Richard Perkins

Tunes

Chapter 1

"Grade, you have heard the verdict of the jury, the only possible verdict I would say on the evidence presented to them."

"They have found you guilty of the systematic abuse, physical, psychological and sexual of the boys entrusted by their parents to your care."

"In particular I have seen nothing to compare with the photographs of the injuries inflicted on the boy Anthony Llewellyn since I was myself at public school and such cruelty is now completely unacceptable. But you did not confine your maltreatment of your victims to mere physical abuse. Much more seriously you have deliberately subjected them to a systematic campaign of mental and sexual abuse and exploitation. You took these young boys at their most defenceless and vulnerable. You subjected them to intense pressure to persuade them to pander to your debauched sexual tastes and having enjoyed their bodies in your perverted way you in many cases passed them on to your friends to abuse in their turn. You turned your school, St Thomas's, into a den of depraved debauchery."

Anthony Llewellyn sitting in the body of the court beside his father looked up at the judge as he droned interminably on. An old, hatchet-faced, man who seemed to Anthony to be bent under the weight of his massive horse hair wig. Anthony very carefully did not look at Mr Grade under whose rule as headmaster he had spent his four years at St Thomas's Preparatory School for boys. The man who during term time had complete authority over him and exercised that power with stern confidence and, some would say, implacable severity.

Instead he turned his attention to the beam of sunlight. He watched the motes of dust rising and falling in its light, wondering at their constant movement. He supposed their motion was unending. He remembered that they were dancing on that last occasion when he had been summoned to Mr Grade's study and told to drop his shorts and underpants and bend over, for he was one of the boys Mr Grade beat bare.

He thought of what followed. Miss Morton's, the Assistant Matron, expressions of horror when she saw the welts. Matron would not have been surprised by them. She had been in the school for many years and was well used to such sights. Miss Morton's boy friend, hastily summoned, appearing with his camera. Lying on his tummy on the sick room bed with his shirt pulled up round his waste while the camera flashed behind him. And then everything that followed, the policemen and women, the doctors, the social workers, his Mum and Dad summoned suddenly. The questions, all the time the questions, did he touch you there or there? Did he do that or that or that? On and on they went, telling him he mustn't be afraid. He mustn't feel guilty. He hadn't done anything wrong. It was Mr Grade who had abused him. Mr Grade was wicked not him.

Then there were more men, this time with superior accents and expensive suits sitting behind big desks but asking the same questions. Finally there was the hearing with Mum and Dad being nice and reassuring and the judge smiling at him and telling him not to be nervous and a woman with another wig, smaller than the judge's, asking him all the same questions all over again.

She was nice but after her was a man who wasn't nice at all. He asked questions but they were nasty ones. "Why did Mr Grade beat you Anthony?" "Was it because you were caught being bad?" "What were you doing Anthony?" "It wasn't the first time you had been caught doing that was it Anthony?" "Don't you think you deserve to be beaten for doing something like that?" "Isn't the truth Anthony that having been beaten by Mr Grade for doing it you made up a story that he did things to you to get your own back on him?" "Anthony I have noticed that you have not once looked at Mr Grade during the whole time you have been in court. Look at him now Anthony and tell me the truth. He didn't do anything to you except beat you because he caught you playing with yourself and not for the first time and all the rest you have made up. That is the truth isn't it Anthony. Now look at Mr Grade and tell the truth. You made it all up didn't you?"

He'd answered the questions one by one shuffling and sometimes flushing deeply as he had to tell all those people about being caught doing that.

But with the last question he'd started to say that he hadn't made it up. Mr Grade had done those things to him like he did to all the other boys whom he beat with nothing on their bottoms because once he did it to you that was the way he beat you, but right in the middle his voice broke. He had been speaking in a light sort of tone and then suddenly his voice had gone hoarse and he had begun to croak.

That had happened to him a few times before, but not before then in court, and people had always laughed at him. This time it was strange. No one laughed. A woman in the jury smiled and then oddly dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief and Mr Justice Fearon cleared his throat noisily.

"Mr Wilson I really think your examination has run it's course and, I have to add, is hardly in my opinion assisting your client's case."

"Very well Millud," the man replied, "I have no further questions."

He sat down. Secretly he agreed with the judge's view. Indeed he doubted if anything would help his client's case. How could you hope to successfully defend a burly dark jowled thirty-five year old man when his principle accuser was a pretty fair haired boy with a peaches and cream complexion. Anyway the man was, in his private opinion, as guilty as hell and should be put away for a very considerable time and, this with Mr Fearon sitting, would probably happen provided only the jury used their common sense.

Anthony's attention was jerked back to Mr Fearon's summing up by the mention of his own name.

"Your disregard of the welfare of the children in your charge has even been carried into this Court. Acting on your instructions your Council had no choice but to subject Anthony Llewellyn, of whom I will have something to say at the end of this judgement, to a most gruelling cross examination. I mean no criticism of your Council when I say that, although I am personally persuaded of the need to test the evidence against an individual to the full in open court, the proceedings in this instance have convinced me that there are arguments to be advanced in favour of establishing some more humane method of testing the testimony of under-age witnesses."

"I have therefore no hesitation in sentencing you to a term in imprisonment designed both to show society's abhorrence of your abominable practices and to prevent you from repeating your offences on further helpless victims for a considerable length of time. I sentence you to twelve years and will be recommending to the Home Secretary that you serve the full term."

"Now," the judge's voice, which had been hard and accusatory, became less forbidding, "I have something to say both to and of Anthony Llewellyn.

I see the boy is in court, as indeed I asked that he should be if at all possible. So Anthony, if you would stand up for a moment."

"Anthony in the course of cross examination you were forced to admit to having behaved in a manner characterised as 'bad'. I want you to know and clearly understand that though it would be better if you could avoid such practices, they are in no way unnatural, all boys to a greater and lesser extent indulge in them. You are neither evil nor wicked nor in anyway unusual in doing so."

"Indeed I can say, and I am sure council, members of the jury and the members of the public who observed your behaviour in the witness box will agree with me in this, that you are a brave and intelligent boy of whom your parents have every right to be proud. You withstood what must have been a considerable ordeal for one of your young age, conducting yourself in such a way that not one of us in the courtroom doubted the veracity of your evidence. You are owed a debt of gratitude from this court for your courage in ensuring that justice was done in this case and by the boys in your old school and generations of boys to come in seeing that a man who could have caused them great suffering has been sent to a place where he can cause no harm."

"Thank you Anthony. You may sit down now."

"Take the prisoner away."

Anthony woke the next morning to the smell of frying bacon and the sounds of his mother moving about in the kitchen below his room. He could hardly remember returning to the house the previous evening. He was so exhausted after the trial that he had slept in the back of the car during the whole of the journey home and he had fallen asleep again at the supper table with his food half eaten on his plate. His parents must have decided to allow him to sleep on.

Now he lay in his bed thinking. He should he supposed be happy. The ordeal of the trial was over. He was back in the safety of his own family.

He would never have to back to that school again and Mr Grade. He had behaved well. He had done nothing wrong. Mr Grade was an evil and wicked man who had maltreated him. He was innocent and good and brave, everybody said so. Then why when he thought of Mr Grade and the things that Mr Grade did to him, even of being made to drop his shorts and underpants and bend over to get the cane from him, why, if Mr Grade was evil and the things he did were evil, did he get all excited and his prick get so hard and he had this wonderful exciting feeling down there and 3;

Anthony grabbed for the wad of loo paper that he had secreted under his pillow for just such an emergency and pressed it against his throbbing cock as his blood surged uncontrollably and he orgasmed.

A minute or so later Mrs Llewellyn heard her sons footsteps pad across the corridor above her followed shortly afterwards by the sound of the lavatory flushing. She broke an egg into the frying pan. She knew Anthony would be down in a moment wanting his breakfast.

The evidence disposed of Anthony dressed quickly and ran down stairs.

Dad was sitting at the dining room table only the top of his head visible above the Times. Anthony saw on its front page a headline about poll tax riots in Trafalgar Square.

"The paper has a report of the verdict in it," Dad remarked lowering the paper and departing from his normal practice by actually speaking at the breakfast table. "Doesn't mention your name of course Anthony – reporting restrictions and that sort of thing – but repeats the Judge's comments on your behaviour 3; Just say Mum and I are proud of you."

He quickly raised the paper again, embarrassed by having to speak on so personal a matter.

The telephone shrilled in the hall.

"It's for you Anthony," his mother called. "It's Tim Hawthorne."

Anthony jumped from his chair and ran to the telephone. Tim had been his best friend throughout his time at St Thomas's. He had joined as a new boy the same day, always slept in the bed next to his in the various dormitories as they progressed up the school, sometimes when lights were out sharing the same bed, sitting beside each other in class and in the dining room. Tim as dark as he, Anthony, was fair.

