The Travellers - 1. Beginnings

It was in the year of 1920. A slim boy of about 16 or 17 walked along a long road between the moors, which looked an intense depressing grey due to the weather. A strong wind tormented the countryside and blew the incessant rain in his face, making him soaked to the skin. He was also very hungry and terribly tired.

His too long and unkempt dark blond hair hung in sodden strands over his narrow face, covering his at that moment very sad brown eyes, that expressed a complete hopelessness. His body was so skinny that it costed him a lot of effort to make any headway against the stormy winds, that only failed to topple him over by a small margin, tugging at his old and worn-out clothes.

He found a lonely farmhouse two hours ago, but an agitated and very unfriendly landlord had chased him off the premises, threatening him with an old flint gun. Now he just walked on and on, just like the rain fell on and on.

He was in the Border area between England and Scotland and tried to remember how he got there. It seemed ages ago he left home. But he was fed up with the regular beatings, the almost perpetually drunk father and the poverty. Oh yes, his father: the old man detested him for being soft, because he showed feelings, not a real man at all, more like a pansy. So, he decided to go and go for ever. He took some clothes, some small belongings to which he was attached and the bit of money he saved with odd jobs, put it all in a bag and off he went in the dead of night. He wanted to go north, to Scotland.

He always had a special attachment to dogs. They accepted him as he was, had no hidden agendas and knew no prejudices. So he planned to get a job as a farmhand and learn how to train Border Collies. And Scotland, with all its sheep, seemed just the place for that. Besides: he had burned all bridges behind him, so there was no way back. His small savings had almost vanished into thin air, so he had to make it one way or another, by finding a job or by begging, stealing or borrowing.

“In for a penny, in for a pound, boy!” he mused out loud in bitterness, cursing the rain and the wind. No matter where he looked: there wasn’t any shelter, no place to dry up and get some sleep, not even a single sheep shed.

His mind was so preoccupied with his thoughts, or should one say his misery, that he didn’t notice that a horse-drawn wagon neared him from behind.

“Trathnona mait!” he heard a raw voice entering his mind.

He turned around with a scared look on his face.

“Sorry, sir…I don’t understand”, he mumbled

“Ah…from England…well, in that case good evening”, a man said.

The boy looked straight in his eyes. They were kind black eyes that didn’t fit with the rawness of the voice. ´The man was on the driver stand of the wooden wagon. Its exterior was decorated with beautiful wood carvings and it had curtained windows at the sides. In front of the wagon was a huge, black horse.

The man, about fifty, was dressed in a long dark coat, which covered him up to his boots and wore a wide-brimmed felt hat. Both glistened from the rain. His face was wrinkled and tanned, showing years of traveling through all weathers.

“Ye picked a fine time for an evening walk in the country, laddie”, the man smiled.

“No sir…I didn’t pick the time…I just happened to be on my way when the weather changed”.

At that moment the horse swung his enormous head in the direction of the boy, who recoiled in fear. The dark horse eyes were aimed at the frail body in front of them and the boy saw how the animal’s nostrils made sniffing moves.

“No need to fear, laddie”, the man grinned in a quiet comforting way, “Rover is not dangerous”.

“No, sir…”, the boy stammered, “But he looks really big to me and that frightens me”.

“Where are ye going to, laddie?”, the man asked with a kind smile.

The boy was unable to name a specific destination, not knowing what lay ahead of him during his further walking. He limited his reply to a vague hand gesture in the direction ahead of him and answered:

“Up north, sir”.

“Then hop on and I’ll take ye up north”.

The boy climbed on the wagon stand and sat beside the man. A scruffy-looking small dog came from the inside of the wagon and sniffed at him, wagging his tail.

“He likes ye…”, the man said. He clucked his tongue, making the horse to start pulling again and off they went.

To be on the wagon stand turned out to be a mixed blessing. On one side he was out of the rain and he could rest his legs from the endless walking, but sitting still and not moving at all made him feel terribly cold. His soaked clothes stuck to his skin and he started to shiver. It became so worse that he even started to clap his teeth. He felt totally miserable.

The man looked at him with a worried frown.

“If we stay on the road much longer ye will be ill”, he said, “There’s a shed about half an hour down the road. We’ll stop there for today”.

It seemed that the half hour to this shed took an eternity. The boy felt more and more miserable. But finally, it appeared and the man stopped the wagon with a “Hooooo…!!”.

“Get inside, laddie…I’ll take care of the horse first.”

The boy went in the wagon and looked around with an astonished look on his face. The interior was even more beautifully carved than the outside and on top of that it was painted with colorful designs. In the front side there was some kind of kitchen with a tiny table and two wooden chairs, while pots and pans were hanging on the walls. Directly left of the only door stood a small stove, it's stack passing through the front wall. Everything looked spotlessly clean and well cared for. His outlook into the rest of the wagon was limited by a partition wall at the other side of this front section. Although curious, he felt it was not very polite to start sniffing around behind it, being here as a guest.

After a while the man came in and looked at his puzzled face. The dog followed him at his heels.

“Aye…”, he chuckled, “I know that everybody thinks that travelers are dirty fools. But that isn’t true, laddie. At least not with me. Oh well, it saves ye maintaining one prejudice”.

