THE MASTERY OF TABLE-TURNING
[Alan Watson has finally come face to face with his true feelings, and has at last declared his love for his eighteen-year-old pupil, Richard Mayhew. The romance, which has so far been very far from plain sailing, is somewhat hindered by the young schoolmaster's enforced and humiliating servitude at the hands of several of his senior students in order to maintain his professional position. Further complications include an unlikely liaison developing with the happily-married games master. The fact that all this has come to pass during just one week is a major source of anguish to Alan. Just one week ago his life seemed so normal and uncomplicated - and there's still Sunday night to get through yet . . . ]
CHAPTER SIXTEEN - What a Difference a Week Makes
Donald Mayhew had gone up to the country club for a round of golf when we got back, and Angela prevailed upon me to stay to tea. She said I could have a shower after my exertions if I liked, and I accepted her kind offer. Richard went up to shower and change first and I suffered the mildest of third degrees from Angela as to what I had ascertained of her son's little problem during our supposed afternoon jog.
I told her that it was as she had expected. He was indeed smitten. She asked if I knew who it was. I lied, of course, whilst desperately trying to keep the lies to the minimum. I said I thought we should respect his privacy as much as was possible, adding quite truthfully that he had, in fact, fallen for somebody much older, and that in my opinion it would be a passing, though more than likely painful, phase for him and that we must all just let him get on with it - let nature take its course.
She wanted to know if the woman was after her boy. I said I thought the relationship was genuine on both sides, even though Richard had made all the running, and that there was no cause for worry. When the time came to move on, the other party was mature enough to let go philosophically. I very carefully neither confirmed nor denied her suspicions as to the sex of Richard's amour. She never for a moment entertained the slightest suspicion that her boy might have been attracted to a male of the species.
She seemed much heartened, thanking me profusely and insisting that I take a large gin and tonic up with me as I went to shower.
Richard was waiting for me on the landing with an open-mouthed kiss. Towel-clad at the hips in careless cavalier fashion, his ardour far from the dampness of his hair, he drew me towards his room unzipping my tracksuit top as he did so and combing his fingers hungrily through my chest hair. I was making urgent little whimpering noises of restraint as he seemed to be sucking the very life-force out of me. Once more, in the manner of a matador with his cloak, he wrenched my tearaways from my legs and hurled them with gay abandon across his room. I stood in just my trainers and jockstrap as he clawed at my naked buttocks and growled lasciviously into my mouth, his lips still pressed firmly to mine. I was a quivering jelly in his hands. Except one bit, that is. And that was the part he now fought to release from its mesh restraint.
"Richard!"
We both froze.
"Make sure there's a clean towel out for Alan, won't you?" Angela called from the hall.
"Right," he called back matter-of-factly before clamping his mouth back over mine.
"I love you," he murmured as he gently gnawed at my ear lobe whilst pushing down the broad waistband of my support. "I want to bathe you myself," he said as he nuzzled at my neck and tweaked a nipple playfully.
"I want to soap up your splendid weapon . . ."
"Richard, do leave Alan alone, so he can get his shower," Angela called, and we both froze again.
Richard grinned cheekily, patted my bare buttocks and turned me out of his room.
"Sorry!" he called down to her, and blew me a silent kiss as I glanced back at him.
As I stood in the shower soaping myself vigorously I think the enormity of my confession truly sank in for the first time. That afternoon I had admitted not only to myself that I was a homosexual. I stopped in disbelief. Wasn't there something inherently sad in the fact that I had reached the age of thirty before coming to terms with my own sexuality? Not only was I gay, but I was a virgin. I felt pangs of embarrassment. A queer; a poof; a pooftah; a shirt-lifter; a faggot, a nancy boy. I was one of those. Was I surprised? I was amazed. Was I ashamed? Yes, a little. Was it something I would have preferred not to have been? I thought of my mother. It was definitely something I should prefer her not to know. I wouldn't want Donald and Angela to know either. I wouldn't want anybody to know - except Richard. It was nobody's business, except Richard's. My heart soared. I knew at that moment I truly loved Richard. I also knew it couldn't possibly last, and I felt the first pangs of pain.
Later I was to think I would know loneliness, that I would miss the companionship of marriage, the joys of fatherhood, being a grandfather, but then I would always remind myself that, if I had been heterosexual, normal, straight, I would never have known the sheer ecstasy of my relationship with Richard - no matter how brief that had to be.
There is something quite hedonistic about drinking gin and tonic in a shower - especially if one has just been stripped for it by one's boyfriend. I hugged myself with glee at this realization. Oh, how I longed to be sharing this shower with him!
As I stepped out I caught my reflection in the mirror, and my heart plummeted. Twelve years was too great a divide to forge. I was an intelligent man. Who was I trying to kid? It was pathetic. Then I found myself resenting Richard his youth. How could he be so sure of his sexuality at his tender age, when it had taken me very nearly as long again before I knew?
My brain ached as all these thoughts churned about within whilst I stepped into my jockstrap and buttoned up my tearaways, before zipping up my top. Once more downstairs and refuelled with a further generous supply of Gordon's gin, and once more in the presence of my doting lover, my doubts almost faded away. Almost - not quite. I consoled myself with the thought that from now on we should live for the moment, with no expectations for the future, or problems which might arise.
