Vivid - 1. Chapter 1

I am not quite sure how I want to be remembered.

The most vivid recollection I can call on was that constant smell of cordite which hung in the air after the bombardments began. It was so thick you could almost taste it. And then there was the noise. More than anything, that noise shook my soul. It was a constant attack on every sense a man had stuck in them miserable trenches. The mud, the rain, the fear of death… I could live with those, process them, accept them, deal with them, but that incessant concussion of blast after blast ripping through the ground, the tremors reaching into the very fibres of my muscles, the dust raining down in a fine sheen that made the light seem blurry and left a film of grit in the mouth and just below the nose. It was that eternal shaking that troubled me most. Night after night, day after day.

And when it stopped….

That was no excuse to rest on one’s laurels. No, it was just as likely that you were either about to be sent up and over, or that some deadly gas attack was bearing down on the trenches. The strange thing was, despite the fact my life was in ever mortal danger, it was not really the fear of death that was the lasting memory of that time for me. Nay, it was the bloody shelling that has kept me awake, playing on my memories like a plague, or waking me from the deepest sleep in a fierce, cold sweat.

I can still smell the explosives hanging on the air. It was almost a welcome mask for the stench of rotting flesh that wafted over the trenches when the wind blew right. You knew the smell may well be emanating from countrymen trapped in some crater in no man’s land, too much effort to be found and retrieved. They say every cloud has a silver lining. Maybe this was the one reason to be grateful for the exchange of fire from the artillery batteries. Am I right to ever consider that a benefit?

So how do I want to be remembered?

I’m not far from seeing out my innings now, my doctor has told me to prepare for the end. His news has forced me to contemplate these things. It is news that has meant I’ve had to consider things I’d buried with much effort, remember stuff I do not care to remember, yet these are scars of a time that branded me a hero in the eyes of my community. A hero I ask you! I was just a boy returning from war. The only one to have survived from my village. As much as the explosions echo in my mind, and the smells are still so vivid to me now, it is the guilt I felt on my return as I looked in the eyes of those who had lost loved ones to the front, the guilt of being the only one to return that I have long carried and never been able to forget.

I went to war at seventeen, not because I was idealistic, or some adventure fiend. Not because I believed in fighting for Queen and country, or wished to be considered a man. Quite the opposite in fact. I went to war in pursuit of love. Well I am not quite sure it was completely love as more a mix of lust, a youthful infatuation and what I perceived to be love as a teenage boy. How does love make a boy go to war you ask?

He was the village dream. Tall, dashing, suave. I knew he was the object of desire of almost every single woman in Fairfax and a fair few married ones too. He had that sophistication about him, supremely confident, almost arrogant. He knew he was handsome, and he could turn on the charm to get what he wanted. I admired everything about him. The way he bit his lower lip whilst concentrating, or the flick of his hair when caught in the wind. His voice made me go weak at the knees, and he had a cock to die for.

And how would I know that?

Well, he was no saint that was for sure. I’d always known I didn’t like the ladies in that way, I preferred to spend all my time at the village green as the cricket scorer. Todd was on the team, and while he may well have been the best looking lad on the team, he was not the centre of my attention right away. There were a few good lookers among the players. I had one problem in that I really had no idea how to go about doing anything about my feelings. I simply watched and maintained some level of satisfaction from being close until I figured out what to do.

As fate would have it, opportunity came knocking at my door a few months later. I’d been sent to store the number boards for the winter in the attic of the club house. Access to the storage area was gained through the changing rooms. I’d stored the last of the numbers and had side tracked to explore a box of trophies that I’d spied on my journey. You know how it is for a young man and a trophy. I wanted to imagine for a brief moment it was me being awarded the silverware, hoisting it above my head in triumph, showing off our victorious win to all who’d come to spectate.

I guess I’d gotten side tracked for much longer than I’d expected, for when I returned to the ladder to prepare to descend into the changing rooms and lock the access hatch, I noticed a pair of trousers lying on the floor below me. I paused thankfully and wondered to whom they belonged, and I do say thankfully, for when I squatted to get a better view of the dressing rooms that I spied a vision that would change my life and focus my attention on that one perfect man.

Todd Winters. Prone on the bench. Pleasuring himself.

