All at Sea

by JL Merrow

  I burst out laughing, even though I’d heard it a hundred times before. “Might have known you’d be a Python fan.”

  Rupe gave me a stern look. “If you’re a detractor, you can get out and walk.”

  I held up my hands. “Who, me? I worship at the feet of the great J.C.”

  The comedy impressions came thick and fast as we carried on past a small airfield, around twisting lanes and into Bembridge, a small town with more than its fair share of shops with a nautical theme. We wiggled through the one-way system and out the other side, and I was still chuckling from Rupe’s take on mad, blustering Colonel Melchett from Blackadder as he turned into a car park and pulled up the hand brake with a sound like machine gun fire. “Here we are.” We’d reached the bit where all the yachts hung out—there was a forest of masts ahead of us bobbing gently in the water. I was a bit confused. Wouldn’t we look daft, taking out a rubber dinghy among all those proper boats?

  I was even more confused when Rupe led me to what was quite clearly a proper boat, moored up at a buoy and resting on muddy, gravelly sand just short of the water. “Here she is—isn’t she beautiful?”

  Like his posh college with the name I wasn’t quite sure I believed, the boat was small, but perfectly formed. It looked a lot like a smarter, sleeker version of the wooden rowing boats on the boating lake, except this one had a mast. “Er, it’s great…You know, when you said you had a dinghy, I was expecting something bright orange and made of rubber.”

  Rupe threw me a look with more side on it than one of Stephen Hendry’s best snooker pots. “If you’d told me you were into rubber, I’m sure I could have arranged something.”

  I must’ve gone so bloody red it’s a wonder my clothes didn’t catch fire. Rupe was trying hard not to laugh at me—and failing. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “But you’re so awfully easy to tease. It’s almost a shame you’ll be leaving home soon and losing that innocence.”

  “I’m not—” I bit off the rest of the sentence as I turned away, mortified. So maybe I hadn’t ever…but it wasn’t like it was so easy, even living in London. The only gay bars I knew about were in Soho, and you had to be twenty-one to get in, and what was I supposed to tell Mum about where I was going, anyhow?

  I jumped as a warm hand touched my arm. “I’m sorry. Truly. Please don’t be angry with me. If it helps, I’ve only had a couple of boyfriends myself, both of them up in Cambridge. Of course, there were the usual things one gets up to in school—but I imagine it’s rather different if one doesn’t board.”

  I wanted to rip into him. I wanted to say, yeah, it is a bit different if one goes to a comprehensive on one’s local council estate, instead of whatever upper-class-twat factory churned him out. But he looked at me with naked sincerity in those deep brown eyes, while the touch of his hand on my bare arm sent electricity zipping through me to reanimate the butterflies I’d thought long dead in my stomach. And yeah, it did occur to me he was an actor, so he might be faking it, but it didn’t matter. My body had already fallen for it hook, line and sinker.

  “‘S all right,” I said hoarsely. I swallowed, and cast around for a way to change the subject. “Why’s your boat called Rent?”

  Rupe laughed. “Because having bought her, it’s what I now can’t afford to pay. Plus, I must admit to a passing fondness for the Pet Shop Boys.”

  “Yeah? I’ve got all their albums.” Thank God—finally something we had in common. “Neil Tennant’s definitely bent, despite what he says.”

  “Oh, absolument. No, the plan is to rename her eventually, anyway. If I ever become gainfully employed,” Rupe went on dreamily, “I’ll buy a 40-footer, and name her Withnail. At which point Rent will become I, obviously.”

  It was like he was talking a foreign language. And I’d always been crap at those. “You what?”

  “Oh, come on! From the film—Withnail and I. You must have seen it.”

  “Sorry, no.”

  Rupe looked like I’d just confessed to eating kittens for breakfast. “But it’s an absolute classic. You must see it!” He stopped for a moment, chewing on his bottom lip in a way that made my stomach flip over. “I’ll tell you what, we’ll watch it this afternoon. I’ve got the video back at my parents’.” Happy again, now he’d come up with a plan to save me from the awful fate of spending one more day without seeing a film I’d never even heard of, he turned back to Rent. “Now, you might want to take off your shoes and socks and roll up your jeans for this bit.”

