A Year to Remember, Chapter Three

This story is part of a series, and if you have not read the previous two chapters, it might help your undertsanding of the plot to read them first, before this one. It will make a lot more sense if you do.

March

I lay awake, worrying!

My mum told me last night that we are going to have lunch with Patrick, Emma and Simon tomorrow. You know, the 'tousled head' that suddenly interrupted my emotional roller-coaster ride last month. My limp dick twitches at the memory of that mop of unruly, reddish hair. I can feel it now, between my fingers, as I run my hand through it, I remember pulling his face towards mine...

Anyway, that was then and I was in a state, a horrible, snivelling state! I just wanted to feel safe, feel warm and feel loved. I didn't mind his arm round my shoulder. I wanted him to hold and squeeze my hand in his, pale, perfect hand. I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted him to notice my erection.

Lost in my memories, I flip over onto my front and feel the stiffening of my dick against the mattress. Fuck it! Why am I getting horny, thinking about him? All he did was kiss me back…and then do a runner. I kissed him, I kissed him! My dick shrivels back to its default setting…pathetic.

God how I wish it was bigger. It almost disappears into the crazy thicket of wiry, dark brown pubes. Yep, loads of pubes, tiny dick. Just what every teenage boy wants. Not!

What if he thinks I'm gay? What if he told his parents? What if? What if? My head is now swimming, too much thinking. Too much wanking! I bet that is the reason I am feeling like this. Getting a boner, thinking about that pale but perfect boy, who just came and cuddled me like some weirdo. Shit, what an idiot!

An hour later.

“Adam, what the hell is wrong with you? You've been cooped up in the foetid room of yours for the last few weeks. I would have thought you'd enjoy a day out. Boost your vitamin D for a start.”

Oh fantastic, my mum has her sarcastic head on. I'm sitting in the car, in the front next to her. My rightful place! Annoying little sister in the back, playing with something pink and fluffy.

I have to say it is kind of nice to see some daylight but I am really starting to think this may not be a good idea. Seeing Simon I mean, not the daylight. I wonder how he is going to react to seeing me again. He seemed pretty embarrassed about his boner the other week.

“Simon's such a lovely boy. You're the same age, you two. I'd have thought you'd get on like a house on fire. You did actually speak to him to that day in your room I suppose?”

She twitters on, I just grunt in reply. Chin on my chest, fiddling with my phone. How on earth could she think that? I, of course, knew the truth, tousle-headed Simon had told me.

She wants me to have a friend, because of what happened. With my dad I mean. I'm not really one for friends though, never have been. However, it could be good to have someone to talk to. You know, about stuff, stuff that you don't want to talk to your mum about. Just lads stuff, that's all! I sit in the car thinking about Dad, about missing him…about mum…about Simon.

“Here we are then,” she chimes, merrily. I turn and glare at her as she parks in front of a tall town house on the edge of a town, about 10 miles from home.

“Adam, I'm warning you, if you don't make some kind of effort to get on with Simon, I will be very disappointed! Emma has told me that Simon is very quiet and shy and she wants him to get to know some people his own age. Patrick says he's 16 going on 60 and he spends too much time on his own and not enough with kids his own age.”

Kids! I am silently raging against being labelled a 'kid'. However I let it go and muster one of my sweetest, kindest, borderline-psychopathic smiles for her. She reaches across the handbrake and kisses my cheek. I let her, without my usual retching noise…I do love her, really. Then she runs her hand through my hair to ensure I have that boy-next-door, 1950's side parting that she loves so much. The hair I have just spent half an hour on, making sure I look a bit less like a comic book character.

“God, Mum. Leave it! I'm sixteen, not six!” I bellow. She laughs and pulls a face, mocking my disapproval.

I had spent ages this morning, pointedly not parting my thick, muddy-brown hair, sweeping it this way and that. At least she didn't spit on her hanky and wipe my face. We are eventually deemed appropriately clean and tidy enough to be presented to others. My sister had almost had a full head to toe with the damp hanky. I try to re-arrange my hair again, while we wait on the doorstep. I don't want to look like the kid my mum reckons I am.

Simon answers the door. I could hear him bounding down the stairs behind the front door. Seems like endless stairs – well I suppose there are three storeys, so two sets of stairs.

***

I'm sitting in Patrick and Emma’s kitchen, we all are. Drinking orange squash, orange bloody squash! Squash!!

“Adam, want to have the guided tour?” Simon suddenly says, jerking me out of my 'sitting and smiling inanely, sipping orange squash like it's a pint of lager' daydream.

“Sure. Great.” My mum looks over and pulls the kind of face that says: Simon, do not let me down.

“It's just three quid a ticket,” he replies, stony-faced.

“Simon!” his dad, Patrick, says, in a mildly menacing tone. ”Don't be an idiot.”

“Okay, just a pound then.” Smirking, he jumps off his chair and comes around the table and pulls me up. What the hell?

“Come on, follow me.” Off he goes, bounding up the endless stairs, apparently as eager as I am to be out of the kitchen. Out of the glare!

I'm almost running to catch him up. I am sure I can hear mum, Patrick and Emma sighing with relief, that at last, their two peculiar teenage sons have gone off to 'make friends'.

