Sailors Tale

"A Sailor's Tale" is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2006 by John Ellison

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of author, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

WARNING: This story contains graphic depictions of sex between consenting adult males and/or teenage males. Please do not continue reading if you are offended by this genre of erotic literature, if you are underage or if this type of story is illegal where you live.

WARNING: This story contains scenes of violence, graphic and abusive language and graphic descriptions of male nudity. Discretion is advised.

I enjoy hearing from readers and try to answer all e-mails. If you have a comment or a question please contact me at paradegi@rogers.com

Thanks to Peter, my sterling editor. Sometimes without him I would merely be sending along pap!

A Sailor's Tale

Chapter 4

I had been born and raised in a small town in central Ontario with little to recommend it except for a posh school for boys at the edge of town (it lost much of its glitter when it went co-ed a few years back). The school would gain some fame (and notoriety) in 1977 when Prince Andrew Windsor entered as a Boarder. He very much lived down his later reputation as "Randy Andy" and was seldom seen in town. The students from the school were rarely seen, usually only on Remembrance Day, when the school Cadet Corps paraded to the Cross of Sacrifice erected in the town square.

My world did not include a posh school. My world was a small town - actually designated a village - of around 2,400 souls. Originally settled by United Empire Loyalists, the town contained a mixture of late Georgian and Victorian houses and buildings and was really quite pretty.

The village had been built along the southward course of the Otonabee River as it exited Katchewanooka Lake, both part of the Trent Waterway system. Along Water and Reid Streets were the usual shops and cafés catering to the growing tourist trade, a cinema - the films were changed weekly, which was typical of the time and place - a small hospital (where I had been born), a hardware store, an IGA supermarket where the prices were raised every 24th of May - the start of the summer season when the cottagers rolled in - and lowered on Labour Day, when the cottagers went home for the winter.

There was an inn, located across from the Marina, which served the legions of boaters that travelled the scenic Trent system, several taverns, and so on. We considered ourselves quite cosmopolitan in that there was a Chinese restaurant, which had the best take away in miles, and an Eaton's Catalogue Store, more a tea shoppe than anything. Here the town ladies gathered to sip tea, nibble on dainty cakes, and leaf through the latest offerings of Mr. Eaton's emporium. There were also a high school, two elementary schools (one public, one Catholic), five churches, and a convent housing the Sisters of St. Joseph who taught in the Catholic school. On Reid Street was a staple of small town Ontario life: the Legion. My father was a member in good standing and attended every Saturday afternoon for the meat rolls and the cribbage or dart tournaments.

Saturday was Market Day in the spring and fall, and the town square would fill with Mennonites, who had a small colony nearby, offering for sale home made pies and cakes and cookies, hand crafted furniture and quilts, and fruit and flowers in season. There were holidays, Dominion Day, the 1st of July, and Victoria Day, the 24th of May when there were parades, picnics and fireworks in the park alongside of the lake. Life might have been slow but, as I look back, it was never dull.

I lived in a large, rambling, red brick house that stood on ten acres of land at the confluence of the lake and the river, and was really much too large for my family. From my bedroom window, which was at the back, I could see the range of the lake, and the bustling Marina across the waters. The house, and much of the contents, had come down through my mother's family, originally Southern Aristocrats, Tories, who had followed the King's troops when they evacuated New York and Charleston after the American Revolution.

My father, who was the town druggist, was also descended from good British stock, his people having left Charleston with their money, their paintings, their silver, and their slaves. One of his ancestors had served in Rogers' Rangers, a militia regiment formed in 1755, and followed the King's Colours throughout the Revolutionary War. Loyalty to the King drove him out of his native country and he settled on a plot of land outside of Saint John, New Brunswick, as so many of what in time became "United Empire Loyalists" had done. Later, when the Rangers were reformed as the Queen's York Rangers (The 1st American Regiment), he travelled to Upper Canada to help found the town of York, later to become the city of Toronto.

My father was very proud of his heritage and every year attended the Regiment's annual dinner and ball with my mother, and never failed to append the initials "UE" after his name on any piece of correspondence.

I was aware of my ancestry and heritage, of course. But growing up that heritage meant little to me. I was much too busy being a boy. For me there were far more important things to think about than who my ancestors were.

For me, life revolved around home, school, sports, swimming with my friends and playing baseball in the summer, and hockey in the winter. I had a pleasant childhood, I remember, although the only fly in my ointment was the piano lessons my mother insisted I take.

Every Thursday, promptly at six, Mrs. Mason, the local music teacher, appeared at the front door, and I was allowed into the front parlour. This was a large, square room filled with some of my mother's most precious furniture, and the piano, more a pianoforte, really. Ordinarily this room was reserved for visits from the parish priest, when my mother served tea and little cakes from the bakery downtown, visits from my aunt and uncle, my father's brother, whom I came to loathe, and funerals. There was a funeral parlour in town that advertised "Chapels of Repose", and boasted the only horse-drawn hearse this side of Ottawa. We weren't that provincial, after all. However, proper funerals were always conducted from home.

Except for the piano lessons, where I drove Mrs. Mason to drink, I think, and massacred Beethoven, Chopin and Brahms, I was never allowed in the front parlour, where I might break something. If I felt the need for relaxation, or there was homework to be done, I went to the back parlour, which was also a large room, but filled with comfortable, lumpy, overstuffed chairs and a huge sofa, perfect for afternoon naps. The room also housed the latest, new-fangled invention, a television set. This was a small-screened instrument housed in a large, ornate, wooden cabinet. We only received one station, the CBC broadcasting from Ottawa.

Not everyone could afford this expensive new novelty and I recall that we usually had quite a crowd on nights when hockey was broadcast. This did not last for too long and eventually, in the days before cable and satellite dishes, it seemed as if every house in town had an ugly, aluminium aerial cluttering up the skyline.

Being young, and easily distracted as I was, the television held me in its thrall for a while. As I grew older, however, the attraction grew less until I only watched it on Saturday mornings (for the cartoons) and on Saturday night, for "Hockey Night In Canada". The television was all right, but in my mind I was not quite as spellbound as I was when all we had was an ancient radio, always called a "wireless". I would sit on the floor in front of it and listen, entranced, as Foster Hewitt described the plays as the Maple Leafs took on the Habs, or the Bruins - there were only six teams in the League back then. Foster's voice was always rising and falling as he excitedly described the action. I could see the action much more vividly in my mind and I would rock back and forth, waiting as I envisioned the grinding of skates, heard the grunts of men, thrilled at the swoosh of the puck as it rocketed into the net. I would leap into the air as Foster shouted triumphantly, "He shoots . . . He Scores!"

However, watching the game did give me something to talk about with my mates Sunday morning, after church, which we always attended, and which was basically the high point of any Sunday. This was a day of rest and few, if any, activities were scheduled - no one dared. Sunday was The Lord's Day. Sunday was a day for family, when we all sat down to a traditional luncheon of over-cooked roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, and three vegetables, followed by a quiet day at home, reading, or solving monster crossword puzzles. Growing up, this seemed to be the only thing no one could complain about.

Sundays were the most boring days of my childhood. Everything in town was locked up tight. The cinema never screened a film on Sunday. The local bars and the Legion were closed - no drinking was allowed on the Sabbath! People might talk! My father always made certain that we would not be having guests for lunch, and that no neighbours were expected to come calling before he dared approach the drinks cabinet, where he kept the hard stuff. A little wine was allowed with the meal, but having someone smell hard liquor on your breath . . . People might talk!

"People might talk!" The clarion cry of warning for anyone who grew up in a small town, anywhere on the North American continent. In more ways than one this warning ruled my life, and governed my conduct.

The gossip of neighbours meant little to me. I knew that they talked, of course. In a town as small as mine everybody knew everybody else. Every foible, every misstep was seen, and reported. At the time of which I write I was much more concerned with the changes that were occurring in my body. I faced these changes alone.

