Usual Disclaimer: If you are not of an age to read this because of the laws of your country or district please desist. If you are a bigot or prod-nosed fundamentalist of any persuasion find your monkey-spanking literature elsewhere and keep your predilections and opinions to yourself. Everyone else welcome and comments more than welcome.
[P.S. to Note with previous installment: I have been corrected. The Queen's wreath was of white roses, sweetpeas, mimosa and freesias. Mea culpa!!]
Flip's Tale
By
Joel
The Sequel: Autumn 2000
Continued:............
S24: Edinburgh, Shuggie and Coming Out
The lead-in to student life was gentle by going to stay with Simon and Dick for the first couple of days. It then got more hectic with all the Freshers' activities and the start of the course.
On the course we soon made friends and linked up with another couple of lads and two of the girls to work as a group. The work was demanding, but interesting and after getting over a few initial qualms about the subject matter I think we made good headway.
A letter arrived that first week. It was from my mother. I couldn't open it for several days but when I did, with Tom's arms round me, it was a wonderful occasion. Mum said she'd loved me every moment of every day I'd been away. She was sorry I had to go but she had news about me all the time from Aunt Margaret. She was so proud of all my achievements and she would see me and Tom, she hoped, at Christmas. Her love was for us both.
Simon and Dick were also very busy and our paths didn't cross much but we all played in a rugger match on our second Saturday and had supper together afterwards. Dick was obviously highly popular with his teammates and gagged his way through all the dressing room banter after the game which we managed to win. Tom and I were made very welcome and so was Alistair, who was one of the two lads we had teamed up on the course.
On the Sunday after the game Tom and I decided to explore Edinburgh and so, as good tourists, for our first venture toiled up to the castle and watched, first of all, the changing of the guard. What struck both of us was the small stature of the Jocks. Tom said his father had told him a lot of soldiers were recruited for the particular regiment in Glasgow and Glaswegians were often shorties. He said his father had also said that didn't mean they weren't fearsome as the Germans in the First World War had called the Highland regiments, in their kilts, the 'Ladies from Hell'. He had also said that as a policeman in Glasgow he never got in the way of a drunken squaddie on a Saturday night - or any other night as it happens.
A little later we were standing looking out over the expanse of country from the vantage point of the parapet wall when a voice, with such a strong Scots accent, behind us made us turn in surprise.
"Och, it wouldnae be Tam McLaren there, would it?"
We turned to find a very smart young soldier, kilted with a big hairy sporran and the shiniest boots imaginable, standing there with a huge grin on his face.
"Och, it fucking is, you're so like your faither it fucking must be! Hi, you fucking 'member me, Danny McHugh,"
Tom looked open-mouthed then a smile lit up his face.
"Oh, my God, it's Shuggie!"
Explanations followed. Tom and Danny, or Shuggie as he was usually known, had been at Junior School together and had gone to the same High School after. Although Tom's father was the neighbourhood copper the boys had got on well as when Tom's dad had been in the Army he had been Shuggie's father's sergeant. All rather complicated but as the lads hadn't seen each other since Tom had left Glasgow with his parents over four years ago there was plenty to discuss. We made arrangements for Shuggie to come to visit us on Tuesday afternoon as he had duties until then.
More explanations followed as Tom and I made our way back to our residence. Shuggie's brother, Dougie, was one of the lads who had 'kidnapped' Tom when he was ten or so and made him toss them off. At that time Dougie hadn't realised who Tom was and who his father was.
Tuesday afternoon came and Shuggie turned up at our flat in civvies, but still very much the young soldier with his close-cropped hair and his liberal insertion of `fuck', or its extensions, in every sentence and even between syllables. His accent was pure Glaswegian and I had difficulty sometimes in deciphering the stream and Tom did a bit of translating at times. I did understand the repetitious swearing, but, with his distinctive accent it came out more like 'fook' and 'fooking'.
Tom wanted to know what had happened to Dougie. Danny's face broke into a broad grin.
"Och, he's in the army too, and married and got two bairns. He's awa' in a peace- keeping force. That's where we're going in three week's time too."