Looking down at my sock-clad, size ten feet, I notice these stairs are way steeper and the treads narrower than ours at home but what I don't realise is that Simon has stopped halfway up. I go careering into the back of him knocking him double so that he tips forward and has to steady himself on a higher step with his hands.

“Hey, calm down.” He turns just his head toward me, looking at me over his shoulder with his bum in the air, about level with my waist. The pale grey of his jogging bottoms is suddenly pulled tight against a round bubble butt, due to the crazy angle his body is now at.

“Shit! Sorry.” I mumble. He's still looking over his shoulder at me. That madcap hairdo of his, tumbling into his eyes.

“Just kidding.” Simon gives me grin to show that he was, in fact, just kidding. “Let's start at the top, that way we'll be away from the folks for as long as possible.” And he's off again, his pert bum now jogging away from me.

My nose brushes the waistband of his joggers as his rises up the stairs in front of me. I breathe in involuntarily, catching a clean, fresh scent. Something turns over inside me, like a tiny feather has stroked my soul.

“Great.” Is about all I can manage. I have seen inside plenty of houses before so I was not expecting that much of an adventure. Whatever! At least he seems okay with me, after last time…after the kiss! Up we go, up two flights of steep stairs and onto a tiny landing, where there is, incredibly, a wooden ladder poking up into a rectangular hole in the ceiling.

“Okay, you first,” Simon states, matter-of-factly.

“What?”

“You first,” he says again, unblinking.

Bright hazel eyes shine into my face. They seem to be pleading with me. Mesmerized for a moment, I suddenly hear him.

“What do you mean, you first?” I stare at him, thinking he really is quite the oddest guy I have had the misfortune to have been coerced into knowing. But so cute too, in a weird way! Cute, what am I thinking like that for? He's just plain weird, weird!

“Up the ladder. You're not afraid of heights are you?” He climbs on the wrong side of the ladder, seemingly to prove a point. On home ground, shy, nervy Simon is all bravado it seems.

“No, of course not but why would I want to see in your attic, Simon?” I ask, in my usual, belligerent manner.

“It's not an attic, you dick-head.” Harsh. “It's my bedroom.”

His face lights up. I remember that internal illumination from the day of the funeral. Perfect teeth peek between soft, plump, pink lips. Add perfect, sparkling, hazel eyes to the list now I suppose...

“You live in the attic?”

An idiotic question, that requires no answer, as he has just told me so. With that, he hops down, climbs up the right side of the ladder and disappears into the hole in the ceiling. I stand there, looking and feeling like a idiot. The tousled head appears, upside down.

“Come on then!” he calls down, impatiently.

I climb up the ladder but he doesn't move. I continue climbing so that my face is now level with his. He looks me straight in the eyes. Then, I swear, he winks at me. Almost imperceptibly…did he just do that? No, that would be too weird, even for Simon. Unless...

I can feel his hot breath on my face. His eyes seeing right into my soul. The feather flutters again, deep inside my subconscious. There. I was right. He winks at me, this time I can see it, clearly.

“There, I knew you could do it.” He grins. Letting me see that he has never had to sit long in the dentist’s chair. Unlike me!

“Fuck off, Simon.'” I say, curtly, but with no malice in my voice and flash teeth at him and he does. He disappears into the black void.

I follow him up and once clear of the ladder, I can see that there's a trap door, which Simon slams shut, allowing us to walk over the hole without fear of dropping through. The back of the trap door is even carpeted to match the rest of the floor, with a small inset brass ring so you can lift it up again, when you need to escape...I am stunned.

“Wow!” I survey Simon's kingdom, with an awestruck, open mouth.

The room is cavernous. It must be the entire footprint of the house but with sloping walls and ceiling. He even has a double bed, the lucky bastard, immaculately made with plain, grey linen. Loads of cupboards and chests of drawers, all built into the walls. There is nothing on the floor, no debris of teenage boy fallout. It is like a hotel room, with a door at one corner of the room.

“What do you think?' Simon is by my side, grinning like a half-wit. Obviously enjoying my bedroom envy.

“It's amazing, amazing! What's in there?” I ask, pointing to the door.

“Have a look, nosey-parker.” Another wink, how camp was that? What is he on? I ignore it and walk over to the door. I peek inside and find to a bathroom, with a shower, toilet and basin.

“Fucking amazing!” Eloquent as ever.

“I know. I'm pretty lucky.”

He is, he really is. I would kill for this in my house. Kill for it! Who needs a little sister anyway?

“So how come you got all this?” I turn a full circle with my arms out, like a teenage estate agent on one of those shitty, daytime, property shows on the TV. Oh my God, what am I doing? I drop my hands into my pockets to effect a chav-lad slouch.

“Well, my mum and dad got fed up listening to me wanking every night in the room next to theirs.” Again, that stony face.

I stand still, agog. My pulse suddenly raises by a few beats.

“Huh?” I manage to stumble out of my mouth - a noise anyway.

“You heard, Adam. I'm a noisy wanker.”

“Okay,” I say, hesitantly. Inside my little, hormonal brain, something whirs and clicks. Did he really just say that?

“What?” he says, looking straight at me.

