The Apprentice

by and © N Fourbois

Chapter 4

Kieran opened his door and tiptoed across the hallway and peered into his uncle's room. He was fast asleep. He tiptoed up to the bed, confirmed in his own mind the decision he had made, pulled back the duvet, climbed in, covered himself and snuggled up to his uncle's body. He could feel Eric's hard cock against his thighs. He wanted to play with it, but controlled himself. He didn't have permission to be there, let alone take advantage of his uncle while deep in slumber. Eric didn't move. As Kieran lay there he replayed the decision making process in his mind. 'Okay, if I'm going to be gay, I want to be gay properly. Eric's going to have to teach me the tricks of the trade. I know I can go to places on the internet, but that's not the same. I need the personal touch. He grinned as he thought of the personal touch. I want to be taught properly. I want to be trained, otherwise I could simply go to the public library and take out Teach Yourself Homosexuality. It was three in the morning and those were his final thoughts that night.

Eric's mind may have been asleep, but his body was far from it. Under the duvet he was sweltering. He wriggled around. Every time he threw the duvet off it mysteriously covered him again. Finally as the grey of the dawn penetrated the curtains he awoke exhausted despite the hours of uninterrupted sleep and as consciousness returned he realised what the source of this superfluous heat had been. A body was lying next to him. He couldn't remember going out last night, let alone bringing anyone home. What day was it? Tuesday, that's right. Yesterday had been Monday and that was gym night. Fine so far. Then as his brain started to function he recalled the events of the previous day, his nephew's suspension from school and how he had brought him back to the flat so that he didn't have to spend the night alone in his parents' house. Then he was horrified to find the teenager in bed with him. He was sure he hadn't been there when he went to bed. He hadn't... ? The unthinkable occurred to him. OMG! He hadn't penetrated his virgin arse in his sleep? His hard cock had certainly been pressing against the boy's buttocks when he woke. He peeled back the duvet and was relieved to see that Kieran was wearing shorts, the same white shorts he had worn to the gym and they appeared in place, tight as they were over his nether parts. If he had been guilty of... he couldn't bring himself to think of the word, but finally he uttered it under his breath... incest... the game the whole family can play, the frivolous part of his brain completed. Uncle and nephew, is that incest? The table of kindred forbade a man from marriage to his sister's daughter, but of course it wouldn't mention a son and it was all to do with the gene pool for any eventual children anyway. For heaven's sake! Why was he worrying about this now? It was a quarter to seven in the morning.

The panic attack subsided. Eric got out of bed and replaced the duvet over his sleeping nephew, went to shave and shower and came back to get dressed. He pulled a clean AussieBum slip out of his underclothes drawer. He liked them for comfort, the way they held and displayed his genitals and kept them under control whenever he was aroused at the wrong time. They were expensive compared to home brands, but everyone deserved a little bit of luxury in life and they certainly impressed his house guests. He took a clean shirt off the hanger and put on the trousers of his working suit. Kieran was still asleep and Eric thought it best to leave him so.

He tipped some muesli into a bowl, poured some milk over it and let it soak while he went to see if the daily newspaper had arrived. On his return to the kitchen he saw Kieran standing there, stark naked. He was no longer wearing his shorts. Something happened to Eric. He went into a trancelike state and just stared at his nephew.

"You know, Kieran, you are really incredibly good looking. I don't think I have ever looked at you naked properly before, not even at that age when your mother would have had you stretched out on a bearskin rug for the photographer." Eric scanned his nephew from top to bottom, taking in his straight black hair, tousled as it was, his oval, but basically happy face, with its blue eyes and snubbed nose. He always found a snubbed nose attracted him. His eyes reached Kieran's chest. His nipples were compact and the dark colour contrasted with his light skin. No hair on his chest. His pecs were hard, but underdeveloped - no flab there. He could see traces of the stomach muscles beginning to show. A little gym work needed there, thought Eric. Next his tummy button, invisible as a deep innie, the lower abdomen flat and sporting the two main blood vessels that went up the body, then the slight makings of a treasure trail, leading of course to the treasure itself, surmounted by a tuft of thick black, tightly curled pubic hair with light patches where last night's semen had dried. The treasure itself was an uncut cock noted more for its thickness than its length and just the indication of the peehole at the end of his foreskin. His weapon lay on top of a tight scrotum packed with two large and distinct testicles, which made it poke forward, dick and scrotum hairless. His legs were strong, long and hairless.