“Sorry sir”, the boy stuttered, “It wasn’t meant disrespectful.”

“That’s OK…what’s yer name, laddie?”

“I’m Jamie, sir”.

“Nice to meet ye, Jamie. I’m Collin. Now let me put the stove on first to get ye warm and dry and then it is time for a bite to eat.”

Jamie’s face cheered up at the last remark.

“Oh, that makes ye happy, isn’t it?”, Collin reacted with a grin, “How long was it since ye had yer last meal?”

Jamie thought it over. He stole an apple from a tree along the way. How long had that been? Two days?

“I guess about two days, sir”, he answered truthfully.

“Well, then ye must be starving”, was the reply.

Jamie noticed that Collin had a distinct Scottish accent, as much as his own one was Geordie.

Collin fumbled about and got the stove burning. The warmth swept through the cabin, while Collin was already grabbing pots and pans to make a meal.

“Won’t be anything fancy, laddie. Just stew and bread”.

The meal was ready in about half an hour and Jamie looked at the full, damping plate of stew in front of him and started swallowing the food. It tasted good, no: it tasted delicious. In the meantime, Collin put a kettle of water on the stove.

When the boy had finished his meal, Collin took a pipe, stuffed it and lighted it with a match.

“So, what were ye doing along the road in this weather? I don’t think it was for fun”, he asked almost offhanded, puffing vigorously on his pipe

Jamie looked at him with frightened, startled eyes. Collin just nodded and said:

“Aye, I got the point. Ye’re a runaway. Already thought something like that”.

Jamie dropped his eyes and said “Yes, sir” in a low, barely audible voice.

He felt how he started to shiver again, despite the relative warmth of the burning stove. His clothes were still wet and they spread an unpleasant chill over his whole body.

Collin looked at him and without saying a word he took the kettle from the stove and poured the warm water in a bucket. Then he disappeared behind the partition wall, coming back in a few seconds with a towel.

“Get those clothes off, laddie”, he ordered, “If ye sit in them any longer ye’re really going to be sick.”

Jamie looked at him with an astonished and almost fearful gaze.

“Oh, come on, don’t be a prissy”, Collin insisted.

Slowly Jamie took of his clothes, leaving only his underwear on. It didn’t seem to satisfy Collin, who growled:

“Come on, laddie, yer underwear is also soaked wet. Take it off! There are no giggling lassies in here”.

Jamie hesitated but finally his underwear went off, leaving him naked in the light of the lamp over the table. His skin was completely wet and glistened. He held his hands before his member, which felt utterly small from cold but it was more, because he felt ashamed and uncertain.

Collin ignored it and started washing him with warm water. It felt wonderful. His hands went tenderly over his neck, his back and his belly and somehow Jamie felt like warming up at last. Collin’s hand went lower and stroke playfully over his shaft. It gave him a funny but pleasant thrilling sensation in his groin and he felt how the part grew in small shocks.

“You like that, don’t ye, laddie?”, Collin asked with a chuckle.

Without waiting for an answer Collin turned him around and dedicated his attention to washing his buttocks, but…also in between them, causing shivers of lust over his spine. Did this mean that his old man was right? That he really was a faggot?

Collin continued to ignore his bodily reactions, took the towel and rubbed him dry, but again with special attention for his manhood and the space between the buttocks. For the first time in weeks Jamie felt great…clean, warm, a little horny and drowsy but also still very tired. Collin seemed to notice this fatigue, because when he finished rubbing, he said:

“And now off to bed. If ye haven’t eaten in two days ye haven’t slept well for two days or maybe even longer.”

He grabbed the boy by the hand and took him through the opening in the partition wall. Jamie looked around for another time. It was even more beautiful than the kitchen. All the walls were decorated with a polished, dark paneling in wood. Colorful carpets lay on the floor and in the rear was a bed in an alcove, covered with white sheets and colored blankets. The bed was rather high with cabinets under it, all of them with doors in the same dark paneling such as the walls. Behind the bed was a single window with deep blue curtains. Collin closed the curtains, put Jamie in bed, stroke over his head and put some blankets over him. The man kissed him very prudish on the forehead and put the light out. As soon as he left the room Jamie fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

He woke up in what might have been the middle of the night, but it could also have been after only an hour. He had no idea. The only thing he knew was, that it was pitch dark and that someone was in the bed with him. And he felt that that other person was as naked as he was. It had to be Collin.

His heart thumped in his throat, but it was with mixed feelings: fear and apprehension. He felt a finger stroking over his back towards his buttocks and a hand that played with his balls and member. And he felt kissing lips in his neck. He turned around and exclaimed in distress:

“But sir, what are you doing?”

The reply came in a soft, soothing whisper:

“I love ye, sweet angel Jamie!”

His father popped up in his mind and it made him feel very uneasy! But he also had to admit he liked the bodily and very sensual attention, not to mention that one unknown commodity to him: the emotional attention!

It had to be Collin, there was nobody else in the wagon. The man threw away the blankets and lighted a small lamp beside the bed. Jamie lay in the full glare of the light, in all his nakedness, and saw that his javelin had grown to substantial proportions, causing him to feel really embarrassed.