“That's the real reason is it, Simon? Your parents just said to you that they couldn't stand listening to you beating your horny, teenage meat every night. So here you go, have this palace in the attic. Did they?” Sarcasm runs in our family.

“Pretty much, yep.”

He turns and flops down on the end of the enormous bed. Feet on the ground, he stretches and puts his arms behind his head. The fabric of his joggers pulls taught against the front of his thighs and the hem of his white tee shirt rides up, just enough to reveal an inch of his belly. He's wearing Superman slippers.

Shit! He's wearing what? I look down again at his feet, unable to comprehend what I thought I just saw. Yes, he is! He's wearing Superman slippers…and no socks. I can see the tops of his feet, almost glowing a supernatural white against the electric blue of the velour slippers.

“Hey, Simon. Nice slippers! Er, superman?”

“What?” He doesn't move, just speaks whilst looking skywards.

“Nice slippers, have you got the matching pants?” I did say sarcasm runs in the family.

Simon pulls his head off the bed and looks down across his supremely flat chest, past the inch of bare flesh and peers down at his feet. Completely straight-faced:

“Come here and say that. You're only jealous.”

I pad over in my white socks to where he's laying. I had left my shoes at the front door, like any well brought up boy. I stand between his feet, looking down on him.

Now that I am that much closer, I see that where his shirt has ridden up, the bare flesh is not bare at all. There is a fine smattering of reddish hair collecting toward the centre line of his flat stomach and making its way down, beneath the waistband of the joggers. His arms are behind his head again now.

Simon just lays there, letting me look at him, taunting me almost. My head begins to spin, why would he be taunting me? Taunting me with what? His slippers? His ‘noisy wanking’ speech? Was he just trying to shock me or was he just trying to be a 'lad'? Mum had said he was quiet and shy though, hadn't she?

Whirr click. Simon is flirting with me, I see it now. So, the kiss and the boner last month were not an issue for Simon. What about me though?

The arms of his plain, white tee shirt are pretty short. With his arms pinned back under his head, he must have pretty long arms to fold them like that, I can almost see his armpits. There is a fluffy tuft of reddish hair, some of it long enough to peek out from each armhole of his shirt. I involuntarily lick my upper lip, it takes a nano-second.

“Seen enough?” Simon stuns me out my in-depth survey of his body hair and the internal conversation with my subconscious stops dead. He still hasn't moved though. He must have been watching my eyes the whole time, clocking where and what I was looking at.

“Sorry,” tumbles out of my mouth, “I was er...just...er...”

“What? You were just what? Taking the piss out of my slippers? Why not take a photo?”

Cheeky bastard! He seems relaxed enough though. Maybe he wasn't watching me.

“How come…I mean, you're wearing white socks…with jeans! Very 1985, Adam.” So, sarcasm runs is his family too. That's fine by me, I like a bit of witty banter, now and again.

“Fuck off, Simon.” I'm on the defensive now. I always am when it comes to clothes, fashion, hair, looks, my peers. I have never quite fitted in. I fumble in my jeans pocket for my phone, looking down at my feet in glowing white cotton.

“What are you doing?” He asks. A hint of concern, at last.

“Smile!” I point my phone towards him and snap a photo, just to freak him out. Two can play at being an oddball.

“You bastard! I was only joking!” He whines, sitting up. Suddenly a little more serious than thirty seconds ago. “The slippers belonged to a friend.”

“Oh right, okay.” What? My face must have betrayed the question in my mind.

“My best friend. He's dead.” Shit. I didn't see that coming. “He died. We were friends ever since primary school. I wear these slippers to remind me of him. He was a real and true friend to me.”

“Simon. I don't know what to say.” I feel a right idiot now, and shiftily put my phone back in my pocket and look down at him. He suddenly looks small, vulnerable, and a lot less confident than a few minutes ago.

“It's okay. You didn't know and you don't have to say anything, but they're his slippers, and I like wearing them.”

Of course. My face is deepening in its shade of crimson. I sit on the edge of the bed, next to him, a sudden realisation floods into my head.

“So, that's why our parents want us to be friends. It all falls into place now.'”

“Yeah, there we go,” Simon says, quietly. He turns to look at me. “So, what's your excuse for the white socks?” Suddenly he is back, back to the mischievous imp I am growing attached to.

“I don't have an excuse. They're designer socks, they happen to be white and they look cool with my trainers.” I like white socks, I like socks in general. I wouldn't be seen dead wearing no socks and Superman slippers, I hate my bare feet.

“Right, designer! Which one?” I get the impression he's winding me up again...

“They're Puma, if you must know.”

“Nice, can I see?”

Simon grabs my right leg and yanks it onto his lap with my calf across him. My foot is dangling over the edge of his legs, sending me sprawling backwards across the bed in the process. Oh bloody hell, he's back. Unpredictable Simon is back.

“Simon!” I try to protest, but he's not listening. Instead of listening, he's turning my foot this way and that, gently but firmly examining my sock and by default my foot. I can't help but let out a stupid, girlish giggle.

“Stop it, you nut case! You're tickling me!”

“Tickling you? No, I'm just looking.” he says, continuing in his deliberate, thorough examination. Simon has one of his hands on the sole of my foot and is holding my ankle with the other, on my jeans. My face feels ready to combust, I must be so red. I bite my tongue to stop my self giggling again.

