I first ran into Jamie in the Rugby club changing rooms.
We went up to Cambridge University the same year but to different colleges.
The rugby players among the new undergraduate intake had been invited to the all day trials for the famed Varsity match squad who would in due course take on Oxford University.
The changing rooms were massively overcrowded. An animal musk of healthy young male bodies filled the air. The press of naked, well- muscled flesh forced Jamie and me to share a changing space.
As he took off his trousers and put on his rugby gear, a familiar and unmistakeable whiff reached my nostrils. It was a combination of semen, vaginal fluid and crotch sweat, indicating a very recent sexual encounter.
Jamie was a scrawny five foot six, with sparse ginger hair atop a thin weasely gap-toothed face. A man would consider him thoroughly unprepossessing and no competition with the girls.
Not so. He was incredibly popular with the women in college, ranging from fellow students, administrative staff, lecturers and even senior academics. He had an inexhaustible supply of filthy stories told in such an engaging manner that it was impossible to take offence. Girls loved him, an initially maternal reaction to his small stature, no doubt, but very soon turned into something else, as I discovered before long.
We were paired together that day at half back, Jamie a fast passing, over-light scrum half and me a rather static, long kicking fly half; we didn't make the cut, needless to say. For the rest of our college careers we were regular selections for the third team, a social team in effect.
As we entered the showers afterwards, I couldn't help but notice that he had the smallest genitals I had ever seen on an eighteen year old. His penis was a vestigial wisp, barely an inch long and almost completely obscured by a ginger pubic bush. Testicles barely showed, probably the size of small cherry tomatoes.
This was all in cruel contrast to my flaccid six inches, hanging meatily between my thighs and capable of reaching an easy nine when on duty; a classic shower.
This startling genital discrepancy between us elicited some ribaldry and good- natured slagging from others in the shower and I felt for Jamie; a sort of protective older brother reaction that grew into a hearty respect as our friendship prospered.
As I discovered on our later adventures with women, Jamie's penis could just about reach five inches when erect. He was a grower, but on a small scale and girth only slightly more than my thumb.