******

At the rear of the long column of buses was Tail End Charlie: Chef’s battered old Chevy. Chef was at the wheel, trying not to lose his temper as Dave Eddy, who shared the front seat with him, moaned and dripped about his treatment at the hands of the cadets. In the back seat, curled up in the corners, Joey and Randy snuffled and stirred, deep in sleep.

As they putt-putted along behind the last bus Dave Eddy, quivering with indignation, angrily recounted in graphic detail what had happened to him. Not only had he been manhandled into the pool, his clothing had been stripped from him and, which was unforgivable so far as Dave was concerned, he had been groped! Never, in his entire life had Dave had his testicles fondled and his penis squeezed! It was unconscionable and unforgivable! He was an officer and such things simply did not happen to officers!

Chef was not noted for his patience. Quite the opposite held true and Dave was very fortunate that Chef was relatively sober and did not have a cleaver handy! Gritting his teeth, Chef clutched the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white. Dave droned on and on until finally Chef reached the end of his tether and exploded, “God Damn It!” he growled. “Lad, you have no one to blame but your own self! The Gunner as much as told you to mind your own business! Did you?” Before Dave could reply, Chef roared on. “No! You just had to get on your high horse and flash your stripe and a half in their faces.” He glared angrily at the Sub-Lieutenant. “You got exactly what you deserved!”

Dave gaped and sputtered. “They stripped me!” he declared with heat. “They felt my dick and squeezed my balls! I am an officer, damn it!” He was crimson with righteous anger.

“BULL SHIT!” roared Chef so loudly that Randy and Joey started awake.

“Chef . . .?” began Joey, a little frightened.

“Sure and there is no problem, Joey darlin’,” replied Chef with a smile, his voice gentle. “You and Randy go back to sleep, now.”

Joey settled back. Randy, who was also now awake, gently kicked Joey’s foot. Grinning widely, Randy glanced first at his friend and then at Chef and Dave. Sleep was definitely no longer on their agenda. It was not often that the officers and instructors bickered in front of the cadets, so the two boys listened intently as Chef continued on.

Joey’s interruption had deflated Chef’s anger somewhat and, after checking in the rear view mirror and making sure that the boys were all right, he glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw Dave, his arms crossed across his chest, staring straight ahead, and frankly pouting.

Under ordinary circumstances Chef, who did not suffer fools - or officers - gladly, would have let Dave stew. Had Dave been an ordinary, garden variety, no hoper of an officer, Chef would have ignored the lad for the balance of the trip. What bothered Chef though was that Dave was, while young and inexperienced, a good and popular officer, an officer who had the makings of becoming a great officer, if he had the right counsel and direction.

At he moment Dave was too puffed up with his own self-importance, and still in the thrall of being an officer. This Chef could understand. All too often during the course of his own career he had seen young lads, mere boys, really, Naval Cadets and Midshipmen, come strutting up the gangway, all full of piss and vinegar and starry-eyed, filled with the enthusiasm of youth and then, when the dust had settled and the stars had disappeared with the cold, hard, light of day, seen those same lads turned into Wardroom Wallys, Champagne Charlies, or worse, Nigel Farnsworths, so full of themselves and their imagined prestige that they were all but useless, fit only for the incitement to mutiny.

Thinking about it, Chef realized that in a way he was partly to blame for officers turning out they way they did. He had never made any bones about disliking most officers, treating them with veiled contempt and disdain when he thought he could get away with it. No, he had not helped matters at all, and in retrospect Chef thought that perhaps those same objects of his contempt and disdain just might have become welcome additions to the ship’s company, with the guidance and support of a senior rating, and an occasional good kick in the seat of their pants!

A quiet giggling from the back seat drew Chef’s attention to the two boys. He had no idea how far Randy and Joey planned to go in the cadets, or if they even planned on going on, for that matter. What he did know, and what he knew to be important, was that all of the boys deserved to be led by competent, unselfish officers. Chef decided that it was about time that he started to do something about the problem rather than compounding it. There was no time like the present and who better to start with than Sub-Lieutenant Dave Eddy?

Chef turned to Dave, who was still pouting, and spoke, his voice low and confident. “Dave, when you are told not to do something by an older, more experienced, hand, do not do it! The troops are not impressed and waving your Commissioning Scroll at them only makes you out to be a bigger fool than they think you are!”

“I resent that, Chef!” snarled Dave, all but baring his teeth.

“Too fucking bad! Resent all you like,” returned Chef. His anger was returning and he struggled to maintain his composure. “You were wrong to do what you did! The troops were not doing anything but having some good, old-fashioned fun. They made no effort to deliberately expose themselves and when they got out of the pool they either had their towels around them or they were wearing the swimming costumes. I do no recall anyone complaining. The girls sure weren’t!”

“That is not the point! I am an officer and they had no right to strip off my clothes and feel me up!” insisted Dave stubbornly.

Joey and Randy squirmed uneasily. While they had not helped to strip Dave to his underwear, they had taken advantage of the situation and given him a good feel (but then, so had Cory and, they suspected, Todd). Joey glanced at Randy, who grinned. They were so close that sometimes it scared Joey to think that Randy knew exactly what was going through his mind. By the same token he knew what Randy was thinking: Sub-Lieutenant Eddy had nothing between his legs to write home about. Still, it was best to shut up and pretend to be asleep.

“They did not strip you! They left you your underpants,” Chef pointed out. He lowered his voice, changing tack, trying to reason with the irate officer. “Dave, you have been a Sea Cadet since you were 12. Before that you were a Navy League Cadet. You, of all people, should know how high spirited the boys can be. They meant no harm, none at all! They were just having a bit of fun - albeit at your expense.” Chef winked at Dave and gave him a small grin. “Sure, and if anything, you should feel complimented!”

“Complimented!” yelped Dave. “You expect me to feel complimented?” asked Dave, failing to see the compliment in being felt up.

