The Sins of the Father

by N Fourbois

Chapter 25

Mealtimes in the Lindstrom household had not been happy occasions over the last couple of months. Tonight Magnus tried his best to get the conversation going, particularly as he was bursting to know how Rufus had got on during his weekend in London, not that they could discuss what he really wanted to know with the parents there. The dynamics were all wrong. Carl and Veronica were coldly civil to one another. Hugo, despite being told many times, still had attitude. The latest reason was of course Magnus and Rufus's successful relationship with Michel Ledivin, where he had fouled up from day one, but that was not the only one. He was worried sick about his parents' relationship, as were the other two, but he couldn't deal with it, and as someone who can't deal with a problem usually does, he blamed everybody else. Rufus reluctantly thought it would be a good thing when his brothers did eventually go off to uni, much as he would miss them, but it would simplify things at home and perhaps his mother would finally come to terms with what he was and who he was.

When the meal was over, the boys did their chores and then Rufus disappeared upstairs to unpack his case and sort out his dirty washing. He picked up the olive green tights that Michel had given him. He was dying to try them on, and his new dance belt, but thought better of it and would wait until he was home alone. There was a knock at the door. Magnus put his head round it and said

"Can I come in?"

"You're already in, Mag," intoned Rufus as automatically as night follows day.

"Oh, am I? I suppose I am," he replied. "What's that you've got there? It's a pair of tights. You're not starting taking ballet lessons?"

"Might do, but until I do, I'll wear them for one of our sessions."

"Give me first look, bro. I'm boning up already at the thought. Still, that's not what I'm here for. I'm here to find out everything about your dirty wee… I mean your cultural weekend in London."

Rufus talked him through most of what he had done, the shopping, the London Eye, Swan Lake with the all male cast, the dining, even the page boy in the hotel and the trolley boy on the train, everything in fact apart from the sexual activities he had enjoyed and the intimate relationship with Michel that had grown out them.

"You've told me nothing about your sex life," Magnus protested in the end.

"And how much did you tell me about what you got up to in Newquay? Or Portugal if it comes to that?" Deflated, Magnus admitted he saw his point. "But I will say one thing. The training I undertook with you and Hugo came in very handy. Any road up, what I was about to do was to go through the back copies of GY to see if I could find any of those adverts that Michel appears in. I wouldn't have recognised him probably because I didn't know him at the time."

He started with the latest copy while Magnus looked through an older one.

"Here you are," exclaimed Magnus. "Is that or is that not the Divine Michael?" He showed the page to Rufus.

"Of course. I'd recognise him straightaway, but then I scarcely ever look at the adverts. I must admit he looks like any other clean living young person, like the other four kids in the picture."

"But you know otherwise, don't you, my randy little brother?"

"I said nothing of the sort," blushed Rufus, blurring the line between his face and his hair. "Hey, look at this," he shouted, partly out of amazement, but also to divert attention away from his embarrassment. He started reading from an article which had been reprinted from the Daily Telegraph . "I must have missed this when it appeared in the paper. ' Why the British man stands proud by Stephen Adams: Those lucky enough to call the Land of Hope and Glory their own can boast 5.5 inches erect, according to the research, more than those Down Under (5.2in), or those from the Land of the Free (5.0in). ' Hmm, not sure that's right. I'm about that and looking around the showers at school, I'd say I'm only average… but good average."

"That's the point, drongo," said Magnus. "They're averages. And you're supposed to measure with a ruler along the top, not with a tape measure along the bottom to get a proper reading."

"I do use a ruler."

"Caught you out there, little bro." Rufus ignored him and continued

"And when you read about Americans and see pictures of them, they always seem bigger than us."

"You've reading too many nifty stories, Rufus."

Rufus continued. "' Jelte Wicherts, Professor of Methodology at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, told the Sunday Times that this was a brave paper in a controversial area, but the data had no methodology and should not have been published. ' So it's not worth worrying about anyway."

"To get back to what we were doing, we now know that your trolley boy was right. We'll have to keep our eyes open for more of Michel's work.

The evening at the Lindstroms' continued and since the following day was bank holiday Monday, there was no hurry to go to bed. The twins were the first to go, but they were probably more concerned with fun time than going to sleep. Rufus followed half an hour later after he had watched some television. He'd been watching Outnumbered , not just for the humour and the irony that parents get the sort of children they deserve, but also because he was a devoted fan of Tyger Drew-Honey who played Jake. They were the same age and Rufus felt that he had grown up with him. Jake's broken voice and rare smile sent shivers down his spine and the bulge in his trousers never failed to move him, or his own bulge for that matter.

As he pointed the zapper and switched off the TV set, Rufus felt a sudden lassitude descend upon him. The adrenalin had finally run out and he was running on empty. He said good night to his parents, got a hug from his father and went up to his room. He cleaned his teeth, stripped off all his clothes and climbed under the duvet. The first thing he had to do every night before he could fall asleep was to have a wank. As he lay there his dick stiffened out of habit and he started rubbing it while fingering his crevice with the other hand. However, tonight there was something different, something wrong. He wanted Michel to be there with him. He needed him. Normally his wanking would be aided by a fantasy, say of Jake since he had just been watching him on the television, but all he wanted was Michel's body next to him. He went through the motions, but the feelings refused to intensify, the precum wasn't dripping, even when his fantasy was fully focussed on Michel. In the end he had to give up for his wrist was beginning to ache and his dick was starting to droop. He ran his middle finger over his acorn. Bone dry. He even licked his finger to check. Without an orgasm he was never going to get to sleep. He tried rubbing his dick again, but it was beginning to feel sore. It seemed like an eternity, but he must have fallen asleep eventually. In the morning he awoke late and with a headache, something he rarely suffered. He felt deep down tired. He staggered out of bed, emptied his bladder, grabbed a couple of aspirins which he took with two glasses of water in order to rehydrate himself and went back to bed. He played with his dick and balls for a couple of minutes, but couldn't get stiff. Then he just fell back to sleep.

