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The Last Night of the Fair
Twice a year, book-ending the summer, the travelling funfair would come to town, setting up on the wide expanse of green that bordered the beach. Whispers would go around the school as the trucks arrived and the rides were assembled, each silhouette more familiar by the year; the helter-skelter with its coarse, hemp sliding mats, the terrifying Octopus, all spinning limbs and flashing lights and, of course, the elegant ferris wheel, standing tall like a lady among whores.
I'd spent happy afternoons there as a kid, queueing with candy floss melting onto my fist, looking ahead to pick which bumper car I wanted. Though my family was not well off, my mum always found a good handful of coins each for my brothers and me, and we would scatter into the fair like rabbits going to ground, giddy with the deluge of lights and noise and sugar.
I breathed in the air now and was filled with a bittersweet nostalgia as I stepped into the fair's maze of crowded lanes for what would be the last time. In a fortnight I would be hundreds of miles away, beginning a new life at university, and I didn't intend to come back.
I strolled past stalls selling overpriced plushies of the latest childhood fads, little grinning pikachus and what-not. I was tempted by a Gryffindor pillow but the poor kid in me made me put it back. Instead I found a food hut and bought a limp hotdog dressed with ketchup and undercooked onions, and I ate it as I went to find the grown up rides.
The Octopus was smaller than I remembered. Aged eight it had seemed like some frenzied, mechanical monster, or perhaps a mass torture device, complete with screaming people. Now, a decade on, it looked much less intimidating, and I added myself to the end of the queue, determined to finally conquer an old adversary.
"Oi, Jackson." A deep, familiar voice behind me. I turned and saw the blue-eyed and dimple cheeked face of Dan Hughes, golden boy of the rugby team and bane of my school life. His face wore its usual satisfied grin as he eyed me with amused interest. I sighed inside.
"Hello, Dan." I said, and resigned myself to a ruined afternoon.
He wasn't really a bully, at least not in the conventional sense; he had never beaten me up or taken my lunch money or that sort of thing. He was more of an annoyance, a constant mosquito buzz of lame jibes and dumb pranks that followed me around the school. Whenever I'd found a new quiet spot to eat my sandwiches and read my paperback at lunch he would find me within a week and pick up where he'd left off. Not that he couldn't be pleasant at times, and I was convinced that it was at least occasionally genuine.
"On your own, as usual?" He smiled, pink lips and white teeth.
That was the worst part of it all. That despite his seeming life's mission to piss me off, I fancied the ever loving arse off the shithead, and no matter how he poked and prodded at my ego, one smile like that numbed my animosity. He knew it too, I was sure.
I made a show of looking around.
"Yes, Dan I'm on my own. What's it to you?" He looked me up and down, but the expected comment about my appearance never came.
"That ride's shit." He said, meaning the Octopus, and I couldn't disagree. "Come with me. I know a way to make this place a lot more fun." I was a heartbeat away from telling him to fuck off when he flashed that smile again, a look in his eyes that told me he knew exactly what he was doing. I caved.
"Fine." I said and followed as he strode long legged towards the beach. The shorts he wore hugged his backside and I got lost watching the firm muscle rise and fall as he walked. His thighs and calves were dusted with dark blond hair and I remembered the library window that overlooked the playing fields where I would sit and watch his rugby practices while pretending to study.
We stepped into the shadow under the pier and Dan leant against one of the rusted iron pillars, pulling a joint from his pocket and lighting it. A scattering of seagulls cackled nearby but otherwise we were alone beneath the wooden deck. He handed me the joint and I looked at it dubiously.
"Come on." He said. "Don't be a pussy."
With a shrug I lifted the joint to my lips and inhaled.
"That's it." He said. "Take it deep and hold it there." There was a glint of mischief in his eyes that I could see despite the shade. I took a long drag, but before I could hold my breath my lungs threw a tantrum, coughing blue clouds into the breeze. Dan burst out laughing and I felt a big hand patting my back as I recovered, and when I did I found that I was laughing too.