"Uncle Eric?" He was suddenly brought back out of his reverie to the here and now. "What are you looking at?"

"You, my boy," answered Eric, now back in control of his faculties. "I never realised how beautiful you are. Has anyone ever told you that?"

"Only Mum."

"Your mother doesn't count. You'll do some man proud one day." Kieran blushed.

"I'll give you a twirl." As he did, Eric admired his tight little butt.

"Go on, you little tart. You'd better get showered and dressed before I start molesting you. What do you want for breakfast?"

"I bet you say that to all the boys," answered Kieran cheekily.

"What?"

"What do you want for breakfast?"

"Bugger off," Eric said with a laugh.

As he was finishing his breakfast, Kieran returned dressed in 501s and tee shirt, and bare footed. Eric's eyes immediately sought out his package, emphasised by the tightly belted, well washed jeans.

"Cereal, milk, toast, tea or coffee. Orange juice in the fridge. If you want anything cooked, you'll have to give me notice so that we can buy it in. Which reminds me. The Sainsbury's run tonight if we're not going to starve. I've only got supplies for one."

"Uncle Eric..." The 'uncle' bit told him something serious was about to come up. "I want to ask you something. It's a bit of a favour really, but I need to discuss it with you."

"How long is it going to take? I have to be at work by half past eight."

"I'll tell you what it is and perhaps we could talk about it this evening."

"Before you do, have you got enough money for lunch?"

"Yes, I've got food at home I need to eat up before it reaches its best before date."

"Okay. Now what's this question?"

"Yesterday I crossed the Rubicon."

"They must have taught you something at St Sergius's."

"GCSE classical civilisation. I couldn't sleep last night and I spent a lot of time thinking."

"Is that why you ended up in my bed?"

"Partly, yes. When I came out yesterday, I was serious. There's no going back. I know it's not going to be easy, but it's what I want." Eric looked at his watch. "Sorry, Eric. I want you to teach me how to be gay, teach me everything I need to know to be safe, to be a good lover... you know... everything."

"That's a tall order. Where do I begin? Look, I've got to go or I'll be in trouble. We'll talk this evening. I might even have some ideas by then."

"Eric, I want to do an apprenticeship in being gay."

Luckily for Eric there was a lot of stopping and starting on the way to the office because his nephew's last words of 'Eric, I want to do an apprenticeship in being gay' reverberated in his ears and round his head, especially when he was waiting in traffic queues. Indeed it was quite a distraction. He liked the idea, but there must be ramifications. Where did he begin? More important, how did he begin. What did he teach him? An apprenticeship is largely practical with a certain amount of theory. Apprenticeships lasted from three to seven years. At the end there would be test pieces - practical final examinations - what would happen there? Was he taking the word apprenticeship too literally? But then it was the one Kieran had chosen and, he remembered, after a great deal of thought. A sudden beep of a horn brought Eric back to reality. He was rolling backwards towards the car behind because he had forgotten to apply the handbrake.

He parked up in the office car park and took the lift to his office, said good morning to his secretary (shared), booted up his computer and went back to find out from his secretary what needed to be done. Thank goodness, he had no meetings today. He could get on with his work uninterrupted. Wrong. Uninterrupted was correct; it was the getting on with his work that was the problem. So much had happened over the last twenty-four hours and looked like continuing to happen. Eric coped until coffee break. Colleen must have been psychic for she waited until then to telephone him.