He had been surprised that Tim had not appeared at the trial. He had suffered just as much from Mr Grade's attentions. Indeed Mr Grade, taken by the contrast in their colouring, liked 3; Anthony realised he was going hard again and forced the thought from his mind.

He picked up the receiver from the table where his mother had placed it.

"Tim," he said breathlessly.

"Judas," Tim voice was so distorted by hatred that Anthony could hardly recognise it. The phone went dead.

Chapter 2

Looking up the valley to the North there were occasional olive trees a few patches of untended vines and little else.

He sat still for a moment enjoying the quiet after the din and bustle of Pathos. He had been looking forward to this moment with increasing anticipation throughout the whole of last week as he doggedly worked his way through the formalities of taking charge of his new office. It was his first posting in charge of a local branch and he intended to see that he made a success of it. Not, as he had to admit to himself, that old Lockwood had made too bad a hand at it.

No man is a hero to his successor but the accounts and other paper work had been in apple pie order and he had been impressed by a couple of the items that Lockwood had lined up for the coming year. Sir Robert Turner might be regarded nowadays as a bit old hat and dated but in his day he was one of the great actor managers. While the post conceptual work of Bill and Ben was 'difficult', their names were well known and with luck they could be got away before they said anything to upset the Orthodox hierarchy. It was indeed surprising that the old boy had managed to persuade people of that calibre to come to Pathos and to lecture on behalf of the British Council. He wondered how he had managed it.

A pity that Lockwood had died so suddenly of that coronary so couldn't be asked. On the other hand if Lockwood hadn't died so opportunely he would never have got the post. It was well known in the council that he had dug himself well in Pathos and would not be shifted.

Anthony wondered what the attraction of the place had been to him.

Pathos seemed to him noisy and even in the early spring uncomfortably hot with few attractions once you had visited the various archaeological sites. But something had kept Lockwood anchored there long after his normal five year tour had ended.

It was certainly Anthony thought not the quality of the town's nightlife.

He had been there a week and had learnt enough to eat at Hondros and drink in the Boite 67 by the yacht club and to know that, friendly and outgoing though the people were, it was unlikely that the night life of Pathos would provide what he was searching for.

If only, he reflected, as he swung his feet out of the car and began to put on his walking boots, if he could be certain what that was.

He had been sent to a new school after Mr Grade's trial. St Thomas had been owned by Mr Grade and had had to close. Anyway he had been in his last year there. He had had other advances in his new school, as any pretty thirteen year old in his first term at public school does, but they had always ended in confusion and unhappiness. His friend of the moment would get so far, a kiss on the lips, a hand slipped inside the waist band of his pyjamas, he would begin to respond and at that moment guilt and fear would paralyse him. As it was wicked of Mr Grade to have done those things to him as so many people had told him, it must be wrong for him to enjoy them and, if he did, then surely he was just the same as evil Mr Grade.

As he got older he began to resent this burden of guilt and that had been imposed on him by those who had assured him so often that they held him guiltless, but he could not shed it. Rather it was added to and deepened by a growing doubt as to whether he really was the victim or that Mr Grade was as evil as was claimed.

Mr Grade had hurt him terribly, never more so perhaps than when he thrashed him that last time. He could still remember bending over waiting for the punishment to begin the air cool against his naked skin, terrified but also strangely excited. The half dozen or so other boys watching in silent but nervous anticipation, knowing that it could so easily have been one of them standing there his bottom bared ready for the cane. Then the rich hiss of the heavy cane as it descended and the intense pain that drove the breath from his body as it scored the first livid stripe across his taughtly drawn flesh. The mounting agony as cut followed cut until his resolution broke down and he howled and writhed as Mr Grade vigorously plied the rod. But when it was over, and he could think again, he knew that while Mr Grade might have been harsh he had also been fair.

He had been told what the rule was and what the penalty was for breaking it. He had broken the rule not once but twice and he had suffered the penalty. That was fair and fairness was a virtue to which he came to attach ever greater importance as he experienced more and more instances of the hypocrisies and inconstancies that appeared to be almost the norm of adult behaviour.

Tim's one word accusation had startled him when it was made but it did not at first bother him. His Mother and Father and all the grown ups who talked to him about it agreed he was the victim and he had been brave and right to give evidence against Mr Grade so that he could be sent to gaol where he belonged. Tim was just a boy like himself his ideas of right and wrong were obviously less trustworthy than theirs. But as time passed he came more and more to doubt this reasoning. Thus he was forever torn between two conflicting guilts. The guilt of enjoying something that he was told was evil and, if he succeeded in banishing that guilt which he increasingly did, the guilt of betraying Mr Grade.

He stood up stamping his feet down hard on the metalled surface of the road to ensure his boots were sitting comfortably on his feet.

There was no point he told himself in spending hours agonising over what had happened and what effect it had had on him. If one aspect of his life was unsatisfactory a great many others were fine. He had done almost as well as was possible at school and university. True he might be regarded as the almost man. Almost getting into Oxford but having to content himself with Bristol. Almost getting a first but only managing an upper second. Almost getting into the diplomatic corps but having to settle for the British Council. Almost getting into any number of first fifteens and first elevens but always finishing up in the second team. Still while he could have done better he could also have done a great deal worse.

He set off along a rough track leading up the side of the valley. It was his intention to walk himself to exhaustion and thus to clear his mind of all the tensions of the week. He had obtained the best map of the area he could lay his hands on and planned a route that would take him in a broad arc along the top of the hills bordering the valley North to the Troodhos mountains before dropping back down to the valley floor to return along the metalled road. The exercise cleared his mind and he walked briskly along his mind pleasantly blank simply registering the sensations of the moment.

He stopped in a village taverna for a lunch of ham and cheese washed down by a glass of the local beer. Shortly afterwards the track began to rise steeply through a mixed woodland of chestnut oak and the occasional rowan tree. Anthony took a path branching to the right towards the valley bottom.

To his surprise from below came the unmistakable sound of bat striking ball followed by a round of muted applause mixed with one or two cries of encouragement and appreciation. He did not know cricket was played on the island although, when he came to think of it, within the British sovereign base he supposed there would be a few teams. However this was well away from the base. Perhaps he thought British expats had joined together in Cyprus as apparently they had done in the Dordogne to create small clubs.

He walked on the sounds of the game getting stronger. He joined the metalled road and turned down the valley. Then he saw on the side of the road a sign that made all clear

The sight of the name caused him to halt for a moment but then, smiling at himself, he walked on. There were no doubt plenty of schools called after St Thomas and probably nearly every other Saint in the Christian Calendar.

The road emerged suddenly from the wood and there on the left was the cricket pitch, its outfield closely mown, the grass perhaps a little drier and browner than it would have been in the home counties. The central square, carefully rolled and lovingly manicured, though was as green as any to be found in the British Isles. Beyond the cricket field with it's half timbered pavilion, white side screens and black score board stood a large three storied house with a jumble of more modern brick buildings set about it.

Anthony realised that he was looking at the grounds and buildings of St Thomas's school and that there was match in hand. He glanced at the score board and saw that the game was at a critical stage eight wickets down and the home team needing four runs to win. Even as he watched the ninth wicket fell. The batsman taking an ill judged swing at a ball bouncing uncomfortably high on the leg side was smartly caught in the slips and sportingly walked without waiting for the umpire to give out. All now rested on the last man in and the boy walking slowly out from the pavilion looked distinctly nervous.

Anthony did not blame him. Quite apart from the responsibility now resting on his shoulders the bowler, a rather lanky youth, was distinctly quick and was showing no sign of being unduly kind to the opposing side's tailenders. The boy took his stand at the wicket, glanced nervously about and bent to await his fate. The bowler paced back, carefully measuring his distance. He turned and began his run up to the wicket. He delivered the ball with a small jump sending it flying down the pitch towards the crouching and by now plainly terrified batsman who cowered and poked at the ball ineffectually as it passed him to knock his centre stump flying.

The boy stood gaping for a moment at his shattered wicket. Then the umpire, at whom Anthony had up to then not really looked, spoke.

"You can go now Brown," he said, "I think you need some additional coaching."

The voice and the tone, amused but subtly menacing, were all too familiar to Anthony. Somewhat heavier and with rather less hair than fourteen years ago but still clearly recognisable stood Mr Grade.

Chapter 3

At the back of his mind he wondered whether it was at that stage that Mr Grade selected his boys from those so readily available to him or did he leave making his choice until they were bigger

Then a quick hug from his Mother before being led away by a boy much bigger than himself to be shown his place in the dormitory; a single small bed in a double row of twenty four in a long drab room with a polished linoleum floor. His fear increased by the realisation that the other boy so much bigger than he was, was himself afraid of the large man in his black academic robe.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, not knowing what to do next, feeling utterly alone, while other boys, all of whom seemed to know each other and were bigger than him, talked and laughed together. Then Tim appearing, looking just as lost and lonely as he felt, a shy smile and a friendship that grew ever closer over the next five years.