Chef sighed inwardly. Dave was much too angry to listen to reason. With a slight shake of his head Chef said, his voice deceptively calm and controlled, “Dave, by doing what they did the lads showed you what they think of you. They look on you as one of them. If they didn’t care for you they would have ignored you. If they didn’t like you they would not have bothered.”

Dave refused to be mollified or to listen to Chef’s reasoning. “I would prefer that they think of me as an officer,” he returned coldly. “I am an officer, Chef, and I will thank you to remember that!”

Randy scooted closer to Joey, thinking, That’s torn it! Dave just bent over and spread his cheeks!

Chef glared at Dave. Right, boyo, he thought, resisting a natural inclination to reach over and smack the young man. If that’s the way you want it! He looked directly at Dave and shook his head sadly. “Sir, I am an old sailor who’s been around for more than a Dog Watch. I shall give you one more piece of advice and then I shall keep my own counsel!”

“And that advice is?” asked Dave archly.

“When you get back to the ship go into the Wardroom, pack your bags, and then get on the next plane home. When you get back home turn in your papers because you are not going to be of any use to man or cadet with that attitude!”

******

As the convoy travelled north each bus in turn passed over a slight bump in the carriageway, which caused the heavy sleepers to stir uneasily and the light sleepers to awaken. André, always a light sleeper, felt the jolt. Momentarily confused and disoriented, he shook the cobwebs from his head, rubbed the sleep form his eyes, and remembered where he was. He saw that whatever had caused the bus to go bump in the night had not bothered Nicholas, who was sleeping soundly.

The bus was very quiet, the only sounds being the purr of the motor and the swishing of the tires on the pavement. André stuck his head above the seat and looked around. In the dim light from the overhead fixture he saw nothing but piles of flags and baggage and. Except for himself and the driver, everyone seemed to be fast asleep.

Turning slightly, André looked at his sleeping seatmate. Nicholas was one of very few English boys that André could call a friend for it was a sad fact that his heritage discouraged, in every way possible, intercourse of any kind, friendship of any kind, with the hated “Maudit Anglais”. André’s culture told him that ever since the conquest of New France, back in 1759, the English had made every effort to destroy his French-Canadian culture, to belittle his ancestry and denigrate his heritage.

Such was the depth of hatred that existed between the two cultures that while André lived in Montreal, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in North America, he also lived an insular, restricted and constricted life in a virtually closed society within a society, where the language of the conquerors was not spoken, the customs and traditions of the hated English ignored and misunderstood.

As a “Canadien”, André did not associate with English boys. At home English was never spoken, his family conversing and arguing in the Lingua-Franca of Quebec: joual, a hodgepodge of patois, slang, archaic French, fractured idioms and a soupcon of God knew what, a language that was alien to all but the Habitants who spoke it and caused much merriment in “sophisticated” Montreal society when a rustic from the wilds wandered in and spoke in a language that he thought was universal, only to discover that nobody could understand half of what he said!

School, which for André was the l’Ecole de College de Jesuit de St Ignatius Loyola, which the English called the Jesuit College School and the Canadiens insisted on never abbreviating, was not quite as insulated or prejudiced. French was spoken, Parisian French, as the Jesuits considered jouale to be the language of peasants and bourgeoisie, and not the language of young gentlemen. The Jesuit fathers, however, still managed to keep their boys “Pur laine”, good Canadiens who remained true to their Church and their heritage and until last year they had remained firmly mired in the 18th Century when, after a stern warning from Rome, and whining threats from Ottawa, the good fathers had, with ill-concealed reluctance, been brought kicking and screaming into the 20th Century and begun teaching English language courses.

Isolated from the English community at home and at school, André’s insular life was heightened by his Sea Cadet Corps, and the organization that supported it. His corps was unilingual French and he was sent to a French only camp, HMCS Quebec, in Ste-Ange-de-Laval, for his New Entry Training and he would never had had the opportunity to interact with English boys at all if he had not chosen to become a drummer in the Corps band and been sent to Band School, in HMCS Ontario, which used, in the summer, the facilities and buildings of the Royal Military College, in Kingston, Ontario.

Here, in the tradition hallowed buildings and halls of the Stone Frigate, André had met many English boys, boys who would, whether by accident or design, change his life. Here in Ontario he met a pair of scapegrace, blond-haired Twins, and a huge, jovial Drum Instructor named Harry, whose smiles and cajolery had made life bearable for the lonely, and frightened, French-Canadian boy.

It was in Kingston that many of the myths André had come to believe as gospel had been dispelled. It was common knowledge in French Canada that the English hated the French. But Harry hated no one and went out of his way to be kind to his young French-Canadien drummers. It was almost an act of faith that no English would demean themselves by speaking the language of peasants. If this were so, then why did Harry, and the two blond-haired Twins from far off Vancouver, speak flawless French?

The presence of these cadets led to the dispelling of yet another myth, which held that all English were cold fish, with blond hair, blue yes, and rosy pink cheeks. Yet Harry was dark complexioned, with black hair that never seemed to be neatly combed unless the Chief Gunnery Instructor or the Band Officer yelled at him to get his hair cut. André realized that the English came in all shapes, sizes and colours. And, as for the English being cold and unfeeling, well, the Twins very quickly put paid to that particular little prejudice. While they did have blond hair, blue eyes and pink cheeks, they were warm, full of life, always laughing and always getting into trouble.

It had not taken André long to realize that many of the myths crammed into him by his parents and the priests were just that - myths. Anglais boys could be, and were, just as diverse as Canadien boys. He also learned that the English boys had a few prejudices of their own, one of which held that all French Canadiens were short, squat, with black hair and deep brown eyes, a swarthy complexion and given to chattering rapidly in an unintelligible language. This particular myth was roundly dispelled by the presence of Sylvain Beauharnais, who came from the real wilds of Quebec, up near Chicoutimi. That he was “Pur Laine” was undisputed, as he could, and did, trace his ancestry back to the first boatload of colonists who had accompanied Frontenac and helped found the colony of New France. What puzzled some, however, was the fact that Sylvain was also tall and slim, and had blond hair and deep blue eyes, which had led to some very unkind remarks, on the part of the other French Canadien boys, about his ancestry and heritage.

