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I'd become rather pissed off about two things. I'd joined the Army at eighteen and done nearly twelve years and, although I'd done pretty well I was unsure of my future. I couldn't make up my mind if I wanted to extend my signing and secondly, my boyfriend, now thinking about leaving the Army too, wanted me out. He wanted me out in more ways than one but I said I would try one of these to start with—just out of the Army.

Then there were the third and fourth pissing-off occurrences. I'd been told, because of Treasury cutbacks, that the probability of any further advancement was minimal—there were new faces in charge too, then Roddy, the boyfriend, had the offer of a lifetime to take himself off for several years to Canada and the States in the aftermath of September 11th if he left the Army, but wasn't sure if I could be included. Some job—as I put it—what did he know about conning rich suckers to put their money into holes in the ground? Really though, he said he could make an awful lot of money himself in his ostensible job as an investment broker in his brother Walter's bank and promised to keep me in the life to which I was beginning to be accustomed. And with my brains and his connections, who knows? However, things were taking a turn for the better as I found in the letter I received today. But, first things first.

Roddy was about four years older than me and had been a Second-Lieutenant when I was a wee sprog Private of eighteen. Now he was set to leave to join big brother's firm of stockbrokers and general wheeler-dealers to the rich and famous—and not-so-famous but still rich—all over the globe, almost twelve years and many nights of secret passion later. Roddy was the perfect product of a Scottish public-school education and development. Perfect manners, perfect body, five feet ten, dark hair, blue eyes and a nice six-inch uncircumcised cock.

Me, I'm Edward Boon, Ted to my friends and enemies alike, and six foot two of muscle, bone and a few brains. My story was I joined the Army through boredom having managed to get three reasonable A levels and no wish to spend three years at fucking university. Not that the fucking would have been rebuffed. I had had a very willing partner in my sexual activities from the age of thirteen and a half—my next-door neighbour—same age—same proclivities and a nice arse to boot—or to fuck. Which I did on a regular basis. Jake—short for Jacob—Manners had in fact taught me to wank—a skill he had learned after a stay with a slightly older relative and a skill he passed on to our joint delight.

We discovered the other delights from hours of experimentation in the shed at the bottom of his garden. In fact, I celebrated my fourteenth birthday not only at the bottom of his garden but for the first time up his bottom. From that day on we alternated, tit for tat, suck or fuck, wank or whatever, best of pals and never dropped a grade in school—ten top-grade O levels each, followed by two more years of extensive fucking and sucking ending up with three A grades at A level.

Jake, industrious as ever, went off to uni, Oxford in fact, and got a First in Medieval History. I went down the Recruiting Office and got a first in square-bashing, rifle-toting, boot-bulling and latrine-cleaning. The last through making unwise remarks about a rather choleric Sergeant who didn't take kindly to the overheard nickname he had of Bungalow—a play on his name and an undoubted fact, as he had nothing up top. Thick as the proverbial brick shithouse and overflowing with the ordure of non-human unkindness to new recruits. I was marked. Having 'education' was not looked on with any favour by those who had fucked-up in some way and had to join the Army. Here was I—brains—and the bewilderment on Bungalow's part turned to suspicion and then downright hatred. The pity of it was this rebounded on the rest of our squad.

We were a collection of life's misfits. Some wanted to join the Army. An experience of the camaraderie of Army Cadet life at school probably sparked their desire. Some were given the option by friendly magistrates, probation officers or the neighbourhood bobby—join up before you get something worse. A few were seduced by the telly ads—a life for you! More had had a life of broken homes, foster homes and failed adoptions, and needed some sort of stability. Some, like me, had an innate fear of drifting but didn't want responsibility. Actually, my old man had had fifteen years as a Regular and was always praising it up. I half believed him, though Pam, my elder sister, said I was a fool but she loved me dearly. Mum wept a bit and Dad wasn't too sure even up to the day I kissed them all goodbye and caught the train to the barracks even though he'd told me, this, or else!

Until my encounter with Sergeant Bungalow Bigelow life wasn't too bad. The twenty of us soon learned one for all and all for one. If that was good for the Three Musketeers it was essential for the twenty of us to survive happily.

I, of course, was missing Jake terribly. Barrack room life did not include the sexual release I was more than accustomed to. The first fortnight was the worst. Every night after lights out there were farts, groans, grunts and snores. No sound of bed springs gently vibrating, no murmurs of ecstasy as a hand-held weapon fired its arrows, I mean, bullets of desire. In fact, desire was pretty low on the list of priorities.

We were harried from dawn to dusk, here, there, everywhere, marching, trotting at the double, rifle drill, physical jerks, cross country, cleaning and bulling equipment, bedspace tidying and barrack room buffing and then there were the bloody injections. I think the general idea was to keep us so occupied and tired out from, query, healthy activity that once allowed the luxury of bed there was no yen for that supreme activity of horny eighteen-year-olds. I know my horn lay dormant through sheer fatigue, if not through the bromide my school pals had jokingly told me they put in the tea for new recruits when they learned of my destination in life.

Nonetheless I managed two solitary wanks in the said latrines in fourteen days just to make sure I hadn't lost the art without constant practice. The first was behind a closed door making out I was having a lengthy crap at the time. Just a release of pent-up juices listening out for entrances and exits, knowing that if someone suspected there was hands-on activity, then no end of it would be heard in the barrack room, with the high probability of the handle of 'Wanker' being attached to one's given name.

