Noel

Noel - 01 NOEL

by Eastbayjag@aol.com

This story is posted for the exclusive enjoyment of readers of the Nifty Archive. While you are free to make a personal copy, no copy of this manuscript may be published, copied, posted to another web site, or otherwise disseminated without express permission from the author.

The contents of this story are fictional. Any resemblance of characters to living or lived persons is strictly coincidental. Certain characters engage in sexual acts which may or may not be legal in the state or country in which a reader may reside. Any reader with objections to graphic descriptions of sexual encounters between males who may not have reached the legal age of consent, or whose local, regional, state or national jurisprudence prohibits such descriptions, should not read further.

Chapter I

Friday the thirteenth was always a lucky day for me: It was my birthday (August, 1971), the day that my Dad first let me drive the little tractor (April 1979), the day I had my first wet dream (July, 1984), the day I graduated High School (January 1989). I lost a semester when I was sick with the Scarletina, and skipped fourth grade because the Branson twins moved out of town, leaving only five kids in the fourth grade, so we got moved to the fifth. Nobody graduated from Cloverdale High in 1990. I got my first piece of tail on Friday the Thirteenth.

I never told my Mom and Dad. About me, I mean. I left home when I was seventeen to be "One of the Few," with my Dad's reluctant signature on the release form the recruiter said I had to have to join.

I wrote home from Quantico every couple of days. I got easy duty after I finished training: diplomatic duty. I spent six months learning how to drive under attack, hand-to-hand, karate, "dirty fighting," arms, knives and guns, the whole nine yards. Then I pulled embassy guard duty in London. Nothing but spit and polish and "may I see your bag, ma'am?" It's like training to be a french chef in a fine restaurant and being given the job of cook at MacDonalds. Well, not that bad -- I at least got to see a little of the world.

I wrote to Mom and Dad every week or so from London, and Mom wrote back to me, keeping me up with what was happening on the farm, what was going on in town.

Her letters were short. My girl friend from High School married a guy from the next town and was going to have a baby, then had one two months premature, but it was a healthy seven-pounder, so everybody knew they'd celebrated early. My best friend from High School, Todd Watkins, fell into a grain silo and almost suffocated to death, but they got him out in time. The next day he ran off the road doing almost a hundred, drunk as a skunk, and hit the interstate overpass abutment. The concrete didn't move as his brains got pulverized between that and the big Cummins Diesel he had in the bed of the pickup ready to be installed in one of his Dad's bigrigs.

I cried after I read that. I loved Todd. I mean, I had this kinda crush on him from the time he was thirteen. He was two years older than me, because he got a late start in school, then got held back one year because he's not a book-smart kind of guy. We never did anything though. I mean, we jacked off together all the time, of course, and I jacked him once or twice after he jacked me. Well, a little more than once or twice, maybe fifty or sixty, but nothing queer, you know. Except the Kiss. The night before I went to Quantico, he came over to the house and we walked for a while then sat on the old fallen tree by the crick where we used to play all the time.

"You remember the first time we got the Feeling together here?" Todd asked me.

"No," I lied. It was Friday, April 13, 1973, just after lunchtime. "Yes. Seems like yesterday." We were eleven and thirteen. He had a few wisps of pubic hair, I had none. He showed me how he could make come, just like a man, and helped me whack until I had my first dry orgasm. I can remember the clothes he was wearing, the feel of his hand on my cock, the smell of his juices.

"I wish it was," sighed Todd, leaning into me. I didn't know what to do, so I did what I wanted: I put my arm around his shoulder.

"Ain't gonna be the same around here without you, Kurt." He snuggled into me. It felt good.

"You'll find somebody," I said, watching the ripples of water under the moonlight.

"Not who I want," he said. His voice was all husky, like he'd been swallowing too much dust behind a dry-spring plow.

"Who you want?" I was afraid of what he was going to say next. I prayed to God that he wouldn't say it, but he did, anyway.

"You," he half-whispered.

"I'm history," I said flippantly. "You gotta find you a girl, marry, settle down."

"I'm not . . . Ain't that easy," he said. There was a trace of the old stutter he had when we were kids.

"What about Karen?" I said. She'd lick between your toes if you asked her."

"I don't like girls," he whispered. "I like . . . you."

I pulled back and looked at him. "You're crazy," I said. "You're not queer."

He turned his face to me, his lips no more than a few inches from mine. "Kiss me, and you'll see."