Sylvain’s physique and colouring had led to the destruction of yet another myth. It was held that the English were crude, and very rude, yet the only snide cracks about a “Maudit Anglais” in the family tree had come from the French boys. The English boys could not have cared less. They treated Sylvain as one of their own, never gave his ancestry a thought, and their rudeness was confined to making disparaging and crude remarks about Sylvain’s endowments. This meant nothing, as the English boys were crude in the manner of all boys in an all-male environment. It went with the territory.

When he had first arrived in Ontario, André had thought that he would be more or less confined to his own little world. Everybody knew that that the English cadets wanted little, or nothing, to do with the French Canadien cadets. This assumption proved false, much to André’s delight. The English cadets had been friendly and outgoing, and Harry and the Twins had taken a fancy to him. They teased and kidded him unmercifully, taught him the rudiments of drumming, and always included him in their escapades. The three English cadets also took time to teach André a few English words and phrases (mostly swear words and scatological references to buttocks, penises and testicles) but English nevertheless.

As that first summer wore on, André found his little world opening, with more and more of the prejudices ripped asunder.

At home, and in school, André had been led to believe that the human body, while made in the image of God, was not something to be admired, or even looked upon. To look upon another male, even one’s brothers, or, God-forbid, one’s father, was considered sinful and led innocent boys to having unnatural thoughts, which led to unnatural deeds being performed in the darkness of the night. Until arriving in Ontario, the only penis André had seen was his own, which confirmed the prevailing article of faith that only Pur Lain kept to the old traditions, and that the unspeakable Jews, who had murdered our Lord Jesus Christ, and the perverted Anglais, were all Roundheads. Everybody knew it.

On the very first night in Kingston, André learned that not only was nudity a fact of life, it was as accepted as taking a pee, or not liking cabbage. The cadets were housed six to a room, and the showers and toilets were communal. None of his roommates seemed at all concerned when they stripped down and sauntered off to the showers as naked as they day they’d been born! Walking about the cabin naked, flashing their immature parts and fittings, was also accepted.

This had led André to see with his own eyes that the teachings of his childhood were so much bunkum. He saw that not all of the Anglais cadets were Roundheads, as he’d been led to believe. Some were, some were not, including an Anglais from Sarnia who possessed a very long and rubbery repli, which he used and delighted in when demonstrating his ability to masturbate just by manipulating his foreskin.

André had watched wide-eyed as the boy performed and, like many of the other cadets, had thought such a unique ability very interesting, and a hoot, really, and never failed to catch the evening performance in the showers before “Lights Out” came blaring out of the speakers that dominated every corridor in the barracks blocks. Sadly, the performances came to an end when the cadet decided to give a matinee performance for some yokels just arrived from New Brunswick and the Duty Officer and the Duty Petty Officer (who happened to be Harry), walked in on the demonstration. The cadets were duly chastised and the unfortunate boy from Sarnia was sent to the Padre(P) for a stern talking-to and fined $5.00 for scandalous behaviour.

For André, Kingston was not only a learning experience, but also an awakening. He discovered that he had certain feelings, feelings that were coming to the fore, despite the ranting of the priests and his father’s leather belt. These feelings, which disturbed André greatly, had resulted in sleepless nights, usually accompanied by an erection that he dared not touch, had shown André that he was physically attracted to other boys, particularly the English boys.

It did not help matters at all that Harry and the Twins were completely open in their references to sex. Harry was forever teasing André about his little hooded souris, or bragging, joking or boasting about the size, girth and beauty of his upper deck fittings. These, André thought, were quite nice, but hardly something to crow about. The Twins, Todd and Cory Arundel, who were gangly, all bums and baskets, were just as uninhibited as their friend Harry, and thought nothing of wandering about naked, or exhibiting for any who cared to look, their morning erections which, if the truth were told, were exactly like Harry’s, only smaller, with the same dark pink shafts and smooth, curving, helmet shaped heads. Harry and the Twins were Roundheads, while André was a Cavalier, although if he pulled his repli back he became a Roundhead, if only for a little while.

André’s reluctance to even consider his strange new feelings was buttressed by the attitudes of some of the other cadets toward the Twins. They were, it was whispered, queer. The fact that the Twins might, or might not, be homosexual did not seem to disturb the majority of the other cadets overmuch. The Twins had never, to anyone’s knowledge, done anything to anybody, had never made an inappropriate move on anybody and who cared, anyway?

Every barracks reeked of homoerotic banter. The cadets were forever slagging the size and shape of each other’s morning woodies. When they were boasting and showing off, they were playing grab ass, parading around naked, the English cadets seeming to be less concerned and less repressed than their French counterparts, who seemed to go to Mass every day and mutter darkly about eternal damnation for any who even associated with the Twins.

Nobody cared. The Twins were the Twins, period.

As the bus rolled northward toward Comox, André recalled the unkind whispers about the Twins and snorted derisively. How, he wondered, could the sanctimonious point fingers at the Twins? Homosexuality was hardly unknown, particularly in an all male environment. School, for instance. It was rumoured, not without some truth, that Sylvain, who was held up as a paragon of French-Canadien manhood and two of his amis, all of whom were boarders at the Jesuit College, visited the younger boys at night. And not to tuck them in! Or to make sure that they were wearing the mandatory flannel pyjamas the priests insisted all the boys wear to bed, more to preserve their morals than to dispel the cold night air of a frigid Quebec winter. If the rumours were true, and André, when he thought about them, had no reason to doubt, then Sylvain and his cohorts were more interested in getting the younger boys out of their pyjamas and into their beds!