  Anyone who’s ever tried to roll up baggy jeans will understand why I seriously considered just taking the things off altogether. After all, I was wearing my best underwear. Rupe, of course, was sensibly dressed in denim cut-offs that showed off his lean, strong legs. He looked like he belonged here. Me, I felt like a fish out of water—which was fairly ironic, given where we were. Eventually I got my jeans to stay rolled, more or less, and we pulled Rent into the water. Bare feet dripping, we jumped inside.

  “Now, how’s your swimming prowess?” Rupe asked. “We do, of course, carry lifejackets.”

  “Just how likely am I to fall in, here?” I asked, suspicious.

  “Hopefully, hardly likely at all—but you never know when some idiot with a motor boat is going to come along and capsize you.” He ferreted around in a sort of cubby-hole at the front of the boat. “Here you are—better put this on. The Tourist Board tends to frown on locals drowning holiday-makers, although personally I’m of the view that all publicity is good publicity.” He smiled up at me from under that fluffy hair, and I found myself grinning back even as I took the bright yellow lifejacket he handed me.

  “Where’s yours, then?” I challenged as I slipped it on, thinking at least it went with my t-shirt.

  “Ah. When I said we had lifejackets, plural, I may have been guilty of a slight exaggeration. But don’t worry—I’m an excellent swimmer. Second cousin to a salmon, as Mother always says.” Rupe did complicated things with ropes that made sails shoot up the mast. They rippled and fluttered loudly in the breeze, then filled with a snap—and we were off.

  We moved away from the shore, slowly at first, and then faster than I’d have imagined possible, as we got away from the lee of the land. I sat back and breathed in the fresh, salty air while Rupe did all the sailing stuff. “Are we going anywhere in particular?” I asked, raising my voice to be heard over the wind and the rattling of the sails.

  “Over there.” Rupe pointed to a round, grey structure halfway out towards the mainland.

  “What is it?”

  “A Napoleonic fort. Built to keep the frogs out of old Blighty, don’t ‘cha know.” He used his Colonel Melchett voice again. “Plus,” he added in a more normal voice, “it was used as a filming location for Doctor Who, back in the 1970s.”

  “Yeah? Bit before my time, that.” I narrowed my eyes, only partly against the glare of the sunlight glinting off the waves. “And you must be a lot older than you look, if you were watching telly in the seventies.”

  “Ah, the wonders of modern technology. We’ve got that on tape back home, too. Father is rather a fan of the John Pertwee years.”

  “Yeah, that last bloke they got to play the Doctor was rubbish. I stopped watching when he came on.”

  Rupe did something with the sails again, and we scudded across the water towards the fort. A couple of yachts passed us, and two little girls who reminded me of Laurie and Sarah waved vigorously. I waved back, then leaned over the side to trail my fingers in the water. “This is brilliant.”

  As Rupe grinned back at me, the wind ruffled his hair, and I wanted to touch him so badly it took my breath away. Suddenly I was impatient to get him somewhere a bit more intimate than a boat in the middle of the bay. “Are we going on this fort?”

  “Not unless you’ve got a spare few million or so. The MOD sold it a few years ago, and now it’s a private house.”

  “That’s a house?” Now we were closer to the fort, it looked even more enormous. Huge, sheer concrete walls
towered above us, and an iron staircase led up from a landing stage. “Bloody hell, what’s the Council Tax on that?”

  “If you have to ask, you certainly can’t afford it.” Rupe gave me a searching look as we rounded the fort. “So now we’ve seen it, would you like to voyage onwards, or have you had enough of life on the ocean wave for one day?”

  “Well, this is great, but do you fancy going somewhere on land?” I asked, hoping he’d get my drift without me having to spell it out. “Somewhere a bit more…private?”

  Rupe bit his lip. “Well, we could always jump back in the car and go to my house. It’s not far.”

  * * * *

  Rupe’s house wasn’t what I’d expected at all. It was big enough, at least compared to Mum’s semi, but it needed a lot of work. The paint on the windowsills was cracked and peeling, and the garden was mostly losing its battle with the weeds. A patch near the front door where someone had clearly put in a bit of effort lately only made the rest of it look worse by comparison. Rupe caught me looking as we walked up the drive. “I’m afraid Mother’s arthritis has been playing up again. She used to love gardening.” He said it quietly, sadly, totally different to his usual ringing tones. “And Josh?” He put a hand on my arm.