Rufus woke again to a knock on his bedroom door and Magnus saying

"Can I come in?" Rufus was not up to playing the game. "Are you all right, Rufus? I came in a couple of times, but you were zonked out." At least one member of the family cares about me, he thought.

"I think so. The headache's gone."

"If you want some lunch, you'd better hurry up. Dad's taking us out for a pub lunch. Mum's got too much work and she's going to carry on with it while we're out."

"I wonder if she has," said Rufus, but Magnus pretended not to hear.

Rufus showered and got ready to face the day, but he couldn't summon up any 'hurry'. He eventually emerged downstairs in loose jeans, white polo shirt and trainers, nothing provocative or sexy. He wasn't in the mood. In the pub he sat quietly while the others took part in normal lunchtime conversation. He ordered a bowl of soup and drank mineral water. He couldn't face a full meal.

"What's up with you?" asked his father.

"I think the weekend's caught up with me. I feel washed out." Hugo and Magnus gave each other knowing looks, but Rufus ignored them and Carl appeared not to notice.

When they returned home, Rufus went and lay on the sun lounger in the garden. He fell asleep. Tan lines were the farthest from his thoughts. He finally woke up refreshed. He drank another glass of water and went up to his room, took his mobile off charge and dialled Michel's number. I must put that in the memory, he thought while he was waiting for Michel to answer.

"Hi, Michel. What are you doing?"

«Visiting relations. Hold on a minute. The signal's bad in here. I'll just go outside. **Pause** That's better. I can talk now. What have you been doing? I've been trying to call all morning.»

"Crashed out in bed. I was absolutely knackered after our weekend."

«You deserve to be, you dirty little rabbit. I miss you.»

"Miss you too. When can we meet?"

«I can't make tomorrow. Work all day plus an evening shoot to make up for bank holiday. How about Wednesday evening? Mum's out at WI and we'll have the place to ourselves.»

"That great. See ya there. Six okay?"

«Yeah, that's fine. I'd better get back to the relatives. Luv ya.»

"Luv ya more."

«Aaagh! Don't start that. See ya Wednesday.» Rufus was feeling better already.

When Rufus went to bed that night he was able to perform. There was but a single thought in his mind.

On Thursday school started and so there one or two distractions on Tuesday and Wednesday, such as getting his school uniform together. As a sixth former he wore a dark blue blazer and dark grey trousers. The younger boys wore light blue and light grey. He rang Toby and William and spent the afternoon hanging with them. He told them about his weekend in London and under the threat of an extreme thrashing in the 'dungeon' he made them promise not to tell anybody that he was dating a model. William said that was more an incentive than a threat. He had not lost his tartiness in becoming a sixth former. The three also spent some together on Wednesday. The twins were doing their own thing with their own mates and Rufus needed something to occupy his mind until his evening tryst.

As August turned into September the days remained warm, but the shadows were noticeably longer and less sharp. Early mornings there was already an autumnal nip in the air although the evenings remained warm. The days were also growing shorter and Rufus checked he had his dayglo gear and that the lights on his bike were working as he would be returning in the dark from Michel's place. At half past four he raided the fridge for a snack and then went upstairs to shower. He had already decided on what he was going to wear. It was going to be the first outing for his dance belt to be worn under his severely cut off cut-offs with a tight granddad vest. After the shower he dressed himself extremely carefully. First of all, the dance belt with a fastidious arrangement of his bits and pieces. It held them tight. The thong back was a little uncomfortable to begin with, but he found that if he crouched with his knees spread out as if sitting on a chair that wasn't there, the thong back adjusted itself and in fact felt quite exhilarating. There followed the vest and then the cut-offs and he was wowed by his own appearance in a way it had never wowed him before. The tightness of the dance belt with its carefully packed contents and the tightness of the cut-offs combined to give him such a bulge as he had never sported before. He could have fallen in love with himself there and then, had he not been in love with Michel.

Rufus took his bike and cycled across town for twenty minutes until he reached Michel's house. Mrs Dwight was just leaving for her WI meeting and she greeted Rufus, complimenting him on his appearance.

"I'll be back by nine, Michael, and don't forget the snack I set out in the kitchen for you. I know how hungry you boys get and I shall be cross if good food gets wasted."

"Okay, Mum. Have a good time," and Michel bounded down the steps and greeted his new boyfriend with a hug and a peck on the cheek in the street in full view of the neighbours. He was past caring and since he had made a name for himself modelling it no longer seemed to matter to the locals if he was the only gay in the street.

They went up to Michel's room, after making Rufus's cycle secure, and Rufus told him about the bad night he'd had.

"Well, we'd better do something about that then." Rufus smiled radiantly.

"There's something I want to ask you, especially now we're together. What do you want me to call you? I call you Michel because that's what our mother told us to call you at work, but your mother calls you Michael. Which do you prefer?"

"I don't mind, though I prefer Mike to Michael, except from my mother strangely. Who do you think of me as?"

"Well, Michel I suppose," said Rufus.

"Then that's it. Michel obviously fits your image of me and you're comfortable with it, but if you want to call me Mike when we're alone, go ahead. Let's see what you call me when we're making love."