What a sight to behold for a young boy who had a fancy for men. I was mesmerised. It was the first time I’d seen a boy of his age naked. He was not that much different from myself come to think of it, maybe leaner and more defined. He was certainly more well-endowed than I. There was a thick mound of hair at the base of his cock. My own pubic hair was much finer and quite thin, but I’ve come to realise that is just part of being a blonde.

His body twitched and shook as he pumped at his stiffened member. My own cock immediately sprung to life, and I felt an ooze leaking down my leg. I recall my mouth was so dry and I had trouble kneeling quietly as my legs trembled. I guess it was nervous energy making me wired and on edge, but I had to lean on my hands to avoid falling through the open trap I was staring through, and frustratingly this meant that I could do nothing to rearrange myself more comfortably or do anything about the growing damp patch on my shorts.

Todd didn’t take that long to finish himself off. I was amazed by the sight of his orgasm. It was the most magnificent thing I’d ever beheld. He erupted a thick white fluid all over his abdomen while hissing through clenched teeth, his eyes tightly shut as if in pain, and I could see every muscle in his body had tensed. It was only a few moments in time, but that image was, in that instant, burnt onto the film of my mind to be replayed repeatedly through my life. He wiped himself off on a towel, pulled up his britches, put his trousers back on and was gone, much to my relief.

I fell back into the attic, and immediately reached down and copied what I’d just witnessed this demi god doing to himself below me. So at the age of fifteen, I experienced my first ever self-stimulated, deliberate orgasm. I am sure I’d had a few in earlier years while I slept, but I’d never seen or experienced anything like this, and now I was hooked. Not only on this amazing new feeling I could illicit from my own body, but for the boy that had granted me this insight. My infatuation with Todd Winters was born.

For the next twelve months I had stalked this boy. Every moment that I could get near him or be in his company I made sure that I was there. Slowly, over a matter of months I became a familiar face and even a friendly acquaintance of the subject of my desire. It was natural considering that I was the cricket team scorer and he was a team player that we would meet in passing, but I took it further than that. I volunteered to prepare his kit, polished his bat without him asking. I got him refreshments at the break and lavished any attention I could on him. Gradually he came to accept my attentions more and more, till it reached a point where you would not see Todd Winters without me close at hand. People would joke that I was Todd’s shadow or his ball and chain. It was good natured enough, but it was when I got to a place where I was trusted enough to be around when Todd might change that the thrill of my efforts paid dividends for me.

I am not the most subtle of people, especially in the art of discreet observation, or at least it was a skill I’d not as yet finessed. So when I’d been caught on more than one occasion very obviously checking out Todd’s nether regions as he changed that he asked me what my fascination for his groin was. I was mortified initially, my face painted a horrible hue of crimson, my hands promptly thrust deep in my pockets and my head hung in shame, but to my surprise, Todd was ok about it. He sat me down and promised that it was ok, he was even flattered at my attention, and it was at that moment I took the biggest gamble of my life. I told Todd that I had a persuasion for boys.

Don’t ask me why I assumed it to be alright to tell him this, or even why I would choose to speak of such things, I cannot answer this for myself to this day.

Maybe it was a sixth sense or something within me that realised that Todd would be ok with it. Maybe it was just gullible trust, or pure naivety. Whatever it was, I’d blurted it out before I could stop or pause to consider what I was admitting to this boy. I remember he sat there for the longest time and stared at the floor, then looked up at me and told me that it was ok. “I’m not like that myself,” he told me, “but it does not really bother me at all. I think I understand now why you are always around me,” and then he smiled.

I smiled back, and life was suddenly wonderful again. Things balanced out for me a little after that. I kind of knew where I stood with Todd, and my fixation for him broadened once more to include a few of the other boys on the team. Todd would tease me in private, and even flirt with me once in a while, deliberately taking his time changing while right in front of me, or being sure to do something provocative in my line of sight, knowing full well that he was driving me insane, but I loved him all the more for doing it, when he really didn’t have to even like me for being that way inclined.