Closer questioning did not elicit where the 'peace-keeping' was taking place and after a few stories from Danny about the drunken revels on Saturday nights with the squaddies I wondered if 'peace-keeping' was the right term.
"Och, and ye ken Tam it was your faither who put Dougie in."
Tam expressed some surprise at this and then Danny told us that Dougie used to frequent the toilets near the bus-station and would pick up a pound or two giving or receiving blow-jobs. Apparently, Tom's dad had been off-duty and was getting off a bus when he saw Dougie 'loitering with intent' and, instead of arresting him, took him home to his father. When the story was told of where he was found and Dougie confessed, Tom's dad said he would leave it to Dougie's father to deal with it.
Danny said he dealt with it 'aye fucking firmly' with his belt, giving Dougie twelve whacks on his 'bare fucking erse' in Danny's presence. Then, to remind Danny what he would get if he got into trouble, he had to bare his 'own wee fucking erse' and he was given three stingers. Danny said what scared him more than the three he got was Dougie screaming out after each of the fifth and later strokes. Both boys vowed that was that. As soon as Dougie left school at sixteen he was taken to the recruiting office and hadn't looked back since. In fact, just before he was posted he was promoted to being a corporal.
Danny said he'd kept out of trouble but it'd been 'aye fucking difficult' as his friends were into all sorts of petty thievery and twoccing. I was puzzled at this until it was explained it stood for 'taking without owner's consent' and referred to cars. Danny said he kept away from that especially as one of his pals had pinched a Jag and had been killed when he didn't negociate a bend near Bridge of Allan. So his father had also, gently, he said, suggested he joined up and he was 'fucking enjoying it'.
I went off and got a Chinese 'carry out' and left Tom and Danny reminiscing. When I got back they were laughing about things that had happened at Junior School.
"Och, Tam, do'ya fucking 'member that Miss Hibbs and that fucking Willy Cameron?"
Apparently, according to the two lads, each trying to tell me the story, Miss Hibbs was a not very popular member of staff and one afternoon she was 'fucking blethering' about something and stalking around the class when she became aware that something ticklish had brushed across her face. As she continued walking round she kept shaking her head as more ticklish things passed over her. In the end she stopped and saw a black piece of cotton dangling in front of her. She caught it and then spotted there were more pieces of black cotton floating around the room. The 'fucking weans' watched as she pulled the piece of cotton down and found it was attached to a large bluebottle. The 'fucking shit hit the fucking fan' according to Danny.
Willy Cameron and a couple of other enterprising youngsters had trapped half a dozen of the biggest flies they could find - Danny said he thought 'off a fucking great dog turd' - and had dextrously looped strands of black cotton round them. They then secreted them in matchboxes and surreptitiously let them free when Miss Hibbs was not looking. As this happened before the tawse was outlawed, the culprits, who didn't have to own up as they still had the incriminating empty matchboxes in their possession, had their hands leathered. But, all in all, it was considered 'a real aye fucking laugh'.
I'd also got a six-pack of lager to go with the Chinese but Danny refused any. He said 'the fucking bevvy had been the death of his grandda' and his father had persuaded the two boys not to drink. Tom and I had one each and said neither of us really indulged. I had still to experience what it was like to be 'ratarsed' or 'fucking bladdered' as Danny put it so elegantly. Some of the team on Saturday had downed enough to sink a battleship and the last we saw of a couple of them was not too edifying a spectacle. Anyway, Danny said he wasn't going to start to drink even if it meant some of his pals thought him a 'right fucking poofter'.
Oh dear! That word. We were to meet it again about a couple of Saturdays ahead. There was one member of our rugger team who was in our first-year group and was particularly loud-mouthed. He'd already, in the space of less than a month, put the backs up of most of the class and even the group he was in were not too happy. Anyway, we were having a practice friendly and there was the usual horsing around in the packs. Mainly this consisted of one's shorts being caught hold of and roughly pulled to squash vital pieces of equipment. Of course, loudmouth Preston was in the forefront of this petty horseplay and after having his own privates strangled let out a roar and said it was a bloody good job there weren't any bloody poofters in the teams.