While the feelings he had grew stronger, André did nothing to satisfy them. He was not about to initiate anything. The teachings of the Church prevented that. As a dayboy, and not a boarder, André could not prove, or disprove the rumours concerning Sylvain. He heard the giggling, and the whispers, and while he did not discount them, he made no effort to seek Sylvain out, simply because he did not trust the tall, handsome youth. André did not trust any of his schoolmates or fellow Quebecois cadets. They were all sons of Holy Mother Church, imbued and indoctrinated with the centuries-old admonitions and taboos, the proscriptions and never ending litany of thou shalt nots! They might wander the dank and dismal halls of the dormitories at night but sooner or later one of them would say the wrong thing in Confession and the wrath of orthodoxy would come crashing down upon them. It had happened before, André knew. Two boys had been found in an “embarrassing” situation when the Father Provincial had made an unexpected, surprise bed check one night. The unfortunates had been prayed over, condemned, and expelled, all in flawless Latin.

What puzzled André, however, were the attitudes of the English boys. Granted, most were Protestants, and did not need to worry about Confession. What did puzzle him were the English boys who were Roman Catholic. Only a very few seemed bothered about the Twins, the bantering, or the nudity. As for the others, so far as they were concerned what they did in Kingston, saw in Kingston, or heard in Kingston, was going to stay in Kingston and what the priests did not know would not hurt them!

******



His first summer away from repressive Quebec had made an impression on the young cadet. André remained fearful of his feelings and desires but despite them, or perhaps because of them, he applied for, as was accepted to the Band School where the majority of cadets were delightfully uninhibited Anglais. It helped that he had applied himself at his home Corps, receiving glowing reports from his instructors, who encouraged him to take advantage of the courses available, even if they were taught in English. What helped more was that young André Noailles was the special protégé of Harry Hohenberg, who was well on his way to becoming The Drum Major of the Sea Cadets. Where Harry went, so went André.

Now 15 years of age, and not quite the naïf he had been at his first camp, André had not been surprised at all when his request to play with the Aurora Bugle Band had been approved almost with the speed of light. He kept his fears closely hidden but in reality delighted, as he had done for the past three summers, in watching each morning, first Harry and the Twins, and later, his barracks mates crawl from their bunks, their underpants tented with their morning erections, pretending not to notice as they stripped off their briefs or boxers before sauntering, naked, into the washplace for their morning showers, their hard, smooth penises bouncing as the tight, restricting fabric of their undies was slid down their thighs, and when they walked the length of the room, their towels hung nonchalantly around their necks.

Silently, André listened to the boasts and comparisons, listened to the muted groans and sighs at night and, at times, added his low moan of pleasure to the chorus, fantasizing about this boy or that, dreaming of reaching out and touching and . . .

Thinking of the uninhibited, innocent displays he saw every morning, André looked at Nicholas, longing to reach out and touch the handsome Chief Yeoman’s smooth, flawless cheeks. He also longed to reach down and feel the soft perfection he had seen only hours before, the delightfully light tan and pink wonder that lay hidden beneath the dark serge fabric of Nicholas’ bell-bottom trousers.

Looking down at the tight bulge in Nicholas’ trousers, André’s heart skipped a beat. “Tabernac!” he breathed. Nicholas might be deep in sleep but there was a very pronounced and more than respectable bulge in the front of his pants!

André very quickly averted his gaze but, like a moth drawn to a flame, his eyes returned again and again to the to the enticing and stimulating sight between Nicholas’ legs. He could feel his own penis, his little mouse, his souris, hardening and without realizing what he was doing reached down to adjust his angry little appendage, placing it in a much more comfortable position in the confines of white cotton that protected it.

For some miles André sat there, mesmerized, listening to Nicholas’ steady breathing, watching as the bulge in the Yeoman’s trousers pulsed slightly with every breath he took. As he watched, André rubbed his own erection, each downward stroke of his hand drawing down his foreskin exposing the sensitive head of his penis to the softness of his briefs, creating a feeling so wonderfully stimulating that twice he brought himself to the edge, and while he wanted desperately to squirt, André just as desperately wanted to prolong as much as possible the delectable feelings that washed over him. Lost in the euphoria of bliss, and quite unconsciously, André impulsively, and without thinking of the consequences, reached down and ran his finger along the bulge in Nicholas’ trousers.

As André’s finger felt the hardness beneath the fabric of his trousers, Nicholas stirred slightly, but did not awaken.

André continued his stroking for a few minutes and then, emboldened by Nicholas’ continued inactivity, reached out and slowly drew down the zipper of his friend’s trousers. When Nicholas remained somnolent, and did not react or squirm, André, who could feel his own erection throbbing, unbuckled Nicholas’ belt, popped the top button of his trousers, and pulled them open, revealing a white expanse of starched gunshirt.

As carefully as he could, André pulled up Nicholas’ stiffly starched gunshirt. His eyes widened and he gasped slightly at the revealed treasure, seeing in the dim light cast by the overhead light . . . Jutting proudly from the slit in Nicholas’ white boxer shorts like the bowsprit of a tall ship was his magnificent, light tan, and very pink, erect penis.

Cautiously, his hand trembling, André reached out to touch the dark pink flesh of Nicholas’s perfect, curving glans. Nicholas’ circumcised penis was warm under André’s fingertip, and twitched at the French-Canadian boy’s soft touch and a small, gemlike drop of clear liquid oozed out of the perfectly positioned slit of Nicholas glowing organ.

Entranced, André watched as the small drop of liquid ambrosia slowly oozed down the gentle curve of Nicholas’ dark pink glans. Almost immediately another, larger, drop appeared. André’s finger touched the crystal droplet of heaven and lifted it to his lips. His tongue flicked out and for the first time André tasted nature’s wonderful lubricant, shuddering at the delight of it. He had never tasted anything like this wonderful liquid and André immediately wanted more. He lowered his head until his nose was a scant inch from Nicholas’ warm, beautiful manhood and André breathed deeply as the glorious scent of Nicholas, musk, soap, cotton cloth, cleanliness, all mingled together, assailed his nostrils.

Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! André was almost overcome with the glorious incense that rose from Nicholas, smelling for the first time the magnificent scent that every male produces.

Leaning down, André pressed his lips against the underside of Nicholas’ smooth, thick erection, the tip of his tongue touching the sweet spot just where the shaft joined the delicious, curving head, his lips savouring the warmth of the smooth skin. Moaning softly, André closed his eyes and tasted . . . Mon Dieu and Tabernac! Nicholas was so . . . he was so terribly warm, and sweet, and. Mon Dieu, Nicholas tasted like nothing André had ever tasted before!

At the soft touch of André’s lips, Nicholas’ erection jerked again and another drop of clear fluid appeared as if by magic from the finely cut slit in the curving, smooth surface of the dark crimson glans.

Groaning now, overcome with lust and excitement, André slipped his hand into the wide fly of Nicholas’ boxers and felt the thick bush of pubic hair surrounding the base of six or so inches of pink and tan glory that his lips worshiped. André tried, but failed, to slip his hand further into the white cotton underpants, unable to stroke and fondle what he knew to be a set of perfect, oval, low-hanging testicles.

Intoxicated with Nicholas, André slowly sniffed his way up the perfect shaft, his warm breath softly caressing the barely seen vein that meandered its way down the underside of Nicholas’ penis. André kissed and licked the spongy-hard glans of this glory, and with his finger coursed the length of Nicholas’ erection, the first hard male flesh other than his own that he had ever touched. So engrossed in what he was doing, André did not see Nicholas’ eyes snap open, then close quickly. He did not hear the soft, low sigh that escaped Nicholas’ tightly closed lips.

******



Nicholas was neither naïve nor a neophyte when it came to sex between boys. He went to an all-boys school, and had spent every summer for the past five of his 18 years in one Sea Cadet camp or another. When he thought of it, he came to realize that the only difference in matters sexual between school and camp was that he wore a different uniform to each.

In school, in the locker rooms, in the barracks of the camps he attended, were the same undercurrents, the same homoerotic bantering and roughhousing, the same comparisons and checking each other out. Nicholas was not stupid enough to believe that it was all talk and no action.

Back home, in Montreal, the Cathedral Boys School offered board and bed to 134 boarders. As a dayboy, Nicholas was not privy to all the secrets the school held, but it did not take him long to become aware that special relationships, as they were delicately referred to by the Masters of the school, existed. In the confines of the Boarders’ Wing the closed doors that lined the scarred, wooden-floored corridors held many secrets, as did the small storeroom above the stage in the school auditorium, a room that could only be locked from the inside, a room where the Masters never ventured, a room were two boys could be alone.

Nicholas, while he was aware of what was going on, having heard the whispered snickers that followed some of his schoolmates, never visited the small room above the stage, and whenever he entered a boarder’s room the door was always left open. He never participated in anything, never formed a relationship that could remotely called special. His sex life was limited to masturbation, although he did manage to do it at least three times during the day, and always before going to sleep at night.

As in school, so too had Nicholas discovered that special relationships were formed at camp. The Sea Cadets were usually housed in barracks, except in Kingston, where the occupied rooms in the Stone Frigate, a venerable building normally housing officer cadets destined for the Navy. Here they lived four to a room, sometimes more if the camp billets were over-filled. There were no private showers, and every morning was show and tell time. Once again Nicholas saw and heard the whispers about his fellows cadets, saw pairs of boys drifting off, having found, as his schoolmates in school had found, their own private places.

In school the bantering and teasing was more or less confined to the locker rooms, after sports, when the boys showered and changed from shorts and singlets back into their uniforms. In camp, bantering, teasing, comparisons, crudity and nudity were commonplace. Waking up in the morning with enough wood on to build a whaler was considered almost obligatory, comparison mandatory, and derision compulsory. And there was always someone complaining about the mess he had made in his shorts during the night, which for some reason always led to an almost required open discussion on masturbation, the lack of masturbation, or techniques.

It had happened in Kingston, in Trenton (where the Air Cadets, careful, well-groomed, tight assed virgins during the day, showed the Navy a thing or two at night), Esquimalt, and in Aurora.

Nicholas, who had not had a wet dream since he discovered that his penis was useful for something more than peeing out of, was vaguely aware, in his sleep-fogged brain, that he seemed to be having just the thing now. Confused, jumbled images filled his head, and he somehow managed the thought that all the talk and shit chucking had finally had an effect on his sleep patterns. Or it could have been the fact that he hadn’t beat off since leaving the ship on Friday morning! Not that it mattered. He could feel that his penis was rock hard, throbbing away, and that his testicles were pulled tight against his crotch.

Having decided, in his mind, that he was having, for the first time in ages, a reve humide, Nicholas allowed that nature should take its course, and that he should enjoy it. He was feeling some very pleasant feelings, accompanied by some very erotic images - of André, of all people - which Nicholas wasn’t about to analyse right now because his dream was so real and so pleasant, so pleasant that he imagined he could feel a very soft-skinned, warm finger coursing up and down the underside of his erection.

Sound asleep, and not realizing what he was doing, Nicholas squirmed in his seat and spread his legs wider, offering his erection to the caressing finger. What a strange dream, he thought groggily. A finger, of all things, was . . . a FINGER!

Nicholas’ eyes snapped open. He looked down and saw that the front of his bell-bottoms were unzipped and that his hard penis was poking out from the slit in his underpants. He also saw that the finger which he thought was imagined, was in fact reality and attached to hand that was attached to an arm that was . . .

Closing his eyes to mere slits, Nicholas watched as André’s finger slowly traced the length of his firmness, and then paused to tease the small knot of skin directly under his glans. That was one of Nicholas’ special spots and he bit the inside of his lip to stop from moaning his pleasure. He watched as André’s finger moved and retraced its way down to his testicles. Thinking, what the hell, Nicholas allowed what seemed to be a sleep-induced sigh of pleasure to escape his lips.

