I wanted Justin’s first time to be gratifying; something he’d remember positively, or at least, something he’d want to remember at all. At 16, I had lost my virginity to a man more than twenty years my senior, who hadn’t seemed to care or even acknowledge that I was actually another human being, let alone a virgin. That painful, humiliating experience almost turned me off sex for life; something I wanted to spare my golden boy of at all costs. I knew instinctively that my boy was a virgin. In the world in which he was currently living, comprised entirely of young men, where the air pulsed with testosterone and the soldiers were plied with endless supplies of condoms (“Put it on before you put it in…”), it was inevitable that Justin had heard about every imaginable type of sex- hetero or homo- that there was. But I was sure he’d never tried it. He was still pure, innocent, untouched…qualities that made him more intoxicatingly desirably than ever. I had never gone this far with any of the others, and to be honest, had never wanted to. But I wanted Justin; more so than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. As if I were a horny teenager again, I found myself dreaming up erotic fantasies with him as the main subject, and imagined my golden boy was probably doing the same thing. At first, it had troubled me that I felt such enormous deep desire for a boy I’d only met twice, and I wondered if I was moving things along too quickly; if either of us were ready to take this step. But then I remembered what Justin had told me, and what he had suffered so dearly for. This world was too small, and our mortal lives too short, for anything but love. ~~~ November 16th, 1944 ‘Little Grubsttip’, Syracuse, Italy ~~~ By 12:30am, I had convinced myself that Justin was either dead or dying. The plan had seemed so simple, so ingenious at the time. I would have my golden boy to myself for a whole night; hours and hours in which to spend in that miraculous parallel world the two of us had created. But just as love was blind, it had a tendency to blind the lover as well, and being blind in this day and age was as good as being dead. I had been ordered north to Catania to rendezvous with officers from the ex-German stronghold in Taormina. On my way back to Syracuse, I’d arranged to stop for the night at the abandoned cottage thirty miles north of base camp, which I had long ago claimed for myself, christening it ‘Little Grubsttip’. Justin, on a free reign during his completely coincidental two days leave, would surreptitiously join me there for a night before I returned to the camp a day before him. The plan was completely safe, inconspicuous and fool-proof. Or so we thought. Little Grubsttip was a tiny, ramshackle, one-roomed cottage in the middle of nowhere that had been abandoned at the war’s inception. The sole furnishings were a bed, a wood-burning stove, a table, two wooden chairs, and a water pump around the back. I’d discovered it three days after arriving in Sicily, and had instantly fallen in love with it, fixing it up as best I could with whatever I could lay my hands on. It was a far cry from my expensive digs back in Pitts, but Little Grubsttip, as the poorly disguised name suggested, was like a tiny comforting piece of home. I’d had no direct contact with Justin since our last encounter, so I’d communicated the plan and the directions to Grubsttip in a note which I’d manage to pass him underhandedly. He’d been superb, and hadn’t even raised an eyebrow as I stuffed the small piece of paper into his fist. I had factored in a few hours either way of his calculated arrival time of late afternoon, but when darkness fell I grew very uneasy, then extremely worried. I realized I had vastly underestimated the pitfalls and dangers associated with the plan. The Sloper I’d instructed him to take belonged to me, and the motorbike had never broken down before…but there was always a first time. Quite aside from that, the boy had never actually ridden a motorbike before; in dusky darkness, an accident was almost inevitable. The ghastly image of Justin lying isolated, helpless in a ditch with broken limbs and horrible burns kept flashing distressingly through my mind. The back roads I’d told him to come by were always deserted, all the sign posts blacked out. Even if he didn’t have an accident, he could so easily get hopelessly lost and disorientated in the darkness. And what, God forbid, if there were still land mines planted along that route? As if nature was pitted against us, the wind began to pick up and by ten, it had become a howling gale. By eleven, it had evolved into a roaring storm with flashing lightning, deafening claps of thunder, and rain and hail that pelted to earth in icy curtains. By the time midnight rolled around, I was in a blind panic. I was so terrified I’d considered driving along the muddy, pot-marked roads in search of him. But the wretched headlights of the Ford GPW had long ago been smashed out, and without them the darkness would be as black as pitch. It would be utterly useless…I’d have to wait until first light. I was standing just under the portico, staring hopelessly into the inky blackness, when I heard the distant far off drone of an engine. Not daring to believe it wasn’t an auto hallucination, I threw on my oilskin jacket, seized the torch I’d found in the Ford’s tool box, and sprinted off into the darkness in the direction of the sound. Eerily, the sound seemed to get further away no matter which direction I went in, as if were always coming from the place I had just left. I went back to the cottage, but still found that the drone, which was real and getting