“Adam, what's the matter now?”

In all seriousness, does he really need to ask? How has this happened? Here I am, sprawled on Simon's huge bed, lying back while he messes about with my white-socked feet. It tickles and not just my foot. I can feel my face now, actually on fire and my dick is starting to respond to the slightest touch of his hand on my foot.

“Well...?” I mutter.

“Well, what?” He is deadly serious now. His hands are still on my foot as he peers at me. His sparkling eyes, glisten. And then he does it…again. He winks and that gorgeous half-smile appears at the corner of his mouth.

“Shall I stop?” He asks, demurely.

“Do you want to?” I ask back, fighting to hold my stern expression. Why am I praying that he says no?

“No.” He says simply. “No. I don't.”

“Okay. Is it alright if I giggle then?”

“Well, it is a bit off-putting, Adam,” he says, making a tormented, hurt face.

“Huh? Off-putting? Putting you off what?” I ask incredulously. I still can't anticipate his thoughts.

“Well, I'm busy, looking at your great socks.” Simon says, like he's reading instructions in a manual.

Suddenly he pulls the leg of my jeans up, exposing my calf and the whole sock, including the natty little logo right near the top. I swear he strokes my leg. Just for a second or two. I'm sure he runs his finger down the back of my calf, and then under the top of my sock.

“Mmm, nice and tight. I bet they never fall down.” Simon lets go and the sock snaps back against my calf.

My dick responds to his touch on my bare flesh. Well actually, my dick responds to his touch on my leg hairs. At 16 I'm already pretty hairy, not a flipping gorilla, but I've got a lot more hair on my body than a) I really want, and b) than any of the other lads my age at school, as far as I know anyway. So my legs are hairy. Fine, dark hairs cover my calves and thighs, all the way up to where my boxer briefs start and then the hairs abruptly stop. The same with my feet, the hairs stop just above my ankles and my massive, horrid feet are hairless. Bizarre! It's almost as if someone has drawn imaginary lines on my legs, 'hair between here and here only, please.'

“No, not unless I take them off.” I respond, thinking this is all way too weird but making me slightly horny...

“Cool, you're hairy.” He declares, matter of factly.

“Yep, I am.” There is no point denying it, how can I, laying here like this?

“Nice, I wish I was hairier. I mean, I've got hairs but you can't really see a lot of them, they're so light. Sometimes, I think that I look like a little boy.”

I lay on my back still, my leg across his lap and I can feel something hardening under my knee. Simon is getting a boner, mucking about with my foot and checking out my leg hair has given him a boner! Now I don't feel so bad about my own growing stiffy, caged in my jeans. I smile to myself thinking that he wouldn't be able to hide this one in his baggy jogging bottoms.

“What's funny, sock boy?” He smacks my calf.

“Ow, you muppet! That hurt!” I reach up and smack his forearm in response.

“Yeah? Ouch! So did that!” He squeals.

“Good.” Time to test the water. “I was just thinking, you're getting off on fiddling with my foot and when I lift my leg off your lap, your dick is going to give the game away.”

I watch his face intently, for a sign that I've gone too far.

“So?”

Crap. I wasn't expecting indifference.

“We're just mucking about, aren't we? I get boners all the time. Don't you?” With that he drops my leg, letting it flop onto his lap, then reaches up and grabs my crotch. I stare down at the perfect nails.

“Yeah, I thought so.”

I lay there, paralysed, his hand has hold of my dick through my jeans. Simon squeezes the folds of stiff fabric. My dick has started leaking sticky pre-cum into my underwear, I can feel a wet patch already. I am transfixed, with him holding me and looking straight at me. Can he read my mind? Seemingly milking the pre-cum out of my cock to coat the insides of my underwear.

“Simon! What the hell are you doing?” Eventually I have to speak, right?

“Erm,” now embarrassed, he seems to realise what he is doing. He looks down at his hand. Then back at my still exposed hairy calf. Then down to my socked foot. “Adam?”

“What?” His hand is still on my crotch but he is no longer squeezing my dick, like a stress-reliever. I'm not uncomfortable, surprised maybe...

“Have you ever jacked off with someone else?” Bloody hell, where did that come from? And then, I see it. A moment of mental maturity beyond my years, allows me some clarity and I can see where it has come from.

“Simon, did you and your best friend used to muck about together?” I ask him, quietly.

He just nods. His beautiful brown eyes are glistening with tears.

“Okay. And, just a shot in the dark here, he wore white socks too, I'm guessing?”

Another nod and a tiny movement of his eyes back to my own sock. So I'm right. All this time his erection persists, I can still feel it under my knee. Actually, it fits kind of snugly there.

“Well, the answer is no.”

“No, what?” Caught up in his own memory, he had forgotten what he asked.

“No, I've not jacked off with anyone else.” I feel my face reddening again.

“But I have thought about it.” I decide honesty still may be the best policy. I'm on shaky, emotional ground here, my voice is only just above a whisper.

“And?” He asks, not unkindly. Simon can read my thoughts. That's a bad sign, even I can't do that.