The shock of going from a home where he was the only boy, with a room of his own and indulgent parents to cosset him, to being crowded together with upwards of two hundred other boys under the authority of a none too patient a tyrant.

First the discovery, initially horrifying for a naturally shy and modest boy, that he was allowed no privacy. To have to change, bath, shower amidst a hoard of other naked or near naked children was bad enough. The doorless lavatory cubicles were even worse. The checking both by Matron and Mr Grade that he had washed behind his ears, between his toes and under and in there was, with small naturally grubby boys, necessary but at first horribly embarrassing. At least he was spared the ultimate humiliation inflicted on Tim as he had been circumcised. Anthony could remember vividly the look on Tim's face the first time that Mr Grade, impatiently brushing the boy's hands away, pulled back his foreskin.

Once more the rational part of his mind, the part not totally engaged in recalling past terrors and humiliations, surfaced briefly. He wondered if Mr Grade's enthusiasm for personal cleanliness was partly accounted for by his wish to get the boys accustomed to being handled.

Certainly it was not long before all his modesty had disappeared and he was as unselfconscious as the other boys. He thought nothing of his nakedness and submitting patiently to Mr Grade and Matron's intimate inspections. By the time that he caught his first bout of ring worm he joined readily enough in the queue of boys standing in the corridor outside Matron's room with their shirt tales flapping round their bare bottoms. It was not his nakedness but the sting of the iodine when Matron painted it onto the rash at the juncture of his legs that caused him to protest and led inevitably to yet another visit to Mr Grade's study this time to be thrashed this time for ingratitude.

The most frightening thing of all though was the discovery that there were adults prepared deliberately to hurt him and to maximise the amount of that hurt. His Mother had occasionally, although very rarely, smacked him but these occasions he recognised were aberrations, acts of exasperation to which she was driven by his behaviour. That someone could in cold blood calmly set out to inflict pain on him was a new and frightening discovery.

Some indications that this was so were there from the beginning. The nature and purpose of the cane leaning against the wall of Mr Grade's study in the corner behind his desk was clear even to a boy who had up to then not felt it's bite across his bottom. The talk of the boys in the dormitory often turned to the subject of floggings, boastfully of beatings endured in the past and fearfully of possible thrashings to come.

As the new term got under way the normal routines of school life resumed and very soon talk was transformed into reality. He saw boys pale faced and trembling, making their reluctant way to Mr Grade's study. He saw them a few minutes later reappear, their lips quivering, their eyes shining with tears to take refuge in the lavatories where they could be seen seated, their heads bowed shoulders quivering, in solitary misery. Later they would emerge to display their stripes to their admiring fellows. Anthony remembered clearly the sensation of fear and excitement he experienced when he saw for the first time the livid welts that a cane can raise if vigorously enough applied.

He took his turn with the other boys to run his fingertips along the jagged ridges that the rod had scored across the smooth flesh of a boy's tender bottom. The boy winced as his fingertip touched the angry red line of broken flesh. Anthony saw how the colour deepened and darkened at the edges of each cut until it shaded from dark red to purple with an underlying hint of greenish yellow as the deeper bruising began to come out.

"It must have hurt," he said timidly.

"Not much really," the boy replied carelessly.

Anthony thought that this was strange for he had seen the boy only a short time before huddled in the lavatories sobbing to himself. He had however learnt enough of the laws of survival in the jungle of a boy's preparatory school not to openly express his doubts, for the boy was a good deal bigger and stronger than he was.

For a time he persuaded himself that his bottom would be spared. Surely no one could possibly want to hurt him and anyway he was a good boy and would not do anything ever to deserve such savage and cruel a punishment. He was soon to be disabused. In St Tim's, as in many other similar schools, at that time the cane was the punishment of first not last resort. Boys were beaten for being noisy, late, lazy, dirty, unruly, cheeky, disobedient, wild. They were beaten in short for the best of reasons, as generations had before them, for being boys.

Anthony was a boy and he too was soon making the journey that so many others had made before him down the cold stone flagged corridor that led to Mr Grade's study. He doubted if any criminal on the way to the scaffold had experienced more terror than he had done at that moment. It seemed, he remembered, a very long way. He had difficulty in walking, his legs were weak and his limbs appeared to lack co-ordination. There was a lump in his throat which made it hard to breath and impossible to swallow. His stomach was knotted in a lump of cold fear. He could remember more than twenty years later the panic that gripped him when he stood before the study door trying to summon the courage to knock.

He never did succeed in doing it. Eventually the door opened and suddenly Mr Grade was there looming over him. He had demanded why the boy was there and Anthony had tried to stammer out a reply but his voice came out as a hoarse whisper and he doubted if the master understood what he said. However there could be only one explanation for the presence of a small boy in that place in that condition of unmitigated terror and Mr Grade acted accordingly. Taking a firm grip of Anthony's ear he drew him into the room closing the door behind him. Patiently almost gently he led the boy through the ritual that preceded a thrashing in St Thomas's.

Remarking that he believed this was Anthony's first time in a voice that sounded slightly amused and rather contemptuous Mr Grade instructed Anthony to remove his shoes and socks, to place the latter neatly inside the former and to line them up tidily under the chair just inside the door.

Anthony was conscious of the man's eyes on him as with fingers numb with fear he fumbled with his laces. Then Mr Grade told him to remove his shorts to fold them neatly and to place them on the seat of the chair. As he did so Mr Grade, remarked that he must always remember to take off his shoes before his shorts because pulling them off over his shoes could lead to them tearing and involving his parents in unnecessary expense. He had been puzzled that a man could showed so much consideration for his parent's pockets while preparing to flog their son whom they valued he was sure much more than the price of a pair of grey flannel shorts.

Standing with his shirt tales flapping about his skinny bare legs Anthony was told to go to the middle of the room, to stand with his feet slightly apart, to bend over and to take hold of his ankles. He heard Mr Grade move behind him.

"You are to stay down until I have finished. As this is your first time I will restrict your punishment to four strokes. You need not think that I will be so lenient in future." The man's voice so low and gentle that Anthony thought for a moment that he would not hurt him or at least not hurt him very much.

He felt the touch of the cane against his bottom; heard the low whistle as it descended and felt the explosion of searing pain as it cut down across his tightly drawn rump. All thoughts that it wasn't going to hurt much were instantly expelled from his mind. The searing pain coursed through his body driving the wind from his lungs. Desperately hanging on to his ankles he fought to stop himself starting upright. At last the first surge of pain passed and Anthony dragged air down into his lungs clamping his bottom iron hard in expectation of the next cut. There was a pause as the tension within him mounted almost to breaking point. Then he heard once again the rich sibilant hiss of the descending cane and felt the burning pain as the rod cracked down across his bottom. Mr Grade, carefully spacing his strokes to ensure that he felt the full effect of each one, landed two further heavy cuts across his upraised rump before dismissing him.

"You may stand up now Llewellyn," the man said coldly.

Anthony tears stinging his eyes dressed himself. His hands were shaking so much that he could hardly tie his laces.

"You may go now boy 3; I hope I will not see you here again but I expect I will," Mr Grade said and laughed grimly.

Anthony made for the door only to be halted by a barked command.

"Stop boy 3;"

"You said I could go Sir 3;" Anthony stammered puzzled.

"Aren't you going to say thank you?" Mr Grade snapped.

"Sorry Sir. Thank you Sir," and then at last Anthony made his escape.

And yet being at St Thomas's was not all bad, Anthony told himself as he surfaced from his memories. He was frightened of Mr Grade, as all the boys were, but that fear was leavened with respect and even an element of affection. They regarded him as savages might some powerful and arbitrary tribal god. They feared him but at the same time he was their god and no one else's. They took pride in the very harshness of his rule and valued even more any sign of approval or affection from him because such signs were so rarely given.

He remembered feeling sorry for boys who lived at home with their parents.

It was wonderful to come home at the end of term, to be fussed over and given treats. But to live at home all the time; to have Mum asking each time he coughed if he had a cold; Dad asking how he had done in this or that subject or how he had got on at sports; to come home each evening and have to sit eat his supper, although it would be a much better meal than he got at school, with no one but his Mum and Dad to talk to and then to be stuck in the house with no other boys for company day after day week after week all the year through. It would be really tame and boring. All right, he was frightened nearly all the time at school; frightened of being late, of failing to do his class work, or his home work, or of being caught slacking on the games field, or of failing to polish his shoes, or wash his hands and face; frightened of the bigger boys; above all frightened of being beaten but he was never ever bored There were always other boys about for company and things to do, things that they were meant to do and also, even more excitingly, things that they were strictly forbidden to do.

Things got better as well as the terms went by. For one thing he grew and so there were progressively less boys bigger than him able to push him around.

