The Persistence of Memory
by Rafael Henry
Chapter 9
I went up at a quarter to nine to say goodnight to Duncan. Usually he's asleep by then but tonight he wasn't. He seemed very restless as I ran my fingers through his hair and looked at his beautiful face, his eyes open. I stroke his cheek, and then very gently touch his eyes which immediately close. I know he loves this kind of touching; tender and loving. He must know how much I do love him. He misses his granny very much, and needs to feel he's loved here by all of us. Life without him now would be unbearable. We all feel so lucky and blessed with his presence.
I might stay with him for a half hour even, just to make sure he's ok. Tonight I will stay because of Rosie. They went off to the park again this afternoon after school. He wasn't very forthcoming when he got back for his tea. I asked him how he'd got on with her.
'Ok thanks.'
'Oh. Is that all?'
And that was it, but that wasn't it at all. There was more surely? I really do need to know how things went with her. Ralph Mole, her father, had told me a bit about her. How she had reached that stage, when she's desperate to meet boys. There are boys at her school, but she lives miles out of Truro with just the odd teenager in Poverty S. Erth that might be a candidate. One very odd teenager to be precise. And then her brother gets friendly with Duncan, being a considerable improvement on the odd fellow, otherwise known as the village idiot who gets drunk and steals from the local shop. Not really an ideal candidate to be Rosie's first proper boyfriend. So, when her brother, academically much more able than she is, gets homework to occupy him every night, Duncan is possibly available to go with her to the play park.
Duncan has turned over onto his back now with his hands behind his head, looking at me. What a lovely face he has, nothing particularly pretty about it, but just so wonderfully boyish . And those eye lashes to die for. And the mouth, full and with beautifully shaped and full top lip, above it the just hint of downy pale hair. I love just running a fingertip over that top lips, from side to side. That makes him smile every time. He says it feels good when I do that. He shuts his eyes and enjoys it. He's so lovely, I could eat him there and then. Well, kiss the little blighter more like, full smack on the mouth, and with tongues going like crazy. And kyes, it's sexual. Very sexual. He's perfectly safe with us, me in particular, but he's in my thoughts all the time, and I'm talking about those kind of thoughts.
Garth used to go on about mouths and the perfect shape they needed to be to provide the most pleasure. He'd never make that kind of reference about Duncan; of course . But. Or rather, butt. He has one of those too, all tight no doubt, and virginal. But there will come a day when he grants access to some lucky boy. Possibly. Depending.
I always thought that when a boy stretches out and places his hands behind his head when you're hovering over him in bed, he's asking you for something. Putting your hands behind your head like that means he's not going to do it, but you can . If I asked him now, what would his answer be? I don't know.
'Why can't you talk about it Duncan? Did something go wrong at the park?'
'No. It's just that…….'
'Just what darling? Can't you tell me? I need to know that you can talk to me about absolutely anything . It's very important that you do.'
'I know. I can talk to you.'
'So, did something happen you didn't like?'
'No, not really. She was nice. Really nice to me. I just didn't want to. I just don't like it. Not with her. There's nothing wrong with her. It's me.'
'But there's nothing wrong with you sweetheart. Absolutely nothing at all.'
This is hurting me. It's hurting me badly to see him in this sort of doubtful turmoil.
Duncan turns onto his side again, his eyes still open, but wet now. Ok, just let it rain.
Only a few tears as I stroke his cheek with the back of my hand. I know it shouldn't happen, but I'm aroused by that. I've only got to look at him and I'm aroused. But I'm like that. It doesn't take much. Ask Garth, he'll tell you.
They didn't stay at the play area very long, but retired to the pretty tamarisk grove a safe distance away from the mummies with their toddlers and a few other kinders hanging around with nothing much to do other than flit from one bit of play equipment to the next. He let Rosie do what she wanted with him. That's the long and short of it, and latterly it was a lovely long thing she had in her hands. When she tried to masturbate the boy, what had initially responded as it should, or maybe even did, with that little ragamuffin, Robbie, it sank like a stone, much to Rosie's disappointment. She didn't say anything when it slowly reverted to it's normal size resembling a walnut whip. She didn't say anything about not being able to do this, or the other. Nothing about what Duncan saw as his failure. But he thought it. There's something wrong with me. It's one of those kinder horror thoughts isn't it? I'm a failure. I'm no good as a person. I can't do things I should be able to do, and I know it. It's true what she said. I'm useless, and what's worse, I'm not right . There's something wrong with me. She's a girl, and boys are suppose to get excited about girls, and I'm discovering that they just don't excite me, not at all. But I know what does. Being in the showers after Games. Seeing all those boys, nice young ones with their smooth shiny willies with water cascading of the skinny ends. That excited me. There's a dark haired boy that looks at me. He keeps on looking at me, up and down, and then straight into my eyes, smiling. So I look at him and smile back. That excites our Duncan.