The second was on the second Sunday. I had woken up some time before six o'clock, then remembered as it was Sunday we were being allowed to rest in our beds until seven. I was wide awake and needed a piss. Christ Almighty, as I lay there I sensed a stiffening in my now normally flaccid organ. I crept out of bed, clad only in regulation khaki boxers, shuffled into the flip-flops under the bed and made my way as silently as possible to the latrines in the adjacent corridor. No one was about at that hour, just the dim light from the regulation night bulbs guided me as I went into one of the cubicles rather than standing at the urinal as I knew I needed to experiment. While emptying my bladder I peered at some of the myriad graffiti adorning the bog walls. From 'Please do not stand upon the seat, the crabs in here can jump ten feet', through somewhat exaggerated drawings of all sorts of incredible cocks and tits and other portions of male and female anatomy to a large, well-inked in, 'My mother made me a homosexual' —with the response under it—'If I send her the wool would she make me one?'

Those two were new on me and I grinned to myself as I shook the last drops away and stood, my boxers round my ankles, gently caressing my now hardening and lengthening rod. I was just getting into the swing of things, or the stroking of things, when I heard the main door swing open and shut. Someone entered the cubicle next to mine and after the initial standing piss the unmistakable sounds of a heartfelt wank were evident. Whoever it was wasn't a jot concerned that they were next to an occupied stall, and, whoever it was was fully aware that the silent occupant next door was there for the same purpose but he, that is, I, was too shit-scared to continue. My hardon remained, gripped viciously, but my hand refused to move. Next door the unhurried slap-slap of flesh round flesh went on until that instinctive speeding-up began and there were evident moans and grunts as whoever it was reached a more than satisfactory climax. That wasn't all. In tandem with the intakes of breath and puffings out a low voice murmured, “Thank God, I thought the bugger had died on me!” A shuffling told me that undies were being raised, then the door was opened and footsteps retreated through the swinging main door again.

I breathed a sigh of relief and, with eyes fixed on the drawing of a mighty dick which I visioned was attached to my friend Jake, I set up a mighty rate of knots and my spunk soon joined the accumulated dried-up evidences behind the toilet bowl. Thank God, mine hadn't died on me either!

I went, peered into the now vacated stall next door, saw in the dimness the copious evidence of a much-needed release, proceeded much more silently through the door than he had and almost tiptoed into the barrack room. All were asleep, snores and slight movements were the only evidence of living bodies under the covers. I slid back into bed in the first corner of the room. I turned and saw the bright eyes of Taffy Williams peeping out from the covers in the bed next to mine. One eye closed in a huge conspiratorial wink. A wank and a wink.

Taffy said nothing. We had exchanged names, addresses, likes and dislikes over the previous fourteen days. Like me he had left school in Wales but with little prospect of a job. He had gone to Sixth Form College and had a couple of A levels, not enough for uni, and had been told by his father to join the Army, or else, just like me. He was a knowledgeable lad nonetheless and the pair of us had been given the honorary ranks of Unpaid Squad Lance-Corporals after ten days purely on the strength of being a bit brighter and taller than the others. This meant we had the unenviable tasks of seeing that all the real NCO's orders about cleanliness, tidiness and general bullshit were carried out. As we were all in it together this wasn't too bad but we could get the flak from either side of the fence, us and them. Them, in more ways than one, was Sergeant Bungalow Bigelow. But his story comes later.

Of course, I'd been a bit apprehensive knowing that Taffy knew about my solitary activity, but then I knew about his. And being called 'Wanker' was the biggest put down of any in my experience. At school, everyone knew that any hint that one's hands didn't remain outside the bedcovers at night would invoke the call. I knew, and we all knew, one's hands were not made to remain outside the covers at night. Even with universal central heating these days it was too cold and we all knew it was much cosier to have a hand wrapped round one's trusty hot-blooded pole. It was even better to have someone else's hand round it and from careful listening and discerning of friendships and black rings under eyes I and Jake knew that our contemporaries were just as involved in single, dual, or even multiple effusions of our teenage liquor every day, either in solitary splendour, or with help from congenial company.

In fact, both Jake and I had had, respectively, two and three experiences of this sort quite independently with age mates, not counting the learning experience he'd had with his cousin. As I knew all three of my squirters, by almost eager confession, had tossed off and been tossed off by others, and Jake told the same tale when we compared notes, this meant the total accounted for at least half of my age group at school. And these were the ones we knew about! In fact, we agreed, the two biggest shouters of the soubriquet were the pair who had most to fear as they were, undoubtably, the most avid offenders in the realms of self-abuse and the 'I'll do it to you if you do it to me' trade. Their other fault was the ready way they labelled other kids as 'poofters', 'arse-bandits' or 'nancies'.

Luckily they never suspected Jake and me of being in that category. Both of us were early developers and big with it. I had reached six feet by sixteen and had what my sister Pam called, to my youthful embarrassment, “rugby-players' legs” designed to get any girl's vaginal juices flowing. She didn't mention the vaginal juices but I gleaned gobbets of mis-information of that sort from her copies of Cosmopolitan and other such-like academic literature. Jake was the same size as me all over, even rising to the six and a half inches I fully attained at seventeen and he in the last few months of school. He was thicker than me—I did get a better grade than him in Maths at GCSE level and he admitted that—but he said he made up for that positively in the slight excess in circumference of his shaft over mine. I said what a good friend I was to him to be able to accommodate any excesses of his.

However, the two loudmouths, Troy Pearson and Terry Mole, overstepped the mark in Jake and my opinions. In the first term we were all in the First Year Sixth their phobia attached itself to a harmless lad in the group, Harry Christopherson. Admittedly, Harry was smaller than average for a seventeen-year-old, he wasn't sporty, he wore glasses—so did Jake for reading—he still had a rather unfocussed voice, his biggest interests were English Literature and being editor of the school magazine, but, in his favour and the annoyance of many less-endowed schoolfellows, he did have a lanky cock attached to his rather puny frame.

