Lael
by Rafael Henry
Chapter 16
Crime and punishment
I have decided to pay a visit to the private domain of Ewan Evans, AKA 'Fairy' Evans, who is without doubt the funniest boy in the school. A relatively junior boy like me thinks twice before he knocks on Ewan's study door because he's as gay as a pink tent, as they say, not that he poses any kind of threat to anyone. Anything but. He's one of life's kind people. He's an hilarious character who gets away with his outrageous behaviour because he's very very intelligent, one of those science geeks you hear about, and next year he's off to Cambridge; the University of; computer science no less. Clever new stuff. His various attempts to dye his hair always end in aethetic disaster to the great amusement of everyone down to the most junior boy. Ewan seems to like being a figure of fun and always the centre of attention. Pinned to his study door is a photo of a man [obviously] dressed as a woman, and underneath the caption; Do come in! A warm welcome awaits you!
I knock and the answer, very loud, returns…….. come all you faithful . If he wrote that first word, I'm not at all sure how he would spell it. I can guess. Ewan unsurprisingly, given his name, is very Welsh, and with a thick accent to go with his Welshness. He was once seen on a rugger pitch, but only the once. The rugger pitch was not a place that suited Ewan, or anyone that got 'tackled' by him. He always referred to it as the bugger pitch. Being Welsh, he can sing. Singing is part of the Welsh DNA, so, since the age of eight, he has sung in the school choir to great effect, his bleached blond hair shining out. His tenor voice [on the high side] can be heard above all others each and every Sunday, on both occasions. They say he once won a beauty competition aged ten; passing for a girl. Got it? Imagine a strong Welsh musical accent please.
'Oh hullo Jon. Long time no see! Anyway, here you are at last. What can I do you for my dear boy?'
'Err, just a question about electronics Ewan; if you have time?'
'I will always have time for you my dear boy. How are things? Still with that gorgeous boy are you? He's so sweet. Going ok is it?'
'What boy?'
'Oh never mind. None of my business. What do you want to know my sweets?'
I think Ewan will either be a stand-up comedian or work in the surveillance department of MI5 when he's done with Cambridge. Here, everybody loves him for exactly what he is. Kind and very funny. How we will miss his eccentricity when he's not here. The place will never be the same without him.
'If you wanted to listen to someone's private conversation, how would you do it Ewan? I was reading this article about spies.' I lied.
'Very simple Jon. You would need something like this.'
Ewan slips a copy of Practical Electronics out from the pile teetering on the edge of the small desk every study has. Sixth Form boys have a study to themselves. The rest of us have to share.
'It depends on how much you want to pay. Here's a very inexpensive listening device.' He says, turning the crackly pages that smell nicely of fresh ink.
He points to the small black box, a set of headphones, and a power supply connected by a thin black wire; all illustrated inside the advert near the back of the thick glossy magazine. At the bottom of the advert is the price for this piece of equipment; £15.50 pence, including VAT.
'Where would you put it Ewan?' I say, hovering over his shoulder. I can smell his skin. Some sort of aftershave? It's a nice smell. Ewan always smells……interesting. I glance downwards and notice his penis pressing through his shorts. Obviously nothing underneath. I once saw him in the showers. It's a whopper.
'Well if you want to hear how your mummy and daddy made you, stick it under their bed Jonny. You can listen in from your bedroom. You will hear everything my sweetness. Every word, every movement, all that grunting and groaning. And then, darling, the very moment of possible conception. Get what I mean Jon? Don't mind me, it's just my filthy mind at work.'
Yes, I do get it. I'm getting something else as well.
I rather enjoyed my visit to Ewan's study. But the expected exploring hand on my behind never came. Ewan is not a predator on young boys. He's just a nice gay guy. Any boy who might be tending to predation will get his marching orders. As our Chaplain has explained to me, sex within the context of love and support is one thing, and can happen, and if conducted securely and privately, although discouraged, will not be seen as a punishable offence. Sex between boys of ages more than one year apart is very much taboo, and will be stopped if it comes to light, one way or another.
'I think the way you express your feelings for each other, Jon, is acceptable provided you are discrete, as you are being.' Says our Chaplain. 'I'm concerned for Otta though. He should not be involved in any shape or form with anything very intimate you might do together. Is that clear? He shouldn't even be aware of it.'
A bit late for that. He saw us through the window of the Hut. I don't think he saw exactly what was happening but enough to know that one boy was doing something naughty with another. I'm certain that if Robbie and I invited him into our club which meets almost daily now in the Hut, he would willingly join. Roger continues. He has an update on the situation with Otta.
'I think the situation with Otta and that boy Teniel is sorted out now Jon? No longer the outcast?'
'Yes I think so. The other boys in Otta's room have abandoned Teniel now. His support from the other cowards has evaporated thank goodness. Along with the cause of the trouble I think.'
I can discuss anything with the Reverend Roger Manning. I counted up the number of visits to his office this year which I record in my diary, something I keep close to the bottom of my sacred space, unseen by anyone, my tuck box. Tonight I saw Roger for the twenty second time. Top of the agenda is the Otta situation, and has it been resolved?