Collin bent over and put his head between Jamie’s legs. Tenderly he kissed the boy’s dickhead and looked him in the eyes.

“I want to taste your youthful foal-like sperm in my mouth”, he moaned.

Without waiting for an answer, he took the whole lance in his mouth and started to suck it. Jamie had no idea what hit him, but he sure knew it felt delicious. And as all young boys his age his explosion came soon enough. It vibrated through his body while his sperm flooded in Collin’s mouth, wave after wave.

“Oh Collin, this feels so beautiful…”, he moaned.

It was the first time his sperm had come out due to other man’s actions, not merely by his own jerking.

“Aye…and yer sperm tastes so delicious, sweet angel”, was the reply.

A few seconds of silence followed, making Jamie wonder if this had been it. But then Collin whispered:

“There are more beautiful things to come, me love”.

He turned the boy around gently and commenced to stroke his bottom tenderly. One of his fingers slipped in between, sending the same shivers as before along the boy’s spine but by now the quivering had grown in intensity. Jamie’s breathing became increasingly deregulated. Collin’s finger pushed in his tight hole…the shivers reached their highest level, at least a level that Jamie had never known before. It was a struggle the boy couldn’t even hope to win: the fight between innocent, youthful lust and experienced desire.

Collin shifted his whole body on top of Jamie and pushed his dickhead against the boy’s entrance.

“I don’t want to hurt ye, sweet angel…I just want ye to enjoy it enormously”, he whispered in Jamie’s ear.

With that he pushed his sword into the boy…slowly, millimeter by millimeter, gently and cautiously. Jamie felt a short pang of pain inside him, but it subsided soon enough. By now his feelings were fully concentrated on the thick dick in him, warm and kind and greedy, like a tender beast of prey hunting for his virginity. He felt every small blood vessel in it trembling and vibrating and he loved the feeling. Finally, somebody wanted him, desired him and most of all: loved him! If there were any remnants of resistance left against Collin’s advances, then by now they had completely crumbled with the young boy unconditionally submitting to the wonderful experience of being loved for the first time in his troubled life.

Collin started thrusting in him, first gently but gradually he became wilder and wilder. It hurt a little, but Jamie was beyond pain. There were only pink mists of pure lust and wanting.

Then the man uttered a single low growl from pleasure and Jamie felt how the

predator inside him came to life, shocking, jerking and pulsing, disseminating the warm cream in him, a wonderful hot feeling of spreading love lava.

“Aaaaahhhhh…Collin…stay in me, please!” he murmured.

Collin obliged, staying in him until his dick went limp again, causing it to slip out of the boy.

Jamie turned around and looked Collin in the eyes. Tears were filling his own eyes.

“Did I hurt ye, sweet angel?” the man asked worried.

Jamie decidedly shook his head.

“Then why are ye crying, sweet laddie love of mine?”

“Because I think my old man is right. I am a faggot. I mean, I really loved what you just did to me. It is so different of how they treated me at home”.

Collin shook his head.

“Nay!! In the first place, little angel: it doesn’t matter if ye experience this feeling with a man or a woman. It is about love and about caring for each other. And secondly: I absolutely don’t like the word faggot. It is meant to hurt and insult people. And I don’t want to hurt people. I prefer the official term of homosexual. Besides: why stick labels? We are all people and we just will have to do with the feelings we have got, despite the fact that others don’t share these feelings, even worse: they reject them! I don’t share their feelings, but that doesn’t give me the right to reject them. That’s the way I became a traveller. I’m too much of a free thinker to settle down in one spot and succumb to the general opinion of the nakens”.

But Jamie didn’t give in that fast. He thought it over and remembered something he had learnt in school.

“But…”, he started hesitantly, “God condemned what we just did”.

He heard a tired and dejected laugh, followed by a deep sigh.

“Nay, nay, me love. God didn’t condemn anything. It are the vicars and bishops who have stigmatized and denounced our kind of people as immoral and repulsive. They spread their hatred from their pulpits and have brainwashed their opinions as the only moral truth in the minds of the normal people, so that nowadays everyone denounces us. I see it this way: God thinks it is OK, since it is based on love. Oh aye, there is also lust! But that is the same between a man and a woman: love and lust. As long as love is involved, God has no objections, because they always say God is love. In other words: what we just did, is God!”

“How can you know what God wants?” Jamie asked pretty stubborn, not very convinced.

“I don’t know what God wants”, Collin answered grinning, “But over the years I have read a lot and when I thought it all over what I had read, I formed my own ideas about what God might possibly want and what Jesus might have meant perchance with what he was saying”.

While snugged up against Collin’s curvaceous chest, Jamie overthought the last reply for a long time and decided that it satisfied him, nodding in acknowledgment.

With a smile Collin switched the light off, pulled Jamie even closer against his chest, embraced him tightly and caressed the boy’s back in a soothing manner. They lay there in the dark, enjoying each other’s warmth, each other’s scent and each other’s attention. Jamie enjoyed it to the fullest, all this warmth and love, which had come over him like an avalanche in this pitch dark night