I'd never kissed no boy before, but I figured what the heck, Todd was my best friend, we knew what we'd done, who with -- all that. I gave him a peck on the lips and leaned back. "So?"

"Not like that," he said. "Like this."

He opened his mouth slightly to me and kissed me full on the lips. My tongue went into his mouth without bidding, and our arms writhed. I swear, I got a little electric shock when our tongues met. My heart started beating, way past the red line, and I felt almost faint. I pulled back, stunned at the reaction in me -- my dick was hard as a rock, but in my Fruit 'o Looms, it was invisible through the jeans.

"You see?" he cried out. "You see????" He pointed down at his dick, now upright and ready inside his loose work jeans.

"Todd, you'd get hard at the sight of a naked old woman. Even if you'd fall in love with anybody sporting a new Z28 . . . you're definitely not queer," I sad in as small a voice as I could. "Just horny!"

"I'm in love with you," he said. I disengaged, then got up and started back towards the house. I didn't want him to see I was hard.

"I love you, too, Todd," I said, but not looking at him. I did, too. "But I'm leaving tomorrow." I wanted to look back. I wanted to walk back to him. I wanted another Kiss, but I stuffed all that under my "Duty, Honor, Country," and just walked back to the house, where Beca and my Mom were getting stuff ready for my go-away party. Beca's my Sis. She's a retard, but sometimes she's sweet, and she can twist me around her little toe if she tries a little. She's like my Mom, five foot nothing, but she has this giant personality that makes up for all of it.

Todd didn't come back to the house for the party. Just left and went home, I suppose. All my relations were there, and a lot of the people from school and my 4-H club, and half the Church. There must have been a hundred people there. Not bad for a town that only has a population of 92. I felt kinda bad the rest of the night, but I didn't know how to help Todd. I was afraid of what I felt inside. I knew, but I didn't want to know - I liked Todd. I wanted to kiss him more. I wanted . . . I wanted him to ask me to stay.

My Mom cried when I got on the bus in Concordia to go to KC and then all the way to Virginia on an airplane. My Dad was like a wooden statue. He wouldn't look any way but straight forward, didn't say much except to keep my socks and my powder dry. Todd never came to say goodbye, either. I had hoped . . . something, I didn't know what. I wrote to him after I got out of basic at Quantico, but he never wrote me back.

I got rid of my virginity in a whorehouse in Richmond. Me and a bunch of buddies from my unit got a weekend pass and went to tear off a piece. We went there because we was afraid to go to D.C. Quincy said all the whorehouses there was run by Black drug lords, and I guess I'm prejudiced, but I wanted my first piece of ass to be white. Nobody else had the balls to say that, but I knew. Even Brown, who is black but not really, more coffee and cream color, he didn't want to go to D.C. And Brown had already got his cherry picked. To hear him tell it, it was in Brooklyn when he was only thirteen. I didn't know to believe him or not, but he talked the talk.

Friday the Thirteenth of May, 1989. It was actually Saturday the thirteenth, but it was almost Friday, because we went upstairs at five to midnight, and I was back downstairs waiting for my buddies at twelve-ten. Brown was next down. He told me he got a light-skinned girI that took him around the world, and from the dreamy look on his face, he must have had a good time. The others came down pretty soon after. I was the only one that didn't get the clap. I think it was because I had so much alcohol in me that I disinfected myself when I reached my weak climax inside a girl who said it was a pity my dick wasn't as pretty as the rest of me.

My dick is ugly as sin. When the Lord was passing out skin, he must have had this huge surplus, because I got about four inches of foreskin, and when I peeled back to take a pee, my dick had the look of an old elephant's trunk, all wrinkly and brownish. When I got a hard, it was worse. The head of my dick isn't a pleasant pink, but an angry reddish color. There was just enough skin, though. When it's hard, I mean.

Then there's the curve. You know those spouts they have on watering cans, where the spout sort of arches up and then down, to keep water from pouring out too fast? Well, that's the shape of mine: an arch. It's too long, too. Almost eleven inches. When I was with the whore in Richmond, she said I was too deep in her, the damned head hurt her when it went to the bottom, and I finally had to do it with her in doggy fashion because it curved the wrong way. It was the only way I could get most of it in her. I came in maybe three strokes.

I picked up tarts in London a couple of times, and screwing wasn't too bad with them, as long as I didn't go in too deep, except there was never anything interesting to do with them after I came. I just didn't see what the big deal was about getting laid. I had better climaxes when I used hand lotion and whacked weeds with my right hand, tickled my nipples with the other, under the tent of the sheets and blanket I made with my knees in the barracks, so nobody'd notice.