War had broken out shortly before my seventeenth birthday, and for several months all the talk was of war in France. Loads of men were called up and sent off to the front to fight, but for us, the war just meant that there were not enough village men to make a cricket team. The war was far away and something we only talked about while under the oak trees on the green watching the young boys playing soldiers in the distance. Then, nine months later, Todd was conscripted. He was given a date to attend the Army office and would then be sent off to boot camp. I was devastated, and for the four days Todd had before he went to war, I basically lived at his side, and it was then that it happened.

That last night before he left, we’d gone out to the hill behind the church to watch the sun set. There was not an awful lot to be said, I couldn’t even bring myself to speak. Todd spent most of the time humming a simple tune. No one else was around; we had not wanted to be around anyone. Todd had said he just wanted some quiet time to himself before the madness began, and of course there was no bloody chance he was getting that without me at least being there with him, even if that meant that I kept my mouth tightly shut. We lay on that hill far into the night, when Todd finally turned to me and asked if I’d ever had sex.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean have you ever done it,” he asked.

I shook my head in confusion. “Todd, I am not completely sure what you mean. If you are asking if I’ve ever played with myself, then yes I have. I have every day ever since I saw you doing it.” I admitted.

“You saw me doing it?” he gasped.

“Um, well, yes.” I sat up and fidgeted with a blade of grass.

“I was in the attic of the club house one day when I saw you in the changing rooms pulling on your….”

“On my massive cock,” he chuckled.

“Ah huh.” I smiled and nodded.

“You sly weasel,” Todd said as he winked at me. Moonlight glistened off his eyes as they danced mischievously over my body.

“So you’ve copied me and played with yourself every day have you?”

“Ah huh.” My cheeks burned. I could feel Todd’s eyes all over me. I lay back and tried to steady my nervous breath. My mouth was awfully dry again, just as it had been when I first saw Todd playing that day, and I could feel that nervous energy in my body.

“So you’ve done it with yourself, but have you ever done it with anyone else?” His voice had become low and husky.

I turned to look at him and replied, “No. Who would I even know to try that with Todd?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I just supposed you might have found someone to try it with.”

“Na ah.” I mumbled.

We lay there quiet for the longest time.

“Do you want to try it with me?” he eventually whispered.

I sat bolt upright.

Had I heard that right? I looked over at him lain on the grass staring up at the stars.

“Did you just ask me that?” I ventured in a shaky voice.

“I did,” he confirmed. “I want to do it for you before I go, but I also want to do it for me. I’ve not gotten to do it with anyone yet.”

“You, Todd Winters, the golden boy of the village, are a virgin,” I asked incredulously.

“Do you even know what that means?” He asked, looking straight at me.

“Well, I am guessing it means you don’t have a girl,” I said cautiously.

Todd nodded.

“I’m just guessing mind you Todd. I don’t know everything about how this all works,” I said.

“Do you want to know?”

“You’re going to show me,” I croaked. My mouth felt like the damn Sahara desert I’d learned about in school.

“Yeah,” he replied softly.

My fingers were fidgeting with blades of grass again. I think I possibly removed every piece of greenery from between my folded legs while we spoke.

“I really don’t know what to do Todd.”

“I’ll show you.”

I was so hard in my shorts. I wanted this. I wanted it badly, yet saying yes was scary. My legs couldn’t stop wobbling. I am quite sure had I tried to stand I’d have fallen straight over. I just stayed there too afraid to say anything.

I think Todd sensed I was really uncertain. Maybe he’d felt something similar at some time before for he quietly got up and sat next to me, embracing me across the shoulder and leaning into me.

“It’s ok if you don’t want to do anything Owen,” he said.

“It’s not that,” I mumbled.

“What is it then?”

I shrugged my shoulders. Remained silent. Slowly he began to nuzzle at my neck where he had rested his head. Then he worked his way up to my ear where slowly he nibbled and licked, first at my ear lobe, then at my whole ear. I was lost in a world of feeling and emotion. Too scared to stop him, too scared to move and do anything to reciprocate. Ecstasy and fear tangled in a war of neurons and impulses firing in my brain.

His hand touched my leg and I flinched. It felt like I’d been touched by a bolt of lightning, and the electrical charge kept flowing as his hand crept up the leg of my shorts. My breathing was ragged and my senses were on fire. Every nerve in my body was alive to Todd’s touch. I could smell him, hear him, and feel him. Suddenly I wanted to taste him, and I turned into his embrace and locked my lips against his. I was alarmed at first as he pushed his tongue against my lips, but I opened my mouth and discovered the pleasure of having him flick it in and out of my mouth, probing, exploring, feeling. This is what heaven must feel like.

