The Adventures of Urlen – Chapter 7
He was a year older than me but seemed far more mature. When Thierry was captain of the rugby team he was the blind-side wing-forward and his solid play was sometimes overlooked on account of Thierry's open-side brilliance. Moreover in the changing rooms and showers he was one of the shy ones, wrapping himself tightly in a towel on the way to and from the shower and modestly turning his back when he got changed. He had very dark hair, dark brown eyes and a superb physique. He was good at all games and was one of those guys who never said very much but whom you listened to with close attention when he spoke. His full name was Victor Lunt, and when we wanted to tease him we called him "Sir Pricked Her Cunt" because this always annoyed him. But all he said was "You'll grow out of it one day."
I remember scribbling a piece about what it was like to masturbate. There was spunk all over the place, if I recall it rightly. Unfortunately I left it on my desk and Vic found it there one day when he came to have coffee. He smiled wisely and said that every one went through a phase like that. In my innocence I understood him to mean that by the time you reached 20 most young men, including him, had given up wanking long ago. I sometimes wondered what he did instead, as I never saw him out with a girl or heard of any girlfriend. He seemed a private sort of person and was much influenced by his father, who was a farmer and who had attended the same College about twenty five years earlier. He had told his only son not to get entangled in romantic feelings and to be a responsible member of the College community. Vic certainly did his best to follow this advice. He obeyed the rules of our community but the strength of his hormones gave him problems and it must have given him hell when he found that he couldn't help finding me attractive. He held out valiantly against these feelings but I knew how he felt because he came to my room almost every day when we were free of classes, sometimes just sitting there and letting me do the talking. I liked him very much but at first I didn't think of him in a sexual way. I was busy experimenting with sex with one or two others at the time and would have been mightily embarrassed if Vic had found out. I saw him as a role model, somehow pure and very, very masculine and I came to depend on his presence and friendship.
The denouement arrived when our last rugby match together had been played and the Easter vacation was about to start. His father expected him home to help on the farm and I was due to leave by train for my home in the north of England. While I was packing my things into my suitcase he came to my room and sat down at my desk, watching me. When I was ready to go he stood up, came over to where I was lingering by door, took me in his arms (though I was carrying my case) and kissed me clumsily on the lips. I suppose it was his way of confessing his pent-up emotion, but at the time I was stunned. Mighty, wonderful Vic had so far forgotten himself that he was admitting to feelings he had been repressing for at least a year. But he was murmuring in my ear … "Come and stay with me during the vac …..I'll ring you up." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I didn't know how I felt : all excited, puzzled, worried, anxious, but above all CONFUSED. But I trusted and liked him very much (admired would be a better word to express my feelings) and I stammered that yes, I'd like to come and hurried out of the room to catch a bus to the railway station. I was so confused that I forgot my overcoat and had to return to my room to find it. He was still there, sitting down again at my desk, looking so sorrowful that my heart went out to him. I just managed to say a husky "Goodbye again" before leaving, tears pricking in my eyes. It was an emotional moment.
On the train journey home I thought about him a lot and I wondered if he really would phone. I reckoned that once he was back at home, he'd think better of his invitation. I felt less confused – with time – though I knew I would go if he asked. I was therefore quite surprised when he came on the phone after only a few days of the vacation, saying he had asked his parents if I could stay; they were happy to have me and suggested I spend five days with them, helping "down on the farm." So it was agreed and the following Monday I took the train south and was met by Vic and his mother at the station closest to their home.
She was a lovely, vivacious person – quite young, pretty in a dark kind of way, with Vic's dark hair and eyes. She told me later that she would have liked to have had more children but that there were complications at Vic's birth and she had been advised not to have any more. Vic drove us in a Landrover to the farm, with its long approach track across fields full of cows. There was a large kitchen, warmed by an Aga, which served as the main living-room. The house itself was quite small and when I was shown up to my room I found that it was Vic's bedroom which I was sharing and that an extra bed had been put in along the length of the room so that my head was not far from his feet, as it were. Soon it was time for tea and to meet Vic's dad, who had been out in the fields. He was an imposing man, tall, with a serious demeanour and a farmer's air of being continually busy. Like Vic he didn't speak much, but what he said counted. He seemed pleased to see me and his wife rapidly made me feel at home. It was Vic I was nervous about – he seemed ill at ease, though obviously happy that I was there and I wondered what turmoil was going on in that deep, deep mind.
The evening passed mostly in conversation with his mother about our lives at College and how much it prepared one for life afterwards. She was wholly unsuspicious of any feelings (which she would have thought of as "unnatural") between Vic and me and wished us "Goodnight" with warm hospitality when the household went to bed. I went to the bathroom first to wash and by the time I got back to our bedroom, Vic was in his pyjama trousers and left to take my place in the bathroom. I got into bed with just my underpants on (I'd given up wearing pyjamas) and started reading a book and Vic came back and got into his bed. He didn't say much – just "Did I read for long?" and I said I'd be ready to put the light out in about ten minutes. I couldn't see him because my back was towards his bed, but I could visualize him leaning on his pillow, glowering and fighting with his inhibitions. I reached the end of my chapter and looked round for the light switch which was by the door. To get to it I had to get out of bed, so I jumped out and switched it off, but not before I had seen Vic, glowering just as I had imagined. And he had seen me. His eyes followed me as I returned to my bed but he made no movement and a long silence ensued. I remembered his kiss and his look of sadness when I returned for my coat and I was happy just to be there with him. I've omitted to say that he had a superb body, with wide shoulders, a slim waist and powerful thighs, and while the silence went on and on I thought about what I really knew of him : that he was to be depended on and that in his reserved way he really cared for me. I'd seen him once taking a shower when he was unaware that I was looking. He had low-slung balls, lots of black pubic hair and a dick with a long foreskin which in its unaroused state looked somehow shrivelled. Probably one of those that swell up hugely when they get excited! So when he suddenly broke the silence with almost a gasp of pain, I was completely unprepared for what he said. "Urlen" (almost a croak) …. "Urlen" (now low and urgent) …. "Come here."
"Vic?" I replied, as if doubting what he had said.