Oh dear! Not only would Tom and I qualify but Simon and Dick were also there. There was a moment's silence and then Marty spoke. He very quietly said that Preston shouldn't make too many assumptions and, as far as he was concerned, anyone who wished to play could be in the team. I think Preston was rather gobsmacked at this. He couldn't now be certain there weren't by the tone and the phrasing which Marty had used. At least it did shut him up.
Shuggie was an asset. He turned up at our flat whenever he wasn't on duty and maintained it `fucking forever fucking needed a fucking good fucking clean', or words to that effect. His soldierly training had taught him the importance of cleanliness and we often got back after lectures to find the rooms spotless and a happy Shuggie in an armchair reading some sensational book poached from 'aye one of those fucking squaddies who hae the fucking book in one fucking hand and their fucking prick in their fucking other fucking hand all the fucking time'. His graphic descriptions of some of the bedtime habits of the squaddies when they were in training were entertaining, if rather lurid. I'd never heard of the practice of lighting farts but his prescription of six pints and an Indian curry in preparation was quite believable. We fed him, often having an Indian 'carry-out', but we never got him to practice what he preached.
The flat was comfortable. The two single beds in one room, a separate study come sitting room, with a kitchen and bathroom to complete it. We had pushed the two single beds together the first night and had bought a king-size duvet the first Saturday. Our sex every night was stupendous. We had our tensions, mainly from the pressures of the course, but the closeness we felt for each other and the release in those slow, unwinding sessions in our makeshift double bed were so rewarding. We tried not to make our sex into a habit or just something to do once we were in bed together. We worked at loving each other and, although Tom preferred to be fucked and I liked to be sucked, we varied our approaches to each other and drew on our strengths and our stamina to maintain a high level of arousal, then release, for both of us.
I am sure all this helped with our work. The other four in our group paired off quite naturally. There were no questions about Tom and me. Neither of us had the looks or mannerisms associated with 'the other way'. We were accepted as 'Tom and Flip'. The six of us worked happily together and I was always heartened by the way in which Tom and I complemented each other in our work. Tom grasped situations and the materials we had to deal with in such a startlingly rapid way. The occasion of distinguishing between the twins was minor but he had that quickness of recognising essential detail in everything we did. He seemed to have to read something only once and he knew the substance of it. I won on my meticulous memory. We would invariably discuss the day's work as we lay together in bed each night. Tom would start by saying about an incident or something we had encountered and make some, usually, very subtle statement. I was able to back this up by recalling even the most abstruse names or facts. In this way our knowledge and our understanding advanced. These quiet review sessions were thus the prelude for our love-making which by its intensity and complete involvement for both of us made each day more precious than the one before.
Two particular incidents gave us confidence to say to others about ourselves. One occurred one afternoon when Shuggie appeared at the flat where I was working away in the study alone. Tom was in the Library and was checking on some references for a tutorial the next day. I was a bit tired with the book I had to read and Shuggie asked if I would like to see the Palace. By this I knew he meant Holyrood House and he said a pal of his on duty there said he would show us bits the tourists never saw. We left a note for Tom 'Gone to the Palace to find a suitable dungeon for you. Chains and gruel later. Flip and Shuggie'.
I had noticed when Shuggie was with me he left out up to ninety per cent of the 'fucks' in his conversations. He was, obviously, very bright, and I thought would make his way up the ranks if he kept his nose clean. As we walked to Holyrood House he said how much he and his brother owed Tom's father and how much Tom reminded him of his dad. He said his brother had admitted only on his last leave when they'd met up that he had no hard feelings when Tom's dad had taken him home that night and his own father had beaten the living daylights out of him. He'd said to Shuggie that if it wasn't for Constable McLaren 'I'd a now been in fucking Barlinnie haeing ma fucking erse reamed iv'ry night by they fucking shitheads!'. Barlinnie being the notorious prison frequented by Glaswegian ne'er-do- wells. He said his brother's wife, Jeannie, was a sweet girl and Dougie doted on his two young sons.
