© Justin Cumberland 2008

With darkness, you can make things happen. It’s difficult to explain.

Scott is my friend. We’re thirteen. He’s got the blond hair. My hair is dark. We’re good looking boys, but we don’t know this yet.

It’s a hot day and we’re wearing speedos. We’re outside, in the backyard and we’re virtually naked.

Scott looks good. I realise this. I realise it because I’m touching myself. I’m staring at him and touching myself. Suddenly, I realise what I’m doing and I take my hand away, embarrassed momentarily, ashamed.

I smile and look at him shyly. He hasn’t seen. Doesn’t know.

The speedos are pale blue and in they were nylon back then. They have a white strip at the sides and they’re see-through. Even when they’re not wet they’re see-through. The pale blue is see-through and the white strip is see through – and they’re wet, because we’ve got a hose. We don’t have a pool and we’re hot and it’s summer and we’re hosing each other.

I’ve seen Scott in his swimmers before. They’re the ones we wear at school. They're part of the uniform. Scott’s are loose and the white cord is undone and the whole front of them is hanging below his belly in a loose arc, revealing, perhaps, a stray pubic hair, which might have been there.

There is a double layer of fabric at the front. It’s the only place where the speedos aren’t see-through; but I can still make out the shape of Scott’s dick, and I’m surprised, as I stare, with the hose in my hand, at how big it is. It’s straining forward in the speedos but it’s not hard. It’s a piece of yielding flesh bundled into some wet nylon fabric; and this is his natural size.

Scott’s body is hard and his skin is smooth and clear. Even at thirteen, he has a bit of muscle in his abs.

‘Hey!’ he says.

I’m supposed to be hosing his chest but I’ve lost concentration. I’ve stared at his groin and grabbed my dick again – not thinking – and the hose has risen up and hit him in the face.

‘Give me that,’ he says. He reaches forward and grabs the hose. He turns it and sprays it at me. Hits me in the face.

I hold my hands up and turn around.

Scott adjusts the spray into a single stream and hits me in the back of the head with it – so hard that it hurts. There’s a lot of pressure.

‘Okay, okay,’ I say. Some of the water has gone up my nose and I’m shaking my head. I hold one hand out behind me and try to stop the jet of water as it travels down my back and hits me in the arse. I try to find the jet with my hand but Scott keeps moving it – angling it from different directions. The water pulls at the fabric and the speedos roll down over my arse. I reach for the waist and tug to pull them up.

The hose jets through the fabric and hits me in the hole. It feels good somehow and I pause, not wanting the feeling to stop. I stand rigid and wait, letting the jet of water furrow into my hole.

‘Move your legs apart a bit,’ Scott says.

Without thinking, I do what he says.

Suddenly Scott moves in with the hose. He’s got it between my legs and he’s at close-range. He angles it up into my sack and I feel for the first time that something between pleasure and pain that comes with a pressure to my balls. There is a moment when I let it happen – a moment where it feels good – and then it’s too much. It bites with a sting and there’s an internal feeling as well. I close my legs and fall forward onto the ground. I roll over and stare back at him. He’s smiling.

Before I can cover myself, he moves in with the hose and hits me in the nuts again.

‘Stop it, you fuckhead,’ I say. I grab my balls and I’m shaking my head against the water and pressing my legs together.

‘You’re such a pussy,’ he says. His voice is suddenly loud and empty because he has cut off the spray with the nozzle and everything has gone quiet.

A buzz of insect life fills the silence. We stare at each other.

‘You wouldn’t like it.’ I accuse him.

‘I could handle it.’

Of course he could. This is Scott after all. Scott who is better. Scott who has to win.

‘Here, do it to me,’ he says. He hands me the hose and I get up.

I don’t really want to do this. It seems a bit strange and I’m a little bit hard, and it’s making me embarrassed. I take the hose and look down at my speedos. There are bits of lawn stuck to them but the bulge isn’t that noticeable. I decide to forget about it.

I turn the hose on to a gentle spray and wash the cut lawn off my speedos. I brush at them with one hand.

‘I’ll see how long I can handle it for,’ Scott says. He is taking his watch off and he holds it in front of his face while he puts his other hand behind his head. He moves his legs apart and looks at me. And smiles.

‘Turn it on full-bore,’ he says. ‘I’ll see if I can do a minute.’

I feel a bit stupid. It seems a bit strange. I frown and stare at the nozzle as I adjust the pressure. He hasn’t really hurt me; and I don’t really want to hurt him. And I’m embarrassed also, about having to get so close to his groin. I’ve been staring at it.