André, fascinated by the beauty his finger was exploring, did not hear the sigh, and moved his hand, his finger circling the base of Nicholas’ penis, and ruffling the small copse of hair that surrounded it.

Nicholas was thoroughly enjoying what was happening to him, and trying very hard not to let on that he was awake, almost queered his pitch when André’s finger began teasing and twirling the thin hairs curling around the root of his erection. He involuntary clenched his butt muscles, which caused his penis to jerk, and almost cause André to have a heart attack.

When Nicholas’ penis jerked up and down André paled, and very quickly drew his head and hand back, fearful that his fondling had awakened his newfound friend, and even more afraid of what Nicholas would do to him if he should wake up and find him playing with his dick! As quickly as he had jerked his hand away André slouched in his seat, turned his head, and pretended to be looking out of the window, barely daring to breathe.

When nothing happened, and no screams of outrage broke the silence of the bus, André turned his head and looked at his seemingly asleep seatmate. Nicholas’ head was cocked slightly to one side and there was a slight smile on his face. Looking down at Nicholas’ crotch, André saw that the Yeoman’s trousers were still open and his penis was still proudly jutting toward the overhead rack. André heard what sounded like a very contented sound come from Nicholas and as his eyes darted between Nicholas’ face for any sign of a reaction, and his penis, which was throbbing and bouncing as the Yeoman breathed, he saw Nicholas spread his legs slightly wider, offering in his sleep a little more room for exploration. Or so André thought.

Nicholas, awake and completely aware, had deliberately opened his legs wider. What André was doing to him was certainly better than a wet dream and as sure as fuck a hell of a lot better than when he jerked himself off. If André wanted to bring him off, that was fine with Nicholas, although he did wonder just how far the French-Canadian boy was prepared to go.

What would surprise Nicholas, and André himself, was that André was prepared to go as far as his apparently sleeping seatmate allowed. He returned to caressing Nicholas, and then bent down and gently ran his tongue over and around the sleek, crisply ridged head of Nicholas’ penis. Nicholas almost lost consciousness! The warm wetness of André’s tongue sent a shock wave of pleasure rampaging through him and he began to moan quietly, thrusting his hips upward, offering André all of his hard cock, which so startled the boy that he quickly snapped his head backward.

With his hand hovering over Nicholas’ throbbing organ, André, scarcely daring to breathe, waited, and watched the face of the youth he wanted to taste and feel in every way possible. Much to André’s surprise, Nicholas, who was supposedly asleep, was breathing rapidly through his nose, and making small moues of pleasure.

Unsure of what to do, André waited for what seemed like hours until Nicholas settled down and his breathing slowed. Emboldened, André dared to move his hand again. His right hand grasped the pulsing, silk-skinned flesh, his thumb slowly circling over and around the now almost purple-coloured glans. He slipped his hand into Nicholas’ boxers, cupping and rolling the finely formed testicles, drawing the soft hairs covering Nicholas’ smooth-skinned scrotum through his fingers.

Nicholas squirmed and muttered as André continued to rub the head of his dick, massaging the crystal drops of nature’s lubricant that oozed from the slit in his penis over and over the glans, caressing the smooth-ridged crown with a delicacy that drove Nicholas to near distraction.

While the last thing Nicholas wanted was for André to stop his fondling, the Yeoman could feel his balls tightening and the pressure building deep within his groin. Desperately trying to pretend to be asleep and to stifle the groans that were forming, Nicholas stiffened his body. A wave of pleasure, building higher, a tidal wave of intense ecstasy, an ecstasy that Nicholas had never felt before, rose deep within him, rising, growing stronger and stronger. Nicholas was near, so very near, and even though he never wanted the feelings to leave him, he could resist any longer. The suppressed groan that he had kept buried deep within his chest rumbled upward and . . .

André’s heart jumped so sharply that he wondered if this was what cardiac arrest was like, when Nicholas turned sideways and reached out to embrace him. André’s heart leaped as Nicholas buried his face in his neck, his lips and tongue nibbling and sucking at his ear.

“Oh, God, André, don’t stop!” Nicholas groaned harshly. “Don’t stop, petit, don’t stop!”

André, pleasantly surprised, was more than happy to continue. As he continued to rub the Yeoman’s swollen, mushroom-shaped glans, Nicholas sucked and rimmed André’s ear with his tongue, his moans and heavy breathing telling André that he was close, very close to Nirvana. André’s fear at being discovered gave way to a wonderful contentment and he buried his face in Nicholas’ chest, smelling the crisp, clean freshness of the Yeoman’s gunshirt, and of the Yeoman.

Suddenly, Nicholas’ grip on André tightened. He thrust his hips forward and his body stiffened. “Gonna cum, petit . . .” he groaned. “Gonna cum . . . cumming . . . don’t . . . don’t stop, petit! Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop.”

Nicholas gave an almighty heave upward and his legs stiffened to iron and a stream of thick, creamy semen flew from the gaping slit set in the head of his penis, splattering against the starched cotton of André’s gunshirt.

Again and again Nicholas thrust forward, each time expelling an ever-decreasing stream of his nectar onto André’s chest and gunshirt until finally, with a titanic heave and a low, snarling growl, he was finished.

André, wide-eyed that Nicholas could derive such almost overwhelming pleasure from a simple hand job, waited, holding the Yeoman’s wilting erection, waiting, and wondering what would come next.

Nicholas held André in a viselike grip, willing his breathing to slow, commanding his heaving chest to settle. He sighed low, and whispered, “Oh, God, petit, that was good!”

At first Nicholas seemed content to bask in the afterglow of a wonderful, fulfilling experience. André was happy to just sit there, with Nicholas’ arm around him, holding Nicholas’ warm, beautiful, soft penis. He was very surprised when Nicholas pulled away and then leaned forward, smiling. Their lips met and parted and their tongues duelled briefly. “Be very quiet, petit,” Nicholas warned as his hand found André’s belt buckle.