Shuggie also remarked that he liked Jeannie's sister, Karen, who was eighteen the same as him, and was training to be a nurse, and he thought she liked him. I said she sounded just right for him, lots of medical students ended up marrying nurses so he should get in first. He gave me a quizzical look.
"You're married already, eh?" he said quietly.
I took the plunge.
"Not quite," I said, equally quietly, "We live together but we intend to make a commitment to each other at Christmas."
"Och, I'm sae glad," he said with great emphasis, "I see how much you two care for each other I hope I could find someone for me in the same way. Karen would be perfect."
It was Shuggie's quiet acceptance of us two lads being together in the same way that he wanted to be with Karen that gave me the confidence to tell him a lot more of how we met - I omitted being pissed at! - and how we had seen from those early days a love for each other which was getting stronger every day.
"Och, Flip," he said, "I saw how happy you were when I met you that Sunday afternoon. Then I saw your beds were together with the duvet and I wondered and I watched and I couldnae wish more happiness for ye both. My uncle Geordie has a friend he lives with and they are so happy and so nice."
A simple, heartfelt acceptance and, amazingly, not a single 'fuck'!
His pal certainly did let us see the dungeons and we trailed round while he explained all about Mary and Darnley and all the grizzly happenings. It was an entertaining and enlightening trip in many ways.
On the way back Shuggie insisted he got food for the evening meal and went off to a supermarket and I went back to the flat where Tom was busy making notes for the tutorial.
"Huh!" he said, as he saw me enter alone, "I suppose you shagged Shuggie and did a Rizzio on him. Where have you buried him, under Mary's bed, or in it more likely!"
Was this the green eye of jealously?
"Come off it, Tom, you can be exceedingly crude. I'd shag Shuggie any time. He's got 'a pert wee erse' as you big heathen Scots say. He's a great guy but we both have too much respect for you, great chieftain o' the puddin'-race, to have a bit on the side. Here, ask him yourself when he comes back. Anyway, he wishes us both well."
Poor Tom. I think he was a mite jealous. I'd gone off for once without him and with a very tasty young lad. We both knew nothing had happened and he was now rather distraught. He hadn't trusted me. He got up and clasped his arms round me.
"Oh, Flip, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. It was that you weren't here and I couldn't bear it if you went off with anyone else and Shuggie's a lovely wee man, I wouldn't blame you."
"Tom," I said, "Shuggie would never come between us. He's so pleased for us both. You're not jealous of Ghazi so why Shuggie all of a sudden?"
"Oh, Flip, it's probably because we were such good friends at school. I suppose I loved him a bit then and I could see it wouldn't have taken much meeting up with him again for me to think I was in love with him."
I smiled and pecked his cheek. "No good, Tom, he's got his eyes firmly fixed elsewhere and the lucky person doesn't have that essential bit you've got."
We hugged each other tightly and that moment passed. Something in the open and defused.
The second incident came just after half term. I was having a mid-morning cup of tea with Jenny, one of the two girls in our group. As we sat together, books piled on the table between us, she asked me outright if Tom and I were more than good friends.
I could sense from her tone there was no hostility in her question. I took the plunge again.
"We're good friends and we love each other too. We're making our commitment soon."
I waited for whatever response came. It came. She smiled, put a hand out and laid it on my arm.
"I'm so glad. I wondered, and Alistair wondered. We're fond of you both. Chris and Helen asked me the other day and I decided the only way to find out was to ask. You don't mind?"
I shook my head. I was very close to tears. I hoped the others would be as accepting as Jenny. That acceptance was very close at hand. At lunch time, just after I'd told Tom of the encounter, Alistair came up, his face wreathed in smiles. He congratulated us and said Helen and Chris wouldn't be far behind. Alistair said his father was a minister in the very strict Presbyterian church but he'd always told Alistair to accept people as they were and not to judge if you couldn't be judged yourself.
