Out of Bounds

by Mike Seabrook

  A brief pornographic production of himself and Richard Fitzjohn romping naked together in Richard’s bed unreeled itself rapidly across Stephen’s mind as Graham said it, leaving an acrid tang of guilty self-loathing. “Poor Graham”, he said. His voice was very gentle. Graham detected the gentleness, and gave him a quick grateful look.

  They continued chatting as they watched the cricketers gradually becoming more and more riotous. A sing-song started up in one corner, and everyone got roped in to sing rugby songs under Bill’s lead. More beer went down, followed by spirits as people began to find themselves loaded up to the Plimsoll line, or, in numerous cases, above it. Sundry people ran to the lavatories or out onto the outfield to be sick; others fell asleep wherever they happened to be, and gradually the majority drifted away. No-one took any notice of Stephen and Graham.

  At just after nine o’clock Graham shook his head muzzily and said “I think I’ve had enough, or rather, a bit more than enough. I feel a bit pissed. I think it’s time I cleared off. Come outside and say cheerio, Steve.” It was the first time Graham had ever abbreviated his name, and it gave Stephen a pleasurable tingle down his spine. It sounded so friendly and natural that for a second he experienced a kind of self-delusion that everything was well again, as if they could resume real life. It passed in a fraction of a second, leaving him feeling cheated and gloomy. But he followed Graham out of the pavilion obediently enough, and they strolled across the outfield together in the comforting, protective darkness. No-one noticed them go.

  When they got to the other side of the field Graham turned to say good night. The night was so dark that he never saw the arms coming up until one locked itself round his neck and the other round his waist. He felt himself swept into a fierce, crushing hug. Before he had time to utter a word he felt Stephen’s lips on his cheek, seeking his own mouth, and a second later a tongue slipped into his mouth and began flicking and playing. He felt passionate desire rising at record speed, and struggled to break Stephen’s vice-like clasp. “No”, he muttered. But Stephen would not let him go. “I want you”, he gasped, gulping air. “I’ve been going out of my mind for months with missing you, and it’s not bloody fair. I want you so badly”, he said, and kissed him again.

  He finally released Graham when a pair of headlights went on across the field beside the pavilion. “Come on”, he said. “I’m coming home with you. My parents aren’t expecting me home. I told ’em I’d probably sleep at the clubhouse tonight. They probably think I’m drunk… Knowing them they probably think it serves me right.” He giggled. “I bet they’d rather I was lying pissed under a table than where I’m going to be tonight. Come on”, he hissed as the headlights wove an unsteady path round the perimeter of the field.

  Graham considered what to do as they set off in the direction of his flat. He had reached no firm conclusion by the time they got there, and there seemed no harm, he felt, in taking Stephen in for a mug of hot coffee. “Come on, then”, he said, a bit gruffly, unlocking the door. Stephen scurried in, pulling Graham in after him and kicking the door closed. “Hey, mind my paint”, said Graham, as Stephen pulled him hungrily into his arms.

  They clung to each other for what seemed like a few seconds, but was in fact several minutes, in the darkened hallway. Then Graham broke loose and propelled Stephen on into the living room. He sat him down on the sofa, then went into the kitchen to make coffee. Stephen jumped up and followed him, unable to be out of sight of him now that, against all the odds, against Graham’s own best judgment and against his own expectations, he had him to himself as of old. Both of them knew what was going to happen, and both knew that it would be futile to try to resist. Their mutual desire was so imperious that they drank the coffee too quickly, and both ended up with a badly-scalded tongue. Stephen got to his feet, and realized that he was trembling violently all over. He put out his arms to pull Graham off the sofa, and Graham came willingly up into his arms. They almost ran into the bedroom. There Graham said “Wait, love; shan’t be a moment”, dashed into the bathroom, and came back with a small blue and white tube. Though he had been no more than seconds, when he returned he found Stephen reclining on the double bed. He was already naked and erect. Graham stood speechless for a moment, hardly able to believe that he had his young lover again, and hardly able to bear the poignancy and beauty of the smile that welcomed him into his own bed.