Not daring to even question what Nicholas was doing, André watched, fascinated, as Nicholas unbuckled his web belt, fumbled open the buttons closing his bell-bottoms open, and then spread them wide, revealing the expanse of white cotton briefs that hid his painfully hard, excited souris, his little mouse pulsing at the constricting cotton fabric.

Closing his eyes, André’s breathing quickened as he felt Nicholas’ strong hands slide under the wide waistband of his underpants, felt those same hands slowly push down the tight briefs that had kept his souris at bay, and his trousers, felt his clothing being lowered to mid-thigh. André felt Nicholas’ hand as it cupped his testicles gently and he opened his eyes. His little mouse had grown, achieving a girth and length that André had never thought possible. His little souris, his smooth-skinned, hooded little mouse, was standing tall, the rubbery skin drawn slightly back, revealing his pee slit, which dribbled the same clear liquid as he had lovingly licked from the head Nicholas’ penis.

André’s breathing quickened. He did not dare to hope that Nicholas would . . . Nicholas reached forward and ran his finger down André’s covered erection, slowly gathering the little rill of precum gathered in the folds of the boy’s foreskin. This he lifted to his lips and sucked slowly into his mouth. Then, using his thumb and two fingers, Nicholas slowly retracted André’s foreskin, exposing the handsome, deep purple glans.

Still not daring to hope, André barely nodded his head to acknowledge Nicholas’ murmured warning. “You must be very quiet, petit.”

Holding the gathered skin firmly at the thick base of André’s straight, engorged erection, Nicholas lowered his head and his lips kissed just the rounded, smooth dome, his tongue gently washing away the small drop of clear fluid that oozed from the slit.

André whimpered ecstatically as an electric shock of pleasure flashed through him. He raised his hips, offering himself to Nicholas.

Nicholas’ mouth opened and he slowly engulfed André’s smooth, slim erection, not stopping until his nose was buried in the soft, curly forest that surrounded the base of the French-Canadian boy’s pulsing, flushed shaft.

André’s head flew back and his mouth dropped open. He had dreamed of this night, had fantasized about this night, but never, in all his wildest imaginings, had he conceived that the feelings that rampaged through his petit souris, his little mouse, would be so magnifique! André’s entire world was concentrated on the wetness that engulfed him, the core and fibre of his soul centred on the soft, firm suctioning of Nicholas’ mouth. Despite Nicholas’ warnings, André began to squirm and squeal softly as every nerve in his body seemed to short-circuit. His body shuddered and his hands gripped Nicholas’ head and he was overcome with the sheer wonder of his orgasm. Grunting, André desperately pushed his souris deeper as stream after stream of his boyish semen gushed into Nicholas’ eager, waiting mouth.

Nicholas continued to suck greedily; awed by the amount of semen the little fellow was putting out. He was so enthralled by the bitter-sweetness of André that he was only vaguely aware of yet another orgasm passing through his own body, so intent on pleasing André and cleaning the softening, warm, oh so wonderful penis in his mouth that he barely felt his semen as it squirted onto his stomach and dribbled slowly down the shaft of his penis and into his pubic hair.

André writhed in exquisite pleasure as Nicholas’ tongue and mouth continued to suck and lick and finally, unable to bear the delicious agony any longer, he pulled away. He slumped heavily against the side of the bus, breathing harshly, his heart pounding uncontrollably.

They sat looking at each other for the longest time, each boy stunned at what had just happened. Nicholas, far from being horrified at having, for the first time in his life, taken another boy’s penis into his mouth, and swallowed his cum, felt wonderful. His face was creased with a smile and he reached his hand out and began to finger teasingly the thick fold of skin that covered the head of André’s soft, spent penis.

André spread his legs and sighed contentedly, enjoying the aftermath of his first blowjob, a glorious event in any language. “Tabernac,” he breathed happily.

In the dim light André saw Nicholas slowly bring his hand to his mouth and watched as the Yeoman’s tongue seductively licked away the minute drop of semen his squeezing of André’s foreskin had produced. Giggling, André returned the gesture, reaching down to scrape the now cool remnant of Nicholas’ second explosion from his pubic hair. He carefully licked his finger clean, his taste buds savouring the sweetness of Nicholas. Then, as he snuggled against the warm body of the boy he now adored beyond reason, he whispered with a shy smile, “Mon Dieu, you taste wonderful, Nicholas.”

Snickering, Nicholas held André close. “Did it feel good, petit?” he asked. André’s head bobbed up and down rapidly and a silly grin filled his face. Nicholas giggled and leaned down to whisper in the boy’s ear, “Ten Hail Mary’s, ten Our Father’s, 4 Glory Be’s, a True Act of Contrition and a Novena to . . . Is there a saint for masturbators?”

“Tabernac, if there is, I light so many candles to him that the church, she burns down!” declared André fervently.

They laughed quietly as they pulled off their gunshirts, turned the garments around, and put them back on, back to front. They zipped up the front of the bell-bottoms and slipped on their jumpers, effectively hiding the evidence of their bliss. André leaned back against the seat and sighed happily. Now he knew why the older boys in school, Sylvain in particular, were always going on about finding someone to râper le fromage à cap! Not that André would have fromage, for he was a properly raised young man.

Nicholas ran his finger along the smooth contours of André’s face and asked, “What are you thinking about?”

“Oh, Nicholas,” André gushed. “It was so wonderful!”

Impulsively, Nicholas leaned and kissed André’s cheek. “What we did was . . .” he made a pumping motion with his hand, “Much better than when I do it myself!”

“J’aussi,” admitted André. “I liked it, very much.”

A frown wrinkled Nicholas’ brow. “Um, André, you’re not going to say anything to anybody? They might not, you know, understand.”

André sniffed. He understood Nicholas’ concern. “Do not worry.” Then he asked plaintively, “Why do you not call me ‘petit’? I like it when you call me that.”