Most guys made tents at night. I heard that Karey and Josh used to help each other out that way, too, but I figured that's their business. Didn't matter -- someone musta told, because they both got GD's two months after I first heard they were whackin' each other off. I hated the idea of living in the barracks all the rest of my hitch of four years, which was to be in February, 1993. Then the great news came, on October 13, 1989 -- as part of a cost-cutting measure, we were to move out of the barracks and into private accommodations, and would get a monthly housing allowance of £227.50 a month, as well as our CoLA (Cost of Living Allowance) of £158 a month. We had to be out by the first of February.

I talked with a couple of guys about taking a place together in the West end, but I just couldn't see having jarhead roommates. I mean, what did we have in common except that we were fair-trained killers who played creampuff recruiting poster all the time? (At least we were allowed to change at the embassy, not parade about in town like tourist attractions in our dress uniforms.) I decided I wanted to meet more English people.

I found my own place in early 1991. Just a little "bed-sit" as they call them, in Isleworth. It cost thirty-five pounds a week for a little one-room apartment in a brick house with a tiny little kitchen cabinet including two burners, a fridge, a toilet and a bathroom the size of a large steamer trunk, a sofabed and chair, a table with four chairs. It was better than the barracks, though, even with the constant roar of the big jets landing at Heathrow. There was a litle red bus to the tube station every fifteen minutes from two street down, or I could walk to the Picadilly line in half an hour. I even had extra cash left over from the housing allowance to pay towards car and petrol. Oh - and I got use of a little garden in front of my door and along the side of the house to the brick wall in back that kept the rear garden private.

I was horny all the time. At least I could jack off in private. I picked up a girl at a local pub and tried screwing her, but after twenty minutes of trying, we just couldn't get past her fear of Hank. I took her home and went back and pounded pud. >From then on, every time I went to the pub -- the Royal Scot, as I recall -- the girls would whisper together, and I never got another to come out with me. I pounded pud a lot.

I found the Cottage, maybe two months later. It was a little men's toilet on the road between Windsor and Southampton. I went in to take a pee on the way back from a morning shopping visit to the Commissary down there, and there were two guys standing next to each other when I came in. There was a flurry of movement, nothing I could decipher, but one of them looked at me with that "oh, shit!" expression in his eyes. I figured they were probably jacking and watching each other. "Wanking" is what they call it over here.

I went to the last urinal, one down from the taller of the two, and pulled Hank out for a pee. When I pulled the foreskin back, I could feel the eyes on it. The guy next to me just stared openly as I let loose and my piss made a thick stream.

The little guy went to the sink and started to wash his hands, and the guy almost next to me turned and walked into the stall right next to the urinal I was using. I got the shiver that said I was almost finished, and was about to pack Hank away in my Fruit of the Looms, when the guy in the stall spoke.

"Shove 'er in, " he whispered real loud, from just under my elbow. I looked down, and there was a hole in the wooden partition, with little arrows pointing to the center. The guy had his mouth open so that his lips were as wide as the hole, and it was obvious what I was supposed to do. Hank would just fit through the hole.

I looked over at the short guy. He was younger than me, maybe seventeen or eighteen. Kind of cute in an East End way. Thin except for a nice butt, wide shoulders.

"Go on," said the guy at the sinks. "I'll watch out fer yer whilst he's doin' yer."

I hesitated. But I didn't put Hank back in the Looms. He was getting up to look around.

"He don't bite," said the short guy. He was looking at Hank, and probably knew before I did that I was going to do it.

"Geez," said Shortie as Hank got hard all on his own in my hand. "Frankie, yer gonna love this'un."

"C'mon," said Frankie, louder. His mouth looked all pink and moist. "Before someone comes."

I didn't think. I just lifted Hank up a touch and put the head of him through the hole, into the most incredible soft and warm place Hank had ever known. It only took twenty seconds, maybe less, and I was spewing into the guy's mouth, the feelings coursing through my body, my legs shivering in concert. I think I made a noise, but I can't be sure. Frankie just sucked the sperm right out of me, the head of my dick just resting in his mouth. I think he was surprised that I came so fast, and he tried to start moving back and forth on me, but I was too sensitive, and pulled out.

"Shit, man, yer come 'fore I even got a good taste!" said Frankie. "Yer horny, or what? Stick 'er back in, an' I'll give yer another ride fer a fiver."

"Hey!" said Shortie. "I'm next!"