Also as you worked your way up the school Mr Grade somehow seemed to take more notice of you. There was intense competition among the boys to win Mr Grade's approval. He was much more important to them, at least during term time, then their mothers and fathers. As head master he took some of the senior classes and you were therefore more likely to be taught by him. He remembered how nervous he used to feel if Mr Grade stopped by his desk when he was walking about the class room. A nervousness that would increase when the man rested his hand on his shoulder and bent forward to examine his work. He remembered too the relief and the pride he felt on the rare occasion when that examination ended in a word of praise.

He was more likely too to choose you to send on an errand, to take a message or fetch something. "Please Sir Mr Grade says would you please 3;," or perhaps "Please Matron Mr Grade wants me to fetch him 3;" How important you felt being trusted by him with such tasks.

Best of all was when he praised you for something you had done on the sports field, mentioning your name in assembly or congratulating you as he passed in the in the corridor, perhaps ruffling your hair as he did so or even patting your behind.

It was strange, Anthony thought as he arrived back at the spot where he had left his car, that it was these acts of Mr Grade, that had given the boys so much pleasure, carried just a little further which had been the cause of him being set to prison. The judge had criticised the severity beatings that the man had administered so frequently and with so much enthusiasm but Anthony knew very well that if that was all there had been against Mr Grade he would have escaped prison. At the most, excessive use of the cane had been all that could be alleged against him, he would have faced a charge of physical assault and a possible fine. Very likely he would have escaped prosecution altogether. It was illegal now for teachers to hit their pupils but not then. At least that was the law in Britain. Whether it was the same in Cyprus he did not know.

With a feeling of apprehension he realised he had a problem. Was he to report Mr Grade to the Cypriot authorities and if he was on what grounds?

He did not know for certain if the man was up to his old tricks and, if he was not, would not reporting him simply be persecuting further a man for something for which he had already been punished? Even if Mr Grade was behaving as he had done in the past he was faced with his old dilemma of whether it was right to take action against him. For despite moments of intense pain, pain more excruciating than any beating, and despite being told that what Mr Grade had done to him was evil, he had enjoyed it. He remembered the first time, when Mr Grade had finished with him, the man drawing him onto his knees, wiping the tears and snot from his face, kissing him and telling him that he knew it had hurt but he had to experience that hurt to be truly one of his boys. How he had wriggled his bare bottom in the man's crutch and returned his kiss and how proud he was when Mr Grade calling him 'a hot little whore' had sent him back to his own bed with a pat on the rump. If he remembered that now with pleasure and excitement was he right to deny other boys similar moments of joy? Perhaps Tim was right when he called him a traitor.

Anyway, he told himself he couldn't do anything straight away. He didn't positively know if Mr Grade had broken any Cypriot law. If he was to do anything about the man it would have to be by way of a quiet word with some one in the Cypriot Education Department. It would not be hard to arrange that. He had a number of contacts with that office through his work with the British Council. It was Saturday. He had the rest of the week end to think things over.

Now he had to return to his flat, shower and change into something respectable, for he had been invited to drinks at the Anglican Vicarage at Pathos. Although the occasion sounded less than exciting he knew he had to turn up to it. The Vicar had delivered the invitation himself and had made it clear that the party was being held to give him an opportunity to meeting the upper crust of Pathos expatriate society. That is, Anthony suspected, those British people who both attended the Anglican church there and contributed generously to parish funds.

Three hours later freshly showered and smartly dressed Anthony, taking a glass of white wine from the tray offered to him by the elderly black clad maid, glanced round the vicarage garden. The shadows had begun to lengthen and the heat had gone out of the sun. A fair number of guests had already arrived and were standing quietly chatting on the carefully tended lawn.

Anthony took a sip of his wine and groaned inwardly. It was, as he feared, Cypriot. There was little point in boasting about two thousand years of wine making if the stuff you produced tasted so positively unpleasant. However he supposed the Australians would eventually arrive with their stainless steel vats and oak barrels and produce something drinkable but character less.

"My dear chap I didn't see you arrive. You must think me most remiss. I do apologise come and meet Major and Mrs Grey and the Renshaws. Such nice people and active in artistic circles out here. Mrs Renshaw directed our local opera society's production of Iolanthe last winter you know." It was his host the Reverend Arthur West, Anglican Vicar of Pathos, a fat comfortable priest.

Anthony moved resignedly to go with him when an all too familiar voice spoke behind him.

"Llewellyn I hoped that I would meet you again but I had not expected to be so fortunate as to run across you here."

Anthony turned to face Mr Grade who had just joined the party.

Chapter 4

"Indeed I do Arthur," Mr Grade replied cheerfully. "I think I may say I know the young man intimately. For a few unforgettable years I taught Anthony when e was a boy."

"You were fortunate Mr Llewellyn 3; or perhaps I may call you Anthony 3; this is such an informal age 3; everybody is on first name terms so quickly 3; Not that I mind 3; I rather like it in fact 3; to be taught by our friend here I mean. He is so dedicated and skilled a teacher. He has done wonders at St Thomas's. I am amazed Richard that with so many boys passing through your hands you could recognise an individual so many years after you had taught him. But I suppose that is a measure of your dedication and interest in your young charges."

"I am as liable I am afraid to forget names and faces as the next man Arthur," Mr Grade replied chuckling in a self deprecating manner, "but there are some boys that a school master never forgets for one reason or another."

"I hope the reason you remember Anthony is one that brings credit on the young man 3; Not smoking in the shrubbery or other instances of juvenile wickedness." The Vicar laughed lightly at the thought.

"No indeed. I remember him as a boy because he was one of the most enthusiastic and eager of pupils I ever had the privilege of instructing. I have always regretted that he was taken out of my hands before I was able to develop his full potential."

"A glowing tribute Anthony," Arthur Wells said rubbing his hands together, "A glowing tribute and a great recommendation to us all that you receive it from so valued and enthusiastic a member of our local community here as Richard. We owe him a great deal in our Parish of St Paul's. Not only for his personal generosity and his fund raising efforts both of which are considerable but to the contribution he and the school have made to our Parish music 3; Sweet singing in the choir indeed. I really do not think you could find a match for our choir now in the whole Anglican Church outside the great cathedrals."

"And that new little lad you have given a scholarship to," the Vicar continued, "I don't think I have ever heard a boy with a sweeter clearer voice."

"You over state my generosity. It is Mr Volonsky who is responsible for the child's presence here. His own son is at the school. As you know Arthur many of the Russian colony here like to give their boys a taste of an English style school near to home before committing them to a Public school in Britain. Mr Volonsky knowing my, our, enthusiasm for the choir and coming across young Vassilly on a business trip back to Russia simply brought him back here and entered him in the school. The boy was I believe quite destitute, singing for coppers in the street, when Volonsky heard him and recognised his talent."

"But I understand Arthur for all that you say you are in part at least financing his stay at your school. I believe that you do not charge the full fee."

"It is a pleasure for me that I can sometimes now afford to indulge myself by cultivating a boy's natural talent," Mr Grade replied smiling quietly.

"It is the churches gain 3; Do come to Lunch after Eucharist tomorrow morning Richard and bring Vassilly with you too. Such a charming child so shy and so appreciative of his good fortune. He is almost as beautiful to look at as he is to hear. I always feel like Pope Gregory when I see him 'Non Angli sed Angeli' 3; although I suppose the dear boy is a Slav that spoils the pun 3; Well I will leave you two to chat and pick up old threads. I must circulate. Richard don't keep our young friend to yourself all evening 3; Introduce him round when you've finished chatting about the old days."

The Vicar hurried off leaving Anthony alone with the man he had last seen being taken from the dock of the criminal court to begin serving his prison sentence for child abuse at the end of a trial in which he had been the principal prosecution witness. Little that he had seen or heard that day suggested that Mr Grade had changed his nature. Anthony felt that probably he should, rather than standing smiling and silent as the Vicar and Grade had exchanged pleasantries, have denounced the man. He knew that his failure to do so at once would weaken the effect of any later action on his part.

People would be sure to ask if he was so sure that Mr Grade was so wicked why he did not act immediately rather than waiting. It was partly that he had been taken by surprise. The sudden appearance of Mr Grade in the vicarage garden had knocked him off balance. Then, by the time he had adjusted to the man's presence, he was chatting with the vicar clearly at ease with his surroundings. It was difficult in those circumstances to take any action against him without creating a public scene. Underlying all this was his own doubts, doubts that had haunted him ever since Grade's trial, as to whether what the man had done was so very wicked.

If Anthony was surprised and wracked with uncertainties Mr Grade gave no sign of being anything else than perfectly at ease with himself and his surroundings.

"I am indeed glad to meet you here Llewellyn," he said. "I saw you at the cricket match and called after you but you did not appear to hear me. I was going to try to seek you out but the chances were you were only holidaying in the island and in those circumstances I would have been extremely fortunate to find you before you left the place. But if I understand our good Vicar you are here as more or less a permanent resident?"

"Yes," Anthony replied finding he could not help replying to the implied question and only just avoiding the calling his old Head Master 'Sir' so strong were the ties of the past, "I'm working for the British Council in Pathos."