This all started with a few uncalled-for references to Harry dealing with younger members of the school who had to come to see him in the Sixth Form room to hand in their contributions to the magazine. If they were boys, either Troy or Terry would make some reference such as 'nice arse on that kid' as they went off with Harry looking rather non-plussed and, also, rather embarrassed. Unfortunately, Troy, whose apparent loathing of the Greek practices his name fitted him for and the possessor of a less than normal-sized seventeen-year-old rod, later discovered a poem poor Harry had written which Troy discerned, quite rightly as it transpired, was in admiration of the bodily attributes of a fair-haired Year Ten lad. Troy, for some reason, had told Jake about his discovery. Jake had nodded sagely and wisely said Troy should keep his mouth shut because he couldn't be sure. As Jake was four inches taller than Troy, was obviously brighter, and had a slight air of authority gained from a couple of years as a Patrol Leader in a local Scout Troop, Troy held his peace.

This lad adulated in the poem, Andrew Forbes, was in the throes of the adolescent growth spurt but it hadn't yet ravaged his looks with that scourge of the teenage years, acne. In fact, his blond hair, limpid blue eyes, clear complexion and full red lips were what one would die for, in the parlance of the racy tales I found much later on certain sites on the Internet. Both Jake and I had fantasized about what we could do with young Andrew, with or without his permission, in or out of bed. He was that innocent abroad, the Billy Budd of Mortfield Comprehensive. He was constantly in trouble with us Prefects—not through naughtiness or rudeness or plain downright adolescent contrariness. Rather it was the blissful unawareness of his surroundings, the ignorance of Rules with a capital R, etc. etc. All those petty annoyances which these youngsters have in drawing attention to themselves for those in Higher Authority. Andrew found himself in detention quite often and I must admit on the two occasions I had to sit and watch over the assembled miscreants—just Andrew and another Year Ten kid who had both fallen foul of Mrs Pendleby-Smyth the Geographic ogress on each occasion—I spent the half hour, which sped by like five minutes, ogling those perfect features and wondering what lay beneath that smartly ironed grey school shirt and well-pressed grey trousers.

By the way, I did get a chance a couple of weeks later of ogling the whole of Andrew as I was commanded by Badger Bollocks (not his real name by any stretch of the imagination and a nickname not repeated anywhere near his formidable presence) our senior games master, to oversee a Year Ten game which also entailed checking that the young darlings showered properly after the match. As most were at that shy-making stage of puberty, where hair in the right places and the length of developing juvenile penises were of prime concern, a certain amount of energetic cajoling of their nude bodies was called for. I and Gutsy Pringle, my co-director of the athletic activities of the afternoon, had not only to verbally drive their muddy selves into the steamy room but use the knotted end of handy towels to sting a few recalcitrant backsides. One lad had the audacity to say 'Fuck off' to Gutsy, our First Fifteen's corpulent tight-head prop forward, when told to shift himself and was rewarded with three red welts across a very pert butt.

Of course, young Andrew was last to strip off. This was done, under my watchful eye, with an unstudied nonchalance. Boots were unknotted slowly, football socks removed at a leisurely pace. A very muddy rugby shirt was hoisted heavenwards exposing a perfect chest and two delectable rose-pink nipples. A touch of blond fuzz was discernible under each armpit. Then came the slow descent of extremely muddy shorts.

Andrew was in this mired state as he always seemed to be in the line of someone's exit from a scrum with a ball and was almost always cast aside like some unwanted possession, then to be trampled underfoot by the pursuing masses. He always picked himself up, shook himself in a puppyish manner and followed a few yards behind only to be in the line of fire as the battlelines changed direction again. He never complained, just went doggedly on.

Anyway, his shorts were off and placed on the bench behind him. A fully-formed bubble butt was now in my line of sight. I moved forward a pace or two as his fingers were inserted into the waistband of the tight blue briefs covering those delectable globes. As he raised himself, after divesting himself of those skimpy garments and turned, so part of me raised itself of its own accord in sympathy. Luckily I had the towel which I, cooly and deliberately, held in front of my bulging shorts. He was a perfect picture. I suppose Michelangelo's David at fifteen rather than seventeen would have looked like him. A soft haze of blondness surmounted a perfectly formed young cock sheathed in a pale pink foreskin. Two small but slightly hanging plover's eggs swung below as he turned to face me. There was no embarrassment. I would dream and daydream about that sight for years to come. In fact, I came to many daydreams of young Andrew. I spoke, not quite knowing what to say. I knew what I wanted to say but that wasn't possible.

“Come on Andrew!” I said, with as much authority as I could muster in my best Sixth Form, Prefectural, First XV voice, but almost quavering with lust. “They'll have used all the hot water if you don't get in there quick.”

He smiled and my prick, with no exaggeration, felt if it had lengthened in one split second by another half an inch. I was going to have to work out a certain degree of frustration on poor Jake after we got home. No, on second thoughts, whatever I worked out on Jake was going to be fully reciprocated to my greater pleasure.

“Sorry, I wasn't thinking....” he paused, giving me more time to take in the young god before me. I wanted that form imprinted on my brain and I stared quite openly from blue eyes down and back again. “Actually, I was thinking...?” he continued, gazing at me with a questioning look on his face. What question? My prick did a twitch and I flapped the towel to set up a cooling breeze. “...You can help me,...” He smiled and my hard heart melted. No, I hadn't got a hard heart, but I felt something go 'zing' and it wasn't the elastic on my rugger shorts though the front of those was stretched out somewhat. “....I was just working out the number of distinct arrangements of the letters of my name compared with my friend Jeremy. I make it seven hundred and twenty for mine, and three hundred and sixty for his. I think that's right?”