"Aw, shit, Noel," said Frank. "He din' have it in me mouth fer mor'n a second."

I felt left out, like a thing, not a person.

"Gotta go," I said, and stuffed Hank back into the Looms.

Noel looked up at me -- he was only a kid, cute, but a little rough around the edges, like he'd lived a lot more years in the time God had given him than I had.

"Kin I come wi' ya to the car?" he asked.

"Sure," I said as I walked to the door. Truth is, I was still horny, still hard, still in shock that I had let a guy put me in his mouth and suck out my cum. That I had enjoyed it. A lot. Never done that before, even with Todd. I didn't pay attention to what I said.

Noel followed me out towards the old Escort I drove, not being able to afford even a cheap new car to take home with me through the military foreign purchase programme.

"Yer gonna be able ta cum again?" said Noel, walking next to me. His legs went at twice my pace to keep up, his hand on my arm, lightly squeezing, probing.

"I think so," I said, realizing Noel planned more than just walking to the car with me. "I never got one of those before." We got to the car and I unlocked the door to get in.

"A blow-job? Yer never had one before?" Noel said as he rounded the boot to get in on the left hand side.

"No." I got in and reached over to unlock the passenger door. Noel got in.

"Yer gonna like what happens next," he said quietly. "Let's park down there, by the wood." He gestured to a stand of birch at the very end of a dirt car path, past the exit from the small rest stop. "You a Yank?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Never had a Yank dick," he said. "Only had Brit dick, and one Frog."

I was taken aback -- shocked -- by his openness.

I got the engine to crank on the first try, and drove down the little two-rut path to the wood, and followed the road around it a little. It came to an end just on the other side of the wood from the toilets, and was completely hidden from view. Noel had his hand on my thigh all the time, stroking gently. It felt real good.

"You sure?" I asked, shutting off the engine.

He nodded, then unbuittoned my cargo pants and pulled the zip down. I noticed he didn't have any beard. Just a soft down on his cheeks. I didn't know if I should talk or not, so I shut up and watched him.

He pushed my pants down a little, and I lifted up to let them move down my thighs, almost to my ankles. My Looms followed, and I tilted the seats back, so I could lay back a little.

"Shit, it's huge!" Noel said, seconds before he got the head in his mouth.

I just lay there and watched as his blonde locks moved steadily closer to my navel. There was a tight feeling around my dickhead, and I realized I must actually have gone into his throat. I never would have thought that possible. He kept on going, and I felt the tightness around more of Hank. It was wonderful.

He pulled back slowly, until I felt myself pop out of the tight part of his throat, and then he tickled the head with the tip of his tongue, his lips wrapped around his teeth, biting down ever so slightly just behind the head. I felt the tip of his tongue exploring the slit in the head, probing, almost as if it might go in.

Then he took me out entirely, and Hank got all worried about being out in the cold.

"Move over on this side," Noel said. "I can't get yer in all the way sidewise."

I couldn't believe my ears. "You're going to get all of me down your throat?"

"Gonna give er a go," he said, looking down at me as I made to pull my cargoes up so I could get 'round the car. My legs are way too long for these little English cars. No way could I get them over the hump. He immediately reacted.

"What yer doin'?" he said, a worried look on his face. He had the deepest blue eyes I could remember. Almost like Lapis, but without the gold flecks.

"Going around," I said. "My legs are too long.to go over the hump."

I walked around the car and opened the door to get in. He watched me come around the front of the cat, and scrambled onto the console to let me get in the passenger seat. He'd slid the seat almost as far back as it would go. Before I got completely in, he unzipped me again and pulled Hank out, still almost hard.

I squeezed in and moved the seat the rest of the way back, far as it would go. I still had to keep my knees up in front of the dash, as there wasn't enough length for my legs to stretch out.

"Yer a big 'un, ain't yer?" he asked. He had a serious expression on his face. His hand was on Hank, lightly caressing. He somehow scooted over in between my legs, kneeling on the floormat, his breath hot on my dick.

"Not really," I said. I've always been a little self-conscious about my height. I kind stick up in a crowd. "Six seven."

"I meant yer dick," he said with a grin. "Ain't never had one this big."

"Oh," I said. I think I blushed. "You do this a lot?"

"Yeah. Me and me brother come here most Saturdays fer a few hours. He gets most of it, but he lets me have one sometimes." He moved his lips up and down Hank's sides.

I was amazed that someone so young -- I now figured him for seventeen -- would talk so openly about sucking dick.

"Why?" I asked.