"Fuck." I said, already feeling my head go fuzzy. "That's potent stuff." His hand lay on my back for a moment before he walked off further into the shadow of the pier, perching himself on a low, grey stone wall that formed part of the sea defenses. I followed to sit by him, the weed and his more amiable than normal mood making for a strange sense of comradeship between us. There we both were, at the end of our shared adolescence, about to step into the world of adulthood.
"What are your plans?" I asked, as I gazed absent mindedly at the spears of sunlight that fell between the gaps in the planks above. I began to understand why stoners stare at things. Dan took a toke before answering.
"I'll be starting an apprenticeship next month. Construction." He passed the joint to me. "It's a mate of my dad's company so..." He wondered into his own thoughts, looking into a shallow pool left by the tide. He sounded resigned. "You got into uni didn't you?"
"Yeah." I said, trying not to sound pleased with myself, even though I was. "Business management."
He looked at me with raised eyebrows.
"So what, you're gonna be the next Alan Sugar?" He poked his elbow playfully at my ribs and we both laughed.
"It's better than candy floss." I said. After the laughter subsided he looked at me more seriously.
"Good on you, mate." And I could tell that he meant it.
"What's this? Danny fucking Hughes saying something nice?" He gave me another jab in the ribs.
"All I mean is...." He gave me an odd look. "We're all becoming different people now, aren't we?"
I looked back at him, trying to read his expression, trying to fill the gaps that I sensed lay between his words.
"Or we're becoming who we always were." I said, not entirely sure what I meant in the moment, but it seemed to fit in my weed spun mind. Danny nodded thoughtfully, a rare look on him and not an unattractive one, and he carried his thoughts in slow steps away from the wall. He turned on his heel to face me.
"Right." He said, the old Dan back. "You, ya lonely little loser, are coming with me to get shit faced. One last fuck you, alright?" He didn't stop to receive an answer, and struck out towards the strip of shops that lined the seafront road, confident and correct that I would follow.
We pooled our resources at the off-license and emerged with eight cans of strong, white cider and a bottle of gut-rot rum, taking them to the top of the headland that overlooked the northern end of the beach and green. Dan shed his shirt and, not to be outdone, I did the same and we sat in a secluded spot with our backs to a tree, looking out at the vista of the fair, the beach and the sea.
I was reminded that we had been friends once, long ago in little school. Our parents knew each other and we would go to one another's birthday parties, and though my memories of that time were vague, something of it felt rekindled as we sat and talked and drank and laughed, our bare shoulders touching in the dappled light under the tree. His words came back to me. "We're all becoming different people". We're becoming who we always were.
"I'm sorry I was always such a cunt to you." Three cans in and Dan had become earnest. I wasn't sure how to respond. My feelings about him were complicated, and these hours of closeness and pax had tangled them up even more.
"It's....its alright." I patted his shoulder, sticky with sweat. "You were annoying as fuck at times, but....I didn't really mind that much." He turned to look at me and I became very aware of how close his lips were to mine, those pink lips that even now were creasing into the smile that killed me.
"That's good." He said. I saw his eyes searching my face, and the pause we shared then seemed to ask a question neither of us was quite ready to put into words. The moment passed like a cloud shadow and Dan cracked another can. He looked out towards the horizon and I let my eyes wander down across his body, at his chest and belly slowly rising and falling, his narrow waist and thighs like young trees. When my attention returned to his face he was looking at me again. There was no smile now, just lips barely parted and eyes that held mine like a magnet draws a compass needle.
"I always noticed when you looked at me." His voice was low, his breath so close it stirred the fine hairs on my cheeks.
"Is that because you were always looking at me?" I said, and he gave a single, silent laugh and shrugged.
"Yeah. I suppose you're right." He said.