My parents and the Roman Catholic Church influenced my life. My parents, being good Catholics, echoed the party line. They lived their lives according to the Church's rule. I went to a Catholic school ruled by nuns where the boys were strictly segregated from the girls. All of which meant that, in the summer of 1957, when I was 12 years and eight months old, I was totally clueless when it came to things sexual. And I was terrified.

Like most, if not all, boys, I was undergoing a strange and, while at times very enjoyable, life change, I was completely unprepared for what was happening to me. This change involved my penis, and its sudden and, to me, inexplicable development of a mind of its own. I knew it was there, I knew I needed it to pee out of, I knew that if I rubbed it long enough I felt some very nice feelings. What I couldn't understand was why the damned thing suddenly started to get hard, usually at the most inconvenient times. If the bathroom window was open and I was standing at the toilet having a pee, and a cooling breeze blew in from the lake, I'd get hard! If I was swimming, I'd get hard! When I washed my crotch in the shower, I'd get hard! In the morning I would wake up and there was my dick, hard, with its pink head poking through the fly of my pyjama bottoms!

While this was disturbing, what was even more disturbing was that suddenly I found myself fantasizing about my friends and schoolmates, particularly the boys I hung around with every day. We had been friends and neighbours just about forever. We grew up together, played baseball together, swam together, went to school together, did just about everything together. We even dressed alike, usually in sneakers, blue jeans and a white T-shirt. We even had the same haircuts: flattops. Every second Saturday my father would hand me two quarters over and above my allowance of $5.00. These I took down to Mr. Souly's Barber Shop. I would sit in the chair, Mr. Souly would flash up his barber shears and my hair would be cut. I never had to say a word.

The one thing I was not sure about was what the other boys looked like "down there". I would lie in my bed at night, fiddling and gently rubbing my dick - my friends and I had gone through the usual naming rites, from pee-pee, to wee-wee, to wiener, to pecker, and finally settled on "dick" - and picture, in my mind's eyes, what my friends would look like with their clothes off. I could only fantasize about their equipment because I had never seen any of them completely nude.

At the time, while I was a typical boy, and played sports avidly, there had never been an opportunity to see what my teammates and friends wore under their clothing. I had, from time to time, when we changed into our play clothes or sports uniforms, seen a bit of pink, a hint of flesh, but nothing substantial enough to build a good wank job on. When we went swimming, we always showed up with our suits on under our clothes. Other than some solid bulges, one or two big, but mostly just bumps, I really hadn't seen anything at all.

There were several good reasons why we remained more or less androgynous to each other. When we passed the time on lazy summer afternoons swimming, we did so in the lake, usually off the beach behind my house, and sometimes in the river, although the beach was the most popular. We had a long dock that all the boys jumped from, a floating dock about 100 yards into the lake, and a small runabout that I sometimes used for solitary cruises along the shore. My friends would show up with towels draped around their necks and drop their shorts, stripping to their swimming trunks. As there was no public swimming pool, with change rooms - there was one in the high school, but it was not open to the general public - I could only imagine what their tight trunks concealed. I usually worked myself into frustration as I watched their lean, lithe bodies as they jumped and dove into the water.

Another reason was that while we did change before baseball and hockey games, we never showered afterwards together. During these sessions I was forced to once again wonder. I might see them wearing nothing but their underwear but again all I ever saw were some anonymous lumps under the most ubiquitous of undies, those bulwarks of morality: tighty-whiteys!

We all wore them because our mothers bought our clothing, including our underwear and while our underpants might have different labels, Hanes, Stanfield's, or Eaton's house label, they were all to a general pattern, tight, white, and with a double-layered pouch over the interesting bits and pieces. How or why the manufacturers of these underpants had managed to persuade generation after generation of mothers that white briefs were the only proper underpants for boys I shall never know. I only know we all wore them and a Christmas or birthday never passed without my receiving at least one pair of the damned things, usually from an uncle or aunt too cheap to spring for a decent present.

The most important reason why we never stripped off in front of each other was the Roman Catholic Church.

The Church taught us, and our parents and the nuns enforced it, that nudity was shameful. Good Catholic boys did not think about such things, which was sort of difficult, since by forbidding it they gave us a reason to think about it.

Sex was simply not discussed, at home or in school. The human body was not discussed. We were supposed to be pure in thought, word, and deed. If we weren't, we were condemned to Hell.

The Church thundered against the sins of the flesh. Masturbation was a sin. Thinking about masturbation was a sin. Touching another boy was a sin. Thinking about touching another boy was a sin. Seeing another boy nude was a sin. Exposing yourself and tempting another boy was a sin. Just about every natural emotion was a sin. If it made you hard, it was a sin. If it made you wet, it was a sin. And that was just so-called normal sex.

Any sex other than male/female sex was an abomination, a guaranteed one-way ticket to Hades. To make matters worse no one ever made a direct reference to what the hell they meant. They talked about men lying down with men, and so on - strangely women with women was never mentioned. The priests talked about inappropriate touching. They talked about lewdness. But they never talked about it.

The whole forbidden fruit theme was continued in our normal, everyday life. If we went swimming, being good Catholic boys, we wore our bathing suits under our clothes. That way when we took our clothes off we still had our privates covered by our suits. Thus sin was avoided. If we played sports, we suited up at home and walked to the ballpark or soccer field fully booted and spurred. Until the summer of 1957 I had never seen another boy naked. The only body I had ever touched was my own and, while it felt good when I did it, I suffered guilt pangs for days afterward. Believe me, a Jewish mother has nothing on the Catholic Church when it comes to guilt.

Needless to say, as I approached my thirteenth birthday I sinned - a lot - and while I did sometimes sin during the day, I usually managed to contain myself until I was in bed, when I could really go to town. In bed the images of my friends would fill my mind. These images were never of any particular boy, and they never followed the same pattern. Sometimes it would be Danny Tzotzis, a short, compact, glorious blond who wore a Speedo when he went swimming, a bathing suit so thin that his magnificent, four-inch penis, with an obvious circumcised cap and tight, perfect balls were clearly outlined. I all but drooled every time he came swimming.

At other times it would be Pauly Tralla, another blond jock, who wore a conventional suit, but gave promise of greatness if the lump in his suit was any indication.

Some nights it would be Tommy Tiverton, who I knew had hair. One day. Just before school closed for the year, I had seen him in the boys changing room. It was sports day and he had stripped down to his undies and much to my surprise - and Tommy's - one of his testicles had slipped the bounds of elastic, a most delightful testicle, dusted with short, dark hairs! Tommy, noticing my shocked gaze, had quickly tucked himself away, but I dreamed of that testicle for two weeks!

There were others, of course. There was Jeff Clarke, a tall, rugged boy with brown hair. He didn't have much in the pouch department, alas, but he had a fine ass, and at every ballgame he would unwittingly give me a thrill, bending over, his hands on his knees as he waited patiently to steal a base, not knowing that his uniform pants were so thin that they could never hide the outline of his briefs, or the ridges formed by the straps of his jock.

There was Kevin Callahan, tall, dark, with movie star looks, and his best friend, Colin Mialik, a well-muscled, dark haired boy. They were all but inseparable, more like brothers than best friends, and did everything together. Later, when I knew more, I often wondered just how far their friendship went.

Another source of fantasy were the Mennonites. They all seemed to be tall and strapping but they never played sports, and all I could do was wonder what treasures lay hidden under the denim coveralls the Mennonite boys habitually wore. I saw them only on market day for the most part, as they all attended the public schools, and only until they were 16, when they invariably left school to help out on the farms that dotted the countryside.

I never acted on my impulses because I never really had an opportunity. I also did not have a clue what I was supposed to do even if opportunity came pounding on my door. I was so naïve that I did not think that what I was doing at night was a sin. I had consulted Webster's Standard Dictionary and discovered that masturbation was "manipulating the penis to orgasm", which sounded interesting, but I wasn't doing that. I was rubbing my little member, and further research led me to believe that the magnificent, body shaking, mind numbing results of my rubbing (sometimes three or four times in one session, depending on whom I was fantasizing about) could not be orgasms because an orgasm was supposed to result in the "ejaculation" of "sperm". Well, that certainly never happened. My little dick might throb and jump under my pyjamas, but it never produced anything other than good feelings.