His hand reached my cock and closed around its girth and stroked. He only had to do it once, and I saw flashes behind my eyes. My body tensed and I cried out against his lips as my body shook in violent orgasm. He squeezed on me and I am surprised to this day I never bit his tongue off as I cried out. I flung my head back, feelings exploding throughout my body. I’d never felt anything like this. He held me, wrapped in his arms, tight against him as I convulsed. He held me like that till I calmed, and far beyond. He held me like that till I finally became aware of his own erection still pressed into my leg which was tangled tightly between his own.

“I want to do the same for you,” I whispered.

“Shhhhhh.” He said.

I lay with him a while longer, but the longer I lay, the more determined I became. I pushed him back and told him again I wanted to do the same for him.

“You don’t have to do that Owen.”

“I want to.”

“Why?”

“I want to because I want to see you… No I want to feel you naked next to me Todd.”

I looked at him, stubborn fire in my own eyes. I’d yearned for this boy for so long he was not getting away from me now.

I decided to be assertive like him and leaned forward to kiss him. He ducked and avoided me.

“No, Todd, don’t do this to me,” I cried out.

“Shhhhhhh boyo, just slow down,” he encouraged me, taking my hand. “You can have your wish, but there is no need to be in such a hurry.”

I blanched. “Sorry.”

He giggled, leaned over and kissed me. And so we began to make love. Todd showed me things that night that I had never imagined or considered possible. Never before had I figured that sex would be so good. If you think a hand job is something to rave about, I assure you, it is nothing compared to the warm moist mouth of a living, breathing sexual partner.

Yes, that is right, I said mouth. I know blow jobs and oral sex are fairly common things in today’s society, but by god it was unheard of for a lad my age back then. I wish I’d found the nerve to ask Todd where he’d learnt it all from, but for that one night he took me to paradise and the next day he was gone. I felt such a gap in my life with him gone that the following week I marched down to the enlistment office with my brothers birth certificate and signed up.

Four months later and I was in the trenches. Two, long, bitter years I spent in France trying to find Todd. As close as I ever came to catching up with him, he always seemed to be two jumps ahead of me, and I was to spend those two long years huddling down in dirty ditches hoping to stay alive long enough to whisper to that man just how much I loved him. Two dirty long years of running messages up and down the line, never having to face the horror of going over the top, but living the hell of shell shock all the same, two long years of waiting, dreaming, needing to see the boy of my dreams again. Two years of seeing men, boys, fathers, brothers, husbands torn up by bits of flying metal and lead bullets, two years of miserable meals and constant hunger. Cold nights spent fighting off the chills or hot humid days where the mosquitos seemed as vicious an enemy as the Huns eight hundred yards across no man’s land.

I guess that having been chosen as a runner meant I was saved from certain death. I think the reason for my selection as a runner was based on my lieutenant’s suspicion I was too young to be conscripted. I suppose I owe my life to that man, but in many ways I wish I’d died on the front. The memories you return with from a war like that are more than any man should be forced to live with. Of fifty one men conscripted from my village, I was the only one to return alive after the war.

Todd was among those killed in action on the front.

I never recovered from that loss.

When the second war broke out, I ran away to the Orkney Islands where I figured I’d be safe from the bombs and guns. I was a damaged man, broken and haunted by my memories and plagued with the guilt that I survived while beautiful people like Todd Winters were to die.

I am no hero, I am just a boy who was smitten by love. A boy who desperately wanted to tell Todd that I loved him. I often wonder if I’d ever seen Todd again, and had the chance to tell him, if the fight inside me to stay alive would have ended, and if I’d have ended with it, becoming another statistic of the worst war mankind has waged against each other.

I will never know the answer to that, but now as I sit here and contemplate, I am once more forced to ask myself this question.

I don’t know the answer, I am not sure I was ever meant to. But I know the question.

How will you remember me?

I am eternally grateful to my editorial team of Louis Harris and Renee Stevens, without whose hard work this story would never have made it to the site. Thank you, you guys do an amazing job. 
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