I couldn't tell you who finally started it. Our lips brushed then overlapped, then parted as he angled his head, laying his nose alongside mine. I was surprised at his softness, the tender and tentative way he let his mouth slowly part as our tongues met, and he tasted of rum and apples and smoke and sun cream. The moment broke too soon and we parted, eyes on anything but each other. Dan grabbed the rum and took a hearty swig before passing it to me. I could see that he was wrestling with what had just happened, so I took the bottle and drank, letting the silence solve what it could.
"That was....." Dan said, ending the silence. He turned to me. "That was....amazing." He smiled that fucking smile and it crashed like a wave on me. Whatever expression it had put on my face was enough for him to plant another kiss there, a longer and deeper one, and his hands were on my arms pulling me closer, guiding me to lie back on the grass.
'...after that long kiss I near lost my breath...'
He was on his side next to me, leaning with his chest against me and his leg across mine, and his eyes searched my face again. I returned him the smile that I knew he wanted back.
"Yes..." I said.
The sun was nearing the sea, pouring pigments of peach and orange onto the watercolour sky. The gulls were quieting in their roosts and the fair below began its subtle switch from day to night, as the toy stalls closed and the bars opened, and dance music thumped for the grown up crowd.
Dan pulled away and stood, reaching down to take my wrist, half helping and half hoisting me up after him.
"Let's go down." He said, mischief in his face. "One last fuck you, remember?"
We were both giddy as we descended the cliff path to the beach, racing each other across the sand like we were eight years old again, with grins just as dopey. We necked as much of the rum as we could before tossing the bottle into a nearby bin and returned to the strange, alternate reality of fair. Dan's hand gripped my upper arm and he pulled me onwards, and some of the wonder and chaos of the place came back to me as we made towards the ghost train.
"Try not to piss your pants, Jackson." Dan said and winked as the safety bar was lowered to our laps and the train jolted forwards, passing through a devil's open mouth and into darkness. Recorded screams, ghostly moans and cackling laughter came from hidden speakers as lights strobed about us, throwing flashes of ghoulish and deformed figures. The train juddered on. A jumpscare rubber bat snapped down from the ceiling above us and I felt Dan flinch.
"Who's pissing their pants now?" A said into his ear.
"Not me." He said, and to prove his point he grabbed my wrist, pulling my hand the front of his shorts. Not wet, but something was going on down there, my fingers curling around the fat semi that was beginning to snake down the leg. "See?"
His voice was hot in my ear and his dick pulsed teasingly through the thin fabric of his shorts. Feeling bold I started to gently stroke him, and he responded by softly rocking hips.
"I don't know..." I let my thumb play at the head of his dick, mashing his precum into the cotton. "Feels a bit wet here." He moaned low and closed his eyes, enjoying the attention I was giving to the sensitive tip of his dick, rock hard now. I wanted to lean over there and then and press my face into those shorts, to feel his hardness against my cheeks, to smell him. We were pulled back to reality when the train passed the exit doors and we were spilled back out into the warm night, doing our best to disguise our excitement as we stepped down.
We continued this dance around the fairground; stealing kisses and handfuls of each other as we went from place to place. He cornered me alone in the maze of mirrors, pushing me back against my reflection, his strong arms either side of me, and his angelic, dimple cheeked face full of desire.
"I've wanted this for so long..." He said, his voice making a hundred little echoes off the glass.
"You had a funny way of showing it." His smile turned rueful.
"I know." He said. "It's just I.." I silenced him with a kiss.
"I get it.." I said, though I wasn't sure I did. Not completely. In that moment, though, it didn't matter. The past didn't matter. All that mattered was that we were young, we were there, and we wanted each other.
We wandered to the edge of the fair, where the public area gave way to parked trucks, and Dan took my wrist and pulled me into the shadow between two of them. Without a word he was on me, guiding me back until my shoulders touched cold metal and my chest touched his, hot in the cooling night. He kissed me, stopping only briefly on my lips before following my jawline to my ear where his breath sent a shiver through me. Our dicks were pressed together, hard and straining to be let out to play, wild dogs we were chained to.