Then it happened.

I had gone to bed, as usual, and played happily, as usual. A new boy had moved into the neighbourhood and I had seen him, a tall, strapping redhead wearing only a pair of gym shorts, busily mowing the lawn in front of his house. He was gorgeous! I had not stopped to say hello (I was meeting my mates for a pickup game of soccer and was, as usual, late) but made a mental note to stop by later. As luck would have it, he wasn't around when I returned home but I had seen enough to make him the main feature that evening.

After two or three rounds, I fell asleep. I did notice, before my eyes closed, a wetness, a stickiness on the head of my penis. I thought nothing of it, as that had been happening a lot lately.

That night I had a wild, glorious dream. I was cavorting, naked, with Pauly, and Danny, and Jeffy, with Mennonite boys, and the new boy, all of them naked! I don't remember all of the details, but I do know that at some time during this wild, mythical orgy all their dicks, which looked exactly like mine in the dream, and my dick, squirted streams of white . . . stuff! I awoke the next morning and had the fright of my young life!

Not only were my pyjamas wet and grungy, the head of my penis, redder that I had ever seen it, was poking out of the slit in the pyjama bottoms and covered in a slimy goo! At first I thought my dick had exploded but a quick examination proved otherwise. I had everything I had gone to bed with the night before, which was a relief! What was not a relief was the unholy mess I had made. How, or why I had made it, I didn't then understand. I also did not have time to dwell on what had happened because before I could even think straight I heard my father pounding on the door demanding that I get up and get dressed. It was Sunday and if I didn't get my act in gear I would make us late for Church!

Still in a fog, I left my bed and went into the bathroom where I stripped off - a no-no, but who wants to walk around in stained and grungy pyjamas? I didn't have time for a bath so I ran the washcloth over my dangling bits, buried the soiled pyjamas at the bottom of the laundry hamper, and returned to my room to dress for Church, which for me meant clean briefs, a stiffly starched white shirt, a tie, a dark blue suit and brightly shined oxfords. Dressing for Church in those days meant something.

After being rebuked for keeping them waiting, and for thundering down the stairs, my parents and I walked sedately to Mass, greeting similarly clad families on the way. After Mass we lingered with the rest of the congregation, the adults gossiping about who had been seen down at the Blue Goose, a low dive on Highway 28 just outside the village limits, or whose daughter was "stepping out" with whose son. The kids, myself included, talked about baseball, the impending terrors of attending high school, the older boys sniggering about girls, and all of us bored out of our minds.

Eventually we retraced our steps home, stopping to greet neighbours along the way, a most formal ritual. We were all dressed to the nines, my mother in a light, bright frock, wearing white gloves and a hat, my father in his black, three piece suit, tipping his hat to the ladies.

Once home, we settled into our normal Sunday routine, which was every bit as boring as Mass had been. I was not allowed to change into something comfortable, or play outside. Sunday was the Lord's Day, and I was expected to OBSERVE it, as any good Catholic boy would. I could read, I could watch television, but only if the program was enlightening. Since we only received the one channel - the CBC feed from Ottawa - this was not difficult. I usually fell asleep in the chair halfway through whatever witless programme was being broadcast. After lunch I could look forward to a short drive into the countryside, where my mother would buy freshly picked vegetables and flowers. Usually, by the time the sun had set I was more than ready for my bed. On this particular Sunday, however, I was summoned into the back parlour. It was time, my father informed me, for The Talk.

Anyone who grew up in the '50s knows what I am talking about. There was no such thing as "Sex Ed" in the schools. We did endure a rambling, barely coherent talk by one of our male teachers, mostly involving personal hygiene and not very informative at all. Sex, it was generally held, was the province of one's parents and not the school system. Mothers would have quiet talks with their daughters, and fathers would call their sons into the back parlour for a long and rambling explanation about "The Birds and the Bees". In the straight-laced, anal-retentive 1950s why anyone bothered at all escapes me.

Sex was not something that "nice" people talked about - ever! The media, all of it, when forced to allude to sexual activity, danced around, and never really printed anything offensive, relying on clichés and stock phrasing. In the films, and on television, married couples never shared a bed. They slept in twin beds, and when it was necessary to show a bedroom scene the actors all dressed for the next Ice Age in flannel pyjamas or concealing robes. That sometime during the night they might migrate was never mentioned and when the storyline demanded that they "express their love", the screen would always fade to black. In retrospect, I rather liked that. Imagining what the actors did next was so much better than watching two people fumbling around simulating having sex, the actresses flouncing their sagging boobs and the actors showing off their short comings. Some people would be better off keeping their clothes on.

Men did not have dicks or cocks, they had penises. They did not have balls, they had testicles. What women had was a great mystery! All I knew was they did not have upper deck fittings.

The churches, all of them, railed against fornication and adultery and preached that sex was permitted only in marriage, which was between one man and one woman and while they might "cleave together", they could never cleave apart. Divorce was frowned upon, and numberless couples lived cold, miserable lives rather than risk the opprobrium of divorce.

Boys were taught not to touch themselves except when peeing - it was dirty. Boys were frowned upon if they made childish reference to their "pee-pees" or whatever name they used. This too was dirty. The lists of prohibitions went on and on. In one way or another I heard them all.

By and large I had the impression that any mention of sex, boys, girls, and so on, would be delayed until I was old enough to understand what I was being told - around 35 I suspected - but events forced my father to take action. It seems that while I was sprawled on the back parlour rug, reading the latest "Archie" comic book my mother had decided to collect the soiled clothing and bed sheets for pickup by the laundry the next day. She emptied out the laundry hamper in the bathroom, stripped the sheets from my bed and, while folding the items, was faced with irrefutable proof that her little boy was becoming a man.

After mother whispered in my father's ear, with much shocked gasping on both their parts, my father closed the door and launched into a long, ambling, all but incoherent discourse on boys who had reached puberty. I was assured that my penis had not exploded, and that what had happened was perfectly natural and to be expected. I will not bore you with the details, except to say that my father told me that I was now in puberty, and confirmed my suspicions that not only had I had an unconscious orgasm, but that I was now capable of producing sperm. Suffice it to say that I left the parlour more confused than ever, and with the definite impression that having a wet dream (as my father called it) was much preferred to masturbation (which was a sin).

I was so confused and disoriented that I did not play with myself that night as I tried to sort out what my father had told me. This did no good at all so I decided to seek out the font of all knowledge for pre-teen boys: the schoolyard.

I had noticed before school closed that as soon as the nuns turned their backs little knots of curious boys would form and exchange confidences. I also noticed that more and more were nattering on about girls, and sex, and whether or not they had started to "squirt", and sex, the size of their dicks, and whether their balls hung high or low, and sex. I actually learned quite a bit, not the least of which was that my night time fantasies, and my growing attraction to my mates, was forbidden, never to be spoken of, territory. Such things were only done by "fags" and "queers", so it was, in that long, hot summer of 1957, I began my long, lonely exile.

Two boys unwittingly helped me. One was gay, the other straight. Both I will always remember.

Every neighbourhood has them. The first is the stereotypical "gay" boy. He is slim and fey, very feminine, and more often than not beautiful. Where other boys grunge around in blue jeans and buzz cuts, he wears dress slacks, penny loafers, and always a crew neck sweater, sometimes draped over his shoulders, sometimes tied around his waist. He is usually very smart, always at the head of the class, and excoriated as a "teacher's pet" in addition to being a queer. He almost always plays piano, or the flute. He loves play-acting, and is, in high school, in every student production. He assiduously avoids sports and hates to undress in front of his classmates. Swimming classes, which he tolerates with all the grace of St. Lawrence on the grate, gives him an excuse to assume the role of a martyr. He is the butt of every scatological joke, and always the object of scorn. He is the neighbourhood fag.