I've had that feeling, those thoughts that Duncan's having, and it's not something one recovers from in a hurry. I needed people to tell me something different. That being different is ok. There weren't many people I wanted to tell my short story to. Quintus was one of them.
He was drying me with a towel after a warm bath. He'd washed my back and I was excited by that, so when I stepped out of the bath tub to be dried, it showed. He looked down at me and smiled. I thought it was my lucky day. It wasn't. He asked me when I knew. I told him the truth. Around my eleventh birthday. By that time I was certain I preferred the boys to the girls. I remember seducing my very hetero cousin, persuading him to let me make him come. He let me, and produced a lovely little squirt of silky-smooth sticky stuff. He told me he was worried about me, especially as I was soon to go to boarding school! Once there, I had no worries about being different, having friends of a similar persuasion, at least then, if not in the longer term. In time most switched on to female based fantasies whereas mine remained firmly focussed on hairless kinderkocks belonging to pretty boys, and being released from their close fitting white and very brief underpants. It wasn't hard to realize those fantasies in those days, such was the scope for romance at S. Endellions. Garth used to say that the Cornish air always made him horny. Wishful thinking I do believe. It has never had that effect on me. I can get sexy feelings anywhere! Anyway I don't need Cornish or any other kind of air to turn me on. Just the sight or the sound or the touch of what I love more than anything in this world. And by now you know what and who they are.
I think Duncan has come to that conclusion, or if his little adventure with Rosie hasn't confirmed his suspicions about his sexuality, the real truth will dawn upon him soon. But I have a crumb of comfort for him as he drifts tearfully towards sleep tonight.
'It's Friday tomorrow sweetheart. Why don't we invite Robbie to stay? I'm sure Ralph won't mind. And it'll be a discrete message for Rosie too. We can drop him off as usual and then he can change at home, and then when he's ready, he can come round, have his tea here, you can go to the park together, or play upstairs, or in the garden. Then he stays over. How about I ask his dad?'
Those few tears have dried up now, and replaced by a weak smile, and a response to my idea.
'Why can't he get changed here?'
That's my boy!
Meanwhile life goes on at the school 'up the hill' in Truro. I'm still enjoying my role as the general IT dog's body around the place, but with time to go on developing my sculpture practice, and keeping Quintus at bay. I get more questions from him every day, often about Duncan and how things are going for him as our lodger at Poverty S. Erth. I told Quintus that Duncan had found a girlfriend in the village. The daughter of a local impoverished jobbing gardener. He was horrified.
'What! What ever possessed you to allow that!' I laughed and said it wasn't all bad news because she had a lovely younger brother. I didn't tell him his name was Robert Mole and he has just started here in Year 7 and hadn't he noticed him yet?
I couldn't resist hanging around in the room when Robbie turned up for his first art lesson, and guess what that was? Life drawing. I had warned him not to put his hand up to be the model. Hilary, my best friend in this place and the only proper one gave the class a talk to start them off with a few slides of Raphael drawings and some contemporary examples of the nude in art. Nothing like jumping in at the deep end. She'd made slides from my work over the past year which I thought a compliment to my average talent. A couple of them came up on the screen, of a naked Duncan, just to let the boys know that they were fair game to be asked to model for the class, but only if they wanted to avoid doing any artwork. That was the great bonus for volunteering. Once a boy has done it once, he'll do it again in all probability, starting off in PE shorts, the next time in his pants, and then eventually, nude. Another bonus for the boy, or boys, would be a shiny new pound coin at the end of it, slipped into his hand. I always found time to join the class for an enjoyable half hour or so in the hopes that we might have a fresh new volunteer who wanted to avoid the work.
I have also relented a tad as far as Quintus is concerned. I've been to his flat a few times now which was inadvisable, I know. It's like putting your head into the lion's cage, or tuning your back on him. The next thing you'll feel is his hand on your bottom having a good poke.
'I've got something to show you Alex.' He says, smiling.
'Oh? I think I've heard that before Quintus.'
'But I have Alex. Six years ago in the garden? Remember?'