  * * *

  Graham Curtis was glad when it was time to return to work in readiness for the Lent term.

  His frenzied, half-tipsy sexual reunion with Stephen after the Boxing Day cricket match had been followed by a harrowing scene when they awoke late the next morning. With the return of sobriety and clear judgment he had once again vetoed all sexual and most intimate contact. It had cost him almost more than he could bear, with Stephen’s long, slim body naked and inviting beside him. Stephen had protested and pleaded, argued and demanded, flipping from clinging, occasionally tearful desperation to urgent, iron self-control. “But why, Graham?” he kept demanding. “For Christ’s sake, why? If we could do it last night and get away with it, why shouldn’t we do it tonight, or tomorrow, and get away with it then, as well? Christ, we did it for weeks before, and got away with it then, too. Why did it have to stop so suddenly?”

  It was made all the harder for Graham to answer because in truth he hadn’t got a ready answer, except the real one, which was simple prudence, or, in Stephen’s view, simple cowardice. Knowing that he could hardly explain why he felt so adamant, at the same time as he knew that he still felt so, made Graham brusque and almost unkind with Stephen. Stephen responded by attacking Graham at his most vulnerable point, using his body and the remarkable range of sexual expertise he had garnered through his extensive experiments with Richard. Graham found himself wondering how the boy had acquired such blandishments, even in the moments when he had felt his resolve slipping from his grasp. Stephen smothered him with kisses, and he had almost yielded before wrenching himself quite brutally away.

  They ended up standing in defensive attitudes on opposite sides of Graham’s bed, glaring at each other almost with dislike, Stephen semi-hysterical, his face streaked with tears and his mouth set in an ugly pout, Graham torn agonizingly apart between certainty that what he was doing was right, essential and in Stephen’s own interest, and grinding remorse and self-reproach at having to inflict such visible pain. He sat on the bed and begged Stephen to sit beside him. Stephen did so, warily. Graham put an arm round his shoulders, but he threw it violently off, glaring at him with a look of angry, bewildered hurt on his face that scored and burned Graham almost beyond bearing. He came very close to throwing in his resistance at that moment. But his dogged self-control prevailed, and he set about trying to reason with Stephen.

  It wasn’t very successful, and it all ended with Stephen stamping out of the flat in a boiling froth of fury, frustration at not getting the straight answers he felt himself entitled to, genuine puzzlement and badly hurt feelings. He hurled the door shut and stamped off in the direction of his home, glaring ferociously at a passing postman. Graham turned onto his stomach on the bed as he heard the tremendous slam and buried his face in the quilt, wondering what to do.

  It might all have ended then, in unpleasant recriminations, with angry, almost contemptuous dislike on Stephen’s side and guilty self-doubt on Graham’s, but a cure was ready. It was triggered comically enough, when Stephen arrived at his front door. Groping in his pocket for his key he noticed for the first time consciously that he still had an immense erection. For a moment this amplified his rage to new record voltages; but a second later he suddenly saw the funny side of it, and started to laugh. It rose and swelled, and every new thought that entered his mind as he leaned against the doorpost, gasping and heaving with it, magnified and intensified it. Eventually he had to sit on the doorstep, doubling up in pain as fresh paroxysms hit him in waves.

  So for the time being his sense of humour saved him. As the laughing fit eased and allowed him to thi
nk without starting him off again, he began to consider the heady cocktail of feelings he had been suffering when he had stormed out of Graham’s flat. It took him very little time to see that his fury was little more than the tantrum of a child who can’t have its own way; his feelings were still hurt, but in his calmer frame of mind he knew quite well that Graham would never have hurt them willingly; and he began to reason for himself why Graham had been so unable to explain himself, and to see the difficulties. He let himself in, called out a greeting and, finding that the house was empty, ran lightly up to his bedroom to do something about his erection.

  * * *

  * * *

  Fortunately for both of them the slow ordeal of the vacation was almost over — a few days earlier for Graham, who was only too glad to return to school a day or so before the start of the new term to prepare for it. He hurled himself into the work with the furious energy of love and sexual yearning sublimated.