James (never Jim, or Jimmy) ffynch-Douglass (yes, two lower case "f"s - it was a family thing) was our neighbourhood fag. I know I made it sound as if he were a horrible person, but I learned that he wasn't, really. He could be sarcastic, and usually was, having been born with the tongue of a viper. But he could be kind, considerate, and very compassionate. In truth, he had a heart of gold. In time I did become his friend, but only that. James and I never fooled around. To be honest, I would not have minded, for he was hung like a horse, putting just about everybody in the Senior Class to shame, even the ones who bragged about how big their dicks were. It never happened because he never offered and I was much too afraid to initiate anything.

James's family were the wealthiest people in town. They were also, like my family, United Empire Loyalists, and his parents were snobs, "crashing snobs" my father called them. They lived in a huge, Georgian house - hell, mansion would be a better word to describe it - set in wonderfully tended gardens just to the north of the marina, on the east side of the lake. The house was crammed with museum quality furniture, family portraits, silver and the finest antique china and crystal, every stick of it having made the journey from South Carolina to Halifax to our village.

The ffynch-Douglasses were the local gentry, and no argument. They were staunch Conservatives, which was not surprising as they had been staunch Tories way back when. Mr. ffynch-Douglass waxed lyrical at the drop of a hat, regaling anyone dumb enough to listen to him with his family's history, and usually bemoaning the loss of ancestral acres in Carolina where they had owned vast plantations on the Ashley, slaves, a town house on the Battery in Charleston and ships. In December of 1782, with the Colonial rabble pounding at the gates of the city, the British evacuated, taking with them their loyal supporters, including the first ffynch-Douglas, who owned two of the ships in the evacuation fleet, both packed with his household goods, silver, money and slaves. They first went to Halifax, where they were given land, prospered and then migrated to Upper Canada, where they acquired more land, most of which eventually became the site of our village.

As gentry, the ffynch-Douglasses were devoted to good works and making sure that everyone knew that they were better than everybody else. James's parents were on every charitable and social committee going, from the hospital committee to the Remembrance Day Parade Committee. I will give them their due, though. They donated time and money, which stood them in good stead, but always advertised their charity, which did not. They also flaunted their wealth. This took many forms. Mr. ffynch-Douglas never drove anything as plebeian as a Ford, or a Chevy. He drove a long, black, Chrysler Imperial, traded in on a newer model every two years (the old one being sold to the local funeral parlour, which Mr. ffynch-Douglas owned). Mrs. ffynch-Douglas would not be caught dead shopping at the Eaton's Catalogue Store. When she felt the urge she would travel to Toronto where she frequented only the most exclusive shops. Peterborough was closer, but too provincial for her tastes. The whole town knew when she'd been shopping, as she would stroll downtown in her new finery. When one of the town ladies would stop her for a chat, she would, in the artlessly artful way of the rich, manage to ensure that the lady walked away knowing exactly where the new frock had been purchased, the designer of the new hat and so on. She also managed to convey the thought that such finery was very expensive and quite beyond the reach of lumpen-proletariat.

Both Mr. and Mrs. ffynch-Douglass were pieces of work, and I didn't care for either of them.

Given their much advertised superiority in all things, one would never have expected that any of their sons - James had two older brothers - would be given into care and custody of the Ontario public school system and be forced to mix with the riff raff. As mentioned, there were two public schools in town, the elementary school and the high school. There was also the Catholic School, St, Paul's. There was no Catholic high school as the province only supported the Catholic system through Grade 10. For the succeeding grades, 11 through 13, you went to a private school, usually in Toronto, sometimes in Peterborough. These were fees paying boarding schools and nobody in town other than the ffynch-Douglasses could afford the expense. Consequently, everybody else went to the public high school.

There was a private school, located on the edge of town. It had been around, in one form or another since 1879 and I was not surprised to learn that James's father was an alumnus. The school was very posh, in the Anglican tradition, and every bit as snobbish as James's parents.

At first I could not understand why James attended the Catholic school. His family were Anglicans, attending St. John's - where they had a pew - a large, well-appointed church on Queen Street with a towering spire symbolizing, one supposes, the superiority of "The Established Church" over the lesser religions, and with a large, treed churchyard and gardens where the church held an annual garden party and a fête, where I once won $25.00 at Tambola. James should have followed his brothers to the private school but he did not for the simple reason that his father despised him, and never let an opportunity to ridicule his queer son go by.

Given their pretensions, and sense of superiority, James's parents could not bear the thought that there was homosexuality in the family. That homosexuality existed in all cultures and societies, and had since the first cave man patted another cave man's behind, was immaterial. It did not matter that there were gays in the best families, including, or so it was rumoured, the Royal Family, whom the ffynch-Douglasses had elevated to the status of Gods, and emulated whenever they could get away with it. Whispered gossip had it that the Duke of Kent was not only homosexual, but also a drug user, sniffing cocaine with the best of them. Gossip also had it that the Duke had been forced to marry Princess Marina because he had fallen madly in love with Noel Coward, who reciprocated and went into a decline when the Duke was killed during the war.

For James's parents, having a queer son was the ultimate humiliation. In their eyes having deviant son lowered them to the level of the rabble milling about the manor house gates. What also galled them was that there was nothing they could do about it. Why they didn't send him away to school eluded me, until I realized that to do so would, in their eyes, advertise the fact that they had produced an aberration. James was very effeminate and to have him flouncing around a prestigious school attended by the scions of some of the most prominent families in the province, simply was not on. Whether they liked it or not, James's parents were stuck with him. They could not throw him out. The law frowned on parents abandoning their children and they were responsible for James until he reached the age of 18. That was one reason they kept James at home, feeding him, clothing him, giving him a bed. The other reason, so far as I was concerned, was that they feared what the neighbours would say. No one likes the neighbours gossiping about them, particularly the very rich or the self-appointed "leaders" of a town's society. The last thing the ffynch-Douglasses wanted was to set the local gossips to clucking. They also would never admit to having a faggot in the family. Since they had to educate their son, they did so, sending him to the Catholic school, where the education was better and discipline strict. They put it about that James was "delicate" and keeping him at home, where they could monitor his "health", rather than sending him to a boarding school, was really best for him.

James might have been delicate, but he was no pushover. He might sashay around town, he might have the limpest wrist in town, but he marched to his own drum. He knew, I eventually realized, what he was. He had accepted what he was, and he was not going to put up with the crap dished out by the local bullies and bigots.

As I watched James, I grew to admire him. He gave as good as he got, usually enduring the taunts, the vicious, cutting slurs and name-calling with a slight, condescending smile. However, when pushed just a little too hard, he retaliated.

Schoolboys can be the most callous, vicious, mindless creatures on earth. I admit now that I was one of them, although I must also insist that I was not as bad as some. From the moment James walked into the school he was inundated with the name calling, the filth that only boys can think up. He bore this with equanimity. He seemed to be saying that if his peers could not accept him for what he was, well, too bad, their loss.

For some reason, while they always loudly demonstrated their "straightness", some of the boys always ended up offering to let James suck their cock. They would grab their crotches, leer at James, and taunt him, describing mythical beasts that lurked, waiting for him, in their undies. Usually James would sneeringly retort that he was not in the mood to service little pink mice, always emphasizing the "little", and walk away. This only confirmed the perception that "queers" not only threw a baseball "like a girl", they were afraid to fight, too cowardly to do anything but run away and cry. James's refusal to be goaded usually drove the other boys into a frenzy. They were, after all, not queer, and his ridicule of them cut deep. Being one-upped by a fag was the ultimate insult. Some of the boys would have liked to pound the shit out of James, but they did not dare. The nuns, stern-visaged, grumpy harridans in wimples and black veils, patrolled the schoolyard wielding long yardsticks or wooden pointers which they did not hesitate to apply with gusto to hands or buttocks. As James never attended any sporting event, and never went swimming with the guys, this venue was also out.

Unable to demonstrate their superiority, or their callow attempts to cow James, the boys usually lapsed into furious mutterings, vowing that one day they would make James pay for the insult. For his part, James seemed to understand that the other boys hated him because they had been taught to hate him. Just as he was what he was, they were what they were, ignorant Neanderthals, and something to be borne as gracefully as possible. But there was a limit.