"He's so much happier already, Alan. You've done him an enormous amount of good," Angela hissed at me as my lover was just out of hearing momentarily. "He's opened up his heart to you, and I'm certain he feels so much better for having got it all off his chest. He adores you, you know, with a dog-like devotion."
My heart soared as she said "he adores you", but I had the good grace to blush.
After some cold salmon and a well-dressed salad, served with a bottle of bone dry white wine, and followed by a rich raspberry cheesecake, I took my leave from the Mayhew's with grateful thanks. Richard managed to snatch a deep kiss from me in the hall seconds before his father walked in the front door. I nearly died on the spot.
"All right, Alan?" he had asked solicitously.
Heart pounding, I had replied that I was, then made my excuses and left.
I'd floated home on a cloud. I was in a totally bemused state. This must indeed be the thing called "love", I told myself. I suddenly became very conscious that my face was aching painfully. No wonder! A glance in the driving mirror confirmed I had a foolish rictus grin stretched right across it! My heart was skipping and gambolling in my chest like the little spring lamb must have done which had been our sustenance that lunchtime.
Naked again, ensconced as I was once more in my own home, I turned on the television for a little company, my mind whirling around with unserried thoughts of Richard and not much concentration of the programme's content. I had some marking to do, but knew I could not possibly focus upon that, the mood I was in. It did not have to be done until Tuesday anyway.
The `phone rang. It was Richard. My heart soared. He was 'phoning me from his room on his mobile telephone. He asked if I were naked. I told him yes. He promptly stripped himself naked as he spoke. I found my cock springing up at the very thought of him emulating me in this manner. I caressed and stroked my arousal, convincing myself that it was his hand that so gently and intimately touched me there. We spoke at length of this and that; of love; of the world and how it wagged. In fact, we talked utter drivel, but it was wonderful, heady stuff. We were in love! He told me he would be hard throughout his double period with me on the morrow. I confessed that I would match him entirely. We giggled; we cooed; we simpered; we sighed; we were sickening. The pauses grew ever longer. The comfortable silences ran into each other and finally - but only because his battery was fading - we said goodbye and kissed.
The television programme was just beginning to make some sense to me when the doorbell rang. I got up and, putting on my robe, went to open it. There, on the step, stood, much to my surprise, Dave Whalley.
"Can I come in?" he asked. "I've brought some more beer."
I hesitated.
"Go on, Alan. You know you enjoyed it," he urged. "And look, you don't even have to get undressed. You're stripped for action already," he added with a grin.
"What about your wife?" I asked as I dithered.
"I've told you, she hasn't got one," he responded. "Let's face it, not many people have got one like yours."
With intense embarrassment, I felt it stiffen. At that moment two things happened. As his hand darted forward and grasped my cock, the 'phone rang. I knocked his hand away and stepped back inside to answer it. Dave took the opportunity to follow and closed the front door behind him.
"Hullo?" I said into the receiver.
"Are you naked?"
It was Tim Robey.
"I have company," I replied in stilted fashion.
"Who?" he wanted to know.
"A colleague."
"So are you naked except for your bathrobe, then?"
"Yes," I answered.
"Good boy. By the way, don't forget to bring that robe with you tomorrow. We want to make some adjustments to it," he reminded me.
I recalled that Dave Newman had said the robe was too long, too respectable, too all-covering. There needed to be a hint of danger in the wearing of it, he had mused as he'd studied the only garment I was allowed to protect me from prying eyes. "You must bring it to school with you and I'll have it suitably adjusted for you," he'd said.
I caught my breath as Dave Whalley pulled it open, exposing my tumescence at that very moment, and dropped to his knees.
"Now here are your instructions for tomorrow," Tim went on.
I gasped as Dave Whalley's mouth enveloped my already engorged penis.
"What's the matter?" Tim asked, sensing that all was not as it should be.
"Nothing. I'm listening," I attempted to speak evenly.
"Tomorrow you must go commando all day," he said.
"I'm sorry, I don't understand," I said, beginning to writhe a little at the hips.
"Going commando means going without any underpants. Nothing on at all under your keks. Right, Big Boy? Savvy now?"
"I see, yes," I said.
I could hear blood coursing through my head, and also the sound of a zip. Glancing down, I saw Dave Whalley get his erect penis out and start to play with it as he groaned sensuously, slavering on mine.
"What's going on there?" Tim wanted to know.
"Nothing, why?" I said, startled.
"There are some very odd background noises, and you sound quite breathless. Are you sure Lover Boy isn't there and hanging on your dick at this very moment?"
I was appalled at how close he was.
"Definitely not," I replied firmly but guardedly.
If somebody had told me last Sunday night that in a week's time I should be standing, a naked sex slave, in my own hallway, listening to orders from my master, whilst a fellow member of staff - a colleague - knelt, sucking me off and playing with himself at the same time . . . . well, it was still simply too incredible now, and yet it was actually happening!
I tried to disguise the groan of my orgasm as a cough for the benefit of Tim as I pumped my juices into Dave Whalley's eager mouth. His wrist began to fly and I soon felt hot splashes on my bare shins and feet. Having sucked me dry, he pulled off with a slurping sound and bent still lower to lick up his own sperm. My telephone call completed, I hung up gratefully and leant back against the hall table with an enormous sigh of relief.
"Thanks, Big Boy. That was great," Dave said at last, squeezing my cock with one hand and my left buttock with the other as he got up from his knees. "Now, how about that beer I promised you?"