Just an Ordinary Guy

Nearly thirty years ago, when I was 23, I worked for an Engineering Company in the English midlands. As I had a degree I was taken on as a management trainee, though I still had to get my hands dirty, and not long after I started the boss called me into his office and said he had been persuaded by a social agency to take on as a new employee a young man who had had rather a rough time. The firm would be paid a small allowance to take him on and his wages would initially be met by the agency. Would I look after him and get him started, please? Of course I agreed and he handed me a file of papers relating to the lad.

He was 18 and had spent the last few years in a special boarding school for young men who get into trouble with the police and/or whose homes can't cope with them. His name was Ian and he came from a rough area of the city and was the second of six brothers. His elder brother was illegitimate and his mother had married Ian's father and had three more boys in rapid succession before separating from him. She had then taken in a series of lovers and had two more sons by them. The three eldest all had considerable intelligence but they fought a lot and they formed the nucleus of a gang around the estate which was more for self-preservation than it was to beat the living daylights out of other gangs. By the time he was 14 Ian's elder brother had been sent away and Ian was considered by the police to be similarly at risk, so after studying the difficulties his mother was having raising her family and rather than let him drift into delinquency, they sent Ian to a school for the maladjusted, though he was far being "maladjusted" in the normal sense of that word. He had school holidays at home but he got a lot more attention from his teachers and the social workers than if he had been left alone. And it soon became clear that he had a specific talent for mechanical engineering. The file showed that he had been well behaved at school and it was considered that with the right kind of help he could make a reliable and able employee. He had his own motorbike and was looking forward to work and earning some money.

There was no phone at his home, so I rang the Agency to tell them the good news that he could start the following Monday and sure enough, he turned up promptly at 8.00 am on his motorbike, ready to learn and to work. He was slim and of average height and he turned out be quiet, waiting for others to talk to him and responding mainly with nods to convey his understanding. He learned quickly and without fear but volunteered nothing about himself to the other lads when they gathered together for tea breaks. He wasn't, however, the kind who could be intimidated in any way. I noticed that just about everybody looked at him twice because he had what in the world of pop groups and razzamatazz would be called "film star looks". It's not that he was particularly good-looking, but his was a very masculine face and you couldn't help feeling that he had any amount of sex appeal, whatever that elusive quality is. When, later, he came round to my parents' house (where I was living at the time) to borrow a tool for his motorbike, my sister exclaimed "Wow - HE's attractive!"

He settled down well, though I never got to learn much more about him than I had read in his file. He soon learned that I had a 1942 Jeep at home, as well as the Norton motorbike I came to work on, and he turned out to be a good mechanic with a natural "feel" for the way engines and transmissions are put together. Because he was my special charge, I spent quite a lot of time with him and became more and more curious about him - and more and more fascinated! He didn't have a girlfriend because he spent his weekends maintaining and riding his bike; and I increasingly wanted to know what would get him aroused.

One day at work we were drilling metal with a high speed drill, and as the drill bit into the metal it whined in a crescendo of tension and noise until the "release" as it pierced a hole right through. I grinned and said to him "It's a bit like sex, isn't it?" but he just looked at me without a flicker of a response. Once we were under the sump of an engine and were struggling to remove it from the crankcase, and I had to put my head in his lap in order to get my fingers in position to tug at the metal tray above our heads, but for him this seemed to have no sexual connotation at all. I found him so attractive that, though hopelessly shy about such a move, I stood next to him in a urinal and looked down to see if I could see his dick, but all I could see was our hands, each holding our dicks out of our flies to pee. I had peeled my foreskin back and my glans was clearly visible, whereas he had wrapped his hand right round his dick and I could see nothing except his urine jetting in a yellow stream into the bowl. It seemed strange that a lad should have such sex appeal and yet give no indication of his awareness of it.