One day, for some reason, James had enough.

As the last days of the school year waned the nuns and teachers had to find some way to keep their charges busy and off the streets. They, like their students, were just marking time until the bell rang for the last time and summer holidays began. To fill in the empty hours we were treated to field trips, to Ottawa, to Toronto for the day, or to sports days, where everybody played ball, one class vying against another for blue ribbons and small, gimcrack trophies. It was all good fun, and while there were the usual rivalries, nobody got hurt and the day passed quickly.

James, as usual, rarely participated. He would sit on the sidelines, reading a book, and minding his own business. The nuns, for all their insistence on rigid discipline and "participating", seemed to understand that James was different, and let him be. They also made sure that his classmates left him alone. James was quite content with the situation. Others were not.

The new boy in town, the tall, handsome redhead that I lusted after, had, in the manner of all boys wanting to fit in with the herd, joined the mob in taunting James. Terry Willis was not quite as bad as some of the other boys, but bad enough, and during the period when the scores were being tallied, and the winners determined, he decided to have a go at James.

Sauntering, thinking that he was exuding his masculinity (he was, so far as I was concerned), he walked up to James and snarled something about James being the town queer. At first James ignored him. Terry, encouraged, pushed ahead and opined that perhaps James would like to suck his cock. Terry announced that he had a great cock, and he knew that James would want to suck it.

Usually, James would say something cynical, and walk away. This time, however, he did not. He carefully closed his book, placed in on the ground beside where he was sitting, and stood up. He faced Terry. His eyes never wavered and, much to everyone's surprise, he whispered, "All right," and his hand reached for Terry's zipper!

Nobody knew what to do! Poor Terry didn't know if he was punched, reamed, or bored! The rest of us stood in shock as James slowly pulled down Terry's zipper and reached into his jeans. Terry's mouth dropped as he felt James's hand gently squeeze his soft genitals through his tightys. For what seemed like hours Terry just stood there, gaping. He couldn't admit that having his dick and balls fondled felt good, and that James's touch was giving him a bone! He would never admit that because that would make him queer! Terry just stood there and then, suddenly, pulled away. Much to my surprise, and I am sure the surprise of my schoolmates, Terry didn't haul off and belt James. He stared, and began muttering, "He touched my dick! He actually touched my dick!"

It was then I chose to exercise a newfound talent for making a smartass crack. "Well," I said, snickering, "You did ask him to suck your dick. He can't very well suck it without touching it!"

Terry glared at me, called me a prick and a pervert, and walked away. He didn't speak to me for a week, and carefully avoided James. As did most of the other boys. I kept my distance. While I would not have minded having my dick fondled by James, or anyone else for that matter, this small incident brought home the very real fact that had I, or Terry, allowed such a thing we would have been guilty by association. We would have been labelled "queer" - and that I could not, and would not, allow.

Fear of ridicule, of isolation, drove me to begin cultivating a new persona. I would watch James and in my own mind swear that I would never, ever, be like him. I was not effeminate, I played sports with ferocity - I was a jock! I was a normal boy. I did everything I could to convince people that I was a typical, normal boy. I joined, obliquely, in the homoerotic play of boys, but I always managed to come across as slightly disapproving.

At the same time I refused to engage in baiting James, and tried to avoid those whose purpose in life seemed to be to castigate and ridicule him. When I could not I developed a look that said while I was not one of them, and wouldn't think of having sex with another boy, I was not about to join in their bigotry. Fair play for all was my unspoken message. I was a sanctimonious, self-righteous little man, firmly in the camp of the straights. I wanted to be something else, yearned to be something else, but in truth what I wanted to be was something I could never be, so long as I hid in my closet. I wanted to be a good man, but I was not.

Shortly after the incident with Terry, there occurred another, a much more influential, incident. This involved James, and the other boy who had a great, traumatic effect on me. This was Piers Gaveston. Piers seemed to think that he had been born to bring queers and faggots to heel. Piers never let up on poor James. He pushed and pushed, and eventually, his hatred was expressed, as it always is, with violence.

Piers was the son of the town engineer, the man who kept the water flowing and the sewage treatment plant working. Piers was tall, very blond, and the things wet dreams are made of. He was also a jerk.

While Piers lived only two houses down the road, I really did not know him all that well. My father called him an "accident of war." What he meant was that Piers's parents had met in England when his dad was stationed there during the War. When the war ended they came to Canada to live, first to Newfoundland, where Mr. Gaveston had been born, and then to Ontario, by way of the "Newfy Bullet", the train from Halifax to Toronto.

The Gavestons were a large, loud, rambunctious lot. They all, except for Piers, seem to have the inborn insouciance and love for life and people that all Newfoundlanders seem to have. Mrs. Gaveston was a loud, blowsy, unkempt woman who always seemed to be laughing or yelling at her children, of which there were many, and she always seemed to my adolescent eyes to be pregnant. She was always outside, participating in everything her kids did, and always inviting the neighbours in for some of her wonderful cooking, and what she could do with a slab of salt cod - which she had sent to her two or three times a year, was nothing short of miraculous.

Mr. Gaveston was a loud, profane man who called every male "By", which is Newfanese for "Boy". He enjoyed being with his kids, and thought nothing of giving his wife an affectionate pat on the ass whenever he felt like it, or she needed it. He didn't give a damn what the blue-nosed neighbours (my parents amongst them) thought, and on warm summer nights, and Sundays, when he was not out mowing the lawn with his shirt off, he usually could be found in the Legion, or on his front porch, drinking beer and having a helluva time.

I liked them both and wished that my parents could be more like the Gavestons.

Then there was Piers. He was 13 and a bit, and, to my naive eyes, quite worldly. He was officially a Protestant, though I don't remember ever seeing him or his parents heading towards one of the churches. He smoked on the sly, swore, and was always making lewd remarks about the girls. He also talked about something called "corn holing" and something called a "blow job" and when he wrestled with the other boys he never failed to cop a feel. He was everything we did not dare to be. He was also a certified homophobe. When James was around, Piers never lost any time in letting him know that he wasn't wanted, that his was a waste of space, that he was damned to hell, that God hated him, and on and on and on.

James stood it all, until one day . . .

It was a hot, muggy, humid day, the kind of day when dogs seek the nearest shade, when the birds perched in the trees and panted. It was a day, we all agreed, when it was too hot too fuck! But not to fight.

We were gathered, as we always seemed to be when the temperature rose to the high 90s, in front of my father's drugstore. In addition to the usual items found in a drug store, my father had a soda bar, dispensing ice cream sundaes, cones, and all of the iced creations so beloved by boys on a hot summer day. We were all squatting in front of the drugstore, bitching about the heat and arguing about whether or not we should go swimming and eating extra-large ice cream cones (it pays to have a dad who owns the ice cream bar). Piers was, as usual, waxing lyrical about some mythical tryst he'd had with one of the farm girls, when James came down the street. Unlike the rest of us, who were wearing the absolute minimum of clothing, just shorts and sneakers, James was fully dressed, his slacks clean and pressed, his shoes shined to brilliance, his open neck, white shirt - his only concession to the heat of the day - stiffly starched. Piers took one look at James and the war was on.

Piers started in by calling James a faggot. Nothing really new there. Then he offered James his dick to suck. Ordinarily, James would sniff disdainfully, as if he had some hidden secret knowledge of what Piers's dick looked like. Again, nothing new there. But something happened on this sultry afternoon, which stays with me to this day.

Piers witty attempt at repartee was more or less ignored by the rest of us. We'd heard it all before and, as I have said, it was just too hot to fuck, and James never reacted to Piers's goading and barbed remarks. We expected that James would carry on into the drugstore and that would be the end of it.

Not so!

James regarded Piers a moment and then his face took on a look of . . . a look I can only describe as sultry lust. Having heard James's sharp tongue before, I suppose we all should have expected something, but this time James's retort left us bug-eyed.

"Why Piers, sweetheart," James cooed. "How could you say such a thing to me, after last night?" He then reached down and slowly ran his finger along Piers's bare legs. "Remember how you moaned, and squirmed when we rode to Nirvana?"