As it happened the news went round the group very slowly until only Preston eyed us with any wariness. He had made himself obnoxious in several ways with the rest of our class and was becoming increasingly isolated. I knew he viewed Tom and me with suspicion but we were still in the same rugger team where he now kept conspicuously quiet.
Great-hearted me had taken pity on him towards the end of November and when we needed another willing victim for the tests we were doing I asked him to join us. Even Alistair made a slight face at this but all was well. All came to a head on the last Saturday of term. We'd played a match against another of the intra-mural sides and had won convincingly, largely thanks to Simon bullocking through to score two tries. Afterwards the four of us went off and had a meal and finally bade farewell to each other about half-ten.
Tom and I were ready for bed about half past eleven when there was a great scuffling and banging about outside the door of our flat. We investigated and found a very drunk Preston staggering against the door. As we opened it he fell inwards and landed on his knees on our inside doormat.
"I've come to 'pologise," he began, all slurred, "Want to say sorry, please, want to say sorry."
With that he sprawled full length in our small hallway. Fearful of getting unwanted attention from other residents, who we knew would not like drunken rugger players on their doorsteps, we hauled him in further and shut the door. Somehow, as drunks are a dead weight, we got him to the sofa and lay him down. His eyes were open, but glassy and he kept mouthing,"'pologise, 'pologise". He then burst into copious tears and tried to sit up. I rushed and got a washing-up bowl and he was promptly sick. After more attempts at apologising he gave up and quite docilely he let us remove his windcheater and shoes and trousers and then we wrapped him in a spare duvet and left him - with the bowl handy in case he was sick again.
Within moments he was fast asleep and we retired to bed. It was rather awkward. Both of us wanted sex but with the unwanted visitor in the next room any noise - and we were invariably noisy in some way - might rouse him. He's already made wild comments in the past and we didn't want him to have ammunition for anything else.
"In any case," I said to Tom, who was rubbing wintergreen liniment into aches and pains and bruises he said had accumulated that afternoon in the rugger match, "If you think my tongue is going to come in contact with that vile stuff on your vile body you've got another think coming."
Unfortunately, I was just in the process of removing my briefs so he lunged at me and applied a liberal amount of the smelly liquid to my back. As I turned he tried to grab my rigid cock with the same hand and I only managed to evade his grasp as I didn't want any of the stinging stuff near my precious balls.
"Come here you great oaf," he whispered, "Let me rub it into your back, it'll cure all your stiffness."
"It would bloody well cure my stiffness if you put it anywhere near my cock," I retorted, grabbing the bottle from him.
We fell about laughing, silently, both thinking what Preston might make of us lumbering giants anointing each other liberally with the liniment which we then proceeded to do with quiet enthusiasm. Sex that night was also quiet. Our lips were touching and our tongues gently caressed as we slowly jacked each other until our joint streams of boycream mingled on our torsos.
"Think of what poor old Preston is missing," Tom whispered as he nuzzled my ear before we settled to sleep.
I woke early for a Sunday morning, got out a pair of old shorts and a tee shirt and went to the bathroom first to have a quick wash and then went to the sitting room to see how Preston was. He was still fast asleep. No accidents in the night! I went into the kitchen and made coffee and took him a steaming mug.
"Come on, Preston, wake up. Here's some coffee."
I shook his shoulder gently. He grunted and opened a bleary eye. He woke slowly, not really knowing where he was, then realised and started to babble his apologies.
"I shouldn't have come. What do you think of me? I got so drunk last night but I had to come to see you."
Tom had also woken and came and stood by me. He was still naked having just got out of bed. Preston gawped and sat up unsteadily.
"Oh God!" he said, "I wanted to say how sorry I was about what I said. And then, if Flip hadn't asked me if I would like to join in with your group, I would have left the course."
His shoulders heaved with great sobs. I sat beside him and nodded to Tom to go back to the bedroom. He took the hint and I heard him go to the bathroom first. Good job. There was a crusty patch of dried spunk on his hairy belly!
"Come on, Preston, cheer up. You're still here. Drink your coffee and when Tom gets out of the bathroom go and have a wash and by that time I'll have made some breakfast and we can all talk then."