  “Yeah?”

  “Father can be, well…” Rupe stared off into the clouds that were billowing around the sky. “You mustn’t mind anything he says. Best to just play along, really. He has senile dementia, you see.”

  It was so unexpected I stared at him.

  “Started around ten years ago, although we didn’t know at the time, of course. He started to forget things. People.” Rupe took a deep breath and flashed me the worst acted smile I’d ever seen. “So you mustn’t mind anything he says. Or does. He can’t help it, the poor old dear. But he was having one of his better days when I came out this morning, so he may be quite all right.”

  He led me around the house to a side door that opened without a key. We walked through the biggest kitchen I’d ever seen—the table in the middle was bigger than our whole kitchen back home, I reckoned—and into a black-and-white tiled hallway with a wide staircase leading up off it.

  As I was wondering what the bloody hell I was doing in a place this posh, an old man walked into the hall. He was tall and upright, and dressed in a brown suit that looked like it might have fitted him when he’d been younger. Now, though, the jacket hung from his bony shoulders. Underneath it, he had on a checked shirt and a tweedy-looking tie.

  “Father!” Rupe called out cheerfully. “This is—”

  The old man rounded on us, his face reddened with fury, and I took a step backward without meaning to. “You boys! What the devil do you think you’re doing, dressed like that? You’re a disgrace!”

  I just gaped at him. When Rupe said his dad was senile, I’d just imagined…I don’t know what I’d imagined. Some harmless old buffer with his trousers on inside out, probably.

  “Sorry, Headmaster,” Rupe said in a hearty, soothing voice that nearly broke my heart. “We had an exeat, and we’re on our way to change back into uniform. Come on, Josh, let’s go up to the dorm.”

  I followed him up the stairs, glancing back at the scary old bloke down below. He was watching us all the way, his hands twisting like he was wishing he had a cane on him. I sighed in relief as Rupe’s bedroom door shut behind us.

  “I’m so sorry about that,” Rupe said, looking down at the carpet.

  He looked lost, and finally I had the courage to do what I’d wanted to do all afternoon. I stepped forward, and slid my arms around his waist. Rupe sort of sighed and nuzzled into my neck. Warmth flooded through me. “It’s all right,” I said lamely, because obviously it wasn’t and it never would be. I’d been pissed off about my dad leaving, but God, this had to be so much worse.

  I couldn’t find the words to tell Rupe how I felt, and I wasn’t sure he’d want to hear it anyway, so I did the only thing I could think of. I took his face in my hands and kissed him gently on the lips. Our bodies melted together, heat tingling between us. I hoped Rupe wasn’t offended I was getting a stiffie while he was all upset about his dad—and then I knew he wasn’t, because his erection was digging into my stomach.

  All of a sudden the kiss wasn’t gentle any more. He felt wonderful against me, all hard, lean muscle, but the layers of clothes between us were driving me crazy. I pushed up his t-shirt and ran my hands over his torso. It wasn’t enough. I had to taste as well as touch, so I bent down and got my mouth on his bare, tanned skin. He tasted of salt and sunshine, and his breath came in short gasps as his body trembled beneath my lips.

  “Wait—let me…” His stomach stretched taut as he pulled off his shirt, and I dropped to one knee and jabbed my tongue into his belly button to see what would happen. Rupe jerked like I’d bitten him.

  “Sorry.” I looked up at him. Rupe’s face was flushed and his lips swollen.

  “No—that was…unexpected, that’s all. But it was…Are you sure you’ve never done this before?”

  I grinned, relieved. “Are you saying I’m a fast learner?” It gave me the courage to nuzzle into the bulge in his shorts. I could feel the heat of his cock burning through the denim, could smell how turned on he was, and it drove me wild. I wanted to taste him so bloody badly. I reached up to undo his shorts, wondering if I was about to make a complete tit of myself. Still, he knew how inexperienced I was, didn’t he? I’d just have to keep an eye on his reactions, and if it seemed like he was getting bored, I could stop and do something else.