Piers's face turned crimson and you could have heard the half-dozen clunks as jaws of the rest of us hit the sidewalk. We all looked at Piers. We didn't know what in the hell "Nirvana" was, but damn it sure sounded like one helluva place!

James's finger continued on up the leg of Piers's shorts, the tip eventually hitting Piers's dick! We didn't know it at the time, but Piers was not wearing underpants - going bare balls, we called it. Piers grunted and glared at James venomously as his hand pushed the intruding finger away.

"Why, Piers," James continued on in a low, sultry voice. "You didn't do that last night." He gave Piers what seemed to us, watching avidly, to be a knowing smile. "I did so enjoy our time together," James continued, his voice low and dripping with honey, "but Piers, sweets, you talk a good fuck, and that's fine, but Piers, do you really want all the boys to know that you're built like a stud budgie?"

"Holy shit!" whispered Pauly Tralla after what is politely called a long, pregnant pause. "Piers fucked James!"

The implication of what Pauly had said was devastating for Piers. He was now, by implication, guilty of doing something that was beyond forbidden! We all began to shuffle away from Piers. That what James had implied might not be true did not occur to us. All we could think of was that Piers, the man, so to speak, had not only let James suck his dick, but he had fucked James! Piers Gaveston, whose balls clanged when he walked, had actually had . . . SEX . . . WITH JAMES . . . well, that meant only one thing.

Seeing the looks on our faces, Piers blew a gasket. He leaped to his feet and roughly pushed James away. "Take it back!" he shrieked at James. He looked pleadingly at the rest of us. "It's not true! He's lying!" he wailed. "We never . . . I never . . ." He turned to James, his fists clenched, his lips curled into an animalistic snarl. "Take it back!" he demanded.

James would not. He reached out and gently squeezed Piers's organ. "But Piers, why would I want to lie?"

For a moment I thought that Piers's head would explode, so red was his face. He took a step back and raised his fist. "You COCKSUCKER!" he howled.

We all saw Piers's fist, we all saw his uncontrollable rage, and expected that three days later we'd be attending James's funeral. We did not expect James to expertly duck Piers's avenging fist, nor did we expect James's fist to fly outward, hitting Piers dead on the nose and sending him flying backward into us.

James, rubbing his hand - he had broken his knuckles - regarded the sprawling mass of legs and arms as we tried to untangle ourselves and push Piers, who was bleeding like a stuck pig, away. James's eyes were deadly calm. He looked at each of us in turn, at Pauly, at Kevin, at Tommy, at Jeff, at Terry, at Colin, and at me. He said nothing, but his eyes conveyed the contempt he felt for all of us. Then he walked into the drugstore to have my father look at his hand. Father sent Malcolm, the soda jerk, out with a towel and a bag of ice for Piers's nose, and the suggestion that Piers head for the clinic to have his broken nose tended to.

Eventually James came out of the drug store. He looked neither to the right nor the left. He had won this battle, and in the winning had gained something he never thought would be given him: respect. As he walked off down the street, his back straight and his head high, I watched him go. I watched the town queer and suddenly a phrase my father used often came to my mind: "Evil flourishes when good men stand to one side and do nothing."

It was then that I realized that I had watched, and listened, as James had been vilified, insulted, belittled and threatened, and done nothing. I was not a good man.

I learned several lessons with the incident between Piers and James. First, if it was not spoken about, it never happened. We all knew that Kevin Callahan and Colin Mialik were closer than close. They were always together and at least every other night or so Colin would spend the night at Kevin's house, or vice-versa. When we changed for swimming, Colin and Kevin always changed together. They seemed to be joined at the hip. I saw nothing, and my chums saw nothing, no touching, no more than the usual grab-assing or homoerotic remarks, to give us any reason to suspect that Colin and Kevin were an item. I suspected they were, as did some of my other friends, but we said nothing. I suspected that Colin and Kevin were getting it on, and I envied them. They were two normal boys at the height of their sexuality, and if they were as horny as I was, I didn't blame them at all for experimenting or just fucking each other silly! Had I not been such an anal-retentive, frightened jerk, I might have done the same thing. What matters though, is that while every member of the little gang of hellions thought that Kevin and Colin were doing "it", we never voiced our suspicions. It was something not talked about.

James, however, had opened Pandora's box. In doing so he taught me my second lesson: people leap at the chance to label other people, to gossip, to insinuate something that might or might not have happened, actually happened.

They were also willing and able to believe in the validity of such an accusation if the person involved was not liked . . . and Piers was not liked. He was a tall, arrogant, loud, profane boy, a boy whom every adult in town, except his parents, prophesied would "come to a bad end". If he had not been as obnoxious as he was, he might have been given some slack. Since he wasn't, by the time the sun went down, and the news of his defeat by James had had time to percolate all over town, Piers was labelled. He could hardly walk out of his house without one, or more, of the neighbours giving him a look and pulling their smaller children, especially their sons, closer. It was disgusting, it was unfair - he and James had not had sex, of any description - but Piers was guilty by assertion.

James gave no indication that he was sorry for what he had done. In fact, he became just a little arrogant, basking in the newfound glory that punching Piers in the nose brought him. James had stood up for himself, which was good. But he had done it at the expense of an innocent boy. I will give James his due, he didn't boast or brag, but he made it plain that anyone who wanted to go a few rounds with him was welcome. He fought, he won, and this was the third lesson. If you stand up for yourself, if you fight the bigots and the haters, they leave you alone, and offer, reluctantly, grudging respect. I know that James won more than the fight: it shut his father up, and the old man began to look at his son in a different light, so much so that in September James left our school, his father having decided that James could attend a proper public school in Toronto.

The fourth, and final lesson I learned was that never, under any circumstances, was I to indicate, by thought, word or deed, that I was homosexual. I began to burrow into my closet.

I am not going to bore you with a long story about how or when came to know that I liked other boys. There was no great epiphany when I was seven or eight, or whenever. I just did. I never dreamed about girls, I never wondered what it would be like to have sex with a girl, and in fact the thought of sex with a girl was stomach churning. That I was terrified about doing anything about my true feelings goes without saying.

I didn't want to go to Hell, as the Church said I would. I didn't want to be an abomination and be rejected by God. I didn't want my friends to leave me, or the neighbours to draw aside and point their fingers at me. I didn't want to become a pariah, or be labelled.

Still, like all boys I was curious, which explains why I accepted an unexpected invitation to Piers's house.

The gossip about Piers and James eventually died down, and Piers tried everything he could think of to prove that he wasn't queer. He dated girls, he threw himself into sports, into doing "guy" things. He toned down his venom somewhat, but made it very clear that he hated queers. Because of my new persona I suppose he thought he'd found a kindred spirit and while we never became close, he and I did hang out together.

While Piers and I became "buds", our friendship had been more or less low-key and we never had sleepovers, and while I had invited him home for supper, and I had eaten at his place, we kept our relationship very public.

From time to time Piers had hinted about certain magazines his brother kept hidden under a pile of rancid laundry in a corner of his bedroom closet. Piers called them stroke books. I had never seen any of these books, although I knew about them. I also knew that they were not for sale in any of the shops in town. According to Piers these magazines had graphic pictures of naked people doing the dirty, and showed everything! He would titillate all of the gang with descriptions of raw, naked sex. Of course we all wanted to see these books, but Piers never brought them out of his house. He claimed that if his brother found out he'd kill Piers first and then hunt us down like dogs.

Given the genre, I couldn't blame Piers's brother. Only perverts read them, and while we were perverts, we were second-rate perverts. Besides, given Piers's graphic imagery, and our equally graphic imaginations, who needed books?

I was therefore pleasantly surprised (or so I thought at the time) when Piers whispered to me that his brother had some new books, and asked if I would like to see them? Of course I would!

It was a day or two after the August Bank Holiday. Piers and I had been hanging out. Most of the guys had yet to return from the long weekend, and I suppose that Piers, I being his good bud, thought that I could be trusted and allowed a glimpse of hidden treasure.