"You must have taken over from old Lockwood," Mr Grade exclaimed delightedly. "You're in charge of the office here. You're very young to have got the post but then you were always a bright intelligent boy. A quick learner too. I am delighted for you."

"We must have a long chat sometime picking up old threads. Come up to the school soon and have a drink one evening. Let me see I can't manage tomorrow. I am bidden as you know to Sunday lunch at the Vicarage and Sunday evenings I make a point of making myself available to any parents who may want to see me. I sometimes think we should cancel weekend exeats. They only unsettle the boys. Their home circumstances are often so difficult nowadays you know. I find myself spending more and more time on pastoral matters which often involve the parents as much as the boys. But Monday," Mr Grade paused in thought. "Yes Monday will be excellent. Come up to the school at half past seven. The boys will have had their supper then and we can have a good long talk. Is that all right with you Anthony?"

"Well." Anthony hesitated but then thought that there would be no harm in visiting the school and talking to Mr Grade there. Indeed it might help him make up his mind as to what if anything he ought to do. "Yes. Thank you very much 3; I look forward to that."

"And so do I," Mr Grade replied heartily, "and now let me introduce you to some of our fellow guests. You will find here the cream of expatriate society in Pathos not that that means very much."

Placing his hand on Anthony's shoulder he propelled him towards the nearest group. Anthony was amazed that he felt an echo, a weak one indeed but still an echo, of the thrill of pride and excitement that he had used to feel when as a small boy away from home eager for the approval and attention of an adult 'Sir' had condescended to notice him.

For the next hour and a half Anthony was taken from group to group of people being introduced. He met Major and Mrs Grey, the Renshaws, the Coles, the Smythe-Wibbleys, Colonel Grant and dozens of others whose names and faces he promptly forgot. The two things that he did remember as he walked away from the Vicarage in the gathering dusk was the execrable taste of the wine and the way in which Mr Grade appeared to be known and liked by everybody.

Anthony was not religiously inclined only getting himself confirmed at fourteen to please his mother. However having been to drinks at the vicarage on Saturday evening he felt himself more or less bound to attend church the next morning.

Apart from the brilliant blue sky overhead and the flaming jacaranda bush by the lych-gate the Anglican church could as well have been in Putney as in Pathos. A grey mock gothic pile it arrogantly refused to make any concession to geography. The congregation Anthony thought was as unmistakably English as the church and so far as the male portion of it was concerned shared that buildings refusal to adapt to place and climate.

The woman tended to wear light simmer dresses of the sort that you might see at a superior garden party in the home counties but without the small white or pink jersey that prudence dictated was carried as a protection against the rigours of the weather in England. The men made no such concessions to the heat of the Mediterranean sun, dark suits, quiet shirts with discreet ties and highly polished shoes were the order of the day.

As Anthony arrived at the church a mini bus with St Thomas's English School in bold dark blue letters on it's side drew up. It's doors slid back and a dozen or so excited school boys between eight and fourteen years old tumbled out jostling and pushing at each other. The driver, obviously the master in charge, jumped from the drivers seat and hurried round the bus.

"Boys," he said sharply, "Boys steady now. Simmer down. Just simmer down."

Anthony could tell from the way the boys immediately quietened that discipline at St Thomas's was tight and firmly enforced.

"That's better," the master said when silence had fallen. "You know very well that the rule is that you leave the bus quietly from the front.

Simpson, Davies and Lindsay-Brown and Johnson you did not wait your turns. You will report to me when we return to school. Now form up and go in to the church."

Quickly the boys paired off and Anthony stood to one side to let them past. He could see that St Thomas's school uniform too made little concession to the climate. Each boy was immaculately turned out in a maroon blazer with yellow and red piping, grey shirt with maroon and yellow striped ties, grey shorts, long grey socks with maroon and yellow tops and highly polished black shoes. The only thing that distinguished them from a crowd of English preparatory school boys in their Sunday best was the deep tan that the Mediterranean sun had imparted to their legs and faces. It seemed though to Anthony as the boys filed by him and his eyes were unwillingly but inevitably drawn to the succession of brown firmly rounded boy's thighs, that the shorts they wore were somewhat tighter and briefer than might be expected in Britain.

That had been the case he remembered in his time also. Any boy the legs of whose shorts approached anywhere near his knees risked incurring Mr Wades' wrath. So fearful of this were they that Matron in the early days of each term had to deal with a succession of desperate boys pleading with her to use her skills as a needle woman before Sir saw their new shorts.

Following the column of boys with his eyes he saw that either the school matron or one of her assistants had indeed been busy and was an adept with the needle. So skilfully had she cut and sown that from behind you would not have known that anyone of the choristers were wearing shorts at all. It seemed almost the full length of each pair of firm young legs was visible with only each boy's the blazer shrouding their very tops from view.

If you had not known better you would have thought that it was only necessary to slip your hand under a blazer to have access to the most intimate recesses of a boy's body.

Anthony wondered at the effort that must have been put into ensuring the boys presented so delectable a spectacle. For a moment he was back in the days before his voice had broken remembering the rising tension that the end of the week brought to those boys, who like himself, were in the school choir which sang in the local parish church. The pushing and shoving among the naked boys on Saturday nights, which was bath night for the choristers as they competed for Sir's attention. Mr Grade moving among them laughing as he checked their bodies uttering the occasional word of praise. Sometimes, his smile suddenly frozen, administering a hard open handed smack to the bottom of some boy who had displeased him. The sudden explosive crack of hard palm against unprotected boy's flesh would ring out above the chatter and laughter bringing a sudden moment of silence. Occasionally grabbing a boy who had failed to pass his inspection by the scruff of his neck with one hand while vigorously sponging the offending part of his victim naked body as he squirmed in his grasp. Then the last minute change into their best uniforms after breakfast on Sunday morning. The lump in his throat as he lined up for the final check before they set off for church knowing that any imperfection detected would lead to summary punishment.

Returning to the present and noticing an angry bruise across the back of one boy's smooth brown thigh Anthony reflected that apparently little had changed. He too had often gone to church the marks of the cane fresh on his body.

The assistant master in charge of the boys brushed past him. Anthony stared after the man a puzzled expression on his face. About the same age as himself there was something strangely familiar about the shape of his head and the way he carried his shoulders.

There was a crunch of on gravel and a large shiny new BMW pulled into the church car park. The driver door swung open and Mr Grade climbed out smiling. Dressed in a light weight tropical suit he was the only man among the congregation who had made any concession to the climate.

He reached back into the car and placed a Panama hat on his head. He sighted Anthony and walked over to him pausing every now and again to say a word or bow to one of the waiting women each time punctiliously raising his hat. He did this so frequently that Anthony suspected that he had brought the hat from the car for the sole purpose of raising it.

"Anthony, my dear chap," he exclaimed when eventually he reached him, "so good to see you here and so wise and so courteous of you to come unless indeed," he laughed lightly at the conceit, " you are a believer.

Then the courtesy and the wisdom is less but the virtue all the greater."

"I thought," Anthony admitted, "that it would be rather churlish to attend the vicars party last night and miss his church service this morning."

"True, true and I trust that the habit of church attendance that you picked up in your youth has stayed with you. You were a member of the school choir I remember. So important a good choir I think it helps to set the tone of the school and gives it an identity in the wider community. You saw our present choir arrive? I trust you agree with me that the boys' appearance brings credit to our school."

"I saw them 3;" Anthony began. He was a little taken aback at the apparent self confidence of the man. He had expected Mr Grade to show some anxiety and indeed embarrassment on coming across the person whose evidence had sent him to gaol some twelve years previously and who could with just a few words ruin his business and reputation. Mr Grade however had shown neither. Rather he had behaved towards Anthony as if he had nothing to fear, a respected older member of the local community patronising a young newcomer with whom he happened to be already acquainted. He was to surprise Anthony still further.

"You recognised Tim Fraser?" he asked.

Anthony said nothing but simply gaped in surprise.

"Tim Fraser," Mr Grade repeated a hint of impatience in his voice. "Your great friend when you were at my old school. Such a good faithful boy.

He was one of the first people who sort me out you know. I had great hopes of him at the time and was not disappointed. I had great hopes of you too Anthony.."

He checked himself and then said as if, it seemed to Anthony, he not Mr Grade was the person who had misbehaved all those years ago.

"Ah well it was not to be. You must not distress yourself and this is not the time or place to discuss it. We can talk it over tomorrow no doubt when you visit me at the school if you wish. Look the congregation is entering the church. We had best join them I think. I am sure Anthony that although, as would seem to be apparent, you are not a strong churchman you will find our service interesting."