  One evening two days before school started, while Graham was sorting out revision schedules for those of his French pupils who were due to take A-level that summer, Stephen was on his way out seeking consolation in a drink at the cricket club. As he was halfway out of the door the telephone rang. Swearing mildly, he went back, and was very glad he had when a distinctive voice came over the line. “Stevie? It’s me. I’m back.”

  “Richard!” he cried, quivering with pleasure. He was more delighted than he could have imagined. “When did you get back?”

  “Ten minutes ago”, said Richard, sounding pleased. “Want to come round?”

  “Are you on your own?” asked Stephen, lowering his voice. “Er… no”, said Richard. “But that doesn’t matter — unless you’ve got somewhere else to suggest.”

  “I was just going for a pint at the cricket club”, said Stephen. “You’ve never been there with me”, he went on, suddenly feeling a desire to take Richard out and show him off, as it were. “Why don’t you come with me for a drink?”

  “Okay”, said Richard. “How do I get there?”

  “You know where I live, don’t you? Well, it’s on the way from your house to the club. I’ll be waiting outside for you.” Richard agreed, and Stephen put the phone down in spirits that had risen miraculously from the low that had, apart from the brief surge over Boxing Day and its aftermath, been the norm over the last three and a half weeks. He surprised his parents by yelling a cheerful “See you later”, and let himself out of the front door with another immense erection making itself felt in his underpants, and a firm intention of employing it altogether more inventively and pleasurably than he had been able to do with the last few he had had.

  When Richard came up a few minutes later he was looking as pert and sultry as ever. There was no-one in sight. They ran a few hundred yards along the road and halted in the darkest place, midway between two streetlights, laced their arms round each other and fell into a record-breaking kiss. “What sort of a time have you had?” asked Stephen, coming up for air.

  “All right”, said Richard, nuzzling Stephen’s cheek as he sought his mouth again. Stephen felt a twinge of irrational jealousy. “We had fun”, Richard went on indistinctly, his voice muffled by their kiss. “Not doing much, just lazing, knocking round with Mum and Dad mostly. I spent a lot of time thinking about you, actually. Did you get my postcard?”

  “Nope. Not yet.”

  “Oh, well, I only sent it a few days ago. I thought it would probably get back after me. It wasn’t much, anyway. Just something rude. I thought it might wake your people up if they found it before you did.”

  “What!” ejaculated Stephen, breaking the interminable kiss and letting out an explosive titter. “Maybe it has come, and they’ve burned it. Was it very rude?”

  “It was just a bit naughty. Well, pretty naughty, actually. I got it in a gay bar.”

  “Christ!” yelped Stephen, goggling at his friend in a kind of appalled delight, and starting to laugh. “They’d go into orbit if they found anything like that on the mat. What was it?”

  “Oh, it was nothing much”, said Richard airily, having no conception of parents like Stephen’s. “It was just two chaps walking on a beach — rear view, and holding hands. I picked it because they were both blonds, like us, you know. And because the taller one had a lovely peachy bum. Like you”, he added, squeezing Stephen’s in both hands as he said it. “I wrote something pretty banal on it. I did have enough sense not to give anything away on that side, and I didn’t even put my name on it.

  Just a sort of coded message, so you’d know I was missing you, and thinking of you.”

  They walked on a bit further, lingering in the darkest places. “How was your vac?” asked Richard.

  “Bloody awful”, groaned Stephen. “Couldn’t have been worse. We had a cricket match on Boxing Day. That was all right, and I…” He broke off, deciding to follow a sudden impulse that it would not be sensible or kind to talk of what had followed the match.

  But Richard was not to be deceived by sudden silences. “Yes?” he said, suddenly sounding tense. “You saw him, didn’t you?” he pressed when Stephen didn’t reply. Stephen nodded gloomily.

  “Christ”, breathed Richard. “What happened?”

  “Nothing happened”, snapped Stephen, as the same anger that he had felt on the morning after Boxing Day blazed momentarily in him. “Nothing. Just another bloody great blank. You’ve nothing to worry about”, he said unkindly.