"He gets tired after seven or eight, so I take the stall when he's had 'nough down his gob, an' he watches out fer me." He licked me some, like I was an ice cream cone.

"Frankie's your brother?"

"Yeah." He looked pensive as I unbuckled my belt to open things up a little. "He don't like me, though."

"Why?" I'm not sure why I asked.

"Says I know too much. Says I'm a pain in the arse." He said as I rolled the window down just a tad to let some air in. The windows were already steamed up. "Says I'm no good on the game."

"What game?" I asked.

Noel looked at me for a few seconds, then said "His head game, I guess."

He popped me back into his mouth and kneeled up a little, and damned if he didn't get almost every inch of me into his mouth. The curve seemed just right, as Hank just dove right down Noel's throat.

"I can't take much more of that," I told him. It was true, I could feel myself getting close.

He just looked up at me after he backed off a bit, those blue eyes like wells, his pert nose flaring out as he breathed through it, then plunged down again, staring at me until he was way close to the base of my dick, his lips going impossibly close to the base, closer, closer . . . his face got a little red, and I wondered if he was gagging. Suddenly, he lurched a little, and his lips opened a little, and his nose was buried in my pubes. He had all of me inside his throat. It was too much, and I felt my orgasm about to explode.

He backed off quickly, took a deep breath through his nose, and plunged back down on me. It was all over. I let out a muffled shout and started shooting. It was the best I'd ever felt, and it seemed to go on longer than before, with Frankie. My legs shook, and every muscle in my body shivered with each ejaculation. He was . . . swallowing me, making his muscles massage the cum out of me, not moving back and forth at all.

I babbled nonsense, my brain short-circuited by the orgasm. I think I said something about him staying there for the rest of his life, but that was just an expression, you know? My hands were on his head, keeping him still, but not holding him too hard, in case he needed to back off to breathe.

After a few more seconds, when my spasms stopped, he pulled back and suckled on the head, like a calf on a teat. I was so sensitive, I think I had one of those aftershocks they talk about, because it almost felt like I cum again, and I know I pumped out more stuff into his mouth.

I looked down, and saw his dick fire a shot between my legs. He was stroking it slowly, and I noticed something really strange. His dickhead was shaped like a hammerhead shark, twice as wide as it was long, and the slit was on the top, not in the front, so when he shot his load, it fired more "up" than out, at like a forty-five degree angle. His dick looked big -- not as big as me, but bigger than average. Other than the strange shape, it looked as lovely as any dick, pale pink, smooth.

After my legs stopped quivering, I zipped up and went round to the driver's side and got in, then lit a cigarette for each of us when he signalled 'yes' to my silent offer.

"Yer 'bout blew off the top o' me head," he said after the first couple of drags. "It's sweet."

"What?" I said.

"Yer spunk," he said.

I almost choked on the cigarette smoke.

"Yer live herebouts?" He was relaxed, casual. I was so uptight I could hardly breathe. I kept looking in the mirrors to see if a cop was coming.

"No. London. Isleworth."

"Nice. Yer rich?"

"No." I waited for him to ask for money. Maybe that was what this was about.

"Isleworth's a rich man's place."

"It's right under the approach to Heathrow," I said. "You can count the rivets on the planes when they go overhead, they're so low. Can't hear a thing from six to midnight."

"I guess I be'er get back t' Frankie," he said, tossing the cigarette out the window. "He'll piss off wi'out me 'less he's scoring."

"Scoring?"

"Giving a punter a ride," he said.

We might as well have been conversing in Finnish. I had no idea what he was talking about. I started up the engine, and backed up a little to the clearing, where I turned around. The old Vauxhall that had been in the parking space next to the cottage was gone.

"Shit, he's gone!" Noel spat out. "Shithead's done it again!"

"How you supposed to get home?"

"Ain't got none," Noel said. His voice was harsh, challenging.

"What about your folks?"

He just glowered at me.

"You want a ride into town?" I asked. I didn't want to give him a ride. I wanted to leave him there, not think about letting a guy suck my seed, about how good it was, about . . . "

"Sure," he said. Almost a little brightly. "Yer can drop me at the Tube."

I pulled out on the road towards Windsor, wondering what the hell I was doing. Noel was asleep before I got up to third gear.

I pulled a really dumb stunt. I took him home with me. It was Friday, April 13, 1991. I figured I was charmed or cursed, one or the other. I just didn't have the heart to wake him -- he was just too nice to look at. He seemed much better looking when he didn't have that wary look on his face. By the time I got to my road, it was almost three. He woke just as I put the gear in reverse to back into a parking space only a block from my place. Parking is awful in London anywhere you go.