Chapter Five

As he settled himself, bending forward in an imitation of the current Anglican position of prayer in which the knees do not touch the ground, he reflected that his position had been further compromised. It was already difficult after spending the previous evening in Mr Grade's company at the Vicar's party, it was even more so now. How could he convincingly denounce a man for abusing him as a boy immediately after being seen sharing a pew with him in church? The trouble was partly that some of his old awe of Mr Grade lingered and partly that the man had a knack of assuming that you were going to fall in with his plans that was very difficult to withstand.

Anthony sat back in his pew and glanced around. The church was a large building, it's nave dwarfing the congregation of fifty or so that sat huddled together at the Eastern end before the steps leading up to the chancel.

There was a strong smell of incense and interspersed between the memorials to previous incumbents and deceased worthies, all of whom, while living, seemed to be noted for their piety, charity and all the other Christian virtues, that lined the side aisles walls were pictures denoting the stations of the cross. From this Anthony drew the conclusion that Mr Wells belonged to the further reaches of the Anglo-Catholic faction of the Anglican church. There would no doubt as a consequence be a good deal of chanting, genuflecting and extraneous bits of ritual. To be set against this though was that the service would not start by the congregation being asked, as had happened at one service he had had to attend in the past, "to give God a big hand for sending us such a wonderful day," and the sermon would almost certainly be short.

His expectations were proved to be well founded. Mr Wells made his entry preceded by two vergers carrying rods with brass crosses on their tops, followed by two youths rather inexpertly swinging smoking censors.

Then came the choir, the boys leading, the smallest in the front. If the boys had looked attractive in their school uniforms, now wearing dark blue surplices with white tops, they exuded an air of seductive innocence. They were followed by the men of the choir. There were no women or girls.

Finally came Mr Wells wearing over his black surplice a scarlet chasuble richly embroidered with gold and silver thread.

The singing Anthony had to admit to himself was excellent. The boys' voices rising high and clear over the deeper tones of the men. A boy with the blondest of blond hair, and a peaches and cream complexion to which the sun had given a golden tinge sang a solo part, his voice the purest soprano, seeming to soar upwards, filling the knave with the sweetest music. It was a pity that Mr Wells when he chanted and he did rather a lot of that, showed himself to possess a rather weak voice with a distinct nasal twang.

The service wound slowly to it's conclusion. The hymns were sung, the psalms chanted, the lessons read, one by Mr Grade, the sermon preached, the wine and bread blessed and consumed, the blessing given.

Mr Wells, preceded as before by the vergers with rods, the two youths swinging censers, the choir boys looking angelic and the men looking, it appeared to Anthony, rather thirsty, processed from the chancel down the length of the nave.

There was a pause while people stood in their pews waiting on each other to move. The congregation began to file slowly from the church. Mr Wells, out of his chasuble but still wearing his surplice, stood at the door shaking everybody's hand as they passed. He appeared slightly out of breath. He must have run from the vestry round the building to get there in time.

"And what," said Mr Grade when he and Anthony were standing together outside the church in the sunshine, "did you think of our service?"

"Rather 3; er elaborate," Anthony replied carefully, "but the singing was very good," he added quickly knowing he was on safer ground.

"Yes wasn't it," Mr Grade replied in a self satisfied sort of way. "Well I must wait here now for my principal chorister. He and I have been, as I think you know, bidden to luncheon in the vicarage."

"Ah here he is now. Here boy. Over here. Quickly we mustn't keep Mr Wells waiting. Come along now."

Vassilly trotted up to them.

"Say how do you do to Mr Llewellyn Vassilly and shake hands. Remember your manners boy."

"How do you do Sir," Vassilly shyly holding out his hand.

"How are you Vassilly," Anthony said taking the small sweaty paw in his.

"And what do you think of Vassilly's voice?" Mr Grade enquire smiling benevolently.

Anthony looked down into the young face smiling shyly up at him. He felt a jolt as though his heart had stopped beating. Blood pounded in his head.

His mind went blank

"I think both Vassilly and his voice are beautiful," Anthony heard himself say.

He saw the blood flood the boy's cheeks. Vassilly pulled his hand away and dropped his head in embarrassment.

"Well, well," Mr Grade chortled gently, "maybe you'll see more of Vassilly when you call on me tomorrow."

He put his hand on the boy's shoulder and turning, led him away. Anthony stood staring after them, cursing himself for his lack of self control.

"He's so good to his boys and they all worship him you know," a woman's voice said.

Turning he saw Mrs Renshaw standing beside him.

"And he's especially good to that boy. I don't know if you know about him. He has nothing, no father no mother, nothing and you can see how he has taken to Mr Grade. I don't believe he even knew his own surname you know or it was some unpronounceable Russian one. Mr Grade calls him Rossignoll. That's the French for 3;"

"Nightingale," Anthony said quickly.

"Yes quite right. So appropriate such a wonderful voice and a very pretty boy too."

"Yes," said Anthony thoughtfully, "yes indeed."

Anthony walked away. He saw nothing of the people who crowded the pavements or the cars that ground noisily with much hooting of horns and revving of engines down the narrow streets. His mind was full of the image of a boy with hair the colour of white gold and the shyest and sweetest of smiles.

He had intended to have his lunch at some cafe but he found he was in no mood to be bothered by a waiter trying to make friendly conversation about the weather, the antiquities, the bill of fair and inevitably the iniquities of the Turks. Instead he walked slowly back to his apartment and made his meal of cheese and bread washed down with a glass of beer.

Then, having eaten he went into his bedroom and stretched himself on his bed. He lay there trying to concentrate his mind on what he should do. It seemed to him he had problems enough and that he had added to them considerably that morning. He was still unsure whether, if Mr Grade was up to his old practices and it seemed likely that he was, he ought to take some action to stop him. If he should, what action ought he and could he take. Now he had been seen in Grade's company, both at the Vicar's party and at church, a discreet quiet word with a leading member of the expatriate community would be pointless. He could not now expect to be believed. The only way now to stop Grade, if stopped he should be, was to make a formal complaint to the Cyprus authorities who would also probably not believe him. If he made sufficient fuss no doubt they would, however reluctantly, look up the man's records in Britain and that would settle the matter. It would though involve a lot of fuss and a lot of scandal.

It would raise questions about his own behaviour. Why did he postpone taking action and why had he been so friendly with Grade? None of these would help his own career.

All this ignored the very basic question of whether what Grade had done in the past and might be doing now, was so very bad. Then what right had he, Anthony, to judge Grade at all. Was he not just as bad, if bad it was, with his lusting after Vassilly?

There his thoughts stopped. For however hard he tried to think his problems through, however much he attempted to concentrate his mind on the practical questions of what he should and could do, the memory of the slim fair haired boy walking away from him, Grade's hand resting proprietarily on his shoulder, returned to dominate his imagination.

What did Grade mean by "seeing more of the boy." Was it just a joke or was it a promise? Had the boy already experienced the same painful initiation that Anthony and Tim and so many of their fellow pupils had endured at Mr Grade's hands so many years ago?

Anthony's imagination heated by the thought and by the memory of his own rough wooing began to conjure pictures where his own youthful body merged and identified with Vassilly's. His hand crept down to his trouser band. He fiddled with his belt loosening it. His hand now was inside his trousers. His fingers touched and stroked his hardness.

He was twelve years old again among a hoard of other boys imprisoned in a world ruled by the wishes and will of Mr Grade. Sir dominated that world like some all powerful tribal God who had to be served and placated. The boys, Anthony among them, competed for his attention and approval. To be one of Sir's boys, to be among the group of his acknowledged favourites, was the ambition of every boy who had not already attained that privilege.

It was not open to the youngest. You had to be eleven or twelve before Sir seemed to notice you and there was a price to pay. What that price was though, was uncertain. The favourites knew but they did not say. In fact, isolated in their special dormitory, situated right opposite the door leading to Mr Grade's private rooms, they kept very much to themselves. Rumours circulated speaking of great pain and weird practices only comprehensible to adults.

Something weird too had been happening to his own body. Just before the end of the holidays he had been lying in the bath thinking about nothing.

His prick had hardened for no particular reason, something that had been happening increasingly often recently, but this time there was suddenly the most gorgeous feeling ever and streaks of white stuff had shot form his piss hole and floated upwards. This had happened since a couple of times in bed. He'd been afraid Matron would spot the marks on his sheets and he'd be beaten, just like he was when he wet the bed once in his first term but she hadn't.

Now there was another worry. Mr Grade had seemed to be checking more and more often on him when he showered. Whenever Sir checked down there his prick went hard. He was frightened the white stuff would suddenly shoot out of it and then he knew Sir would be angry.

He had come out of the showers and Mr Grade was standing there. Other naked boys were milling around but with a sinking feeling he realised that Mr Grade was looking at him

"Have you washed between the legs boy?"

"Yes Sir Please Sir."

"Let me check boy. Legs apart."

He felt Sir's hand on the small of his back pushing him forward so that his bottom was raised and open. There was a pause and Mr Grade slapped him hard on the rump.

"Good boy," and then the order he dreaded, "turn round and face me now. Let's see your front."