Nicholas’ hand slid between André’s legs and gave his parts a gentle squeeze, laughing softly as he said, “Maybe because you’re not so petit?”

Giggling, André returned the compliment. “But Nicholas, I do like it when to call me petit. It makes me feel, you know, special to you.”

“You are,” Nicholas insisted gently, emphasizing his words with another squeeze. He could feel André hardening under the fabric of his bell-bottoms. “But we have to be careful, petit. No one can ever know. You can’t even tell about it in Confession!”

André snorted. “They can mange la merde! As for Confession, well, there are things a woman should not see, and there are things a priest should not hear.” He smiled seraphically. “Tu comprenez, cher?”

“Je comprends, mon pas aussi peu d’André,” whispered Nicholas in reply.

They sat quietly for several miles, pretending to watch the darkness slide past the windows of the bus, each with his hand resting in the other’s crotch. Then André reached over and pulled down the zipper of Nicholas’ trousers. He slowly and deliberately pulled out Nicholas’ rapidly expanding organ, leaned down and kissed the tip of the Yeoman’s penis. He looked up, his brown eyes eager with anticipation. “Nicholas,” he asked, “maybe, we sin again, yes?”

******

Finally they were back. It was well past midnight when the convoy swung off of Comox Road, trundled across the causeway and down the Spit, groaning to a halt in front of the Headquarters Building. They were met by the Duty Officer, Wally Higman, and Little Big Man, both of whom had been standing Watch-On-watch all weekend and were anxious for their relief. Dave Eddy, still pouting from Chef’s stinging rebuke, was not amused when Wally told him that he had the duty. Nor was Anson when Little Big Man all but threw the POOD armband at him.

As The Gunner, Andy, and Kyle began supervising the unloading of the buses, Ray and The Phantom went to Chef’s car and helped him take the two sleeping Makee Learns from the back seat. “The little brats are pretending, if you ask me,” rumbled Chef as he handed Joey to The Phantom.

“Count yourself lucky, Chef,” replied The Phantom. “At least they aren’t standing by the roadway, waving their dicks at the passing traffic.”

“Ah, well, sure and there is that,” agreed Chef as he placed Randy in Ray’s welcoming arms. “Put them to bed, and get some sleep your own selves, lads. Breakfast still has to be served at 0630.”

The Phantom and Ray carried the boys into their barracks, stripped them down to their underpants, and put them to bed. As he drew the coverlet over Joey, The Phantom winked at Ray. He reached down and patted Joey’s round, firm behind. “You know, Ray, Joey’s got a really nice bum.”

Joey opened one eye and stuck out his tongue. “You keep feeling it and I’ll show you what else I have that’s really nice.” Then he grinned and snuggled into his pillow.

“You little stinker! You were pretending to be asleep!” exclaimed The Phantom with a shake of his head.

“Bet your ass on that, Phantom!” came Randy’s voice. “If we’re sleeping, we ain’t helping to unload the bus!”

“Well the next time you pretend to be asleep don’t scrunch your face up so much!” returned Ray. “It’s a dead give-away.” He tweaked Randy’s button nose and told him to get to sleep.

The Makee Learns said goodnight and snuggled into their pillows and covers, and were asleep almost as the door to the barracks closed behind Ray and The Phantom.

******

The buses were quickly unloaded and the cadets dispersed to their barracks and bunks. Tomorrow was another workday and the fun times were over. The Twins decided that while the idea of a short session together in their special place in the woods was tempting, even they needed some sleep. After helping with the unloading of the buses they went off to bed.

Harry, with Greg in tow, saw to the storing of the drums and instruments cases in the tall ranks of metal shelving that lined the main storeroom in the School of Wind. Although each drummer and musician was responsible for his own instrument, Harry liked to make sure that everything was back were it belonged.

When the last drum was on its assigned shelf, and the last trumpet safely nestled with its mates, Harry turned out the storeroom lights and headed for the doors leading to the parade square. Greg’s hand on his arm stopped him. “Harry, about this morning,” Greg said quietly.

Harry looked at Greg, shrugged, and asked coldly, “What about this morning?”

Greg looked around. He had decided to have it out once and for all with Harry and he did not feel like discussing their sex life in the main corridor of the School of Wind. Harry’s coldness Greg chose to ignore. He had more or less expected it. Still, he wanted to settle one way or another his exact position in Harry’s life. “Can we go someplace private?” he asked.

Harry sighed inwardly. What had happened in the motel room in Victoria had just been, so far as Harry was concerned, two guys having fun. Why Greg insisted on reading more into what had been two guys getting off together, Harry could not understand. While he liked Greg, Harry was not in love with him, and had no intention of falling in love with the slim, handsome Writer. Harry also realized that while he would have to address the problem, tonight was not the time, or so he thought. He did not want to hurt Greg, but Harry knew that Greg would not let go. Still, he tried to delay the inevitable. “Greg, it’s late. We both have to get up soon and I’m not . . .”

Greg thought that Harry thought that he wanted to sleep with him. While Greg did want to feel the smooth, muscled arms of the Drum Major around his body again, he wanted to talk, to know! “I just want to talk, nothing more,” he snapped, returning Harry’s coldness. “You owe me that!”

Harry regarded Greg. He did not feel that he owed Greg anything. They had fooled around; both of them had gotten off. So far as Harry was concerned, they were even. Greg obviously wanted more, which Harry was not prepared to give him and while he was tired, he nodded and said bluntly, “All right.”

Harry led Greg down the corridor and into The Unwinding Room (which had been named in honour of the Royal Marines Band rehearsal room on board the Royal Yacht), a long, narrow chamber fitted with comfortable settees and low tables. The cabin was the unofficial Cadet Smoking Room.

They sat on opposite sides of the room. Harry looked at Greg, knowing that his friend wanted to take their relationship further. This Harry was not prepared to do, at least not with Greg. He waited pat