sayeed was offering to show him round the villa, hardly a grand tour but enough to show him where to find the common room with its TV and newspapers, the kitchenette for tea and coffee and not least the sanitary facilities and shower room. "I'll just pop in here for a moment if you don't mind" said Rupert, who had not relieved his aching bladder since being on the plane. Standing at one of two urinals he took out his cock, eased back his foreskin and relieved himself looking forward to the not too distant moment when he would surely find himself here next to a long dicked African.
As the clock tower chimed six o'clock the sun began to fade casting its red glow over the quickly darkening campus. Masters would be gathering in select groups for a swift cocktail, again a remnant of colonial tradition, though the African teachers on the whole preferred sweet sodas or small cans of weak beer to the gin and tonics favoured by the few ex-pat men on the staff of King George College. Boys in the meantime, had half an hour play, walk in the sunset, wash, listen to their radios or if seniors, watch TV.
At six thirty sharp the whole school filed into the cavernous dining hall on the ground floor of the main building where an army of servants had already laid out serving bowls of African, Indian and European dishes. On the raised dais at the end of the hall, the Head and the staff stood around a horseshoe table. Just as at home, the Deputy Head rang a bell, the Headmaster intoned a Latin grace and gave permission to sit. At once a clamour of voices erupted and the meal began in earnest. Rupert, sitting between Peter and Sayeed at one of the long tables so familiar from years at Highdown and King Edward's, tucked into the rice and fried potatoes on offer and at Sayeed's suggestion took the curried lamb rather than the roasted meat, leathery and dry looking but so beloved of the Kenyan boys. Bowls of strange green leaves boiled to death and rubbery carrots appeared less appetising to Rupert than the chickpea salad on offer for those with a taste for the orient.
The meal over in little more than half an hour, the boys filed out to embark once more upon prep, the Juniors for an hour and a half and the Seniors for as long as they required though with the recommendation that books be put away by nine thirty and that all be in bed by ten. Rupert retired to Sandringham Villa and installed himself in the common room to read through some of the daily papers scattered around the place: the East Africa Times, the Nairobi Standard. There would be homework and study enough tomorrow night. King George College had returned a few days previously, a little ahead of King Edward's Lent Term start date. Around half past nine, Peter and Moses appeared in the lounge and stretched themselves out on the leatherette armchairs. Half an hour to quiz the new boy before retiring for the night. Both had relatives in England and like many Africans were ardent followers of one English football team or another, despite the school's snobbish disapproval of soccer. Rupert bluffed his way through that part of the conversation, his only interest in football being the shapeliness of masculine buttocks and the size of bulges be the player from Chelsea, Liverpool, Aston Villa or wherever. Having chatted with Peter and Moses about great uncle Percy and thus his distant connection with Kenya and enquiring about the possibility of a trip down the road to the remains of the Blixen estate Rupert was anxious to hear about the Kenyans' family backgrounds. Peter explained how his father was a businessman, something in sugar over in the Western Province, a member of the Luyha tribe. Moses, like many of his predecessors in the school was the son of a traditional Samburu chief from north-east of the Rift. Moses said how it was almost certain that one of his elder brothers would inherit father's duties leaving him free to follow a business career after college or university.
"Really. Fascinating. Do you all still go through some sort of tribal rite of passage here or is all that consigned to history now?" Rupert knew well that it was not but wanted some confirmation of what he imagined might be. Peter replied without hesitation or embarrassment. "Oh no, it still goes on. We feasted last year after O levels when I went home. Just a family affair for me, cousins and a few friends. Father bought a bull to roast and we prepared gallons of maize beer but he did send me to hospital for the cut. A couple of older cousins came to see me through it and it was all very quickly and cleanly done. Nothing to it really."
Moses, being a member of a more traditional rural family and the family of a chief at that, had not been so lightly let off. Three years ago he had endured day after day of ceremonies, dances, hunting rituals, brewing of millet beer and slaughtering of cattle climaxing with the ceremony of excising his foreskin in the presence of a hundred men or more. "It was as you can imagine, the most agonising moment, a wizened old circumciser pulling at me and slicing away with his iron knife. Thank heaven for the beer. At least some of the pain was dulled. Anyway it looks good now and you can call me a man."
Rupert by now with a hard cock nestling in his trousers would have been delighted to stay and garner more details from Peter and Moses, but already the clock was striking ten and it was time to get back to the study bedroom, get into bed and turn the lights off before the Duty Master began his night round. By the time the three were in their room Sayeed was already half undressed and donning warm pyjamas. Facing the bunk bed alongside Peter, Rupert undressed putting his top on before taking off his trousers and briefs. Whilst his own teenage cock was veiled from view the same could not be said for Peter's. Glancing over he caught a quick glimpse of the long thick organ as it dangled, helmet permanently exposed. Peter as quickly as Rupert, pulled on thick pyjama bottoms, protection against the cold Nairobi nights. Clambering up on to the top bunk Rupert nestled into his bed and in the darkness stroked cock imagining how within the week he would find some way to take up where he had left off at King Edward's, the darling of sporty boys, certain prefects and a several members of the chapel choir.