Scandinal - Preview

So … there I was, sitting on the window seat drinking my punch, minding my own business and watching everybody having fun at my own birthday party, when I realised there was someone next to me. I turned to look at the person sharing my hiding place and nearly spilt my drink … he was probably the best-looking boy I’d ever seen in my entire, recently-achieved seventeen years. Short, spiky blonde hair, the bluest of blue eyes twinkling above an engaging smile and flawless features … that merely began to describe him. He was about as different from me as you could get, considering my dark complexion and almost black eyes – Dad always teasingly claimed Mum must have had an affair with a Spanish Gypsy, which is why my middle name’s Pedro; David Pedro Ormesby – probably one of the dafter names I’ve come across, but nevertheless all mine.

Anyway … I was gawking at this little guy, when he leans across and sniffs me!

‘You smell beautiful.’ He smiled like an angel when he said it, but it didn’t stop my jaw sagging as he tilted his head impishly. ‘Would you like to have sex with me?’

That was when I dropped my drink on Mum’s new carpet. Luckily she’d had the presence of mind to make the punch out of white wine and other fairly colourless things, but her cry of anguish from the other side of the room would’ve convinced anyone not actually there that I’d coated the entire floor in black ink, then stamped in a nice pattern with hobnail boots.

‘David! Oh, for …’

She didn’t scream anything more but fled into the kitchen for mopping-up cloths, buckets and sponges … fairly pointless really, because by the time she’d returned laden with sundry cleansing accoutrements, Brasso’d long since hoovered up anything solid and was doing a damn good job of sucking the liquid from the depths of the pile. I probably don’t have to mention that Brasso’s the dog – a slightly overweight, three-year-old golden retriever with a fifty-decibel bark, huge balls, an indefatigable appetite and absolutely no brains. We all love him, naturally … until he decides to go for a swim in one of the two fish ponds … though I have to admit he usually seems to prefer the livestock troughs.

The ‘we’ I refer to are Mum and Dad; Johnny, my younger but much larger brother; Jeff, my older but tiresome brother and Susan, my infuriatingly sensible and nearly married sister who is the oldest of the brood. We also have various other animals besides Brasso … but I digress …

By the time I’d dodged all the flying legs to retrieve the glass from where it’d come to rest under the telly, the boy I’d been sniffed by had vanished. I took the glass into the kitchen to defluff it which was an error, because I was promptly collared by my still irate mother.

‘Just two days laid …’ Hands on ample hips and an expression that spoke a few volumes louder than the dance music. ‘… I’ve a good mind to make you pay for steam cleaning.’

‘Out of my allowance?’ I knew she was kidding but played along. ‘You must be joking! Does that mean you’re going to get Dad to increase it?’

‘Two chances, my clumsy child … fat and Buckley’s.’

‘In that case … Holy …!’

I stopped abruptly because the blond boy was leaning against the staircase on the other side of the lounge-room, staring straight at me with that smile playing on his lips again … but it wasn’t the smile which punched me in the stomach, but the fact that he either didn’t like underpants or couldn’t find a pair big enough.

‘Ah …’ My mother’d noticed where my eyes were goggling. ‘Yes … he’s causing quite a stir one way or another.’ A thoughtful look narrowed her widened eyes. ‘Who is he, do you know?’

‘Not a clue.’

‘Your Aunt Grace can’t keep her eyes off him.’

‘That’d be right … but actually, I don’t think Aunt Grace is what he’s after.’ Mum’s eyebrows prompted me onward. ‘He’s the reason I dumped my drink on your new carpet.’

‘I’m not surprised. That would be a cucumber he’s got down his pants, don’t you think?’

‘I doubt it … and the more I think about it, the scareder I get. He … he asked me if I wanted to have sex with him.’

‘What?’

It was a very short explosion as explosions go, but left me in no doubt as to just how shocked Mum was. I had to grin at the expressions which chased each other across her face.

‘Ye gods … I hope you said no!’

‘I didn’t say anything, actually; I think my tongue was busy strangling my tonsils at the time. Mind you, he was sitting down so I didn’t exactly see what he was offering!’

‘That’s not an offering dear; it’s clearly an instrument of torture.’

‘Whatever. You must admit he’s very statuesque.’

‘He’s not, you know … he’s gone again.’

Mum was right; the well-endowed angel was nowhere to be seen.

I knew I shouldn’t have got another punch and sitting back on the window seat was probably unwise as well, but at least I didn’t drop my bundle this time.

‘Your name is David, isn’t it.’

How he’d done it, I haven’t the faintest; one second I was refusing yet another kind, but ill-advised invitation to demonstrate my two left feet to all the other dancers and the next he was sitting beside me again. He had an accent I couldn’t place; his esses hissed a bit and his consonants were clipped but his voice was soft and musical, a little bit husky. Listening to him talk was easy; it was listening to what he said that was the difficult bit.

‘My name is Lochie. I still think you smell beautiful.’