“And…well, I dunno. It kind of turns me on, the thought of it I mean. I've thought about it, and I've wanked while I've been thinking about it.” The words tumble out in a bit of a rush. “To be honest, I've always wanted to have, you know, a really, really best friend.”

“Adam, what exactly are you trying to say? I'm losing the will to live here.” Again, with the sarcasm. Maybe, he really is like me.

“Alright, alright. What I'm saying is I've done it fantasizing about me and my non-existent best mate doing it together.”

“Really?” Simon seems genuinely pleased. “Really?” He asks again. I nod back at him. His face lights up, and he throws his head back and laughs.

“Simon?” I'm slightly put out he finds my admission funny. “What's so funny?”

“Nothing, nothing’s funny at all. This is the first time I've ever spoken about it, to anyone! And now I'm talking to you. I thought I was a freak, some kind of weirdo. Me and my mate used to wank off together all the time, and we shared the bed up here when he stayed over sometimes. I've never told anyone else and now he's gone, I really miss him.”

The relief of his admission is evident on his expression. His face relaxes, and he runs his hands through his hair, pushing it back from his face, it all flops forward into craziness. I can't think of anything to say, so I don't. I pull myself upright and, remembering what happened in my room that day last moth, I put my arms around him. He buries his face into my shoulder and I nestle my face and nose into all that ruffled hair of his. I breathe deeply, Simon smells gorgeous. Of shampoo, a lemony smell but there's something else there too, an undercurrent. He's not crying, just sitting…hugging me. His long arms wrapped around my chest and back.

“Are you okay?” I ask him, tentatively.

Nothing, just a sharp pain as his chin hits my collar bone when he silently nods. I bury my face and nose deeper into the top of his head and breathe him in. Lemons…and? He pulls away from me, his face red.

“Getting a bit warm under there, mate,” he's grinning again. Good.

“Yeah, me too.” And I am, pretty hot, under the button down collar of my crisp, remarkably clean shirt. I had made some sort of unconscious effort after all.

Simon stretches those ludicrously long arms above his head and once again, I can't take my eyes off of his fluffy armpit hair. I catch a whiff of something. Something sweet, no, almost a musky scent. It's him, it’s the smell of him. It’s just, well…I don’t know…nice.

“Adam!”

“What?” Fuck it! Caught! Again!!

“What's with the staring?”

“Sorry, I don't mean to.”

“What exactly are you looking at?” he asks, innocently.

“Your armpits actually. Not much hair on mine, so just comparing,” I say, equally innocently. Oddly the armpit department is a bit sparse, compared the rest of me.

Are we really going back down this road again? Suddenly, he's on his feet standing in front of me, his turn to look down at me on the bed. He puts both his hands above his head and for a moment, I think he's just stretching again. The hem of his shirt rises with his arms and reveals a flat, pale stomach, with an 'inny' belly button. There's just a faint hint of that treasure trail I spotted earlier. A foxy fuzziness running down his centreline and down into oblivion.

I can’t take my eyes off his belly. It seems to be getting longer. I realise he's grabbed the back of his shirt and his shucking it off, over his head. He chucks it towards me and I catch it in my lap. Another layer to conceal my ever erupting erection.

“There, now you can have a proper look.” Simon says, triumphantly.

He slowly moves towards me and stands between my knees, grinning like an idiot. Now he's shirtless, I can smell him more strongly. Shit, has he never heard of deodorant? I spray gallons of it over myself, paranoid that I might stink to high heaven, even in the middle of winter. Although, he doesn't stink, he's almost…well…scented. The smell…it's just, hot!

“Arms up then.” I am commanding. Call his bluff, Adam.

Surprised by boldness, he does it too. I can't help but inhale as he shows his armpits to me. His hormones, his sweet sweat and his manliness fill my lungs. My cock springs back to life, cocooned in the now damp fabric of my boxers.

“Mmm, nice.” I murmur, edging nearer to his bare chest, to look closer at his downy pits. I notice his tiny, deep coral nipples, pert and erect, certainly no fox fuzz there. I have to adjust my cock, as it strains against the tightness of my jeans.

“Yeah?” He looks down at me and smiles. Something shifts beneath the waistband of his joggers, Simon's dick is responding too. The dirty bastard is getting horny again, after everything he had just said.

“Look, Simon.” I begin. “If you want we could do it. You and me.” I scan his eyes for a glimpse of a reaction. I'm not disappointed. His eyes suddenly enlarge and he shows me a full set of gleaming white teeth as he smiles back at me.

“That’d be good.” He says, through the cheesiest grin ever.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“What the…?” Startled, my heart leaps out of my chest and into my throat.

“It's okay, don't panic, it's lunchtime. Mum bangs on the trap door with a broom handle.”

“Jesus. I thought she was coming through the floor.” As I say it, Emma shouts “Lunch!” at the ceiling below. Simon picks up his shirt, revealing my obscene boner, and shrugs it on, concealing what has whetted my appetite.

“Come on, you perv! Lunch.” He winks at me. I groan.

***

All through lunch Simon and I sit opposite each other, stealing glances and trading tiny grins. Something has changed between us, it's indescribable though. Tragedy has brought us together and we share a common, emotional bond but I feel that there is something else too. Something neither of us has considered. Well I certainly haven't, well, not really anyway.