louder, was coming from no direction in particular. It wasn’t until I saw the glow of a single headlamp, its circle of elimination less than two feet in diameter, that I knew I was not going insane. Relieved, but still terrified it wouldn’t be him, I ran towards the approaching light, shining the torch’s powerful beam full in the face of the Sloper’s rider. The person squinted and shielded their eyes against the brightness, but not before I’d seen the distinctive blue irises. “Jesus H. Christ!” I exploded, almost faint with relief as I pulled Justin unceremoniously off the bike and into my arms, “You scared the living fucking daylights out of me! What the fuck took you so goddamn long?!” I was apoplectic with fury at him for giving me such a turn, but when I seized his shoulders and peered agitatedly into his face, I saw that he looked quite as petrified as I felt. He was ghostly pale, sopping wet and shaking violently from either cold, shock or both. The hours he must have spent on the bike had left his legs weak and wobbly and I had to wrap an arm around his waist to keep him upright. “I’m s-so s-sorry, Br-ian.” He gasped, clutching weakly at the fabric of the oilskin. His teeth were chattering so badly it made his mumbling almost incoherent. “There br-ridge ‘cross the r-river was blown out. I tried t-to find another one f-further up, b-but there wa-wasn’t one. I had to f-ford miles and m-miles upstream where it w-was s-shallower. I g-got lost in t-the dark and the r-rain.” His put his freezing cold, trembling hands up to my face as if to make sure I wasn’t some kind of apparition. He was so wet it looked like he’d just climbed out of the swimming hole, the ash gold hair under his aviator cap plastered to his forehead. I pulled him against me and hugged him ferociously, feeling more relived than I ever had in my life, the guilt of knowing what I’d put him through searing into my conscience like corrosive acid. “I w-was s-so scared I w-wouldn’t find you.” He chattered weakly. “There was n-nothing to guide m-me…but it w-was like I c-could hear you c-calling me on.” That was either incredibly touching, or extremely disturbing. Not stopping to decide which of the two it was, I picked my boy up in my arms as his legs buckled under him, and carried him into the warmth and sanctity of Little Grubsttip; a resting place for our wandering hearts. ~~~ Forty Minutes Later I’d never believed in destiny or fate…but before Justin, I hadn’t really believed in anything except survival. After I’d peeled off his sodden clothes, seen to his ravenous hunger, and given him hot water and brandy to drink, Justin’s teeth had stopped chattering, although he continued to shiver. His skin was cool to the touch, his lips a delicate shade of lavender. Afraid he may have developed hypothermia, I took him to the bed, wrapped him in the quilt, and told him to wait; I’d come to him in a few minutes. But it was he who came to me. I felt his eyes on me suddenly as I was rearranging sopping wet garments in front of the crackling stove fire in order to dry them. I hadn’t heard him stirring over the sound of the rain pounding on the roof and the wind rattling the window panes, but his gaze seemed to have some physical quality that was actually palpable. I turned, looking over towards the bed where I had left him fifteen minutes before. The room was dark, lit only by the glow of the stove and a single hurricane lantern, but I could see he wasn’t there. Twisting around further, I saw him standing in the shadows of the opposite corner, naked, his white skin making him look transparent, his eyes glowing and fixed on me. Had I not known otherwise, I would have sworn I was seeing a ghost. The allusion was eerie and unsettling. “Justin.” I called to him, trying to keep the unease out of my voice. He moved out of the shadows and into the glow of the lamp, dissipating the disturbing image, the ghost morphing into an angel once again. I had removed my own damp clothes in order to dry them, and I realized as I gazed back into the boy’s uncertain, lust-filled eyes, that this was the first time he’d seen me naked. He approached me slowly, timidly, but almost seductively, and it was not difficult to see just how aroused he was. I stood my ground, holding my breath, waiting to see what he would do. When he was an arm length from me, he put out a hand and brushed the back of it gently against my midriff. It sent sparks of energy surging through my body and I had to fight the urge to seize him and possess him with my mouth and hands. It felt as if it ought to be silent in the room, and despite the pounding rain, howling wind and cracking fire, I thought I could hear our hearts beating. Slowly, he got to him knees and reached out to lay his hands so softly against my hips it felt like silk brushing against my skin. He looked up at me then, as if asking for permission, and I granted it by cradling his head in my hands and running my fingers through the soft, wet strands of saffron gold hair. He gently took the tip of my cock between his lips, copying what I had done to him twice before. He leaned forward slowly, drawing me into the soft warmth of his mouth, sucking gently and twirling his tongue around the shaft. He continued doing this, taking me into his mouth a little bit at a time, making me shiver involuntarily. To say he was a natural would be an vast understatement. The kid was a goddamn prodigy. He was so fucking beautiful in that glowing, flickering light I couldn’t take my eyes off him; his eyes closed and the fair lashes fluttering, his full lips wet and shimmering crimson, the ivory of his skin and ash gold of his hair