There was something desperate and frantic in the way his hands groped at me, and in the way he pressed me against the truck with all his strength and weight, as if whatever moment he was in might evaporate. I took his wrists to guide him, to slow him, to reassure him, and soon we found a more comfortable pace, relaxing into one another. I reached down and brought my hand to his thick, furry thigh, moving upwards and lifting the leg of his shorts, exploring underneath until until my fingers first brushed then cupped his balls, tugging on them oh so gently until he growled into my shoulder.
"Keep that up and I'll fuck you right here, Jackson." He hissed in my ear, and pushed his hips against me. I moved my hand further into his shorts and grabbed his prick, skin to skin, and stroked.
"Maybe that's what I want." He humped into my fist and I felt his precum smear my fingers, and that small sensation, that one proof of his desire, was as hot as the sun to me. He pulled my hand away and dropped his shorts past his ass, letting his cock swing out into the night air. It was as big as it had felt and I licked my lips at the glisten of clear honey coating the head. I crouched down, face height with it, and looked up into his lust filled eyes as I stroked him again, my mouth only inches away from him, so hot and so close I could taste his want. His lip snarled as I teased the end with my tongue, lapping at the underside before putting my lips around him and gently sucking until the taste of him filled my mouth.
"Oh fuck, Jackson." He moaned as his head rolled back. "Your mouth feels so fucking good."
That was all the encouragement I needed. I sucked him deeper, holding him as close to my throat as I could stand, before withdrawing and letting one hand work his shaft while the other played with his low hanging nuts. He moaned and gently bucked his hips, his hands cradling my head, fingers woven with my hair, demanding but not forceful.
I was scarcely aware now of the sounds of thumping bass, whirring machinery and the chatter and laughter of people just metres away. Dan, however, must have been paying more attention because he suddenly pulled out of my mouth and tucked his cock back into his shorts as a group of people came within sight of us.
"Get up, quick." He told me under his breath and I quickly stood, turning to see the people continue past.
"That was close." I said, and we both laughed with relief. "We should go somewhere else. Your place?" He shook his head firmly.
"Yours?" He asked and I laughed said no. Growing up in a small house with two younger brothers meant privacy was a foreign concept at home.
Dan's face suddenly lit up with inspiration.
"I've still got a key to the equipment shed at the school." He said, fishing in his pocket for his key ring. "I was supposed to give it back at the end of term but couldn't be bothered at the time." He searched the ring and found the small padlock key, holding it up triumphantly.
"One last fuck you?" I said and he grinned.
"Abso-fucking-lutely, loser."
Away from the noise at the seafront the town held a silence that beckoned our voices, and we laughed and sang our way past parked cars and dark windows, stopping in the shadows between street lights to kiss before racing each other onwards. The school lay about a mile away and we were soon looking through the chain link fence that surrounded the grounds.
"This way." Dan led me to a corner of the fence where it had come loose from the post and yanked it aside. "Go on."
I ducked through the gap and heard him follow, pulling the corner back in place. The equipment shed was on the far side of the field so we made one last dash and arrived at the padlocked door, panting. Dan fumbled in the dark for a painful few moments before the lock clicked and he pulled the creaking door open.
Inside the shed was dark and smelt of dried mud and mildew. Dan found a light switch and yellow orange light poured from a single, bare bulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling. We made our way between the baskets of footballs and field hockey sticks, tumbling at last onto the high-jump crash mat.
Dan was on top of me, his larger frame nearly swallowing mine, and he looked at me.
"You ready for this, Paul?" He ground his hips against me and I smiled at his use of my first name. I was so fucking ready and I told him so by kissing him and grabbing at his firm backside, pulling him tight against me. He grabbed the waistband of my jeans and yanked them down, and I kicked them past my feet as Dan dropped his shorts, sending them to join the jeans on the dusty floor of the shed.