I sit and wonder if Simon feels the same, he is certainly going along with it all. He doesn't seem to mind me winding him up, me ogling him and me getting a hard-on. I mean, he even stripped his shirt off for me. He gives as good as he gets in that department.

We eat and chat, small talk. All the usual boring everyday life stuff. Then mum gets a bit weepy. Simon and I are ushered out by Emma. We bolt up the first set of stairs, like gazelles.

On the first landing Simon stops, turns to watch me coming up the stairs. When my face is level with his, he catches my head in both of his hands and kisses me. Full, on the lips.

“Bloody hell, Simon. What are you doing?”

“Sorry, I just needed to,” he looks into my eyes, suddenly embarrassed.

“Okay, right.”

Him kissing me gets me stumped. I mean, I thought we were just mates now, now that we know a bit more about each other. But this kiss makes it a bit different, doesn't it?

Somehow, after a just a couple of hours, we seem like soul mates. We are so similar, our parents were right it would seem, we are both insecure. We are both sensitive, particularly for sixteen year old lads. Maybe it's because of our circumstances, we are both grieving.

“Sorry,” he says. He turns and jogs up the next flight.

I can't help but watch his arse cheeks, jostling behind the grey fabric of his joggers. I wonder if he wears the same kind of underwear that I do? I'm going to find out, I'm determined to.

I follow him up the stairs and then the ladder. I close the trap door behind me, and realise he's disappeared. I look around the huge room, but can't see anything of him. Honestly! Where can he have gone? Then I remember the bathroom in the corner.

“Simon?” I call.

“Just having a piss!” he calls back, totally unconcerned.

“Okay.”

I sit on the end of the bed again, one leg tucked under the other, one foot on the plush blue carpet. I hear the toilet flush and look up. Oh my God! Simon is clad in just his underwear. Boxer briefs, red with a black waistband, that's it, nothing else! Just his pants!

“Hey, you're still dressed?” Simon says, like it's an everyday thing. One sixteen year old, unexpectedly, nearly naked in front of his new friend. In his bedroom, on only their second meeting.

“Well, yeah,” I blurt out, not sure what else to say, “And you're, well...not...” I feel my cheeks reddening, my ears burning. I can't take my eyes off him.

The scarlet of his boxers glares against the paleness of the rest of his body. Without clothes, Simon is a completely different beast. Something primeval stirs deep within me, I feel on the verge of losing control of my senses. I sit there, my mouth gaping and my face on fire. My body is tormenting my mind, lust is winning, over reason. I want this so much, it's beginning to hurt. My throbbing dick shifts the pressure from my brain for a moment. His gentle, teasing voice trickles into my ears.

“Adam,” Simon says, as he takes a pace towards me. “What are you staring at? Again?”

He grins wildly and holds his arms away from his body, palms out, questioning me with his near nakedness. He is straight up-and-down, no curves to him at all. Of course his shoulders are beginning to broaden out, just like mine are but other than that, there are no contours. Now without the joggers and t-shirt, I can see from where I'm perched on the bed, that he does look almost hairless, apart from the peeking tufts from his armpits, and that tantalising ginger trail heading downwards from his belly button.

Thankfully his feet are bare now, Superman slippers, abandoned in the doorway of the bathroom, pure white and male model perfect. He stands on the sides of them, curling his toes inwards. I bite my bottom lip, to stop me saying something that I might regret later.

“Look, I thought you were up for this? You said you were earlier.” Simon comes to stand directly in front of me. His lightly freckled nose, only about two feet away from mine. His eyes boring into my own, seemingly registering my animal lust, his pupils widen slightly.

“Umm.” I look down, and immediately wish that I hadn't.

It is pretty obvious Simon is raring to go. I can clearly see the outline of what looks like a substantial package for such a slim guy, straining the cotton fabric of his garish boxers. My eyes are drawn to his right hip and a small dark stain on the fabric. My own dick bristles with impatience, rubbing uncomfortably, restrained by my own underwear.

“Look, Adam.” He starts, still standing just a few inches from me. “What's your problem? We're just two horny mates. I wank off all the time and you've already admitted that you do as well. So let's just get our dicks out and get on with it, okay? We don't have to do anything else, just get off. Alright?” He looks concerned at my reluctance. “I thought we were mates now, anyway?”

Those eyes, those beautiful eyes, pleading with me, he really needs this. Simon misses his best mate, I miss my dad…we are both missing the male role models who had completed our existence. There is a big hole where they used to be in our lives. The solution seems to be staring us in the face but I am holding back the tide of feelings that are threatening my cautious, introverted, insular world. I have to say something, or do something.

“Alright, alright!” I drag my gaze away from his waist and manage to look at his face. “I know we are mates, I kind of like you. It's all kind of weird but… okay.”

“Weird?” Simon says, laughing and throwing his head back, his whole body arching backwards. Consequently the red-covered bulge comes even closer to my face.

“Well, yeah. You are a bit, Simon.”

“Not as fucking weird as you, my friend.” Is he teasing me? “I don't know anyone else who would wear white socks and jeans in quite the same way as you do.”