He sniffed and nodded. I went to the kitchen, covered myself with an apron and got out eggs and bacon with bread ready for toast. The glorious smell of a fry-up was soon apparent and the three of us, in silence, sat at the table. There was silence as none of us knew where to start.
At last Preston began. "I'm so sorry if I made a fool of myself last night. I got so pissed to pluck up courage to come and see you." He smiled wanly. "Seems I made an utter fool of myself, didn't I?" He looked across the table straight at us in turn. "I want to apologise for what I said during that practice game. I shouldn't have said it and I've regretted it ever since. Please forgive me..." He sighed. "...Seems I make a fool of myself all the time."
The story then unfolded. His unusual name came from the fact that his father, a doctor, had his first practice in the English town of that name and after he'd moved and got married named his first-born to commemorate his start in medicine. Preston then said he'd gone to a very tough boys' independent Grammar School in another English Northern city where he was brought up and had cultivated his outer super-macho image to survive. He confessed that actually he was very shy and had never really liked himself for behaving in such a way. He said he really liked classical music and plays and books but was also determined to be a doctor. However, he'd upset so many people during this first term he was on the verge of giving up the course when I asked him if he would like to join our group.
He said he'd seen how happy Tom and I were and then when the news got round about our lives and intentions he saw all his bravado was meaningless. That I had accepted him after what he'd said had made him determined to change and the first thing he wanted to do was to tell us how he felt.
Tom said he shouldn't worry. We would probably have many sticks and stones thrown at us but so far we had found everyone was so accepting. If he wanted friends we would be there. In fact, he said, he didn't think Marty was referring to us at all that day. I grinned and chipped in saying that there were at least another pair in the team so he might have to do some more apologising at some time.
Preston was rather taken aback at this. We didn't let on about Simon and Dick. That could be for another time but we ended up having a most interesting talk with Preston and we both realised he wasn't so bad after all. As it happened we'd arranged to go for Sunday lunch with Dick and Simon and asked would he like to come along as well. He said he would love to but would have to go back to his residence and change.
After he'd gone, Tom and I sat and discussed this most unlikely outcome of my little friendly act. The other thing we wondered about was how the drunken mind could have navigated from the Students' Union bar to our flat and how did he even know where we lived.
Even after the lunch I don't think Preston had twigged that Simon and Dick were the other pair although he must have had some inkling of their relationship. In fact it wasn't until sometime in our second term he asked me, confidentially, if Simon and Dick were the others.
Another little excitement was Archie's visit for a check-up on his progress after the growth was found and removed. We met him at the station on the Friday morning and ferried him to the hospital by taxi. We left him in the gentle hands of Wilf who said he'd look after him and all should be over by four o'clock. Archie was quite ecstatic when we went to fetch him as all seemed clear and he had to come back in six months time for another check-up. We took him and Shuggie out for a meal and he and Shuggie got on like a house on fire. Both were great fans of some pop group which neither Tom nor I had ever heard of and they swapped lyrics and tales of intrigue until it was time to deposit Archie at Simon and Dick's where he was to stay the night. Shuggie insisted his pal would show Archie the Palace so Tom also got a view in the morning as well.
Shuggie's departure to pastures new came a few days later at the end of November. Both Tom and I had enjoyed his company. He was bright, quick-witted, cheerful and we all kept each other amused and relaxed. His `cleaning' campaign was a constant joy. Not that Tom and I were too untidy or mucky but Shuggie's standards were far above ours. We fed and watered him. No alcohol. Still, the fateful day came, although Shuggie was not too clear about his eventual posting. As we said our goodbyes at the flat, after treating him to a superb meal in a very nice restaurant, he handed us each a silver bullet engraved with a T and an F.
"Och, the pair of ye," he said, a great grin on his face, "If I hear ony of you've fucking upset the other I'll fucking use one of these on ya!...." He laughed. "...There's nothing fucking in them. They're fucking dummies but ya know what I fucking mean. And I tell you what, I would ha bedded doon wi' the pair of ye onytime if y'had wanted me."
Praise enough.
To be continued......