After a few months I made my first tentative effort to see if he could be made to respond. He came round to my home on a Saturday afternoon to work on the Jeep and I said that I was tired and wanted to lie down for half an hour. "Would he like to join me?" He just shook his head and went off to continue work on the Jeep while I lay on the bed and fantasized about what it would be like to explore between his legs. At that time I had not yet decided that I was Bi. I had grown up with sisters, so girls were not a romantic mystery to me but I enjoyed their company. My girl-friend lived in London so we only saw each other about once a month and she was not prepared to have sex with me unless I put a ring on her finger.

My next attempt to get him aroused was a touch more determined but just as unsuccessful. On a lovely summer's day on a Sunday we drove out into the countryside in the Jeep and discovered a farmhouse with a long drive winding over the fields. It looked untenanted, there were no animals in the fields, and the gate was padlocked, so we parked the Jeep by the roadside and vaulted over the gate. The farm buildings were built close up to the side of the house and it was not long before we found a window to the main house which could be opened from the outside. To reach it we had to stand on bales of straw stacked high in the adjoining barn and that's how we made our entrance. It felt spooky with the shafts of sunlight lighting up the cobwebs and the dust on the floor. There was no furniture and the house gave the impression that it was waiting for something to happen though this may have had something to do with my heightened sensitivity. Here was an opportunity I could not afford to miss! We stood at a window overlooking the sun-soaked fields. I had a track suit on and he was wearing a T shirt and jeans. I just didn't know how to proceed, so I mumbled something about it being "very sexy" to find ourselves all alone in an empty house and placed my finger on his chest over his heart and said that I felt that there was invisible chord stretching between him and me. He didn't object, but he didn't agree either, so I felt unable to go further and say what I wanted, namely that I had something I would like to show him. By this time what I wanted to show him was making a tent of my tracksuit and I had thrust my hand into my pocket to prevent it seeming too obvious but also to show him what I would like to do. Still no reaction, so, feeling once again that I had failed, I climbed through the window and onto the straw bales. These proved much harder to climb down than to clamber up and - going first - I knocked several down in front of me, making a convenient slide to the floor. I slid down and landed in a heap of straw, dust and prickles at the bottom. Suddenly, before I was aware of it, Ian had thrown himself onto the straw bales and was sliding down, out of control, towards me. He fetched up in a heap next to me, his panting body close to mine.

I have often re-lived that moment. Had he jumped down on purpose to land up by my side like this, or had he slipped? He still said nothing as my arm, which had reached round him to stop him rolling any further, rested for perhaps twenty seconds round his waist. I thought "Can I undo his belt?" and then I thought "This straw is far too prickly and uncomfortable to sit or lie on for long. If we get round to feeling each other, the prickles are going to be the main sensation." So, to my ever-lasting regret, I removed my arm and we shook the dust and straw off our backs and went out into the sunlight. I had failed again!

At work for the next three weeks he was just the same as ever : not a flicker that anything in any way inappropriate had passed between us. I realise now that the gap of five years between 18 and 23 seems much larger, especially to the younger person than it does, say, between 30 and 35. Also, though I was in no way his boss, I did supervise some of his work and I'd had a University education whereas he came off a scruffy housing estate. But he was much more street-wise than I and he handled the situation well. If only he hadn't been so confoundedly attractive! Anyway, he came round to my home for an afternoon each weekend to help put the finishing touches to the preparation of the Jeep, which I was getting ready for my annual two weeks' holiday. I was going to Yugoslavia in it with my London girlfriend and another friend and we duly set off, crossing from Dover to Ostend and making good progress towards the Alps. Then disaster struck just as we were crossing a bridge over the river Rhine. My friend was driving when we heard a dull thud from the engine, which continued to run but without power and in an oddly lumpy fashion. We pulled over onto the walkway of the bridge, stopped the engine and discussed the most likely cause. My friend, who was also a Jeep owner, reckoned a piston had broken and as the war-time Jeep's cylinder head is relatively easy to remove because of its side-valve design, he suggested we take off the head to find out. Meanwhile the police had arrived to say that we couldn't remain on the bridge and they arranged for us to be towed to a convenient parking under some trees where my girlfriend pitched our tents (she went solo in hers!) and Robert and I set about the engine. It was indeed a piston crown that had shattered and we telephoned the motoring organization we had insured with to have another sent from England at express speed from a specialist Jeep supplier. It arrived 36 hours later, we had the engine all ready for its insertion and a few hours later we were once again on our way. I wondered what Ian would have said and done if he had been with me!