His face almost splits in two as he smiles and winks. Winks! My hearts skips a beat, several I think, and my resolve melts away. My cock all this time has been at half mast, brushing against the inside of my undies and now it is demanding attention. My nose is collecting as much as I can take of fresh lemonliness and the unique scent, of Simon. He is so close to me now that I have no choice but to breathe him all in.

What the hell is happening to me? I need to do this and I need to do it now. I am on the brink of standing up and getting the hell out here, back down the endless stairs. Tousled hair, sparkling eyes, freckled nose and perfect teeth, all gone from sight… and temptation!

“Oh my God!” I mumble.

“Just shut up, Adam.”

The voice comes from the floor in front of me. Simon is on his knees in front of me and then I feel it. His hand on my leg, he walks his soft fingers down the leg of my jeans and tucks them inside the top of my sock. Then he pulls it off, revealing my bare, equally pale foot.

“If you're just going to sit there, I'm going to have to get you motivated.”

I like the commanding Simon little better than sarcastic Simon. He raises his head and looks me right in the eyes. Lifting the commandeered sock to his eye line, he takes a deep breath in. Bloody hell, he is sniffing my sock. I sit there, dumbfounded but hornier than I have ever been in my entire life. Simon raises his eyes to meet mine again, still kneeling on the floor.

“Well?” He says, simply.

In response, I stand up carefully, I don't want to knock him over. And, looking like an adolescent flamingo, I bend my other leg up so that I can reach my foot without stooping. I can't pull my gaze away from his, our eyes are locked together in a 'boys-must-wank' hormonal union. I tug at the sock and pull it off my foot, now what? Okay, Simon Weird, if you want to play a game then we'll play a game, how far can I push you?

I raise the sock up to my nose and sniff hard. My feet don't stink today, they don't ever really, so I know what to expect. The white, floppy sock just smells worn with a hint of floral scented, laundry detergent. It works though, Simon's free hand goes down to his crotch and he squeezes his cock through his boxers.

“Oh, yeah...” Just about audible, I hear him though.

“So, how shall we do this? Shall I strip down to my pants too?”

“Yes, please,” Simon whispers.

“Okay. I'm happy to give it a go but remember, I haven't done it like you have.” All the while I'm looking down at his upturned face. Simon is still kneeling on the floor, at my now bare feet.

“Okay.” He makes to stand up.

Steadying himself, he puts both hands on my feet. An electric charge runs right up through them, energising my whole body as it pulses up to my brain. No one has ever touched my bare feet before. Man, that was a jolt of something really hot, a couple of seconds of pure ecstasy. I realise that I'm rooted to the spot, in a sort of no-mans-land. Simon has climbed onto the bed and is laying back with his head against the wall, looking at me from behind.

“Come on then. For fucks sake, Adam!” he almost shrieks, his cock is now tenting his briefs, obscenely.

The sock business worked then. I file away that useful information in the 'smut' folder of my teenage memory bank.

“Okay! Okay! Keep your hair on!”

I walk over to the edge of the bed and undo my belt, I am being watched intently. I feel nervous and self conscious, I am not an exhibitionist. But what was that with the sock earlier? Perhaps I need a reason...

I shrug the jeans down over my hips and reveal my tight, black boxer briefs to the room and to Simon. I watch him bite his lip, tongue darting out. He catches my eye and I decide to smile, not something that comes easily to me, generally. His face dissolves into a wide smile and he laughs, a beautiful, easy sound, that I think I rather like. I step out of the jeans, undo the top two buttons of my shirt and the cuffs then pull it off, over my head. So, here we are...we're even.

“Satisfied?” I ask Simon. He's making quite a reasonable go at the staring now.

“Hmm?”

I've interrupted him checking me out, his eyes are swivelling from one end of me to the other, lingering in the midriff area.

“Now, I'm in the same state as you?”

“Oh, yeah.” he answers, but it doesn't interfere with his survey of me.

“Simon!” I'm flattered, but getting a bit miffed that he's being quite so blatant. I flop down next to him, purposely putting twelve inches space between our lithe bodies.

“Sorry.” He mumbles. He bucks his hips, puts his thumbs into the tight waistband of his boxers and pulls them down to his ankles.

Whoa! I lay there next to him open mouthed. He is fucking naked, naked! Sporting the biggest dick I have ever seen, it must be a third bigger in length than mine. It’s so white and so purple! His semi-translucent foreskin is stretched tight, revealing a deep purple helmet, glistening with pre-cum. Dark red pubes bristling, like a sea anemone, from around the base of the gently curving, fleshy rod of iron, which crowns his hairless nuts.

“Fuck, Simon!” the words stumble out of my mouth. “That's quite impressive.”

“Is it?” Simon asks me, turning his head toward mine. The sarcasm now dissolved. “Thanks, lets see yours then.” He pointedly turns his head towards my groin in anticipation.

“Alright, I'm a bit shy though, really.”

“I know, I was too. Before...” He wants to say something else, but can't.

Come on Adam, get your act together. It's just a wank, with a mate…nothing else.

Hesitantly, I do the same as Simon did. I hook my thumbs under the waistband of my pants and buck my hips, raising my arse off the bed. I push the black fabric down to my ankles, my semi-hard dick flops against my thigh.

“Nice one.” Simon sighs, his hand automatically going to his own erection.