I did remember. A photographic essay of me working in Quintus's garden just a few days before he chucked me and disappeared. He was wandering around in between sunbathing sessions while I did a bit of weeding on my hands and knees with my bottom in the air, and in other natural poses. I hoped he was watching me, and he was. I got myself nicely dirty in the process knowing I'd end up in the shower again, hopefully with him lathering up my nubile twelve-year-old body. Then he'd take me to his bed and we'd make love together. The first bit worked out, but not the second bit, sadly. We did some nude sunbathing together too, with me staring at his circumcised penis lying asleep on his stomach with it's huge perfectly formed helmet shaped head looking at me. I stared at the large dark hole in the middle of it knowing what came out of it, other than his pee. I couldn't see how a boy cold possibly accommodate that thing inside his bottom without major discomfort, but from what Garth told me years later, it was perfectly possible. He knew it could be done from personal experience. Just ask Garth if you want to know anything!
'Imagine, darling boy, for a moment, what comes down it. It follows, therefore, that something just as thick can easily go up it.'
There is a simple logic to that rather gross thought.
Anyway, my mission to divert Quintus's attention away from Duncan has worked so far, just. I've told Duncan to steer clear of him at all costs, but if Quintus talks to him, he can hardly walk off. If a member of staff wishes to speak to a boy, the boy just can't walk off. I regularly ask Duncan what Quintus has spoken to him about, but his answers are always very guarded. But Quintus has 'selected' him for his attention, and I don't like it. I think he might be using him as a bargaining chip to get at me.
Despite my advice, Robbie did volunteer to be the art model. It was the third lesson of the term. I never miss the start of Hillary's lessons, just to see what's going on that week, and to honest, which boy will volunteer to get his kit off. The class was in silence as the conversation between Robbie and Hillary developed in front of about a dozen of them. To draw a figure clothed is one thing, useful, but to look at bare flesh is quite another, and the more bare flesh on view the better everyone likes it.
'Are you ok with your top off Robert?' Hillary asks him, her hand on his shoulder. The boy looks up and nods.
'Shorts off too?' She asks, as Robbie nods his head again.
He stands waiting in his pristine white Parisien beauties for further instructions. The class remains in silence, spellbound in anticipation. Then she sets a variety of five-minute poses using a four-legged stool as a prop for the semi-nude boy. The other boys worked beautifully, fully aware of the contribution Robbie has made. Quite beautiful.
The silence in the class is interesting. The boys see each other nude in the compulsory showers after PE and Games, but it's a busy place with steam everywhere, so it's not the opportunity for any detailed examinations, but the Life Class is different. The boys wait and wonder how much of this week's volunteer they're going see; and what he's going to look like, down there, and also, back there. And then there's the question of how Hillary will pose the boy. There are poses which hide most of the interesting bits, and then there are the other poses; the more sexual ones. Lastly, there's the boy who loses control for some or no reason. Once an involuntary erection begins, there's no way the boy can stop it from becoming a full-on hardon. It has happened, especially if the boy had been posed on his tummy, and then suddenly changed to an on-your-back one. That's the trick with the boys. On your tummy for a while to get things started, and then without any warning, turn the boy over, and lets see. It often works.
I had shown Hillary and Quintus my ideas for my latest piece of three-dimensional work, featuring Duncan and Robbie working together on cartwheels, based on photos I had taken of them, nude in our garden.
'Who is that boy Alex?'
'A local lad in the village. The brother of Duncan's girlfriend.'
'I've seen that hair somewhere. It was in a junior assembly, here. I'm sure I've seen that boy.'
Of course he has seen him. He stands out in a crowd of boys sitting cross-legged on the Hall floor, knees wide apart showing their knickers nicely. There's another one, with longish ash blond hair, almost white blond, and a rather nondescript face Quintus mentioned. And then there's Robbie sitting on the Hall floor in his flashing grey short trousers, with his knees as wide apart as they can go, and right in the centre if you're lucky enough to be in the right place, that flash of pure white.
'And this boy lives in your village. Have I got that right?'
'You have Quintus, not that it's any of your business. And I mean that.'
'Oh dear, sorry. By the way, I've dug out some old stuff I'd like to show you later. Can you pop round to my flat later?'
