During the summer when I was eighteen, when the long school holidays were even longer because I had sat public exams well before the end of the semester, I spent a lot of time being naked, almost every opportunity - at home, when no one else was around, and out in the woods and downland half a mile or so from the house. I'm not sure what brought it on, I guess it was just a part of my developing sexuality. These nude sessions did not always involve masturbation, I would take enough pleasure just from being naked, especially outside. I would fantasise about being naked in the woods when I couldn't actually be there. This yearning for outdoor nakedness has never left me and though they don't arise as often as I would like, opportunities for nude sunbathing and swimming are rarely passed up.
Sometimes I would go out into the garden naked. This had the extra thrill of the risk of being seen which, given my home's setting, was quite high. The house had one parallel neighbour on one side, then five houses backing onto our land the other side, and another house adjoining at the end of our long garden. I wouldn't stay outside for more than a few minutes, just enough to feel the summer air on my skin, the grass under my bare feet and the sun's warmth all over. My heart would be beating fast as the excitement of being nude outside and the risk of being seen combined to energise me completely.
One day when I had slipped naked into the garden and laid out on a sun lounger, I realised I had been seen. Across the fence and shrubs at the foot of the garden, about a hundred feet away stood a man in a sports jacket staring at me! I rushed up from the sun lounger and into the house. Had he really seen me? Had he been watching for long? Would he report me to my parents? I was really frightened at first.
I looked out of a window down the garden: he was still there! Was he waiting to see if I came out again? Hell, did he want me to come out again?! Was he making up his mind to tell on me?
I looked at him more closely. I knew that he lived in the adjoining house as I had seen him before. Because both adjoining properties had long gardens we weren't on speaking terms as neighbours, although my parents had met him once when there was some fallen fencing after a storm. He was always quite smartly dressed and I guessed him to be in his early 30s. He lived with his mother, who was also smartly dressed and a bit of a dragon - i hated to have to collect footballs or cricket balls whenever they went over into their garden.
He was still there, staring into our garden. Could he even see me in the house? I quickly pulled on my clothes. Then I thought I would just go out into the garden as if nothing had happened and see if he reacted. So even more nervously than when I would run into the garden naked, I sauntered out of the house and, on the spur of the moment, started calling the cat which I then pretended to look for.
After a minute or so, I looked up. The man was still there, now with his arms folded. What did he mean by that? I went to look away when I thought - but couldn't be sure - I saw him give a slight smile.
As it happens with a British summer the next few days were rainy and cooler so there were no more opportunities to go out into the garden naked, even if I'd have the nerve to do so knowing I might again be seen by the neighbour at the back. After a couple of days of fright at every knock at the door - has that man come to tell my parents? - my thoughts progressed from nervousness to a growing certainty that I was in the clear, he wasn't going to tell on me. Then I started to think that he might have enjoyed seeing me naked - and I found myself then fantasising with increasing arousal about being naked under his gaze again. I was a slim, moderately tall, tanned eighteen year-old, fit from the summer semester's athletic season in which I led the sprint team: I had strong muscular legs and a tightly muscled butt. I had few girl friends, we were all boys at school, so the prospect of all those girls at university had me more than a little excited.
I had not had sex; I had not long discovered that masturbation was something to take pleasure in, not something to feel guilty and perverted about. I knew little about gay sex but I knew it happened: I remembered a couple of years earlier being sat in a public lavatory while on a family seaside holiday reading with shock and open-mouthed wonder a graffiti story of a young man being seduced by his father's friend after having 'played wrestling' on the beach. Shocked - and aroused. I was back to that particular cubicle so frequently that I had to pretend tummy trouble.
These thoughts came back to me as I thought about my neighbour. I knew from the little story I'd read that men would touch and suck each other's cocks and soon I was fantasising about doing the same things with my neighbour. My masturbation sessions became more and more frequent and frenetic. I found myself resolving to test this fantasy, to see if it could turn real. I had to come up with a plan.
As it is, my mother came up with the plan. Thinking it was time I did something to earn some pocket money, she suggested I go around to see if some of the neighbours wanted gardening or odd jobs done.
"You could start with the house at the back," she said. "I think their shrubs are overgrown and pushing on our fence again. If we have another stormy winter, it'll bring our fence down again."
"All right, mum," I replied. Then as casually possible I asked if she knew the neighbour's name.
"Um, Andrew, I think, Andrew Robinson. Not sure about his mother's name - it's certainly not the duchess she makes out to be," mum finished scornfully.
So now I had my plan and a name. The next day was Saturday so I guessed the neighbour would not be at work. I set off around ten-thirty to walk around to the front of his house, about a ten-minute walk. Summer was back with a vengeance and it was already a hot day. I was nervous, of course, but strangely confident. I thought that if Andrew was at home, my visit would at least throw him a little and I would be on the front foot. I had no idea how that might get me from offering to cut back some shrubs to us playing with each other's penises but I was too excited in my fantasy-land to worry too much about the logistics!
I arrived at the house and, after a moment's hesitation, knocked on the front door. To my disappointment - at first - Andrew's mother answered the door.
"Yes?" she said haughtily. She was smartly dressed, subtly made-up and, I realised to my surprise, quite attractive, for what I would term then as an old woman. I hadn't yet seen the movie The Graduate where the attractions of an older woman were suddenly made clear. She even had the same name as that seducing neighbour!
"Good morning, Mrs Robinson," I said, as clearly and politely as possible. "I am very sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if you would like some odd jobs done around the garden. I'm hoping to earn a little pocket money - I am saving for a trip to Paris to visit the art galleries this summer -" (this was a moment's inspiration, to make me sound a serious, cultural student - "so I am asking neighbours if they would like some work done. I live in the house at the back of your house, Mrs Robinson."
My serious and polite demeanour, the impression of hard-working and cultural attitudes, and my warm but deferential smile all seemed to have some effect.
"Hhm," she muttered, "well, I admire your enterprise, young man. Let me think, yes the shrubs that back onto your parents' garden are overgrown and Andrew is always too busy or tired to take on something like that. You had better come in and talk to him though. A friend is about to collect me to take me down to the coast for the rest of the weekend."
Mrs Robinson led the way into the house and out to the garden. Andrew - the man who a few days ago had seen me naked in my garden - was sat at a patio table reading a broadsheet newspaper with serious intent.
"Andrew," his mother addressed him. "This young man - what is your name?" she turned to ask me.
"Robert Laing, Mrs Robinson, "I replied, sticking to my policy of full politeness.
"Thank-you. And how old are you, Robert?"
"I'm eighteen, Mrs Robinson."
She paused briefly, then seemed to unstiffen her pose slightly. That seemed strange.
"This young man," she continued now to her son, "wants to do some odd jobs for some pocket money and I thought he could trim the shrubs at the back. He's from the house at the back so I should think he can be trusted."
While Mrs Robinson was telling him this, Andrew had put down his paper and turned around to look at us both, his eyes catching me with a slight start and he at first hesitated to reply to his mother. I had been right - I had put him on the back foot. There was no danger of him telling anyone about the last time he had seen me - after all, I had been naked and he couldn't possibly have told his mother - could he? -and saying anything now would cause surprise as to why he had not said something before.
"Hello, yes, Robert, thank-you," he said, seemingly as nervous as I had felt. Then sudden more confidently, he spoke again.