“Yes, it is,” came a voice from behind me. It was Gutsy—real name Jeff—and a whizz at Maths in the Second Year Sixth. “It would be the same for friend Edward here,” he continued, with Andrew's big blue eyes now fixed on him, “But for me, Jeffrey, J-e-f-f-r-e-y, it would be...?” A hesitation, then a big smile from Andrew. “More difficult, seven and two, so that must be twelve hundred and sixty!” A nudge in the back for me from Gutsy, then, “That's right. Now come on and get in that shower.”

I was no great whizz at Maths, certainly not at Gutsy's level, but I was doing it for A level, and I had cottoned on to Andrew's problem and had also realised he was no blond airhead. Andrew gave us both another gorgeous smile and proceeded into the showers to be greeted by friendly shouts from his class-mates. He was obviously popular and when I heard about the poem I was determined not to let Andrew suffer in any way.

Gutsy poked me in the back again.

“You can put that towel down now, Teddy boy, the object of your desire has departed and you can adjust yourself. And he is a very bright lad. I know, I'm coaching him for A level Maths already. Gives me some practice, too.”

The grin on his face said it all. Gutsy was one of only two people, other than Jake, who knew what I preferred. I had been sitting by myself in the Sixth-Form common room a few days after the beginning of the term when Gutsy came in and sat beside me.

“Hi, young Ted,” he began, “You having any difficulty with anything?”

There was something about Gutsy that I knew I could confide in him. I told him all. In five minutes he knew I was gay, I was really only interested in one person, Jake, and that Jake and I were lovers but certainly not committed to each other. He smiled his lop-sided smile and said if ever I needed to talk he would be there. In all, Gutsy turned out to be a real friend. He's now the beloved curate of a difficult London parish and I go to see him, his wife and two-year old son whenever I can. In fact, Edward Boon is a proud godfather of young William Arthur Pringle.

Today I just grinned back at him, waved the towel away and followed him to the Upper School changing room and showers where, mercifully, rampant dick now drooping, I was able to shower and dress unhurriedly.

As I sat tying the laces on my sensible school shoes Gutsy spoke.

“I can quite see the attraction young Andrew has. He's got to be careful... and so have you.”

True words because it wasn't long after that when Troy found the poem and was ready to denounce poor Harry and drag Andrew into another sort of mire.

I'd better say that the other person who I had confided in was my sister Pam. That was at New Year, just a week or so before I had my talk with Gutsy. Pam had been a real sister, a friend and confidant for years. She was four years older than me and was at that time in her final year at uni reading Psychology. No, I didn't recline on a couch for her to give me a session of unburdening my unconscious. I knew all about the id, having perused, out of curiosity, one of her textbooks. My id, I knew, was rampaging overtime and had been since my balls dropped, with my subsequent discovery of the joys of masturbation and all else, and my superego was having a heavy job clamping down on its wanton expression in a non-heterosexual way. Pam, in her sisterly way, knew there were seethings. She was quite forthright. She asked her seventeen-year-old brother outright if he and his constant companion, Jacob Manners, were lovers. Brother blushed, nodded and Pam rushed and hugged him tight. Told him she'd guessed years before and said I'd better not say anything to Mum and Dad yet. So it was while thinking over implications of saying or doing something which would alert my doting parents that Gutsy had caught me in a contemplative mood that day.

But, back to Troy and Terry. They, however, engineered their own downfall, or at least one of them did. They had labelled almost all the Year Tens and Elevens as wankers—which they undoubtably were—the Year Tens fourteen or fifteen and the others rising sixteen or over, and rising sixteen centimetres or over as well no doubt—and had hinted of their knowledge that at least half of them were poofters. Their own trouble was they were turning into a couple of real slobs. Both were getting overweight; junk food, lager and cigarettes seemed to be the mainstays of their diet. They also had difficulty in getting hold of tottie, as they rather disparagingly referred to the girls at our school.

Girls, of course came with the school as we were a large mixed Comprehensive and most of the boys of my age and acquaintance had gone through, in the metaphorical sense I was certain, at least two or three before settling to one or none. Jake and I had made the effort and a few foursomes to the local multiplex and a few fumbles on the backrow had convinced both of us there was nothing in the pursuit for us. Having made the effort, and having been seen to make the effort, we were above suspicion.

Troy and Terry tried, but in the end their overtures were more often than not spurned. Their zits and acned visages, plus their increasing weights, choice of haircuts and out-of-school designer wear, were not the come-on for the rather more desirable females who abounded from Year Eight onwards—girls mature earlier so I was led to believe. The pair seemed to be mainly in the sad company of Rosina Pickles who was known, without affection, as the school bike. As neither Jake nor I had ridden that particular ill-favoured specimen of the female species, nor wanted to, we couldn't comment However, the whispered comments of contemporaries who had, for them, certain knowledge of how many times a friend or acquaintance had inserted his shaft into the rumoured well-used orifice was, for them, phroooah, a wish to be desired.

Whether Troy or Terry, or both, were privy to the possessions shielded by Rosina's undies one couldn't ascertain except from the strutting manner of the young studs and their veiled allusions to the performance rates of which they boasted of being capable.

“Bloody wankers themselves,” was Jake's sotto voce comment to me one Friday morning at break in the common Room after Troy had denounced three of the Year Ten lads he'd found skulking in the bogs as persistent onanists rather than being smokers, which they were as well, and then called over to Terry not to forget to stock up with enough Frenchies for the weekend because he was ready for anything with you know who. “If Rosy had any sense she'd be on the Pill,” Jake continued, “But I bet anything to prevent their vile bodies touching her sensitive parts is better than nowt!”