Quintus showed me more of his collection of images he'd taken of me. It was the last night I spent with him, and with the full knowledge and permission of my father, in his house. I had shared the shower with him and he'd taken me to his bed. I was expecting that we would finally make love together. He sat with me while I waited for his first moves on me as I lay there with my eyes closed, which didn't come. He left the room but came back a few minutes later. In anticipation and to makes sure I would be responsive when he came back, I had been playing and things had got out of control quite suddenly. He caught me right at the end, at that point one gets to when it's too late to stop. He was with me, looking down, and saw it all. I was completely unaware of his presence, obviously, otherwise I would have stopped. One hundred and twenty three seconds of it. He'd cut in at the end, in very slow motion, the critical bit at the moment of orgasm, when a column of curling and twisting translucent ejaculate makes its way from my body into the air, and then falls onto a tanned tummy in pools.
I watched it I think, maybe six times. There's a curious pleasure to be had when one watches oneself ejaculate in the mirror. It was just like that.
I stayed for the entire Life Drawing class. Robbie had done well, and so had the class. Not a word was spoken during the whole forty-minute session. He stood in the middle of the room as Hillary brought him his clothes to put back on, starting with Garth's idea of what he should wear underneath his natty shorts. The other boys busied themselves with moving easels to the corner where they all fitted neatly together, with a clatter, and then putting their large A2 sized drawings on the pile. One boy was slower than the others. Earlier, there was the dark-haired boy, quite small, with an interesting face. I had noticed him as he had been working with particularly studied concentration, and when I looked down, amidships, there was a bump in his short trousers. Absolutely no doubt about it. Either that or he is particularly well endowed in the kinderkock department, or perhaps a bit of both. I shall, quite rightly, never know the truth behind the bump.
I went round the edge of the room and stood behind the studious little artist. He had his left hand in his pocket, no doubt aware of his indisposition and wanting to hide the evidence of his keen interest in the subject he had been studying.
'That's nice.' I said, pointing to a successful passage of his work. 'Well done.' He didn't turn towards me or say anything. I just walked off, but kept my eye on the boy as he bent down to pick up a fragment of charcoal from the floor. Lovely. As Robbie was pulling his jumper on, hair all over the place, he walked over and spoke a few words to this boy. They obviously knew each other.
I found the boy's sheets of sketches and at the top right-hand corner was his name printed neatly. I gestured to the boy to come to where I was. He walked over to me as I held the last drawing he had done.
'This shows that you are looking properly. But you've drawn the left buttock as part of a circle. It's not. There are angles in there where one muscle joins another…….changes of direction in the lines. But the main thing is, did you enjoy it?'
The boy nodded, with just the hint of a smile.
A quick word about Hillary, if I may. I like her very much and admire her as a professional. The boys respect her too, for her kindness, shown daily by her gently applied excellent discipline. Life drawing for example. That scenario is open to some oik making an unkind comment when the model undresses, like 'weeny peen', or 'fatso'. Things like that. They know that if they said such a thing, or anything untoward and personal about the 'victim', they would be required to be the next model. Thus her lessons are conducted accompanied by the sweet sound of……silence. I'm all for it. I know that life drawing sessions should always be silent affairs of the heart. To draw another naked human is in some form, an act of love and respect and reverance. For me, depending on the boy I'm drawing, it is also very, very sexual.
She's lesbian by preference, but was once married and has one daughter.
'I was up in Town [London] for the Vermeer show at the National. I picked her up near the public loos on Picadilly. She was outside leaning against a wall smoking. I asked her if she was alright. We got talking and she told me she was living in a shelter for homeless girls. A bit of cliche I know but that's how it happened. It was love at first sight Alex. It really was. I went home and told my husband. He told me to go and find a flat to live in and take the girls with me. So I did. I went back to find Elinor, a Latvian girl, and brought her back with me. We made the most amazing love that very first night. For the first time in my life I had experienced an orgasm during sex. In fact more than once that night. Not much else to say really. I was in love darling, properly in love for the first time in my life. Now I was doing the fucking, and getting fucked too. What's not to like about that Alex? Women know how to kiss another woman. To wake up to a woman's touch.'
I loved her story.
Tonight Duncan reminded me. Could Robbie stay one night?
'Please please please Alex?' Duncan pleads.
'You had better ask Garth.' I said, deflecting the question. I knew he would agree, and he did without consulting my father. Meanwhile, along the road further into the village, there's trouble brewing at Number 1, Tregenna Cottages, the home of Ralph Mole and his two children. I met Ralph outside the village shop when I went in around nine last Sunday morning, the bells of the church loud in our ears. They are a well know 'ring' every Sunday before the eucharist service which we usually attend.