"Where we at? Tube?" Noel said sleepily. His face had that slightly puffy look of early morning risings.

"This is where I live," I said, just as another 747 tried to touch the chimney pots of the house across the street as it got near the end of the runway on its final approach.

"Wow! Way too cool!" Noel said, getting out of the car and staring up at the beast as its wing darkened the street. He didn't seem to mind the screech of the engines, and just followed the plane as it went towards the airport with his head swiveling like a radar antenna on his unmoving shoulders.

I went to the boot and pulled out the bags of stuff I'd picked up at the commissary in Southampton, as well as the bags from Asda with a few things you don't find in the Commissary.

"C'n I help?" Noel asked from right next to me.

I hadn't noticed him come round to the back. I looked up at him from halfway into the boot, and his face had a look on it that said the offer was not just genuine - he was afraid I would say no. I just nodded and handed him a couple of the plastic Asda bags, and he gave me a smile, almost shy.

"Yer cook?" he asked. seeing the food.

"Can't afford restaurants," I said. "You hungry?"

"Could eat sommat," he said, taking another sack in the other hand as I shut the boot. There was a wary look in his eyes as he waited for me to pick up the brown Commissary grocery bags.

'He's ready to drop the bags and run,' I thought to myself.

"Picadilly Tube's all the way down at the bottom of this road, then left, maybe a quarter mile, any time you want to leave," I said, gesturing up the road towards the A4. There's a jitney bus stops two streets that way," I gestured towards the other direction, "That takes you to Richmond and the District Line," I was speaking too quickly. "But I'd like you to stay, at least for supper."

"Yer won't . . . " he started to ask something, then stopped.

"What?" I asked, as we walked down the sidewalk towards the conversion where my bed-sit waited.

"Hurt me?" he said, almost too softly.

I looked down at him, and realized what he felt. He was maybe five-nine, five-ten, and weighed maybe half what I did, say a skinny one ten to my muscular one ninety.

"I never hurt nobody on purpose," I said right into his eyes. "Not never in my life."

'Except for Todd, asshole,' I thought on. 'You could have told the truth, you could have stayed with him that night.'

Noel looked up at me and there was a smile in his eyes. "Yeah," he said. "Me, too."

I didn't know if he meant he never hurt anybody, or he wanted to stay at least for supper, but it didn't matter. He was going to stay for supper. He leaned into me a little, his shoulder brushing my arm, and I felt a chill run through me. I felt . . . protective of him. 'Somebody hurt him a lot for him to ask me that,' I thought to myself. 'God, what a world.'

He brightened up even more as we got to my front door, a little door just off the side garden I was allowed to take care of by Mrs. Byrne, my landlady, who lived on the first floor and rented out the ground floor flat and my bed-sit that at one time was probably a maid's quarters. She drank a lot of Gin and Tonic, as I remember.

I fumbled for my keys, which I'd stupidly put into my front pocket, and risked dropping one or all of the three paper sacks on the ground. Suddenly, Noel's hand was in my pocket, and he fished out the keys in a flash, not even copping a feel. I stood there and watched while he unlocked the door for us and opened it for me to go in. He did it with a kind of pride, almost, and the triumph in his eyes when he looked at me and put out his hand in the universal "go on in" gesture was something I wish I'd recorded on film somehow.

I walked in and dropped the bags on the miniscule counter/hob unit, and he followed me, putting the three bags into the wash-up sink.

"Wow!' he said. looking around the little room, no more than fifteen by twenty. "This all just fer yer?"

"The toilet's under the stairs," I said gesturing at the alcove where the stairs to the first floor jutted into my room. "The bath is next to the kitchen corner."

"C'n I . . . would yer let me take a . . . a bath?" he looked at me like he was asking me to let him take the family jewels.

"Sure!" I said. I opened the little armoire thing and pulled out a clean towel and flannel for him. "Anytime you want." I threw the towel and flannel at him, and he caught them neatly, in one arm's crook.

I turned to start putting stuff into the nooks and crannies of the cupbooard, figuring he woud head for the bath.

"Yer not gonna try an' do nothin'? he asked from where he'd been.

"Nope!" I said, reaching down to put the little bottle of washing-up liquid under the sink. "Maybe when you're clean," I joked. I hadn't noticed any dirt or anything, except his clothes were a lot used, maybe just a little grimy, but that's normal for any kid..