He turned using his hands in a pathetic and pointless effort to hide his embarrassment.

"Get your hands away from there you stupid boy," Sir ordered impatiently.

Reluctantly he obeyed. His rigid prick wobbling upright in front of him. There was a sound of barely suppressed giggling from the boys behind him.

"What's this then?" Mr Grade reached out and taking hold of his hard cock .

"Sir Please Sir," he pleaded in anguished tones as the man began to roll the stiff little rod of boy's flesh between finger and thumb.

"Oh Sir," he gasped as he squirted boy juice.

Anthony's knees came up and he grabbed for a handkerchief and clasped it hard against his prick end as semen gushed from it's end. He lay panting on the bed back in the present. Light filtered dimly into the bedroom though the half closed shutters. A fly buzzed gently. Anthony closed his eyes and for a moment he dozed, his hand once more inside his trousers. Time passed and then his fingers began to slowly move once again.

He was a boy once again naked, frightened and in disgrace. There was a moment of total silence as Mr Grade looked down at his hand, white liquid dripping from it onto the floor. Then he exploded in rage.

"You dirty little brute," he roared wiping the front of his hand down the boy's chest, leaving a trail of warm stickiness behind. "Go and ask Matron for a cloth and mop your filth up."

"Sir Please Sir can I 3;," he wanted to plead to be allowed to put some clothes on before setting out on this errand.

"Shut up and do as your told," roared Mr Grade swinging him round, helping him on his way with his boot up his behind.

"And be sure to tell Matron what you want the cloth for. I don't want it being used for anything else after cleaning up your mess," Mr Grade shouted as he scuttled off on his errand.

Matron was a hard faced middle aged woman who had spent her whole life working in boy's prep schools. Not because she liked boys but because she hated them and the work gave her ample opportunity of venting her bile on her unfortunate charges. She loved Mr Grade in a hard sexless way and served him faithfully because he allowed her to give free reign to her cruelty.

She sat looking at the naked boy with mean pig like eyes as, with tears of humiliation streaming down his face, he stammered out his errand and the cause of it.

"Well," she said harshly when he fell silent, "there's no point standing there snivelling. What would your Mother think of you if I told her what a filthy slut she has for a son I don't like to think. Here take this rag and get out of my sight. You belong in the farmyard not a decent school."

One of Matrons strengths, and one she took great pride in, was that she could reduce a boy to tears as well with her tongue as her hands; although she was not backward in employing the latter whenever occasion offered.

Mr Grade stood towering over the boy as he crouched at his feet swabbing away at the floor with the damp rag. At last Sir was satisfied.

"Go to my study and wait for me there. I will deal with you later."

The boy wanted to ask permission to wash himself and to put on something to cover his nakedness. He knew though that Sir's orders were to be obeyed immediately and without question. At least the rules required him to stand facing the wall so passers-bye would not see the dried boy juice caked on his chest.

He stood there a small frightened naked boy, his toes and nose touching the wall, as the rules required. People walked past but he dared not look round. Sometimes it was the heavy step of a master, more often the lighter quicker foot steps of a boy or boys. No one spoke to him.

Sometimes a masters footsteps would slow down as he passed and he took in what was on offer. Sometimes a boy make a comment to his companions and they would all laugh but not very loud, for it might be their turn next. The boy waited, longing to be freed from his humiliation, dreading the moment that release came, for he knew that that would be the prelude to even worse suffering. Time passed. The boy began to feel the air cold against his bare skin. He tried desperately to control his shivering for all movement was forbidden. He heard the unmistakable sound of Mr Grade's step, heavy, deliberate and confident. A stifled sob was torn from his body. The steps approached and passed. He didn't dare look round. He heard the door knob rattle, the door swing back and then Sir's voice sounded close beside him.

"Here Llewellyn." It didn't occur to the boy that he was being spoken to as though he was a dog.

He saw that Sir was spreading a piece of towelling over the top of his desk.

His heart lurched and he thought he was going to be sick for he knew what that meant. It was part of the mythology of the school whispered between frightened boys when the lights were out. Ordinary everyday beatings, like the ones he had had up to now, you bent over and caught hold of your ankles. For really hard ones Sir had you bend over his desk. He was going to have to bend over the desk.

Mr Grade turned to face him.

"Llewellyn," he said sternly, "you are a wicked boy. You are a disgrace to your Mother and Father and I have a good mind to tell them what a disgusting boy you are with your filthy evil habits and ask them to remove you from this school before you corrupt the rest of the boys. That's what I ought to do. It's that or a thrashing and it'll be a hard one too. I'm not going to tolerate that sort of behaviour from anyone."

Anthony whimpered. He didn't want to be beaten but he couldn't bear to think of his Mother knowing about his wickedness. He would bear anything if he could prevent that.

"Sir please Sir don't tell my Mother Sir Please Sir," he sobbed.

"Then it's a flogging boy isn't it?"

"Yes Sir but please don't tell them Please 3;"

"Very well get down over the desk and catch hold of the far side."

Anthony approached the desk. He saw lying at one end of it the cane. A good metre [3½ ft] long it's end had been split and bound with fuse wire to give it extra bite. He balked but Mr Grade pushed him forward with a hand on the back of his head. He tried to stretch himself over the desk but he was not really tall enough. He could reach the far side of it all right but it's top was higher than his waist so he lent there supporting himself on his elbows. Mr Grade snorted impatiently. Anthony felt himself lifted from behind by a hand pushed between his legs while his chest was forced down onto the desk top by a hand between his shoulder blades. He lay there his bare feet hanging clear of the floor his bottom exposed and ready for the rod.

Mr Grade picked up the cane from the desk and moved behind him. He tensed at the touch of the cane as the man laid it gently across his behind judging his distance.

Briefly Anthony returned to the present. His handkerchief was once again called into play and then after a moments rest he was back again in Mr Grade's study. He heard Mr Grade moving behind him. He clamped his bottom tight shut, tensing himself for the impact of the cane. There was a second pause and then the hiss of the cane as it descended. His bottom exploded in pain so intense that it drove the air from his lungs. He wanted to scream but he could not. He fought for breath while Mr Grade stood patiently watching.

When the man judged the moment was ripe he raised his arm again and brought the cane cracking down once more across the boy's quivering bottom.

Slowly remorselessly the beating continued cut after cut being laid across Anthony's defenceless rump. At first Anthony had tried not to cry out but that attempt was soon abandoned as the agony gripped his body and destroyed all vestiges of self control. He writhed and squealed under the rod his legs waiving wildly. His hands loosing their grip beat a tattoo of pain on the desk top. Mr Grade was obliged to use his left hand to pin him down or he would have rolled from the desk onto the floor.

Then it was over. Anthony felt himself lifted from the desk. Mr Grade took him by the hand and led him round the desk. Still holding him by the hand the man seated himself. He pulled the towel from the desk and spread it over his knees. Then placing his hands on the side of the boy's hips he gently drew the boy down on to his lap. Anthony whimpered as he felt the tough towelling press against his raw bottom.

Once again reality asserted itself and Anthony was dragged back to the present. This time it took a little longer once the crisis was past for Anthony to make the journey back in time but eventually the transition was made.

The pain and shock of the beating had shorn a good six years from his age. He could remember how grateful he was to Mr Grade as he gingerly settled his sore bottom on the man's knees. He had been such a wicked boy but Sir was still willing to forgive him and be kind to him. He lent back resting his head against Sir's shoulder. A thumb stole up to his mouth.

Mr Grade slipped an arm round his waist and squeezed him.

"You're a naughty boy Anthony," Mr Grade said gently letting his hand rest on the top of the boy's bare thigh.

"Squirting isn't bad Anthony," he said, he never usually used a boys first name, "all boys do that a bit. What's naughty is that you can't stop doing it."

The man's hand moved until it was resting on the inside of the boy's thigh.

Anthony murmured and moved uneasily.

"Yes I know. It's going to happen again isn't it? That shows how wicked you are." The man's voice was low almost mesmerising. He began to slide his hand up the inside of the boy's leg.

"But you're lucky Anthony I will help you. It'll hurt. It'll hurt a lot, even more than the beating I've just given you but it will work and Anthony through the hurt you'll not only control your wickedness but you'll feel a wonderful exciting feeling, better than anything else you've ever known. And nothing is put into this world without a purpose. Not even wicked little boys who can't stop themselves squirting. Even little boys like that have their uses. And when you get that wonderful feeling I'll get one as well."

Sir's hand had now reached the top of Anthony's thigh. His fingers began to play with the boy's tiny balls.

"It'll feel much much nicer than this," Mr Grade's fingers moved to Anthony's hard little prick.

"Much, much nicer 3; There you wicked boy you've done it again 3;"

Anthony began to weep ashamed he had been naughty again and fearful of another beating. Mr Grade hushed him.