I wish I could say that the holiday was a success, but as the world knows, "two is company but three's a crowd" and the stress of the mishap affected our spirits. When we reached the Dalmatian coast I wanted to sleep most of the time, lie in the sun on the beach and eat the delicious chocolate pancakes they make there. Maybe my feelings for Ian, which were something quite new to me, had something to do with it too, for when we got back and we took my girlfriend back to her mother in London, I kissed her goodbye, both of us knowing, I think, that this really was "Goodbye". The trip had always been partly about whether or not we should get engaged to be married, and - well we weren't! I dropped Robert off at his home on my way north and was at work the following Monday, telling Ian all about the misadventure with the Jeep but not how things had worked out with my girlfriend.

About six weeks later my boss had a contract in a city about 100 miles from the works which meant staying away for a couple of weeks and he asked me if I would like to undertake it - on my own. It meant supervising the installation of a new machine in a factory and, he said with a wry grin, I was good at installing engines. This was a good opportunity for eventual promotion so I said yes and booked myself into a small hotel not far from the factory. The job entailed some weekend work so I suggested to Ian that he might like to come down for the weekend and stay with me. Again, not a flicker when he said he would like to but for me there was the nervous anticipation that here at last was the make-or-break opportunity I had been looking for.

The work went well, Friday evening duly arrived and so did Ian on his motorbike, parking it next to mine on the hotel car park. My room had twin single beds and he put his rucksack on one of them and we went out for a meal and then to a pub for a couple of pints. I didn't want to drink too much and we got back to our hotel bedroom relatively sober but comfortable with each other at about eleven o'clock. I suggested he got changed while I used the adjoining bathroom and when I came back into the room in my dressing gown he had put himself in bed and was sitting up against the pillows. I could see he had a pyjama jacket on. I put the light out and in the dark we started to talk about motorbikes. Maybe he was nervous too because he talked a lot and with fluency - quite different from the quiet, withdrawn Ian at the works. And maybe that’s how things would have stayed, with us just falling asleep with the effects of the long day and the alcohol we had drunk.

With a kind of lump in my throat I let a gap fall into our conversation and wondered how the hell to get round to what I wanted to do. Then, after a pause, I said hesitatingly …"Ian ….?" It had the kind of lift on the second syllable which indicates something new and meaningful is about to be said. "Yes?" he replied slowly, as if he was hadn't the first idea of what I intended. "Would you mind terribly if I came and lay beside you? I get lonely down here and I don't mean anything unpleasant." There was a long pause and then he said "Well, it's a bit queer-like …." And because of the way he said "Well …." I knew he was not going to put up any serious objection. I rolled out of my bed, asked him to move over as far as he could in his, and lay down beside him. Oh the bliss of at last feeling intimate with that secretive, attractive body of his! I had dreamed of this on the beach in Yugoslavia.

Words were unnecessary now and feelings everything. Gently I put my arm half over his chest, letting my hand rest lightly on the topmost button of his pyjama jacket. Then I moved my hand gently over his chest, caressing it and moving back slowly to the button. He sighed but said nothing. Carefully I undid the button and then the next while he breathed deeply and still said nothing. Slowly I opened all the buttons on his jacket and rested my fingers on the band of his pants. How close I was to the excitement that lay between his legs! My own dick was rock hard and pushing against my pants and I had to be careful not to press up against him in case he took fright and chucked me out of the bed. Slowly - oh so slowly - I found the drawstring and undid the knot that held his pyjama pants up. All this in total silence until he suddenly said "What's going on down there?" As if he didn't know! With the way open to his dick I put my hand down onto his thigh and drew it slowly up towards his crotch. Suddenly it was my sharp intake of breath that could be heard in that tense hotel bedroom : he had pants on under his pyjama trousers! Well, I had gone too far now with my explorations to be put off by this and he did actually help me a little by wriggling so that I could take them down to his knees. And so at last I reached heaven! I put my hand straight down to his dick and there it was at last - in my hand! And another shock - he was cut! I had not expected this as circumcision is not generally practised in England, being reserved (usually) for those whose foreskins are too tight or abnormally long at birth. Like me, he was oozing pre-cum and I used the fluid to slide my fingers over his cockhead and down his shaft and - another shock - though it was wonderfully stiff, it was only about 4 inches long. Nor were his balls, when I fondled them, any larger proportionately. However this didn't matter at all : what did was that I had achieved my ambition and had Ian, fully aroused, in the bed beside me.