Up to a point it has. Teniel has been interviewed, tearfully admitted his guilt and accepted an immediate punishment; four strokes of the cane administered to his ample hind quarters. His punishment, interestingly, is public knowledge not only via heresay, not always reliable admittedly, but also by the bruises being on show every day at morning showers. They start as livid red stripes and as those fade, they turn a bluish colour, even a tinge of green, before disappearing altogether ten days or so later; on average. Most of us have had two strokes, many four, some even six of the best, administered with a long length of cane; bamboo presumably. Teniel is already an unprepossessing prospect, nude, and his appearance is not improved by the visible evidence of his evilness. Usually the bearer of such scars attracts a degree of sympathy at the very least, sometimes reaching hero status if his crime was a 'decent' one, like getting caught going to the cinema when he should be on the games field. That's fair game for a couple of strokes, but Teniel's crime was not a 'decent' one.
Beatings, otherwise known as corporal punishment, still endures in the British boarding school tradition. Yes, it does! But word has it, not for much longer. I'm of the opinion that it's a pointless bit of brutality. A sort of revenge maybe? And it bloody well hurts. I've heard some very odd stories about it which have circulated around the place from time to time. These stories circulate amongst the youngest of our brethren, designed to scare them probably. Firstly, the cane is mentioned, and you will take your punishment trousers or more likely, pyjamas down on bare flesh. At this point your penis will become erect, and at the height of the pain, it will spit out a large quantity of semen. It always happens so don't think it won't happen to you because it surely will. There's nothing you can do to stop it. It just happens that way. The story certainly scared me at the time, and I believed it until disabused by a nice lad a couple of years my senior I got talking to during a game of chess one evening.
'Oh for crying out loud Jon, do you still believe that stupid story?'
I was mightily relieved I can tell you. He goes on……..
'Anyway boys your age can't come. Well, most can't. Can you?'
'Er, a bit.'
'Oh, nice. How often?'
'Oh, now and again. You?'
'As often as possible. Do you want another game after this one Jon?'
'No, not really. Not chess anyway.'
He's misunderstood me. Wandering off down the corridor, he beckons me towards the stairs that lead down to the now deserted changing rooms and into a dark corner next to some smelly rugger kit hanging on the hooks. We're both quickly undone, expertly, and he fumbles around my nether regions which respond nicely. I begin to feel his which are by now well up for what is to come. All in all it was an evening of discovery. I had a very pleasant feeling as did he after me, by me in fact, all ending up in some boy's rugger shorts. This is boarding life in the raw. We looked at each other, half smiling, recognizing just how easy and pleasurable simple and basic sex is with one other. He checked the name tape in the white shorts with the very obvious wet patch on them. Eli Thomas.
'Do you know him Jon?'
'Yes. He's a first year.'
'Is he nice?'
'Yes, he's ok.'
'So he won't mind then?' He says looking a trifle concerned by his abuse of the boy's clothing.
'No I wouldn't have thought so. He's nice.'
'Oh good.' He says, hanging the shorts back up on the hook, carefully hiding the wet patch. The next time Eli needs them, the evidence of our pleasure, his not mine, will be long gone and Eli none the wiser.
We watch as Teniel's bottom passes us, waggling like it does, cheeks rubbing, making us look away; usually. But this time, as yesterday and as we will tomorrow, we linger longer on the evidence of society's justified retribution. Teniel is indeed chastened now. When he turns, arms up to grab his towel off the hook, we see the rest of him. Between the puffy upper thighs, there's his winkle, a term applied to the tool of the very smallest of boys. There's a silly schoolboy rhyme about Adolph Hitler, and when it comes to the line concerning Goebbels, we hear that he has no balls at all. Teniel has none that we can see.
To my mind there's nothing wrong with 'small' boys. Rather the opposite for me. Robbie is one such, and he's as loveable and as attractive in that way as a boy can be in my book. What some might think he lacks in one way, I can assure you, he makes up for in another way. Lael had everything .
I know that my mind works oddly most of the time, but seeing Teniel so wounded like he is, so vulnerable to the same kind of ridicule as he is now, temporarily no doubt, makes me feel almost sorry for him. I'm wondering if he gets the pleasure from regular orgasms as do the rest of us, or whether he even can? In a weird way, I'd love to find out. Perhaps I'll ask him one evening if he fancies it when I pass him in a corridor. He'll say ok, and we'll trot off to the nearest bog and he'll let me, and I'll let him, as I feel for his winkle through the layers of cotton and worstead flannel, finally locating the prize? No, I think not. And what if I did? I imagine his half blood-filled winkle would be soft and squidgy like the rest of him, thoroughly off-putting, with just a little stickiness to finish with; if indeed we ever got that far. But I might be very wrong. As for me, when it's my turn, I will be completely reliable as ever, even with Teniel at the helm! Meanwhile Roger goes on…..
'I did organize Matron Jon. She's provided some replacements for Otta to use. A bit more suitable. I think this place is still a bit too conservative to handle the more extreme end of boys' fashions don't you think?'
No I don't think; nor do I think the Chaplain does either. And here's why.
I asked Otta what he had done with his clothes as he was obviously not wearing anything underneath on a day-to-day basis. He told me he had put everything in a plastic shopping bag and hidden them.
'Where Otta? That's ridiculous. Where on earth have you put all that stuff?'
'There isn't much. It's all under the bed.'
'Which bed for heaven's sake!'
'The bed in the Hut Jon. I put the bag in that space under the bed. No one's going to find it there.'
'And now? What are you wearing now?'
'Matron puts them out like she does for all the others.'
'But there isn't a space under the bed in the Hut Otta…….is there?'
'Yes. That piece of board pulls out. There's a small handle and if you pull hard on it, it comes away. There's a space underneath.'
'What's in there?'
'The bag of stuff I put there. And some other stuff too.'
'What other stuff?'
'I don't know. You'll have to look. Something with wires attached.'
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