I took a frantic swallow of punch to generate thinking time and nearly choked to death on a grape. My recent acquaintance clucked in sympathy as he thumped me enthusiastically on the back, soon dislodging the recalcitrant piece of fruit into my hand. I gaped in horror as he plucked it off my palm and tossed it into his own mouth, gave it a couple of chews and swallowed it.

‘Mmmmm; you taste beautiful too. Have you decided yet?’

‘De …’ gulp, ‘… cided?’

‘If you want to have sex with me, remember?’

‘I … but …’

It was ridiculous. I’d been rendered totally incoherent by a small boy in a very revealing, white pants suit. At least … from the waist up he looked like a small boy. From the waist down he looked more like a milking stool. I should have just got up and walked away I suppose, but for some reason I didn’t. It might have been due to the fact that my own dick was making an uncomfortable attempt to expand into a nonexistent space, which was a little disconcerting because it showed he was having an effect on me that I’d never experienced before and moreover, it would have meant making my own prominent statement as I fled across the room.

Besides; there was something about him which froze me solid where I was. Maybe it was the thing with the grape that intrigued me but the thought of what he obviously sported between his legs both fascinated and frightened me as well … I wanted to see it, but at the same time I was shaking inside.

Jeff knows I’m gay. Well; he knows I think I am, because I’ve never … you know … done anything. I’ve never even seen him naked, though I suppose I’ve had ample opportunity if I’d wanted to. I’ve seen Johnny starkers, but then haven’t we all, the big show-off. Mind you; one sighting of what Lochie had to offer and my quite-well-endowed little brother would probably never take his clothes off again. Susan knows too; about me I mean. She’s older than me by four years. She and her fiancé Wally caught me bawling my eyes out one day as I wrestled with it and sort of wheedled it out of me. Wally’s okay; his real name’s Wilfred, but he hates it and I can’t say I blame him.

I haven’t had the guts to tell Mum and Dad yet and despite being almost six foot eight, Johnny’s only fourteen, so I doubt my esteemed parents would be too chuffed about me telling him either. He habitually goes around wearing a frown for some reason or other, though privately I think his biggest problem is an excess of earwax.

‘Lochie … it sounds Celtic. Is it Scottish?’ I’d eventually hit upon a way of avoiding his embarrassing questions – ask him one of my own.

‘No … it is more … Scandinavian.’ A playful smile accompanied the answer but he didn’t elaborate, so I was left floundering again. Then to my relief I spotted Mum beckoning furtively in my direction from the kitchen doorway.

‘Sorry … I have to go.’

Extremely thankful my dick had decided to deflate, I gave him a weak smile and worked my way through the gyrating throng to see what Mum wanted … not that I desperately needed to know; I was just relieved to be rescued from my rather over-persistent suitor.

‘I’ve asked a number of likelies …’ She gestured to me to follow her around the breakfast bar for a clandestine whisper by the fridge, ‘… and nobody knows who he is.’

‘You think he’s a gatecrasher, then?’

‘It looks like it.’ She gave a little giggle. ‘Or maybe he’s a professional centre-piece.’

‘Well I certainly didn’t hire him!’

‘Did you get his name at all?’

‘Only the first bit; it’s Lochie.’

Her eyebrows rose again. ‘Unusual … probably short for Lachlan. Is he Scottish?’

‘That’s what I thought, but he says he’s Scandinavian.’

‘Ah! That probably explains it, then.’

‘Explains what?’

Mum has an oblique way of expressing herself and often needs to be pushed.

‘Why he’s so … uninhibited; he’s probably Swedish.’

‘He asked me again … to have sex with him.’

‘Are you going to?’

‘Mu … um!’

‘Well … you could do worse, what with you being gay and all.’

I wriggled redly for a moment or two as the grin spread over her face.

‘Who told you? Was it Jeff?’

‘No dear, and it wasn’t Susan or Johnny, either.’

‘Who then?’

‘You did dear. Just then.’

‘Shit.’ I fought back tears of relief as years of bottled-up tension suddenly released.

‘You mean merde, my love.’ She gave me a shoulder-cuddle. ‘It always sounds better in French.’

‘Merde, then,’ I grinned, rather stickily. ‘Did you know … before, I mean?’

‘I wondered; but then I think most parents would … when their sixteen-year-old shows no interest in girls but still manages to go through a box of king-size tissues a week.’ She grinned at my confusion and ruffled my hair.

‘How about Dad. Does he know too?’

‘Knowing your father, I’d say probably, but you’re going to have to find out for yourself.’ She frowned as a thought occurred. ‘Though I think I …’

She broke off as Uncle Harvey shuffled into the kitchen, looking for a beer. He’s well over sixty and a little unsteady on his feet so I fished a can out of the ice in the sink for him, suffering the rather heavy-handed pat on the shoulder he always gives me.

‘Seen Gracie, Flo?’

‘Not recently dear, but the last time I did she was heading for the garden.’