The crunch for the pair came when Georgie Carter, a six foot three streak of skin and bone and a superb photographer, was ambling around looking for shots for his ever growing portfolio ready for his entry to Art School. He was doing some angle shots of dingy corners in the school when he saw Troy going into the bogs at the end of a corridor, first looking around in a furtive way but not spotting Georgie who was bending down beside a cupboard sighting up some bit of useless educational architecture. Georgie did the only thing possible. He scooted along the corridor and as silently as possible pushed the door open, Troy wasn't in sight so he crept in stealthily thinking he might snatch a photo of Troy crapping as one of the cubicle doors was shut. He went into the next one and, being so tall, was able to hold his camera over the top of the partition in the gap between its top and the ceiling and clicked. A muffled shout came from Troy but Georgie was gone before he could be pursued. The resultant ten by eight photo was eagerly perused the next day by the assembled males of the Sixth Form while Troy, oblivious of this, was marshalling the hordes of wankers into their form rooms ready for first period.

The photo showed a startled Troy's upturned face, with a downwards shot of opened flies and an erect penis held delicately between two fingers and thumb. As Jason Griggs remarked, you can't piss with a hardon and why go in a cubicle for that purpose —“WANKER!!”. Neither Troy, nor Terry, through association with him, ever mentioned the word again, nor did the poem get an airing. Jake suggested to Troy that if given to him he would return it. It was, after we had both read it and commented to each other that Shakespeare's Dark Ladyboy would have been flattered by the compliments therein. So, one set of 'phobes had been tamed.

I suppose I was contemplating young Andrew one afternoon during my fourth week of basic training. We had, inexplicitly been given the rest of the Wednesday afternoon off through some mix-up over time-tabling of how to bayonet a stuffed sandbag, or how to remember to throw the grenade after the pin was withdrawn, or some mind bending similar activity. Still I was reasonably happy. Three square meals a day, money you couldn't spend in your pocket, muscles developing through all the exercise and the sure knowledge that, although I was constantly dead-tired, my spunk squirting apparatus was still in working order if sadly under-used. My musings were interrupted by Taffy who, holding a cigarette in time-honoured squaddies manner, cupped in the palm of his hand, asked if I wanted a walk.

Sensing something was afoot I agreed and we sauntered off in the general direction of some unused barrack huts left over from the general National Service of some thirty years previously. After he'd puffed through the cigarette he asked if I knew anything about Ferdy Pacchelli. I said I didn't except from the facts I'd gleaned from our personal tales we all told in the barrack room in the hour or so before lights out.

I knew Ferdinando was a fourth generation Italian immigrant. His great-grandfather, after whom he was named, had come to England with a circus, as Flying Ferdinand on the Flying Trapeze, in the thirties and had stayed. His father had a share in the usual Italian restaurant which was a family run business in a wide extended family. Ferdy had been caught by father nicking some of the takings and had been forcibly taken to the Recruiting Office by two burly uncles who, in the past, had served in the Paras. Ferdy was short, dark, black-haired and at nearly nineteen had a mat of black hair on his chest. None of us English, Welsh or Scottish lads of the same age had more than a hint of pectoral hirsuteness. He was the envy of all for that attribute. We all looked at him in the showers, his pubic bush was immense and his legs were so hairy it looked as if he was wearing black long-johns. However, although his balls were pendulous and well-sized his dick, circumcised and dark hued, was of a really moderate size, curving out no more than about three inches from the curls above and around it.

“Got something to tell you,” Taffy said after I had made the usual admiring comments about Ferdy's hairiness and he had lit a second ciggie. He took a draw. Blew out a thin stream of smoke very carefully. “He wanks in bed, not like us.” My secret was out. But then, he'd confessed as well.

I shrugged my shoulders. All boys wanked in bed, but not in Army barracks though. With studied nonchalance I asked, “How do you know?”

“Yorkie told me, 'cause he's in the bed opposite me and Ferdy's next to him.”

An Army trait is to label everyone anyway with a nickname. Not just the usual Dusty for the Millers or Dinger for the Bells, but also where you came from, Taffy for the Welsh as he was, but George Parrish came from Yorkshire so Yorkie he was. Yorkie was also another bright spark, he'd come under suspicion of driving someone else's car without their permission in the village where he lived. The local bobby had a chat with him and suggested he could learn a trade as well as occupying himself usefully in the service of his country. Yorkie said the copper was fingering his hand-cuffs at the time and the message was clear. He was down for transfer to the Army Logistics Corps—drivers etc., as soon as he'd finished basic training and he was looking forward to that. Also, Yorkie was the only one in the barrack room who had volunteered the information that he hadn't even had an erection, or 'time to have a fucking hardon' as he put it, since he'd joined up. This was one evening when there were general moans about the unaccustomed pressures we were experiencing.

Anyway, as we wended our way round the deserted huts Taffy said there was a plan. The lad the other side of Ferdy had also noted the night-time activity and they had decided to provide a bit of night-time entertainment. He wouldn't say what and I didn't pursue it because, quite naturally, we found an unlocked door and entered the dank-smelling room which had housed a host of conscripts those many years before. We surveyed the dusty emptiness.

“What about one now?” he asked, flicking the spent butt of his ciggie into the wastelands of a corner of the room. “No one around and I need one bad.”

Without waiting for my consent or agreement he dropped his combat trousers and skivvies he was wearing under them. His cock was already at half mast before I had copied his disrobing. I stood at an angle by his side and stared downwards. Our short singlets only came to our hips so we both had a good view of each other's rapidly rising shafts. We matched about evenly in size and when both our rods were fully erect we, in military fashion, copied each other's movements exactly. On the first downstroke our foreskins were retracted and two bulbous rapidly darkening knobs were exposed. We then set up a slow steady pace until Taffy let go of his cock.

“Let me help you with yours.”