"I smell, don't I?" he said softly.

I turned towards him, and was surprised to see him naked except for the towel around his small waist. His ribs showed through the skin, and his knees were knobby because his legs were so thin.

"Nope," I said gently. "But you think you're not clean yet, so you get into the bath until you do."

"Is there hot water?" he asked. I was a little startled by the question.

"Of course. Just be careful, it gets too hot sometimes if you don't turn the tap on full." My hot water for the bath and the kitchen sink came from a gas wall boiler over the back of the bathtub that came on automatically when you turned on the tap.

He went to the bath door -- not a door really, one of those accordion sliding curtain things made of plastic that was supposed to look like wood, but was more like brown vinyl flooring tile. He managed to slide it open without the trouble I always have, and I saw some marks on his back I didn't like.

"Your brother hit you on the back?" I asked softly. Some of the welts were like belt welts. Some of them looked like . . . like burns of some kind.

"I . . . nonayer . . . I . . . " tears came into his eyes, and I just did what any guy would do, just wrapped him up in my arms and held him while he let tears stream onto my  shirt. He was right - he was more than a little ripe.

"You don't have to tell me," I said bending down to whisper into his ear.

He stopped after a minute and struggled out of my arms, jumping into the bathroom and pulling the door shut real fast. He didn't look at me, didn't say anything.

I heard the bathtaps open and the boiler fire up, and went back to stowing the goodies, thinking what I would make for supper. It was Saturday, and that was always spaghetti night at home, so I started the sauce, somehow happier than I'd ever been in London until then.

I got the onion minced without more than a little mist in my eyes, and threw in a spoonfull of garlic bits from the jar in the fridge. I had a half pound of mince I was going to use to make a meatloaf for a couple of days' use, so that went into the pot after the onion was good and brown. I heard Noel moving a little in the water in between 747s, 757s. 767s, Airbusses, and the occasional loudmouth Tupelov. I can tell them from their engine sounds.

Once the mince was good and brown, the fat poured out and a couple of cans of peeled and seeded tomatoes, a couple of pinches of oregano and marjoram added, I had to get a couple of bay leaves. I opened the door and pulled a couple off the topiary Bay I'd found at the local nursery on sale for five quid, planted in a terra cotta pot that must have cost four times as much, but had only a dead rose bush in it when I found it at the back of the garden.

Before I could get the door closed, I heard the big splash of Noel getting out of the big tub and he opened the door, stark naked, an angry look on his face that disappeared when he saw me.

"Whatcher doin?" he asked, pulling the towel from behind him and drying himself in my full view. I tried not to look at his swinging dick as he shook with the effort. It looked perfect for him, a little large, sprouting from a small triangle of pale brown hair. He has no hair on his chest or abdomen, and his hip bones jut out, he is so thin.

"Spaghetti sauce needs bay leaves," I said, throwing them into the pot. "Picked 'em off the tree I keep in front."

"Smells great," he said, walking over to the carpeted area at the end of the couner unit and leaning on it. He had the towel around his waist again, so I could breathe.

"C'n I do anythin?" he asked, watching me put the pot of water and a dash of olive oil and salt on the other burner for the pasta. "Wha's oil fer?"

"Keeps pot from foaming up, boiling over," I said, unconsciously adopting the same verbal shorthand. "Clean tub after it empties out."

"You a clean freak?" he said, walking into the bath to pull the chain.

"Yep," I said. "Don't like getting sick."

"That why?" he asked, poking his head out, leaning over so I saw only one shoulder past the doorjamb.

"Why I'm a clean freak?"

"Why I get sick a lot."

"Could be. Colds, flu, that sort of stuff?"

"Yeah."

"Probably." I stopped looking at him so I could break the spaghetti into a bowl, ready for the water when I brought it to a boil.

"Do you think . . . "

"What?" I put the lid on the sauce and turned it down low to simmer for an hour or two.

"You got any sweats I could wear while I'm here?"

I saw what he was worried about. "Sure. They're gonna be too big for you, but that's the fashion anyway." I had to wash some underwear and stuff, so I figured I could throw his stuff in with mine when I went to the laundromat down the road.

I went to the armoire and pulled out a set of sweats that was too tight for me except when I layered and tossed it at him. He dropped his towel and put them on, top first, so I got another look at his dick. With the foreskin over the head, you couldn't see that it had the hammerhead shape. I wondered briefly what it was like to suck on a dick until it spewed, whether another guy's stuff tasted the same as mine. He caught me looking at him.