For those of you who are not familiar with it, the first Monday in August was a holiday negotiated by the provincial and federal employees' unions to make up for the extra day Quebekers enjoyed - St Jean Baptiste Day. God forbid that proper, British Canadians should be upstaged by a bunch of poxy Frogs! Much later the day would be designated "Simcoe Day," in honour of John Graves Simcoe, who had been the founding father of Upper Canada and the town of York, later the city of Toronto.

Many people took advantage of the three-day weekend by going to the cottage, or visiting out of town relatives. The Gavestons were no exception. They all piled into their father's ratty old Ford and motored off to Toronto, where they had brothers and sisters, and there was a large colony of Newfoundlanders. I suppose the trip gave them all a chance to return to their roots. Mrs. Gaveston always came back with a bun in the oven and crates of salt cod. Piers's brother always came back with the type of magazines you couldn't buy in the IGA. These magazines, which Piers's brother purchased while strolling the "Strip", were usually enclosed in plain, brown paper bags.

The strip was that section of Yonge Street in Toronto that was notorious for strip joints, hookers, hole in the wall shops that offered "peep" shows, panhandlers, raunchy cinemas offering "adult" movies, and bookstores that had their windows soaped and large signs on the doors warning that you had to be an adult to enter. Yonge Street hasn't changed all that much.

After making sure that the coast was clear, Piers led me upstairs to his bedroom, an evil smelling, dishevelled lair if ever there was one. He disappeared for a few minutes and returned with the books hidden under his T-shirt. After locking the door, and lowering the shades, he pulled the magazine out and handed it to me. On the cover was a naked woman, with impossibly huge breasts, licking clean an impossibly huge dick that was weeping what I had learned to call "cum". My eyes bulged and Piers encouraged me to turn the pages.

I had never seen such pictures! How anyone could actually sell the things without breaking the law I could not understand. There were naked men going at naked women doggy style, women sucking dicks, men licking women's pussies! The more I paged through the magazine the more I drooled.

Piers sat beside me on his bed, also drooling and from time to time rubbing the front of his jeans, which had pooched out considerably. He also kept up a running commentary on the models, extolling the wonders of what the photo depicted. He was almost as graphic as the damned pictures! He also, although I did not twig on it right away, let slip a secret. We came to a picture of two men having at a blowsy, bottle blond. Piers sniggered and pointed at one of the dicks and whispered that the guy was almost as big as he was. I put it down to Piers's usual bragging. Then Piers pointed at the other dick and muttered that it looked something like James!

My subconscious failed to take in Piers's comments. I was quite frankly much too busy looking at the naked males to notice anything Piers said. When you have never seen another dick, other than your own, you never let the chance to see dick, if only in a photograph, go by. So, while Piers was looking at the tits and pussy, I was looking at the huge ropey dicks. Since they were all hard, or nearly so, they all looked like my dick. I had a hardon bulging in my briefs and a quick glance at Piers's crotch showed an even bigger bulge than normal in his jeans.

Had I actually paid attention to Piers's reference to James, I might have expected what came next and realized that Piers had an ulterior motive for inviting me into his room to look at stroke books.

After a few minutes of alternately looking at the pictures and then at me, Piers rubbed his bulge, looked down at mine, and reached over and rubbed the front of my jeans.

His touch was electric and I damned near had an accident in my Fruit of the Looms! Nobody had ever been so blatantly obvious before! My mind reeled as I asked myself if Piers was really "one of them." But I didn't push Piers's hand away.

He continued to rub me, and then asked, "You like it?"

I wasn't sure if he meant his rubbing me, or the magazine. I only knew that his hand on my hard dick felt wonderful. I also knew that I should make him stop, but it felt so damned good I couldn't. I nodded, too terrified to speak.

"Have you ever touched another guy's cock?" Piers asked as he slowly left off his rubbing and pulled down my zipper. His hand entered and felt my erection under my briefs. This felt even better and I was so overcome that I could not answer him. I could only shake my head, no.

"Want to touch mine?" Piers asked as he rose and stood in front of me. I looked at him and saw the strangest glint in his eyes. In the back of my mind I knew that Piers and I were going to fool around. My Catholic conscience tried to kick in, but I ignored it. I was not about to let an opportunity to see another guy's dick slip by.

Piers dropped his jeans and pulled down his briefs. To my juvenile eyes - and with only my puny dick for comparison - he was huge. Actually, he was about four and a half inches. His dick was darker in colour than the rest of his body and, unlike mine, the head was covered in thick skin, which ended in a wrinkled tassel about a quarter inch beyond the head. The whole thing was one long shaft of skin, without definition, sort of like a sausage. A few scraggly hairs - which were more than I had - grew at the base of his stomach. I was so mesmerized that I barely heard Piers's next question: "Can I see yours?"

I nodded, stood up, unzipped, and pulled my pants down. My boner was pointing straight up under the thin cotton of my briefs. It didn't seem all that impressive compared to Piers's, but he reached over and rubbed me. It felt wonderful. He rubbed a little more, then reached up and pulled down the front of my briefs, releasing my throbbing cock. It popped out and pointed upward at a good angle.

"Hey, you're circumcised!" Piers exclaimed. "Look's nice."

Until that moment I had never realized that there was a difference amongst dicks. I had a vague recollection about circumcision and made a mental note to consult Webster's Standard Dictionary the first chance I got.

Piers continued to fondle me and then, using two fingers he touched me, then felt my balls. "And you got big balls," he breathed huskily.

I have to admit, I did, and do.

"Mine are small." Piers complained with a frown.

I had to agree. They were kind of small, and contained in a tightly hanging, wrinkled bag. I didn't have time, however, to dwell on the size of Piers's balls as he pushed my briefs down over my knees. They fell to my ankles and Piers pulled me toward the bed, sat down, and fingered me again. "You like it?" he asked again.

"Oh, yes." I breathed. I sat down on the bed beside him. The warmth of his hand on my rod was great, and it sure felt a hell of a lot better than when I did it.

Piers began jerking me off. I reached over and enclosed his dick with my hand. As I pulled down on his foreskin his mushroom was half exposed. When I pushed upward the head disappeared under a thick layer of skin.

"Have you ever had a guy suck it?" Piers whispered.

I shook my head no. What happened next shocked me even more than the pictures.

Piers lowered his head and his tongue licked and washed my dick head, sending an electric shock of pure ecstasy through my body. My cock jumped and Piers took me into his mouth. My cock filled his mouth, and his tongue and lips as he bobbed his head up and down along my shaft set my dick to throbbing and sent waves of pleasure coursing through my body. I moaned and squirmed as every nerve ending on my dick went into overdrive.

I kept my eyes closed as he worked on my hardon. I didn't care if it was a sin. If this was one way to get to Hell, well, fuck it, I was on my way.

Suddenly he let go of me. With my eyes closed I reached down and began to pump myself and I heard him groan harshly.

"DO it to me!" came his snarling demand. "Suck my dick!"

I opened my eyes and what I saw scared the living Bejesus out of me.

Piers was lying flat on his back on the bed, his left hand grasping the base of his dick, the thumb and two fingers of his right hand just above, slowly pumping himself. His dick was long, thin, and, underneath the head a band of purple red skin showed. His exposed dick head was a deep purple colour. Underneath his mushroom were several blobs of creamy yellow something. He lay there, his head pushed back, mouth open, eyes closed, as he gave his dick short, quick little pumps.

"Come on," he gasped. "Suck it."

I put out my hand and touch the moist head. It felt sticky, and I quickly pulled my hand away. I really didn't want to, but like a snake mesmerized by the charmer's flute, I couldn't help myself. I leaned forward and caught a slight odour of . . . piss, and something . . . chalky. My stomach churned.

Suddenly every sermon, every horror story I had ever heard came crashing through my head. Not only was I going to hell but my dick would swell, turn purple, and stink of piss and I didn't know what!

I was so terrified at the sight of him I jumped up, fell ass over elbow, jumped up again, pulled up my briefs and jeans and took off running. All they way home I prayed to God. I would never do it again. I promised God to be good. I asked, I begged Him not to turn my dick purple and make it smell. I wouldn't touch myself, I swore.