contrasting with my own deep gold-coloured skin. I descended into a hazy, blissful trance of orgasmic euphoria, but was pulled from it abruptly when Justin gagged. “Gently,” I chided softly, taking a firmer grip on the sides of his face, stroking his temples with my thumbs. “Relax your throat and keep swallowing…that’s a good boy.” Holding his head steady, I slid my cock further into his mouth, pushing it to the back of his throat as he swallowed around me. The sensations were delicious, like tiny pin pricks of fire making their way up the insides of my legs, wrists and fingertips. I tried to draw it out, but my orgasm escalated rapidly, taking me by surprise. I jerked Justin away by the hair, knowing I hadn’t warned him and not wanting him to make him choke. Justin shook his head free of my grasp and took me in his mouth again to swallow the fruit of his labour. As I was shuddering with the aftershocks, I felt Justin put his arms around my waist, and tuck his head into the crook of my leg, his eyelashes fluttering softly against my skin like the wings of butterflies. I tangled my fingers in his hair, stroking his face and neck, impressing upon him my gratification and approval. I waited a minute or two to regain my composure, and then, before he could think to get up, I moved abruptly, pivoting around him and coming to kneel directly behind him, nudging my knees between his and pinioning his ankles to the floor with my feet. I wrapped both arms around him and pulled him flush against my chest, forcing him to sit back on my thighs. Keeping one arm wrapped tightly across his chest, pinning his arms to his sides, I began to stroke his hard-on very slowly and rhythmically with my free hand. He whimpered and tried to trust upwards, but his current position didn’t allow for that kind of movement. “Gently,” I whispered to him again, pressing my mouth against his ear. “Good things come to little boys who wait.” “Brian…please…” he begged, trying to surge upwards again. I tightened my hold on him to show him I was serious about making him wait. I trailed a line of kisses up his neck and then placed one in the hollow behind his ear. He arched his neck back and I took advantage of the position to lick and nip at the skin of his throat. “Brian…Oh God…” He was gyrating and pressing back against my body in a way that made me want to cum all over again. This boy, my golden boy, was more than perfect; he was perfection personified. I desperately wanted to be inside him at that moment, but I reminded myself of what I’d promised to give him. It did not involve losing his virginity on a wooden floor at one in the morning because I couldn’t control myself. “You like this, don’t you, Sunshine?” I asked softly and, feeling that he was climaxing, beginning to increase the speed and pressure of the stroking. He gasped something incomprehensible and nodded jerkily. “Would you like me to fuck you, my golden boy?” The words sent him over the edge and he came hard into my hand with a series of violent shudders, uttering what sounded like dry sobs. He went limp, and I turned him bodily in my arms to straddle me, holding him against my chest as he rode out the aftershocks. He put his arms around my neck and pressed his face in against my throat, his breath hitching as he struggled to get oxygen into his lungs. I stroked his back soothingly until his breathing returned to normal and the twitching stopped. I felt him lying soft butterfly kissing along the side of my throat and groaned softly for him. I managed to stand up with him still clinging to me, and carried him back over to the bed. I put him down on it and climbed on myself, gathering the quilt about me as I did so. I pulled Justin onto my lap and wrapped the quilt tightly around us both so we were cocooned in each other’s warmth. His was making a visible effort to keep his eyes open, and kept shifting in my arms in an attempt to stay awake. I was impressed; sexual play was exhausting enough on its own, but when it came after nine hours of intense gut-wrenching terror and near hypothermia, I was surprised he hadn’t passed out cold. “Go to sleep,” I whispered into his hair, tightening my arms about him to still his movement. He shook his head weakly against my shoulder. “No…I don’t want to waste any of the time I have with you…I don’t want to miss anything.” “Sleep now, Sunshine,” I insisted, watching him rapidly losing the battle against exhaustion. I kissed his face tenderly, something I’d never done to anyone before. “I’ll be here when you wake up, I promise.” “Brian?” he mumbled sleepily, one foot already in the dream world and the other following close behind. “Tomorrow…will you…show…me…” I put a finger on his lips and his words trailed off as he slipped out of the conscious world and into sleep. I knew what he wanted me to show him, and it sent rivers of brilliant sparks flowing through me. He wanted me; he wanted to give himself to me, just as desperately as I wanted to have him. Tomorrow. I would take him tomorrow. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the head board of the rickety old bed, thinking that I’d rather live one day in this world than a life time in the one that ran parallel to it. One day, I thought, perhaps that other world would disappear and my golden boy and I could live together without fear of retribution or death. Perhaps… But until then, such a desperate hope, such an impossible wish, would have to remain in the dimension in which it currently resided, for however long it took for the world to open its eyes. “Sleep, my golden boy,” I whispered to the sleeping form in my arms. “Sleep, and I’ll see you in our dreams.”