"Yes, Kieran was all right. ... No, he'd had a restless night. ... I'm waiting to hear from the school," he lied. He had completely forgotten to ring them to arrange some work for him. "No, he seems fully at ease about coming out. He's asked me to give him some advice about it and what to do next." He didn't mention the apprentice word. Colleen was hundreds of miles away, there was nothing she could do about it and he did not want her to break off her trip and fly home. He had everything under control - at least as far as his sister was concerned he had. The last thing he wanted, and Kieran needed, was to have her flapping around at this most sensitive time in the boy's life. "Yes, I've got enough money to look after him for the moment. ... Yes, I'll let you know if I need any more and I'll keep an account of the money I spend on him. ... No, Sis, I am a chartered accountant, after all. ... Just enjoy your time away and stop worrying. ... Take my word for it. When a young boy's going through an intense homosexual phase, he is at his most sensitive and the last thing he wants is a woman interfering. ... Yes, I know you're his mother and you're bound to worry, but if anything's going to go wrong - and it won't - it's going to be at least twenty-four hours before you can do anything about it. ... No, he'll be sleeping at my place during the week and we're living at yours over the weekend. ... Yes, I'll use the blue spare room since the bed's made up. ... Okay, so he doesn't need to be taught how to use the washing machine and the dishwasher. ... Okay, Sis, I've got to go now. I've got to get on with my work. ... Love to you," and he put the phone down.

"Phew," he said to himself and took a sip of his coffee. "Ugh! It's cold. That's two days running."

"Everything okay, Mr Blanchflower?" That was Sharon, his secretary (shared).

"Yes, thanks. I mean no. My coffee's cold for a start."

"I'll go and put it in the micro for you."

"You couldn't make me a fresh one, could you?" Eric put his most pleading look on his face. He sat down at his desk again and stared at a space three feet beyond his computer screen, ignoring the graphic of Nemo swimming round his aquarium. Sharon brought in his coffee. He drank it, hot at last, got up from his chair decisively and went to knock on his boss's door, dropping his coffee mug into the kitchen on the way.

"Come in." Eric went in and his boss asked him to sit down. "What can I do for you?" Eric explained the relevant bits of what had happened over the last day, said he was unable to concentrate on his work until he had come to some sort of solution and asked if he could have half a day out of his holiday leave. His boss was a good judge and manager of people and answered "I don't think the company is going to get the best out of you the state you are in today. Do what you have to do and take the rest of the day off. In this instance we won't call it holiday, but compassionate leave. But don't make a habit of having nephew's kicked out of school."

"It's okay. He's the only nephew I've got... so far. Thanks a lot."

He went and explained to Sharon what had happened, then went back into his office, telephoned the school to ask for some work for Kieran, receiving rather a frosty reception when he did, and said he would send Kieran in to pick it up at three the next day, which didn't go down well at all.

"Couldn't you collect it for him? He is not supposed to enter the premises."

"I'm sorry, but I have to work for my living. Kieran's free all day, remember?" Eric had lost patience.

He signed out at eleven o'clock, went down to the car park and motored home. He was relieved to find that Kieran wasn't there. He wanted some time on his own. He phoned his home, found he was there, brought him up to speed about the morning's events and said he wanted him home at three, unless they were going to starve for the rest of the week, but not before as he had some thinking to do and wanted to do it on his own. Eric put the phone down, made himself a snack and went and sat down in his armchair in the living room. He switched the wireless on, Classic FM, but then realised it was playing the last movement of Sibelius's Fifth Symphony, the only movement of it they ever played and which he could not abide, especially the exaggerated ending. With all the music in the world why did they have to play certain pieces, and this one in particular, to death? He resorted to the CD player, nibbled in a girly way at his snack and started to think. Snack over, he put the chair into relax mode and went into a trance. To all appearances he was asleep, except that he had his eyes open, but that was the way he thought things through. Finally he got down to scribbling some notes until he heard a key being turned in the latch and Kieran appeared in the living room dead on three o'clock.