"There, there Anthony you silly boy don't carry on so. That just shows what a naughty little thing you are, squirting your filth everywhere. You go along now and ask Matron really nicely to put something on that sore bum of yours to make it better and to grease up your hole for me."

He put his hands on Anthony's hips and pushed him gently on to his feet. He wiped his hands on the towel on his knees and held it out to the boy.

"And take this to Matron and ask her to get it laundered. Now turn round so I can see your bottom. "

"That's all right it's hardly bleeding at all. Run along now"

Anthony started for the door.

"Wait a moment boy," Mr Grade's voice sounded sharply behind him.

"Aren't you going to thank me?"

"Oh yes Sir. Sorry Sir 3; Thank you Sir," Anthony said hastily.

Anthony, his face blotched with tears, his bare bottom raw from the cane, his stiff little boy's prick wobbling in front of him as he walked, made his way to Matron's room. He had long passed beyond feeling shame or embarrassment. He did not notice the grins and muttered comments of the other boys he passed or the way the few masters he encountered turned their heads away as he approached as though by ignoring him they could deny his existence and the existence of his distress.

Matron was sitting in her arm chair drinking a cup of tea. She had him turn round so that she could look at his bottom.

"Well," she said nastily, "you got no more than you deserved," and sent him to wait outside the door until she had finished her tea. Eventually she called him back in. Anthony saw that she had placed a bowl of warm water and some rags on a low table beside he,r together with a couple of small glass jars. There was a strong smell of antiseptics. She ordered the boy to lie down across her knees.

"Get your bottom up in the air," she snapped impatiently reinforcing her order with a sharp slap with the flat of her hand on the boy's ravaged flesh.

Anthony howled in pain.

"Don't make such a fuss you great cry baby," she said impatiently. "Now you've got blood on my hand you disgusting little brute."

Anthony felt her wipe her hand on his back. The she began none too gently to sponge his bottom. Anthony whimpered quietly as the anti-sceptic stung his broken flesh. Matron told him to push his bottom higher into the air and to spread his legs. Anthony caught his breath as the damp cloth was pressed into the crack of his bottom.

Then the cloth was replaced by Matron's finger tips as she spread some sort of salve along the deep welts that the cane had scored across his rump. Matron wiped her fingers once again on his naked back. There was a pause while Anthony heard her unscrewing the lid of the second jar.

Then once more he felt her finger tips against his body. This time though the stuff they were spreading seemed thicker and less liquid than before.

He gasped as he felt her run her fingers along the lips of his anus.

Automatically he tensed clamping his bottom shut but she pressed harder forcing her fingers into him. He felt one of her fingers cool and slippery with grease pressing against his sphincter. For a moment it resisted her probing but then gave way. Anthony groaned and pushed his bottom upwards responding to her intrusion.

"Filthy little tart," she said contemptuously withdrawing her finger with an audible plop. "No wonder Mr Grade flayed your bum."

Anthony felt her grease coated fingers resting against the entry to his hole. This time though she exerted no pressure, simply letting them lie there. He whimpered in frustration trying to open himself to their teasing touch.

"You really want it don't you," she sneered. "A slut boy, that's what you are. Just a slut."

Anthony sobbed quietly. He wasn't sure exactly what some of the words Matron was using meant but the tone of her voice made clear the contempt in which she held him. And he knew that that contempt was well deserved for his prick was hard and throbbing again, proving what a wicked dirty minded little boy he was, just as Mr Grade had said.

"Slut," Matron said again, "whore," and jabbed her finger viciously into him.

He cried out in pain and just at that moment he heard Mr Grade's voice above him.

"How are you getting on with Anthony?" The man's voice was mild, even kindly.

"I've done as much as I can with him," Matron said jerking her finger clear of his body as suddenly and as violently as she had just inserted it.

"Take him away I don't want him in here. You're welcome to him is all I can say. It's very good of you to bother at all with such a nasty little brat."

"Get up off my knee quick now," she commanded slapping Anthony hard on his upturned rump.

"There," she complained, raising her voice to be heard over the boy's squeal of pain, "I've got blood on my hand again."

Gripping Anthony firmly by the arm Mr Grade led him from the room. He steered the boy along the short length of corridor to where the green baize covered door stood that divided his own private living quarters from the boys' dormitories. Anthony went along readily enough. He was grateful that someone was willing to have something to do with him.

Mr Grade's side of the door was another world. Fitted carpets replaced shabby linoleum, light pastel shades and patterned wall paper, dark shiny green paint.

Anthony found himself standing in what was clearly Mr Grade's bedroom.

The man released his grip of the boy's arm and began to undress, pulling his clothes impatiently from his body and throwing them carelessly onto a chair. Anthony watched fascinated but apprehensive.

The man shed his trousers and then pulled his shirt off over his head.

The boy was amazed by the heaviness of the man's limbs and torso and by how hairy he was. Thick wiry black hair coated his legs and chest.

The man hooked his fingers into the elastic top of his Yfronts and slipped them down over his hips. They fell to the floor round his ankles.

Anthony's eyes widened as he took in the size of the man's cock rising, hard and demanding, from the forest of dark hair about his crutch and lower belly. He had caught occasional sideways glimpses of his father's and other men's penis's when using the public toilets but he had never before seen a man's tool erect.

Mr Grade picked up a tube from a table beside the bed and held it out to the boy.

"You spread this on it boy," he ordered.

Anthony squeezed some jelly onto the palm of his hand. There was no need for the man to explain what he meant by "it". Gingerly he took the man's rigid member in his hand. He felt the blood throbbing within the swollen column of flesh and gristle, the small goose pimples that covered the blue and purple veined rod was rough to his touch. He had been uncertain before as to what was going to be done to him but now he knew.

His hole had been oiled by Matron and he was now being required to do the same to this gross object.

As he smeared the jelly over Mr Grade's penis he sensed to some extent the urgency of the man's lust. He wondered how he could ever take such an object inside his own slim body. He shuddered as he imagined the crushing weight of the man's body so much bulkier than his own hammering it into him, ripping his bottom open, splitting the tender flesh between his legs. With his finger tips he spread the jelly thickly over the hard pink helmet that he knew would force it's way down into his body, filling even the slit at it's top with grease. Soon the whole length of Mr Grade's cock, from it's roots in the dark forest of his pubic hair to it's hard pink helmet with the normally narrow slit, now widened and deepened by his arousement, at it's top, was slick and shining with lubricant.

Mr Grade said nothing but taking the tube from him he replaced it on the table. Holding Anthony by his arm he urged him forward till he was standing next to the bed.

"On your back with your knees each side of your head," Mr Grade's voice was soft almost amused.

Anthony obeyed. Lying with his shoulders on the bed, his bum lifted and open, he waited for the man to begin to force his cock into his bottom.

He could see Mr Grade between his spread legs, standing, looking down at him. To the boy the man's cock seemed to have assumed gigantic proportions.

Mr Grade lent forward. Steadying himself with one hand on the bed he took his cock in the other hand and guided it so it's tip was pressing against the lip's of the boy's anus.

"This is going to hurt Anthony," he said quietly. "It is necessary that you should feel pain now but at the moment the pain is at it's very greatest and you think you can stand no more you will feel the greatest pleasure that you have ever felt or ever will feel in your whole life. I promise you."

"And Anthony you will scream before the end so you may as well not struggle against it. Let the world hear your pain. It will make no difference. No one will come and help you."

Surprisingly he bent down and kissed the boy full on his mouth, his tongue darting in between the boy's parted lips and exploring his mouth. Then he straightened and using his two thumbs to force apart the lips of the boy's anus began his assault. Anthony felt his body engulfed by a wave of the most excruciating pain which increased in intensity by the second as Mr Grade began to work his cock deeper and deeper into him. For a moment his sphincter withstood the man's intrusion and then, with a fresh gush of pain, it gave before his assault. A red mist shrouded Anthony's eye's and he screamed shrilly, his shrieks of pain ringing out over and over again.

Anthony had no idea how long this agony continued. It seemed never ending. Certainly the man took his time over penetrating the boy, easing his cock millimetre by millimetre into the boy's gut, rather than driving it home in a series of heavy thrusts. No doubt by doing so he minimised the physical damage inflicted but it lengthened the duration of the boy's torment. Then long after the point when Anthony felt that he could bear no more and that the man's cock had already split his body open, he began to respond to the man's invasion. Rather than resisting his body closed about the man's cock trying to draw it further and deeper into himself. The pain was there still but in addition there was the most intense excitement that grew and strengthened as the tempo of the man's thrusting increased in speed and force. Anthony could feel the coarse hair about the man's crutch pressed against his bottom and he knew that the full length of Mr Grade's cock was now sheathed in his gut. Anthony felt the man's cock surge inside him and at that moment his own small prick seemed to explode and expel gob after gob of boy's juice.

Anthony rolled over onto his side. It was dark now in the flat. Some sperm dribbled from the end of his cock and then exhausted and completely drained he at last fell asleep.

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