“Thanks. I'm not fully hard yet. It's all a bit...” I look down at my pathetic dick, cowering in the forest of pubes.

“I fucking wish my pubes were like that. Who wants orange pubes?” He yanks at them with his other hand.

“You're welcome to them. I have to trim them with nail scissors, they're just so thick all the time.” I say, doing the same, pulling on them. My cock twitches.

“You going to get hard then, Adam?” Simon asks, his hand working the length of his glorious, veiny dick.

“Hmm.”

I watch him stroking his dick, really slowly. like it's something to savour. With me it's usually a pretty quick affair. Wank, cum, clean-up and get on with the day. I pull on my cock, the soft, warm skin so much darker than Simon's, I'd never really thought that we would be so different, down there. His so pale, and yet so vivid at the business end. Mind you, that Jewish guy at school, he had really dark head too. My own erection hardening up now, I sneak a glance over to Simon and see that he's watching my own handiwork closely.

“What are you thinking about?” He asks me, almost whispering.

“Honestly?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“I was just remembering a guy at school with a helmet like yours but he was circumcised.”

“Mmm, hot! How did you see his cock?”

“In the showers, after PE.”

“Nice. You look at everybody's cocks, or just his?”

“Fuck off, I'm not a gay-boy!” I turn onto my side to look at him head on.

“Alright, alright!”

Worried, he also turns toward me. Suddenly we are kissing, a frenzied, lust-filled, bestial need to be joined together, in the most intimate way possible. Our mouths open together and we are one, our tongues searching each others warm, moist mouths for comfort, for love, for each other. I pump my cock with right hand and reach up with my left, grasping Simon's bony shoulder, pulling him closer to me, pulling hard and urgently. I want to feel Simon, I want to have his skin touch mine.

Our hairless chests are clamped together, helped by my hand between his shoulder blades. Smooth warm skin makes my palm tingle, I move my hand in tiny circles as we make out on the bed. Simon responds by grinding his hips into mine and raising his left knee so that it rests on my right hip. Our engorged, sticky erections, hard against our own and each others bodies.

He is still slowly stroking himself, I can feel his hand between my legs. His knuckles caressing the underside of my dick and just nudging my balls each time he moves down his shaft. His free hand is in my hair, caressing my scalp, tugging gently on my earlobe, shit that feels horny! How did he do that? My earlobe my fucks sake!

“Fucking hell, Adam. I need to cum.” He lets go of my head and breathes in my ear. His breath, hot and sweet…and male…and Simon.

“Me too...”

I reach down and my throbbing dick looks as big as I've ever seen it. Just as big as Simon’s. We both flop back onto the bed, panting a bit from the passionate tongue lashing we have just given each other. I wipe the large blob of clear, sticky pre-cum over my satiny helmet and gasp out loud. Simon looks down at my dick and copies the manoeuvre exactly. Even the gasp!

“I am so horny right now. Doing this, with you,” he says, earnestly.

“Me too but I dunno why.” And I don't know, I'm not just saying it.

Jerking with a faster pace, Simon's taught foreskin is barely covering his head on the upwards stroke and makes it a salacious squelch, each time he strokes down over the raised glans. I close my eyes and think that what I'm about to do is so filthy, so wrong, so not me. I can feel the bed buck and move under my taut body. I open my eyes and Simon is glued to my dick, nearly drooling, like a puppy after a bone. I turn my head and wink at him...

“I'm gonna cum!” he gasps.

“Shit! Quietly!” I pant out, conscious of the others, two floors below.

“Told...you...I...was...a...noisy...wanker...” he manages to get out, then “Aagghh!”

Thick white ropes of cum shoot from his gloriously, shiny head. The first hits his left collar bone, the second the centre of his hairless chest, right between his dark peachy nipples. His toes are curled under his feet and yet another massive burst of inner energy, propels the third jet onto my left hip.

“Sorry!” he says, smirking.

I look down at his cock and see it's angled pretty much at my own, he did that on purpose. He came on me on purpose, the dirty bastard! I reach down with my free hand, not breaking my steadily increasing beat, and scoop up his cum. Hovering over his bollocks, I let his cum run off my finger and it lands with a spatter on his balls. He shivers and smiles.

That's enough, enough to send me toppling over the edge of the most intense orgasm I think I will ever endure. My cock feels like it is going to explode and I grip the base of it, just above my pubic bone, hard. My purple, throbbing head hums and pulses, I let go, close my eyes and push…hard.

My first shot hits me square on the chin, followed by another and another and yet another! My neck and upper chest get the brunt of it. I am covered in my own seed, I can even feel it running down my neck.

Hang on…it feels like it's running up my neck, not down! I open my eyes and all I can see is unruly, dark red hair. The top of Simon's head…now his eyebrows…now his eyes. He kisses me, a salty, sweet, musky, sloppy kiss. He raises himself up on one elbow, swings one leg over my body and straddles me. Simon leans forward, holds my head with both his hands and pushes his tongue into my willing, half open mouth.

I know what he's done. I don't care. I don't care that's he's just licked my cum off me. I don't care that he's now kissing me with his mouth full of my juice.

I do care about Simon, though.

I'm always happy to get your feedback, can't guarantee to take any notice, but I will reply. Thanks to my editor, dpw.