He nodded as I handed him the opened can while dodging another pat, then toddled out through the back door, presumably in search of his wife. Under the circumstances I thought it was a damn good idea and followed him into the garden … not that Lochie didn’t occupy all my thoughts right at that moment … it was just too turmoily to think about it. I mean … all I had to do was go in and say ‘yes’ and for all I knew, I could be massively devirginised within seconds. Visions of complicated rectal surgery and a month of having to lie on my stomach gradually faded as I tried to forget about my suitor, until sounds of raised voices drove him out of my mind quite neatly.

As I neared the orchard, the argument resolved itself into Uncle Harvey and Aunt Grace having yet another spat, my esteemed Uncle breaking off to hobble away, muttering not too sub-vocally about ‘people snooping’ when he noticed me approaching – not that I was going to interfere or anything; I just wanted to be alone among the trees for a bit. It being spring, they were in full bloom at present and all you had to do was bump one and you got a twinkling shower of pink or white petals. The grass was carpeted in them too, so the whole place was dreamily tranquil, with clumps of bluebells vying for shouting-space with rafts of primroses. I particularly liked it at this time of year as opposed to winter, when the gnarled branches of the old fruit trees took on a sinister, forbidding aspect, especially at night. As a child I’d been rather terrified of the orchard on a winter’s evening and never went anywhere near it, fearing the banshees would get me – though why I’d imagined there might be banshees in an English orchard, I’d never quite worked out.

This evening however, the scent of blossom filled the air as nature’s confetti shook itself from the branches in response to the wind’s gentle coaxing. I decided to ignore a gathering dew and sit with my back to a familiar old Russet, just listening to the sounds of the party in the distance as they carved a small hole in the silence.

We’d always considered ourselves to be awfully lucky to be where we were, with plenty of money and all the land we owned, but we didn’t start out that way. I’d only just been born when the lottery ticket arrived in the post, apparently as a prize for something or other. Anyway; I think my parents had completely forgotten about it when the news came that they’d won the jackpot – and outright as well. At the time it was an obscenely large amount of money, some of which Mum and Dad promptly put to good use by buying our present property. We still had the original certificate, presented and signed by the gloriously named Mr P. Entwhistle of Low-Key Promotions, hanging on the wall in the hallway. It had become a family tradition to touch the wooden frame for luck on the way in or out and the lower edge was worn smooth and silky by the passage of countless fingers.

Coming from a family with a long history of husbandry in one form or another, Dad had always nursed a secret dream to own his own farm and Mum being one of those mothers you always see in an apron, beavering away at a apple pie or a steak and kidney pudding and surrounded by a cloud of flour, was only too happy to leave their South Coast, dormitory-suburb council flat and join him. He immediately quit his job at the Tax Office and we all moved here – not that there was much here at the time, but Dad wanted to supervise everything from the ground up, so for six months or thereabouts we lived very uncomfortably in a couple of rather spartan demountables on the top of a desperately barren hill, while we converted it into the beginnings of the almost self-contained enclosure it now is … I don’t remember anything about it of course; as far as I’m concerned, I’ve always lived here.

The place is very different now, naturally. All the trees are mature and we have barns and stables, chicken and duck runs, a few cows and sheep and even a couple of llamas, which keep Mum in nice, fluffy wool. We’re about to start building a new house on the other side of the hill for Susan and Wally, who’ve both decided to stay and work on the farm – that’s how they met actually, because Wally’s a vet and often came to see to animal problems of one sort or another. He can also act as farrier and speaks fluent pig, so all in all he’s a worthy addition to our little tribe, though I know he’s having problems working up enough courage to tell his rather overbearing senior partner that he’ll soon be leaving the practice.

‘I’m still waiting for your answer … though I already know what it will be.’

Lochie was sitting on the broad bough of a Granny Smith not twenty feet away across the path and nearly made me bite my tongue off. He giggled at my incredulous expression, his naked feet swinging in the air like a pair of pendulums. I hadn’t realised he was bare-footed until now … though mind you, I hadn’t really been concentrating on his feet.

‘How the hell did you get up there? And how long have you been there?’ I couldn’t believe he’d shinned unnoticed up a tree just a few feet away – Mum sometimes said I was half blind, but I wasn’t that blind … or deaf for that matter.

‘Ah; so many questions.’ He jumped down from the branch, lithe as a leopard and seemingly light as a feather and immediately undid the front of his pants, flopping out the most enormous dick. I gasped in amazement as it performed complex snaking motions while he aimed it at the base of his erstwhile perch and began fertilising it with a stream which would have done a horse proud. Actually; it was probably a good thing the horses weren’t there to see as they’d probably have gotten a mite jealous.

He was just about to put himself away when who should waddle around the side of the greenhouse but Aunt Grace. Her expression rivalled one of those open-mouthed clowns you have to toss ping-pong balls into at a sideshow, but Lochie seemed quite unperturbed, waving his substantial appendage in her direction with a cheeky grin.

‘Oh … my goodness …!’ I thought she recovered quite well, but I was nowhere near ready for their next exchange. ‘… Is that for me, dear?’

~

Scandinal - available in book or download format - would David escape from his rather strange suitor … or does he actually not want to? Buy Scandinal, and find out who the persistent little blonde really is … and why the world’s in big trouble.

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