Naked, we rolled about on the mat, half foreplay and half fight, delighting in each other's fit, young bodies. Of course I wasn't a match for him for long and soon he had me pinned again, shoulders to the mat, my arse lifted and his big form looming over me, his cock hard and dripping, pressing at my taint. His face wore that sexy snarl, his upper lip curled at one side, baring a few of his pearly whites as he threaded his length along the crease.
"Fuck me, Dan." It was little more than a sigh but it might have been a clarion call the way he responded. He smiled and took his dick in his hand and aimed it at my tight pucker, smearing it with his copious precum and pressing the head slowly but unceasingly forwards. I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth, my arms wrapped around his neck as I struggled through the pain, determined not to cry out as he stretched me open.
"You're so fucking tight." His voice was low in my ear, a breathy croon that vibrated through me.
"And you're so fucking big, Dan." I was gasping still, but feeling good as the pain blended with pleasure. He went slowly at first, humping back and forth just an inch or two, letting me get used to the feeling of his thick prick splitting me. I was rock hard again by the time I felt his balls against my ass, and his big hand found my dick, enclosing it, stoking me in time with his thrusts.
He picked up speed, pushing harder with each encouraging moan and gasp that he wrung out of me, his dick mashing my prostate until I half thought he'd break it. His wide shoulders had my legs pinned nearly to my chest, beads of sweat rolling from his skin to mine, and his lips, lightly stubbled by now, teased and tickled my neck, my ears, growling hot nothings between licks and bites of my flesh. I squirmed and gyrated under him, meeting every push he made into my guts, urging him on, seeing his steam rise until it clouded his eyes and he stared through me, lost in his lust. His grunts came deeper and more often, one for each time his hips slammed my ass, and I reciprocated, slurring his name again and again.
"Dan....Dan....fuck...Dan..." His hand was relentless at my dick, slow stroking me between our taut bellies, precum slick fingers milking me.
"Fuck...Paul....I'm gonna..." He finished the sentence with a shout that echoed around the room, a long, deep, rasping cry as his pretty face twisted with ecstasy and I felt his thick load pump into me, surging along his cock and filling my insides. That was enough for me and I cried out as his fist pulled the cum from my balls, adding it to the sweat that coated my skin. I fell back, breathless, and he collapsed into my arms, his mouth finding mine for a long, deep kiss.
I don't know how long we lay like that as the sweat dried to salt on our skin, but eventually Dan spoke.
"We should go before the caretaker comes in." It was an unwelcome reminder of reality, and so we reluctantly peeled apart and, with a glance around the shed, we left and made our way back towards the beach.
The fair was dark and still as we walked back through it. In the morning the crews would be dismantling the rides, ready to be loaded onto lorries and taken to the next town. The beach was empty, too, and we lay down together on the sand in the lee of the cliffs at the northern end, sheltered from sight and from the wind. Dan had found another joint half mangled but smoke-able in the bottom of his pocket, and we shared it as we watched the stars slowly spin above us, the moon an air thinned blade, and we talked about the past and about the future.
The tide was on its way out as the sun rose over the cliffs behind us, their shadows shrinking as the bared, wet sand began to shimmer and the gulls began their daily assault on decency. Dan was quiet, his half lidded eyes looking out to a horizon forming from the darkness, becoming a line of blue beneath a narrow bank of white and grey clouds.
"I'll miss this." I said, and then. "I'll miss you." He slowly nodded.
"And I'll miss winding you up." He said, turning to me and landing a kiss on my cheek and a playful punch to my shoulder. It was silly but that small gesture meant a lot.
"I'll be home for Christmas." I said. "Probably."
He looked at me and I could see a hint of sadness in his clear, blue eyes.
"I'll have to save it until then, wont I?" He said and winked.
We parted at the crossroads, the town coming to life around us.
"I'll see you around, Dan." I said, and the look we shared told me that we both knew it was a promise I likely wouldn't keep. He smiled that smile all the same.
"Yeah, whatever, loser." As he turned and walked away he raised his arm behind him, his middle finger raised in my direction. One last fuck you.