Beginnings
Tokay!
The golden sunshine of a summer day
Tokay!
Will bear the burden of your cares away
Here's to the love in you
The hate in you
Desire in you
“People will think we’re drunk, singing along to the stereo like this!” laughed Jim. They were out for a drive in Jim’s sports car to Gadsby’s Drove End, for a salt-water swim and a night at The Old Dower House.
“Let them think that! We’re not. Anyway, I can’t see any people around to think that. It’s a brilliant day. Don’t know about you, but I’m on a high!” replied Hal.
“Me too. I’m on a high with you!” (And mainly because of you, Jim might have added.)
Wine of the sun that will waft you along
Lifting you high on the wings of a song!
“Who wrote that?” Hal inquired.
“Believe it or not, Noel Coward! It’s from his only operetta, Bittersweet.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed; it’s a macho drinking song! I’m high for another reason, too. Guess what?” asked Hal.
“No idea,” said Jim.
“I’m not in Northern Ireland any more! No reason to go back to that benighted Province of murderous shites for at least another year; probably longer!”
“I’m relieved to hear it!”
Dreams in you
The flame in you
The fire in you
Tokay! Tokay!
Jim and Hal had managed to get the day off simultaneously. Hal had arrived at Little Kansas the evening before, straight from his base and still in uniform; shirt-sleeve order, with a Corporal’s two stripes on his sleeve and a big grin on his face, radiating macho sex- appeal. As soldiers do, he had had his trousers altered to fit him, hugging his muscular legs and emphasising his bulge and his ass. His boots shone and he wore a brightly coloured stable belt. His shirt had been ironed and creased perfectly. It was open at the neck to show the reddish-blond curls at the base of his throat, with a promise of more lower down. His beret was at its usual cocky angle. Having been dropped at the gate of Little Kansas by a friend, he was admitted by Jim after a brief, flirtatious conversation on the intercom, ran up the drive and literally swept Jim off his feet. He hugged Jim senseless, threw him over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift and carried him indoors, where he dumped him on the bed.
“Fuck?” asked Hal hopefully, looking down at Jim with a mischievous smile.
“What, this minute?” said Jim, laughing.
Hal laughed too and roughed-up Jim affectionately, messing his neatly-cut hair, pulling off his dockside loafers and shirt. His trousers followed them. Jim was now down to his blue bikini briefs.
“Snap!” chuckled Hal. He stood up, unbuckled and unzipped his trousers; pushed them down and pulled up his shirt. He was wearing identical briefs, but red. They did not cover his crotch-hair at all. At the rear, Hal’s ass-cheeks were half-covered. Hal and a lot of other young soldiers preferred these briefs to any other underwear: “Apart from the colour and sexiness, when I need to piss quickly, I just unzip, push down the waistband; Peter pops out, and whazz!! No fucking groping around trying to find the fly when you’ve had a few beers and urgently need to go, like with boxer shorts or y-fronts!”
“Peter’s your cock? I didn’t know he had a name!” chuckled Jim.
“Lots of cocks are called Peter. It’s an ancient name. There’s a rugby song, ‘While Peter Stiff is Standing’”! Hal whistled a few bars.
“Not known to me! Look, why don’t we go for a swim first?” suggested Jim.
“Okay; I’m always in magic form after a swim!” Hal looked both keen and smug.
“Grab yourself a towel and let’s go!” Jim said, grabbed one himself from a pile of clean towels that were on a chair, and raced off naked towards the quarry pond. Hal charged after him and caught him up. They dived together into the pool from a great height; raced, splashed around and pushed each other underwater. Their laughter echoed around the quarry.
Afterwards, given that it was unseasonably warm, they did not want to get dressed again; or not immediately, anyway. Jim, whose all-over tan needed topping-up, spread himself on a towel to absorb the ultraviolet rays. Hal, keeping well away from the perimeter fence, where he might possibly be seen, strolled around exploring. His curiosity was partly professional; he wanted to see whether Jim’s defences could be strengthened or improved. A few pit-traps for intruders here and there might be useful; always provided that one did not fall into them oneself.
Hal returned; Jim watched him as he walked towards him under the sunlight, through the long grass. Hal, he thought, was seriously, hunkily attractive: big grin, good teeth, upturned nose, suntanned face and arms. Fair, thickish eyebrows. His face was partly in shadow, which focused Jim’s attention on his fair hair and his physique. There was a handsomeness of body as well as of the face; Hal had that in abundance; strong, muscular legs; great torso, massive arms and shoulders. The heavy sex below the dense pubic thicket. His beautiful, roseate circumcised cock. His head hair was very fair indeed. So was the curly hair on the chest and the finer hairs on the arms and legs. Hal was powerful but symmetrical; in the final analysis, superb. Hal looked up and smiled. His thick pink lips and white teeth looked sensual and full of erotic promise.