He took hold of the last three inches of my rod as my hand was at the bottom of a downstroke. I let go and reached for his prick. We kept in strict rhythm with each other and my balls soon came to the boil. I squirted my usual five or six ribbons of cum moments before he gave a sigh and unleashed a flurry of spunk which spurted up and away from him splattering on the dusty floor some three feet away.

“God, I needed that!” he gasped and his hand gripped my still hard rod even tighter.

We stood side by side for about a minute savouring that feeling of perfect relief. He turned and grinned at me.

“I knew you'd like that. Takes one to know one.” He bent down and pulled up trousers and pants in one go. I copied him not saying a word. What did he mean?

“God I need a fag,” he said, rummaging in his trouser pocket. “If I were a cigarette manufacturer I would market a brand called 'Apres' for the moments like this.” He grinned again. “My cousin says he always wants one after a good shag whether its with his missus or not.”

I was still silent.

“Come on, you enjoyed that, eh? Cat got your tongue?”

I grinned back.

“Yeah..., a bit overwhelmed.”

“I know what you mean.” He went across to where two dusty benches were under the window. “We've got five minutes and I'll tell you a bit more why I'm here.”

As he plonked himself on one of the benches I angled the other and sat facing him.

“Better tell you the whole story. The bit about not getting enough A levels and not finding a job's true but I really had to get away because my Da found out about my boyfriend.”

He looked me straight in the eyes.

“My Da found a letter from him. He'd been arrested in Cardiff for giving a blow-job to a copper...” He paused. “I'd better start from the beginning. I was at school with this friend, he's a year older than me and lived in the next village. I'd got to know him through travelling on the school bus and his Dad and my Dad had been pit deputies at the mines in the two villages before they closed so our families knew each other anyway. And after he'd left school and started on a catering course I used to cycle over to see him and we used to go to the old mine. He'd found a key to the old offices and we used to go there and... Well, just like this and a bit more...”

I grinned. “I had a friend called Jake and....”

“Shut the fuck up, I guessed about you when you had that first letter from home, I saw the way you read it and I knew it wasn't from any girl 'cause of the handwriting, so, but this is my tale, you can tell me yours another day.” He took a slow deep drag on the fag cupped in his hand. “Well, as I said, Estyn and I were very close, very good friends and perhaps a bit more—then, just after last Christmas he was found in bed with the Pastor's son....”

I giggled, the image was irresistible!

“Fuck it, stop that.” I composed my face “It was bloody snowing anyway and the lad's father came home early from his visits and there they were, hammer and tongs in the lad's bed. Estyn's Dad was summoned and Estyn was told to pack his bags and go. I heard about it next day from a lad who'd seen him getting on the bus. He told him he was going to Cardiff.”

He took another careful drag, coughed and looked at the cigarette with some distaste, then continued.

“Estyn wrote to that lad and asked him to pass a couple of letters on to me and he told me all about what had happened—said it was on the spur of the moment and the kid wanted it. He said he was looking for a job and had also applied to do another catering course but he couldn't start immediately. Then I heard nothing until that last letter arrived. He'd written straight to me. Luckily I saw the postie as I was going to catch the bus and he gave it to me.”

He gave a final draw on the fag-end and flicked it right across the room.

“He said he'd been skint so went cruising around, saw a toilet, went in and a young fellow was in there leaning against the wall holding a twenty pound note. He said something like 'OK mate' and got Estyn in a cubicle who gave him the blow job. No sooner had he got him off another bloke appeared and it turned out they were two cops. Estyn was arrested and released to appear the next day. The only good thing was the young cop had tucked the note in his pocket. He thinks the magistrate suspected something fishy so he got off with a caution, but he was dead scared the news might get back to his family. Luckily his name is Jones and there's plenty of those about in Wales.”

He stood up.

“We'd better get back and I'll tell you the rest on the way.”

We looked carefully for signs of life outside, there was none, so we set off back to the barrack room.

“I was a fool. I should have destroyed the letter but stuck it in my big dictionary. My Da found it when he wanted to look up a word for a crossword. He asked if I and Estyn had relations of any sort and when I said yes, that, plus the fact I was in the shit over not trying hard enough to get a job decided the matter and I'm here. I was sent first to stay with an aunt in Llandudno, as far as possible from Cardiff! Out of harm's way there and learning to be a man now here, according to Da!”

I was curious. “And what happened about the Pastor's son.”

He shrugged. “I don't really know. Rumour has it he was prayed over for several hours for unknown sins and then shipped off to some distant relative because he wasn't around when I left for my exile.” He shrugged again. “Poor little bugger, he was shagging Estyn when his father walked in, 'cause I heard more about it when Estyn 'phoned me at Auntie Glad's and he was worried what had happened to the kid. Kid!—poor bastard was seventeen!” He pursed his lips. “Don't forget, in Wales the chapel rules and the Calvinist mind sees sin everywhere...,” He grinned at me, “...Especially when two lads are in bed together, but I do know I miss Estyn.”

I was in a bit of a quandary. Should I confess my relationship with Jake? Taffy had guessed and I'd more or less told him too, but... Worry not, because Taffy wasn't finished. He reverted back to Ferdy.

“Ferdy pisses me off,” he said emphatically, “Him and that Dwayne. Always on about poofters and perves and aren't they glad there aren't any about... Fucking Dwayne, what a name, sounds like something you pour the slops down.”

Dwayne was from Liverpool. Boasted of being a hard man. But shit-scared of most things I would say. Always the last to get in line for anything new. He and Ferdy got on my tits as well but I wasn't too bothered although I'd noticed when they made their bigoted phobic statements they seemed directed mainly at a couple of lads towards the other end of the barrack room.