  Richard looked away into the darkness. When he spoke next his voice was husky with sadness and pain. “I wasn’t worrying about that, Steve. I told you once, I know how I stand with you.” His voice dissolved into a choke, and he walked off ahead of Stephen, who halted and stood for a moment, hating himself for a graceless, ungrateful boor. He got moving, and hurried after Richard, catching him by the arm and swinging him round.. “I’m sorry, Richard”, he said, panting slightly. “Really, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything of the kind. It was cheap and spiteful.”

  Richard looked up at him from beneath his eyelashes. “Forget it”, he said in a low voice. “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have asked. It’s none of my business. Just forget it.”

  “It is your business”, said Stephen. “I love you, too, you know that. And if we’re the kind of friends I hope we are, anything I do’s your business. I really am sorry, my sweet Richard. Forgive me?”

  Richard looked sideways at him as they walked, and gave him a wobbly edition of his usual insouciant grin. “Forget it”, he repeated, but the grin said more. They walked on to the club and had a drink, both wondering impatiently where they could go afterwards. They only had enough money for a pint apiece, but they pooled their last few pence and shared a third pint, taking alternate sips and making it last. “Sort of a loving cup”, whispered Richard. “Better than getting separate halves.” They were on the point of going out, broke but cheerful, when the kind-hearted Bill McKechnie noticed them sharing the glass and took pity on them. “Let me get you one each, lads”, he said, getting the drinks anyway. He waved down their protests. “Naw, I was your age and skint once. Older blokes bought me enough beer to float the fleet then, and I can’t pay them back, because they’re all dead or moved on, or I’ve moved on. Puts it back into the game, see.” He looked curiously at Richard. “New face”, he commented, “Cricketer?” Richard made apologetic noises, but he smiled winningly at Bill, who promptly lost interest in him. “Oh well, it’s not your fault, I don’t suppose”, he said, moving away. “Cheers, lads.”

  When they had finished their drinks they found Bill and thanked him, then strolled out into the night with the problem of where to celebrate their reunion still unaddressed. They discussed it on the way home, and found no answers. “Oh, well”, said Richard, “we’ll just have to use my room as usual. They never disturb me in there, and I can lock the door, anyway. I’ll stick something noisy on the hi-fi, that’ll keep ’em at bay.” Stephen was deeply relieved to hear all the old bounce back in his voice again.

  * *
*

  Graham was standing in the school hall, chatting for a few minutes with a younger master, who had joined the staff that term, and was known to be somewhat innocent, when Stephen chanced to walk past with Richard. Graham’s and Stephen’s eyes met as the boys squeezed by, and a small electric charge of common pain crackled briefly between them. The moment was over almost before it had started, however, and the boys were past the two men as the young master remarked in his already widely-imitated capital-letters voice “Of course, I’m sure there’s no sexual hanky-panky in this school. None whatever, I’m sure…”

  The two sixth-formers turned, simultaneously and involuntarily, to stare at the young man in astonishment Stephen looked at Richard, Richard looked at Stephen, and the two of them hastened away. They had managed to put five yards between the masters and themselves before the pressure building up inside them became insupportable, and both let out a simultaneous explosive giggle. In a moment they had passed out of sight; but they were by no means out of earshot when the giggle swelled to a guffaw as they continued on their way. The two masters, left staring after them, looked at each other. The new man was becoming rapidly scarlet with embarrassment. Graham stood in almost a daze. His entire face felt as if it had been anaesthetised. He felt his hands trembling slightly, and thrust them, in an unconscious movement of self-concealment, deep into his pockets.

  He lost all consciousness of time and place, as waves of conflicting, confused emotions swept over him, raking and scouring him. Bewilderment came first, followed by disbelief. A shredding feeling of self-reproach, almost self-loathing, seared through him as he wondered if he could possibly find such a depth of distrust of the person who meant more to him than anyone else alive. But the whole mess of feeling was ultimately swept aside, first by a blast of jealousy of such terrifying intensity that for a moment or two he felt that he could have killed — not Stephen or Richard Fitzjohn, but the puzzled, slightly silly, and now appalled and embarrassed young man beside him.