I ran across the road, into the house, up the stairs and into my room. I threw myself on my bed, pulled the covers over me and said every prayer I could think of, including a couple in Latin. Please, God, Please, don't make me like Piers.

I was so scared I had nightmares and shook uncontrollably whenever I thought of Piers's thing. My mother thought I as coming down with the 'flu, or something, and made me stay in bed. When I didn't improve she took me to the doctor, who couldn't find anything wrong with me and prescribed a good physic. I was liberally dosed with castor oil. All that did was make me shit like a racehorse. If only for self-preservation I finally roused myself, and went about my normal routine.

My relationship with Piers came to an abrupt end. I also reinforced my belief that in our own hypocritical way we believe that if something is not talked about, it never happened. Piers never mentioned our little session in his bedroom, and I was sure as hell not going to bring it up.

I avoided Piers as much as I could. I would see him coming toward me and my eyes would automatically zero in on his crotch. I would shudder, and try to think of a good excuse to get away from him. Fortunately, for my sanity, his father found a better job in Peterborough and they moved away in the last days of August.

I recovered, of course. I know now that all Piers had been guilty of was pulling back his foreskin and not observing the rules of basic personal hygiene. Still, I was so traumatized that to this day I cannot look at an uncircumcised dick without thinking about Piers's monstrous, discoloured cock.

In September I started high school. As mentioned, the Catholic community could not support a Catholic high school, so I went to the same public high school as everyone else in town. In time, thanks to gym classes and swimming classes, I learned that just about every boy in town was, like me, circumcised. The exceptions were, the for the most part, the boys born at home, down on the farm. Even back then doctors did not make house calls and most farm babies were born with only a only a midwife in attendance. There was also the cost in those pre-OHIP days. Neonatal circumcision cost $75.00, which was a lot of money. Unless something was wrong, like an infection, the farm boys were never circumcised. Which was too bad, because some of them were prime pieces of boy meat.

As for the Mennonite boys, they never appeared nude, at any time. Which was a pity.

High school was a very trying time for me. I had finally come to the realization that I was gay. I didn't want to be, but I was. Despite my prayers I lusted after my schoolmates and couldn't wait for gym glass. Swimming class was even better. When I was thirteen and a bit I hit full-blown puberty, and masturbation, sinful as it was, became a nightly activity, I fantasized about all the dicks I had seen. I had a mental picture of every boy I came in contact with and dreamed of jerking and sucking their hard dicks. The memory of Piers, and his weeping erection, remained with me, however, and none of the uncircumcised boys were ever in my fantasies. These boys I put out of my mind.

As my teenage years passed I continued to look but not touch, slowly drawing myself into the closet I would inhabit for many years to come. I never approached anyone. No one approached me. We didn't dare. The memories of James and Piers were still there and affected all of my friends, and me. No one wanted to be labelled a queer. The worst schoolyard insult was to call another boy a queer. All things considered, it was better to be dead than to be a queer.

My fears and terrors were buttressed by two events that rocked the town to its foundations. One did not involve the town at all. One of the masters at the private school was accused of doing something to one of the boys. Tongues wagged, there was a police investigation, the local papers had a field day, and the parish priest let loose with one hell of a fire and brimstone sermon. It didn't matter that the poor man was later exonerated. Nor did it matter that we didn't know any of the boys who attended the school. We only saw them on Saturday, when they came to town to shop, or on Remembrance Day when their Band and Cadets paraded to the local Cenotaph. As far as the town was concerned there was something going on out there! The rift between town and gown widened, and never really closed, even after THE GREAT SCANDAL.

The local priest died, which was not surprising since he was close on to 90, and was replaced by a young priest. He was good looking, pretty tame when it came to giving out penance after confession, and loved hockey. He started a church team, and was really quite a good coach. All the girls fell in love with him, and all they boys practically creamed their Fruit of the Looms when they saw him racing down the ice on a breakaway. He was very popular with everyone. Even me. No, not that way. He was a priest for Christ's sake. Priests didn't do things like that. Or so we all thought.

One afternoon I came home from hockey practice, dumped my skates on the porch and went into the kitchen. My parents were at the kitchen table, talking very quietly. I thought I heard my father say something about the Church, but when I entered the kitchen they both shut up.

I had expected my mother to be there. She stayed at home - in those days that's where a mother was expected to be. My father, however, never came home in the middle of the afternoon. He was a druggist, and the store he owned was very busy.

I knew at once that something was up. I also knew that hell would freeze over before they told me what they were whispering about. My parents firmly believed that there were things in life that a good Catholic boy did not need to know. Since I knew I wasn't going to get anything out of them I had a glass of milk and retired to my favourite listening post.

I scampered around to the back of the house and squatted under the open kitchen window. With me gone, and out of earshot (or so they thought), my parents resumed their conversation. Because they spoke in such low tones I really didn't get much information. I did get that something was happening down at the church and that the new priest was involved. I heard my mother saying something about the new priest and "that boy".

What this meant I couldn't figure out. The priest was always in a crowd, with parents and such, and, except for the altar boys at morning Mass, had little contact with any of the boys who attended the church. Since I knew all the altar boys, and since they had never said anything, I was totally at sea. After a while I heard their chairs scrape across the linoleum-tiled floor, followed by the screen door slamming. I got up and wandered off looking for something to do.

That night the Church Council met in our living room. Dad was very high up in the K of C, and Secretary to the Council. I was banished to my room, and the doors leading to the front parlour were firmly closed. I could hear loud, muffled voices. I had to go to the john and as I passed my parents' bedroom I saw my mother in her chair, saying the rosary. It had to be serious if she was doing that.

I was so consumed with curiosity that when I went to bed that night I didn't even beat off.

The next morning in gym class rumours were flying thick and fast. Those boys whose fathers were on the Church Committee compared notes. It didn't take long for the word "faggot" to be uttered. Since the Protestant boys didn't have a clue as to what was going on, and the Catholic boys weren't about to enlighten them, or give them ammunition to use against us, we kept what little we knew very close to our chests. All we knew for sure was that the new priest had a yard boy - a kid about 18. I'd seen him working around the rectory. He didn't go to school and kept pretty much to himself. The kid was supposed to be the priest's nephew and lived in the rectory with him. To my mind this was not all that unusual. The last priest had had his widowed sister living with him. I didn't think it was any big deal. My parents, and the Church Council did.

A very low-keyed whispering campaign began. For some reason everyone was more than willing to believe the worst. I underwent a mild interrogation from my father. I could truthfully tell him that I hadn't set foot inside the rectory, that I hadn't been asked by the priest to take anything off but my hat, and he hadn't touched me except to show me how to stick handle a puck.

For about a week this went on. Whispered conversations, closed door meetings and so on. Eventually the Bishop of Peterborough put in an appearance and the young priest and his nephew were gone. I never did get the whole story, but I did hear that the kid was not the priest's nephew and that the good father was teaching him more than just the Stations of the Cross. I did get a round of lectures about men who touched young boys down there and how I was to avoid that at all costs. It was pretty heavy and I took to my prayer stool. No way was I ever going to be one of them.

I did learn, much later, that the priest had not been punished. The Church, in its own hypocritical, self-seeking way, had decided that he was guilty of a moral lapse, and sent him off to a rest home of sorts, where he was counselled, prayed over, declared once more filled with grace, and returned to pastoral duties.

Once The Great Scandal died down life more or less returned to normal. Since the faggots (James and Piers) had left town, everyone settled for slogging off the blacks (whom we called coloured people back then) and the Jews. Since there were no coloured people or Jews within a hundred miles, I couldn't see the point but what the hell, people had to talk about something.

They were not talking about me, thank God. I was the model straight boy. I even dated girls, although I used the old excuse that only bad boys tried to make it with girls. I was a good Catholic boy, respectful, pure in thought, word and deed. I played sports with a vengeance, I roughhoused with my mates, I did everything I could think of to firmly establish myself as a normal, very normal, boy. And I was miserable.