These two, Pete and Frankie, were quiet, weedy looking, not seeming to be eighteen—they looked more like fifteen or sixteen-year-olds. They were below average height and were products of broken homes, Children's Homes and finally foster homes. They looked as if life had been none too kind to them. I must say though that they mucked in with everything and scoffed the food as if there was no tomorrow and were both beginning to get a bit more flesh and muscle on them even after about three weeks. I'd noticed they were neither very well endowed and they spent a lot of time in each other's company. One had a rather high-pitched giggle and I suppose that gave root to Ferdy and Dwayne's exclamations.

Another pair in the squad were a couple of black guys. Dwayne, especially, avoided them but neither he nor Ferdy could say anything derogatory or they would be in deep shit for racial harassment. Actually Royston and Jason were fun. Royston was a couple of inches shorter than me and we were always comparing heights because he kept telling me he was still a growing boy. He had also spent a lot of time in the gym, so he said, and because of this he had the best definition of all of us. Not too obvious, but his pecs were firm and he had the makings of a nice six-pack. He and Jason also belied one of the great beliefs of white youngsters—that black kids' cocks were at least twice as long. Both had healthy sized drooping lengths which might have been a bit bigger than average but they certainly weren't immense. Both had joined up as they put it 'for their mother's sakes', one was from South London, the other from Luton, which I knew to be two enclaves of numerous ethnic immigrants and not very salubrious areas to live in. Both were very religious and this pissed off Dwayne even more as he was nominally Catholic and had been to a strict Catholic Boys' School. They were Pentecostal and were always singing hymns quietly in, I considered, very melodious voices.

Some of this was evident in an exchange between Dwayne and Ferdy during the first week when we were still getting to know everyone. Dwayne had somehow hitched up as Ferdy's best friend and Ferdy, rather loud-mouthed, had reciprocated. That meant there was a constant dialogue between them though their bed-spaces were not close. Usually the dialogue was on veiled or even overt sexual matters, often Page 3 girls in the Sun as that was the principal reading, or viewing, matter of most of the lads in the room. “Cor, look at the tits on that” was a common exclamation. But there was the underlying homophobic chatter as well.

This day there were just a few of us around. I was bulling my best boots, getting a mirror shine on the caps. Taffy was lining up some pieces of card to put in his sheets for bed inspection. Ferdy and Dwayne were at their usual positions, flat out on their beds perusing the day's issue of either the Sun or Mirror oblivious of the fact that next morning we had a kit inspection. Along the row Royston and Jason were sitting side by side on Jason's bed, also bulling boots. Quite a few of the others had sloped off to the NAAFI for a tea and wad but there were about four others including Frankie and Pete further down the room. A typical evening's gathering and activity!

Dwayne started.

“Hi Ferdy,” he called out, in a slightly louder voice than necessary, “Fucker at my school had the biggest whanger you've ever seen.”

I looked up, gathering a ball of spit in my mouth ready to drip onto the already gleaming toecap, but wanting that extra shine. I saw Dwayne glance down the room a bit at the backs of the two black lads. Trying something on, I thought.

“Oh,” was Ferdy's only response. As the possessor of a seemingly not very large whanger he was unusually hesitant in making some damning statement about someone else's sexuality or attributes.

“Yeah, cunt had a whanger so big he use to get it out and put it on the desk.”

I looked at Taffy who had a wry grin on his face and was sitting just a couple of feet away from me on the edge of his bed. He mouthed “Didn't think cunts had dicks!” I grinned back and Dwayne continued.

“Fucker got caught one day. Old Baldy the priest who took us for religion must have spotted it because he whacked it with the Bible he was carrying.”

“I like that,” Ferdy said, “Whacked his whanger! What did he do?”

“Don't know, I was told it. He was a couple of classes above me. Fucking poofter, got the push from school 'cause he use'ta go down the clubs for the oldies to get him off. Fucking wanker! Like that kid we had from that Home. Use'ta go to the bogs and suck off the hurling team. Fucking poofs should have their balls off!”

“Fucking right!” said Ferdy, in imitation, “Should have their balls off, fucking poofs and wankers!”

I looked down the room—the four lads, including the two who'd been in Homes had fallen silent. I thought then perhaps Ferdy and Dwayne might have to learn a little lesson.

I thought about that exchange again as we walked back, past the Company Offices towards our barrack room.

“Oh, I just put up with them,” I said, “All mouth and trousers as my Dad always says. Plenty to say...” I just wondered. “...Perhaps something to hide?”

Taffy snorted. “Buggers hadn't better start on me.”

I laughed. “Nor me. Anyway, they'd have a field day if they did find out anything.”

Taffy looked at me cannily, “No chance of that, I hope!”

I grinned back. There wasn't as far as I was concerned.

But a chance for getting at Dwayne did occur that same week. One of the duties of the Squad Lance-Corporals was to go to the post-room attached to the Company Office each morning at ten hundred hours to collect the squad's post. Taffy and I took it in turns. It also meant, if the mail wasn't ready we missed a bit of the next training session. Neither Taffy nor I worried about this, especially if it was some lecture on how to pull-through a rifle, or the naming of parts of said rifle, but it was one of Sergeant Bigelow's means of getting at us, and especially me.

On the Thursday it was my turn to collect the mail. I got permission from the squad NCO to go and made my way to the Post Room next to the Company Office. I was a bit later than usual as we'd had PT from O nine hundred hours and the PTI had kept us at it because some lad had riled him and he made us do a whole set of exercises again. This meant we were late for a shower and my feet were still damp when I tried to get my socks on, and so on... Little troubles to cloud the day. Anyway, I was last of the Squad Lance-Corporals to get to the Post Room. It was empty except for a Corporal I hadn't seen before. I said I was from F Squad.