"Like it?" he asked bluntly, no expression on his face.

"I don't know," I answered. Then more honestly. "It's prettier than mine."

"What yer talkin' 'bout," he said as he stepped into the bottoms. "Yer dick is a lot bigger, an' a normal shape."

"I guess nobody's ever satisfied with what they get in hair and dick," I said, rabbiting what my Uncle Rob used to say all the time. I figure he's got it 'bout right for guys.

"Yeah," Noel said, tugging at his still-wet curls. "I wish I had straight hair instead of this curly crap."

"I don't," I said for no reason. "You'd look like a dishcloth."

He gave me a long look, hard, as if challenging me. But he didn't say anything.

"I need to wash some clothes," I said, gathering the bag from under the armoire. "Throw yours in here so's I can make up a whole load."

"Think I'm some kinda charity case?" he challenged again.

"You got money to wash 'em with?" I asked. Quiet, not testy, like I can get sometimes.

"No," he said in a much smaller voice.

"I do," I said. "And there's extra room in the washer, and I want to help you. If that's charity, I want to give it to you."

He looked at me with a faint glare, nothing serious, as he finished tying up his sweatpants. There was a lot of extra material anound his waist and thighs, and the elastic on the legs was enough to keep the extra material from spilling onto the floor. He looked good in them anyway. I think there's nothing to wear that he wouldn't look good in.

"I gotta clean the tub first," he said. "Where's the scrubber?"

"Under the tub in front, on the shelf over the claws," I said, getting the cleanser out from under the sink.

"This green sponge thing?" he said as I went in and handed him the cleanser.

"Yeah, it cleans better than brushes," I said.

He looked at me dubiously, then put some cleanser on it and got to wiping down the tub, and I went to get the sheets down from the top of the airing cupboard. By the time I got the bed made and folded back up, he was finished.

"Come see." he called from the bath.

I went in and found he'd done the sink as well as the tub, and they both sparkled. "Nice job," I said, giving him a squeeze of the shoulders. I looked in the mirror and saw he'd cleaned that too. His hair looked like golden fleece against my tan, his white, white skin flawless except where a welt wasn't covered by the neck of the sweatshirt. It was a burn, I could tell. Not yet healed. I kept my mouth shut.

"Let's get the laundry done, then we'll eat and watch a movie," I said.

"Yer got a video?" he asked.

"Yeah, under the telly," I said.

"What kinda movie?" he asked.

"Don't know. We can pick one out at the shop," I said, gathering up the laundry bag.

"Porno?"

"If that's all you like, I guess," I said. "I was thinking more something like a good thriller, or maybe science fiction, something like that."

"Really?" He looked at me from his perch on the back of the armchair.

"You don't like?"

"I like," He said with a grin. "Can we get popcorn and soda?"

"Already got," I said, pointing at the microwave."Microwave popcorn with butter and salt, and gallons of coke in the fridge getting cold."

"Yer on!" he said, grabbing the sack of laundry. "Let's go!"

"Shoes?" I asked as I grabbed the keys from the top of the wall chest.

"I'm a hippie," he said. "Barefoot until dark."

"I'll have to wash your feet when we get back," I laughed as we walked to the car. The air was warm, the birds occasionally audible.

"Like Christ?" he said softly.

I looked at him in shock that he would say that. That he would connect it.

"Christ showed his love by doing that," he continued.

I didn't know what to say, how to react. I felt a lump under my throat, but I couldn't tell where it came from.

"The sauce gonna be all right?" he asked as I got in and reached over to unlock his door.

"Yeah, it's on low flame," I said numbly. "Ready to eat by the time we get home." What made him say that?

He put his hand on my thigh as I pulled the car away from the kerb. "Am I . . . d'yer want me to stay tonight? I can catch the Tube back, no prob."

I ran possible answers through my head, not daring to open my mouth. How about 'You got a better idea?' Too flippant. I was afraid to ask him that. I couldn't keep up with what was happening. Maybe just a 'what do you think?' No, he won't know I want him to stay. Or 'Sure, if you got nothing better to do.' No, that isn't me. Too insecure. Wait! Are you insecure? Nah? Bull! So, just tell him! He said he's got no home, idiot! Tell him!

I stalled the engine out when the light turned green, I should have said "Yes!" first, before I got all flustered and nervous. As it was, I found my tongue just before we got to the Laundromat, the one next to the video shop.

"Please stay," I said, in a voice deeper than I usually use.