He knows damn’ well that he’s attractive to other men. But how and when did he find out?
Over supper that evening Jim had found out. As they sat facing each other following a venison dish that Jim had prepared and served with a red wine, they started reminiscing.
Jim started it: “I bet a man as nice-looking as you has had a few girls!”
“I have; the soldiers expect me to show an interest. But I’d say the same of you. Don’t want to make you swell-headed, but you’re not a bad looker yourself!”
“Very few. I knew what I was at a very early age.” Jim didn’t sound self-pitying; he just said it. “How about you?”
“I was in my teens, already in the Army, when the knowledge hit me. It was pretty dramatic.”
“Tell me?”
Hal paused. Then he smiled. “Okay. This tattoo got me into trouble.” He pushed forward his right arm so that Jim could look at it. “To cut a long story short, I’d chummed up with a Lance-Jack called Brough [pronounced ‘Bruff’] He was slightly older than me; not a lot, but much more experienced. He began to show me the sexual works. It started out just jacking each other off in some private place. He also was very good looking; I said so.”
“He seemed chuffed when I said that but added: ‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d been in Budmouth of a Friday night!’”
According to Brough, on Friday and Saturday nights the pubs and bars on King Street, Budmouth, were full of the best-looking men in England. Why? “Because a battalion of the Royal Halberdiers is always stationed there and they’re the best looking men in the Armed Forces!’ Brough added that there was a credible rumour that Halberdiers Selection, which was very tough, also included a ‘handsomeness qualification’. As a result: ‘They make the rest of us look like shit and they pull all the birds!’ said Brough. Anyway, one evening Brough and I went to have a look. Thanks to him, I got my gay baptism of fire!”
“What d’you mean by that?” asked Jim.
“A traumatic experience. it wasn’t entirely Brough’s fault. This” - and here he pointed to the tattoo on his biceps – was a mistake.”
Jim waited for more.
“Well, you can see what it is. I’d just done my parachute jumps, got the badge to sew on my sleeve, which we call ‘the light-bulb’, and celebrated by having that tattoo done. As you can see, the thing in the middle is a parachute, so it looks a bit like Parachute Regiment insignia. And it there’s one thing the Halberdiers hate, it’s the Para Regiment!”
“Yes; I know. I’ve done jumps with the TA Paras myself,” said Jim.
“Of course we didn’t advertise the fact that we were Army,” said Hal. But I suppose that it would have been easy to guess. Hair-length and that sort of thing. Anyway, Brough was right about one thing. Those Halberdiers were some of the best-looking men I’d ever seen. And they were all out on the town, having a ball and whiffing – so to speak – of testosterone. I had the definite feeling that some of them might be up for it. I got a bit drunk; became flirty with one of them; and the next thing we were pushing and shoving one another. There was a fight and of course we lost, as there were only the two of us. That might not have mattered; a quick retreat or drinks all round would normally have sorted it, except that one of them noticed that tattoo.
‘Hey, we’ve got a baby Para here!’ he shouted.
“Now at that time the Paras had a bit of a reputation problem. Some of them had been caught out being gay; either among themselves or even for money, in the case of one company of 3 Para. The Press had had a field-day. Meanwhile the Halberdiers had decided that all Paras, whom they hated anyway, must be queer.
"One thing led to another. They tore off my clothes, said that I looked really cute, and then a big, muscular and handsome Halberdier dropped his trousers, rucked up his shirt and fucked me, while his mates held me down. It was fucking painful, and the fact that they looked like boys’ story heroes – or in some cases like Waffen-SS; there were a lot of blond men in that battalion - was only part-compensation. Brough was merely roughed-up. He got concussed and a black eye. I couldn’t sit down for about a week afterwards. But, in spite of everything, I had enjoyed it. After that, I was certain I was queer.”
Jim was slightly shocked by this. It was a side of Halberdier culture that he had been unaware of. But the idea of struggling, handsome and masculine Hal being restrained and force-fucked by some of the best-looking men in the Armed Forces was undeniably exciting.
“Anyway,” said Hal, “That decided me to take up contact sports; to avoid anything like that happening again. And I turned out to be a pretty good wrestler and boxer. Now, Jim, how about that fuck?”
Jim nodded, grinned and led the way to the bedroom.