'It's Rosie and this puberty business. Her and Robbie. They shouldn't be sharing room now. Rosie should have her own room.'
'Any particular problem then Ralph?'
'And she's into boys now. As you know there's not much of that around here. Not the sort that she's looking for. They're all idiots those boys. Would this Friday suit you? To have Robbie over, like you said?'
'Of course. Duncan can't wait.'
'I caught them the other morning. I went in to wake them. They were both in the same bed. They might have slept together all night for all I knew.'
'What did you do?'
'I went out and then knocked on the door. They didn't know I'd seen them. She had her hand………well you know. Where it shouldn't have been. Not with a boy that age. Her own brother for fuck's sake. That's not right is it Alex?'
'It could just have been accidental Ralph. I wouldn't worry too much. But you're right, it's not an ideal situation by any stretch of the imagination. At their age they shouldn't be sharing a bedroom really.'
'I am stretching my imagination Alex, and I'm not liking what I'm thinking. They were both naked Alex. And Robbie. It was in her hand Alex. She had her hand around his cock. Her arm under his head. What if……….'
'Maybe have Robbie in with you from now on?'
'I've got no woman Alex. You know what it's like being a bloke.'
I do know. I don't have a partner either. But one still has a normal sex drive and a need to exercise normal bodily functions. It's not a pretty thought, woken in the night by a shaking bed, next to your father relieving himself. No, please, not that.
I went home with the pint of unpasteurised milk in the glass bottle, fresh from the farm just outside the village and found Garth in our large farmhouse style kitchen. He was in the middle of a conversation with Duncan who is looking like puberty is catching up with him too, just in a pair of loose shorts and clearly nothing underneath. This is a new thing with Duncan. Either just pants, or shorts and no pants. I've noticed a whiff of body odour on him too, but no hair thus far. He's also in the last few weeks become reticent to be seen naked. I think I know what's going on. I can remember that stage myself not that long ago. Duncan is normally a very clean boy. I'll speak to him. He's suddenly become self-conscious about his body.
'So what's going on Duncan?'
'Nothing.'
'Yes it is. You're hiding from us. You know you are. Is there something wrong, somewhere that's worrying you? And don't fob me off young man. Is that it? You're becoming a young man? I'm going to badger you until you tell me. And by the way, Robbie isn't coming.'
'Why not?'
'Not with you in this mood. When we've got this sorted out, properly, then he might come. But not yet. It's up to you sunshine.'
I could see his brain turning over his options, and after a few seconds, he gave in as I knew he would.
'Can I show you?'
We went off to the bathroom with a smiling Garth looking on. He always says how well I handle Duncan, and I'm about to do something I have had to do in the past, once or twice, examine a boy's penis.
'Would you like me to do this Duncan……or would you prefer you did it?'
'No, you do it.'
With his shorts gone, I can see the wood for the trees. There's tiny bit of swelling there under the prepuce. When I gently ease Duncan's foreskin back, I can easily see what the problem almost certainly is. Otherwise he looks fine, and my suspicion of the onset rush of puberty is correct too. Veins are appearing where there were none before, but I know that's normal, especially after what he's just done. Perhaps that's why he's 'no pants' this morning!
I ran a basin of warm water and showed him what he needs to do, now he's reached this phase, something that I never needed to do being circumcised.
I left him to it, promising him that I'd be back in two ticks to check progress. I nipped into his bedroom and found the pair of pants in the unmade bed close to the pillow. They folded them up into a neat little package in my hand. Back in the bathroom Duncan was dabbing himself dry with a flannel. He turns towards me, smiling, holding his penis between his fingers and thumb to show me, working the foreskin back and forth. In effect, very slowly masturbating for me. This is something I've never seen him do before. I stood watching him. After a few more strokes he stops, allowing his penis to drop and hang. And it does hang.
'What's that in your hand Alex?'
'Your pants darling.'
'Oh. You found them.'
'Yes, and that looks fine too sweetheart. So, by the look of things, we don't need to worry about that then?'
We both laughed from the relief of it all. At least that aspect of Duncan's development is sorted between us. His body is making demands now which he has to satisfy, regularly.
With Duncan gone off to get dressed properly, I showed the evidence to Garth. I know he likes to kept abreast of things, pulling the waistband of Duncan's undies wide enough apart to reveal the brief cut.
'Oooh. What have we here then?' He says laughing.
'It's no laughing matter Garth. Some poor boy is going to have to deal with this lot.'
'Umm, lucky him.'
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