“Good job you're a bit late,” he said, “I'd only just finished sorting when the others came. This is your lot.”

He indicated a bundle of letters and a couple of small parcels. I reached out to pick them up. He put his hand on the bundle.

“746 Private Dwayne Riley,” he read. “Liverpool postmark... Can't be anyone else. I was at school in the same class as his brother Eamonn.”

I noted he also had a Liverpool accent. “He said he went to St Brendan's..”

“Yeah, that's him. Brother was Captain of the hurling team... Big bloke he was.” He grinned. “Yeah, Dwayne was the mascot, use to follow his brother and the team everywhere.”

The Corporal was very chatty so I thought I would try to find out more.

“Dwayne told us there was a lad with the biggest whanger ever....”

He laughed. “That was Whopper Barrett. True. Had it crushed once by a Bible!”

“Yeah,” I said, “He told us about that.”

He laughed. “I was there when it happened. Baldy got him in one.”

“He didn't tell us he was the hurling team mascot. He said there was some lad from a Home who was....” I paused, now or never. “..And did things for them...”

The Corporal guffawed. “Fucking liar, ...it was Dwayne. Why d'you think his brother took him round with the team...? I could tell you a lot. Fucking Dwayne!”

“He said Whopper got expelled 'cause he visited some club or other.” I was improvising a bit trying to remember the content of the exchange.

“Bollocks! True, the bastard use'ta to wave his whang around but I can tell you Dwayne's been on his knees receiving communion many times... Whopper got the push 'cause he'd confessed a few unusual sins to some fake Yank priest who told the Reverend Father when they found he was a fake.” He paused. “Shouldn't be telling you all this but I never liked Wayne's brother or the little fucker himself.. Both loud-mouthed shits. But, Whopper was a great lad—big cock, big heart!”

I thought I'd up the ante. “Should I tell Dwayne I've met you?”

He laughed. “Do what you like, but wait until Monday—I'm temporary, waiting posting and I go then.”

He gave me a cheery wave as I went out with a store of useful knowledge. How to use it was the next little question.

I giggled internally as I handed Dwayne, cocksucker in extraordinary, his letter. I made a point of getting Taffy to one side after we had been round the cookhouse for lunch. Luckily he was sitting by himself on the grass outside the barrack room smoking his usual post-prandial fag.

“Having an Apres?” I asked, plonking myself down beside me. Rudely, he blew a jetstream of smoke in my direction. I waved it away. “Got something to impart,” I said, in as conspiratorial voice as possible. He raised his eyebrows. “Your friend Dwayne has a reputation.”

He took another drag. Coughed. Another exhalation of smoke, this time in the opposite direction.

“Bet he sucks cocks,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper in return.

I was rather deflated. Then realised it must be a lucky guess.

“Too true,” I said and the look on his face was a picture. He was startled and the rest of the smoke was transformed into a coughing fit. He shook his head from side to side several times.

“God, these fags'll kill me some day. Gotta stop! What did you say?”

“True,” I said. I then went through the tale the Post Corporal (Temporary—to be posted Monday) told me. He laughed at the end of it.

“Got'em,” he chortled, “We'll have both the bastards before the weekend's out!”

“Oh, come on, Taff,” I said, “We know it, but we can't broadcast something like that.”

“No,” he said, “But darling Dwayne knows it, and if we indicate we know it, the fucker'll have to shut his gob and not make his snide remarks. Leave it to me. I'll do it carefully.” He closed one eye. “But Ferdy first.”

'Ferdy first' came in more ways than one that Friday night.

The usual bed-time ritual began about twenty-one hundred hours—sorry military ways, I mean 9 o'clock—as stragglers came back from the NAAFI which closed at ten. We had one drill parade scheduled for the morning and organised games in the afternoon. I was glad to get to bed as we'd had a pretty heavy day and I relished the thought of a good night's sleep.

By half-ten everyone was in bed and lights out. It was almost pitch black in the room and the only light was from the dim night-bulbs in the corridor outside. I was in that just before dropping-off state when there was a light scurrying across the intervening gap between the end of my bed and—I realised—Ferdy's bed. Suddenly the beam of the powerful torch, usually hanging by the door in case of emergencies, illuminated a very strange sight. Two figures, on either side of Ferdy's bed had whipped the covers off him downwards, exposing an eyes-tight-shut figure, furiously wanking a short, fat, rigid cock. The torch beam magnified this so that bizarre shadows of a huge prick and a flying fist danced on the wall behind the bed. There was a general upheaval as figures either sat up in their beds or rushed along from the other end of the room.

Ferdy was too far gone to notice. In fact, without the restraint of the covers his fisting accelerated in those last ten seconds when the universe stands still and the Big Bang occurs again somewhere in the region of the base of one's balls. A final pull down and four squirts of white cream shot up and landed. There was dead silence in the room. Four gobbets of spunk glistened on the black mat on Ferdy's chest in the light from the torch. Slowly two dark eyes opened, then blinked in the beam of the torch.

“What the fucking hell?” a very startled Ferdy exclaimed, his hand still tightly gripping his five inches and a bit of rigidity.

Taffy led the applause which rippled along the ranks of watchers until that old military gentleman—a General Titter—also ran round the room. Taffy was in his element, he chuckled louder than most as he was holding the torch!

“Gosh, you must be Ferdinand the Flying Fist, your Great-Granddad would have been proud of you!”

A General Ripple—of full-throated laughter this time—made an entrance.

That did it. Next morning, as I emerged from my wank-pit, Taffy banged me on the leg from the comfort of his own masturbatorium.

“Didn't know if it was Coleridge or Benjamin Britten after that show last night!”

I must have looked half-dazed—it was only six hundred hours and I'd had two wanks before settling to sleep.

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