  I didn’t have to stop. The minute I eased his erection free of his clothes and wrapped my lips around it, Rupe shuddered and gasped like he was drowning. “God…Josh!” His hands scrabbled in my hair, totally out of control. I felt like a bloody porn star. He tasted incredible: intensely salty, intensely Rupe. I just did whatever seemed right—moved my lips on him, sucked him, swirled my tongue around his head—and his gasps got more incoherent, until suddenly he was saying, “Josh, stop, I’m going to…ahhhh!” My mouth filled up with thick, salty liquid in four or five short spurts.

  I gagged a bit, but managed to swallow it down.

  “Josh, I’m sorry. I tried…” Rupe was looking horrified, so I staggered to my feet, wiping my mouth, and kissed him.

  “Shut up. It’s a bit gross, but that was bloody brilliant.” I grinned at him, and a smile slowly dawned on his face.

  Rupe gestured down at the tent pole in my jeans. “Do you want me to, ah, reciprocate?”

  I did, badly—but I kind of didn’t, too. It was like I’d given him a present, and he was offering to pay for it. “Nah. That’s all right.”

  “Don’t be silly.” His smile turned wicked. “After all, I can’t let you walk around my parents’ house like that.” He wrapped a hand around the bulge and started to pump it gently.

  If I’d thought it’d feel like jerking myself off, I was wrong. Dead wrong. Just knowing it was Rupe’s hand massaging me through the denim seemed to jack up the sensation tenfold. Just as I was getting desperate for him to touch me properly, he undid my jeans. As they slumped to the floor, he shoved his hand inside my Calvin Kleins.

  It was so intense I nearly shouted. I bit my lip, trying to be quiet before the whole bloody house came up to see what was going on.

  “Is that all right?” Rupe asked softly.

  Not trusting myself to speak, I just nodded. With his free hand, Rupe tilted my head up and kissed me, long and slow, while the motion of his hand on my cock speeded up. He had his tongue in my mouth, and I knew he must be able to taste himself in me, and the thought of it made my balls clench and my eyes roll up in my head. I came harder than I’d ever thought possible, my legs trembling and my hands clutching at Rupe for support.

  * * * *

  Afterwards, we lay on the bed, naked and holding each other. Even though I’d come, it was like my skin couldn’t get enough of Rupe’s body—every part of me that touched him fizzled with the sort of pleasure that’s simply happy to be, th
at doesn’t need anything more. My lips curved in a smile I couldn’t have got rid of if I’d tried, I glanced lazily around Rupe’s bedroom. It was about twice the size of mine, and at least three times as cluttered. There was some kind of musical instrument leaning against the far wall—trumpet? Trombone? I couldn’t tell from the shape of the case, although probably anyone with an ounce of musical talent would have been able to.

  There were posters all over the walls and spreading onto the ceiling. Some were classic Athena prints and some I’d never seen before. “Who’s the mophead with the stick?” I asked, pointing at a picture of some curly-headed bloke with a baton, all dressed up like a penguin.

  Rupe blinked, and smiled. “Simon Rattle. A bit of a crush when I was younger, but I’m more or less over it now. He’s a conductor, currently with the Berlin Philharmonic, I believe,” he added, obviously getting good at interpreting my blank looks.

  “Are you a musician as well as an actor, then?” I asked.

  “Mmm. Mother insisted. She had high hopes of me becoming an opera singer, in fact, but sad to say, once my voice broke it became painfully obvious that was no longer an option.”

  “Don’t tell me you were a choirboy…bloody hell, I can see it now! You in a white frock with a doily round your neck—ow!” The last bit was because he’d poked me, hard.

  “Philistine.”

  He went quiet after that, so after a moment I prodded him back, a lot more gently than he’d poked me. “What’s up?”

  “Oh…just thinking.” There was a whisper of a sigh. “I suppose you’ll be leaving at the end of the week?”

  I hadn’t expected it to stab me in the gut like that. “Yeah. Back to London, I guess.” It hurt, just thinking about leaving him. “I mean, I could probably make it down here again before October—you know, if someone invited me,” I added desperately.

  Rupe leaned up on one elbow and looked at me. “You’d come? Even with Father…the way he is?”

  I’d actually managed to forget all about the Headmaster, but sod it, I wasn’t going to let something like that stop me seeing the bloke I—seeing Rupe again. “Course I would. Look, give me your phone number, and I’ll give you mine, and we’ll sort something out, all right?”