We both remained silent as I slid my fingers (it was too short to wrap my fist round it) up and down his slippery shaft and over the head and I felt it swell and contract with pleasure. And I don't know whether or not he came off because after about half an hour of this my arm began to tire and I needed to get some sleep. At no stage in these proceedings did he try to touch my dick even though it was rock hard and firmly pressed against his thigh. When I rolled out of his bed into mine, not having had an orgasm, we both fell asleep almost immediately.

In the morning I had to go to the factory again and when the alarm clock woke me I lay looking at Ian and smiling at him in the early morning sunlight. He was so good to see, lying there looking as sexy as ever, that I wanted to jump into bed with him there and then. I could see that he knew what I was thinking of but time was against me and it was with heavy reluctance that I left him to catch up on his sleep while I went to the factory. I got back at lunch time and we went out on our bikes into the countryside during the afternoon. No need now to look for an empty house - we had Saturday night in the hotel bedroom to look forward to. Did he look forward to it too? I think he did, though we said nothing about it. Indeed we never discussed sex and I didn't even know what he called his dick. (There are so many variations in the English language!) But there was a sort of consciousness of what we had done the night before - and a pleasant one at that.

Saturday night could not come too quickly for me. Once again we ate out and had a couple of pints at the pub and then it was time for bed. Once again he got into bed while I used the bathroom and once again, after I had joined him in his bed, I slowly undressed him and caressed that gorgeous dick of his. What if it was small - it was HIS! And this time, because again he made no movement towards mine, which was really straining at the leash, I dropped my shorts, reached for his hand and placed it firmly round my throbbing flesh. I had skinned back the foreskin so that it seemed like his and his touch was electric. He stroked me gently as I was doing to him, with his index finger under the sensitive head sliding in the pre-cum, and it was not long before I knew I was going to climax. I said "Ian .. Ian …I'm going to cum ……. You do know what means, don't you?" and he said - yes, he actually said - "I think so!" Anyway I could hold out no longer and I came all over his body, the sheets and everywhere, whilst - in my ecstasy - holding on to his dick. His swelled and gave a sort of twitch as I shot my load, but I have no idea whether he came or not because there was so much pre-cum around that it was impossible to say. But I went to my bed totally satisfied and was out like a light as soon as my head touched the pillow. And the next morning I didn't have to go to the factory and I did rejoin him in bed and we did it all over again, taking just as long to undress him as before. Whether he came or not I still don’t know, but I did and his touch was just as good and sure as the night before.

Ah, the raptures of being young and learning about sex under the sheets in the days when there were no videos and porno magazines to learn from. Three weeks later I had again to come down to the factory to see that all was well with the newly installed machine but this time a work colleague came with me, a straight friend (Terry) whose elder brother had been in love with my elder sister. I chose to be there for the weekend and again asked Ian if he would like to come. This time there was a slight flicker in his eyes when he said he would but I don't suppose anyone else would have noticed. And how things can go wrong! I confidently expected Terry to return to his home in the north on the Friday night, but with Ian expected and no way of telephoning him, he informed me that he would be staying the weekend too as he had some work to do in a neighbouring town on the Monday. I was shell-shocked because he was occupying the second bed in the hotel room. I hope I did not show it. Ian duly arrived and we spent rather longer over our meal and in the pub before returning to the hotel after midnight.