The hose cuts into the lawn and I swallow, watching it tear at the scorched earth. I look up at him uncertainly.

He looks a bit worried now and he frowns himself.

‘Does it really hurt?’

I shrug my shoulders. ‘Do you want me to do it?’ I say.

He looks at his watch and nods his head, preparing to start the stop. ‘When I say go.’

I kneel down on the ground and angle the hose off to one side so that it’s hitting the back fence. The grey wood turns dark in splattering circles and I look up at Scott’s groin, closer to it now than I’ve ever been. The size of it is pulling the speedos away from his legs and there’s a little hollow on either side of his groin where I can see the pale skin of his sack.

‘Okay – go!’ he says.

I angle the hose up from only a few inches away. It’s hitting the tip of his dick and he stops almost immediately.

‘Hang on!’ he says. He puts his hand down. ‘You’re hitting my dick.’

He grabs his cock and pulls at it. He slides it off to one side and nestles it so that the head is at the top of his thigh. He’s moved it away from the double layer of fabric and the head is clearly visible through the fabric. He’s pulled it off into the white strip and he may as well be naked.

He holds the watch out and moves back in front of me. ‘You ready?’

I nod my head.

‘Go!’ he suddenly says. There is a delayed reaction but I angle the hose up when I realise he means to start. I can see the shape of his balls and I hit him fair in the middle of them, holding the hose in one place, watching the water cascade up into his groin through the fabric, spraying out the sides again.

Suddenly, to my amazement, Scott starts to get hard. I am staring at his dick and thinking that it’s getting bigger while at the same time I’m not really believing it and not really thinking about it. Suddenly it jerks and the whole head of his dick slides out into the white strip, making it clearly visible. It’s so fat that I swallow at the sight of it. I stare and watch as it starts to inch its way towards my forehead, angling itself up and pulling the whole front of the speedos away from Scott’s stomach so that there is a gap which I can see right down and into if I kneel up a bit – and I do this – making out that I’ve become a bit uncomfortable and have to adjust my position.

I look down into the top of his speedos. Oh, yeah – and he didn't have any pubes. I can see that now. I can clearly see the base of his cock against the pale skin, lit a filtered blue light, and with water cascading all around it. I can see the hardness of it.

‘Oh shit!’ he says.

I try not to smile.

‘Oh shit! Oh Shit! Oh shit!’

I kneel down on the backs of my heels and keep the hose angled up into his balls. I’m thinking it’s kind of fun now and I start to move it around a bit, playing over one ball and then the other and watching them bobble out of the way.

‘Ten!’ he says. He takes a breath. ‘Seven, six.’ There is another break for breathing, and then he rushes. ‘Three two one.’

He stands aside and reaches a hand down to his balls, squeezing them gently.

I cut the hose and stand up smiling.

‘I told you it hurts,’ I say.

I think the whole thing is over and I’m feeling like we should go inside maybe and put some clothes on. I’m trying not to look at Scott’s erection. I’m looking him in the face and thinking he should maybe cover it up or something, but he doesn’t, apparently, care about it.

‘It’s not that bad,’ he says. ‘You’re just a fucking pussy.’

‘I’m not a fucking pussy,’ I say, and as I say it I realise that I’ve got an erection also. I look down at it and Scott’s eyes follow mine. I’m practically naked and my best friend is looking at my dick. We've both got erections and it makes me feel strange. I look back up at him but he continues speaking like it doesn't even matter, like he hasn't noticed when he has, like it’s the most natural thing in the world for two friends to have an erection together. It's not something he cares about.

‘You couldn’t handle a minute.’

‘Of course I could handle a minute.’

‘Come on, then.’

I pause. I don’t really want to. The short burst made me feel a bit sick and I’m just trying not to look awkward about the fact that my dick is hard. I really want to go inside and put some clothes on and I’m not really thinking about whether I want my friend to spray a jet of water onto my balls. The only thing I’m worrying about is trying to stand naturally. It’s taking my power of thought away. I have one leg loosely cocked and my hips at an angle.

Scott is standing naturally. ‘Come on – do a minute. If you make it, I’ll do three.’

‘I’ll do a one and a half,’ I say. ‘If I make it – you have to double it.’

‘I’ll double it,’ Scott says. ‘Whatever you do, I’ll triple it!’

I don't know Scott that well when I'm thirteen but I'm learning. He has to be the best. He has to win. Winning is all that matters to him. And really, when all is said and done, it is that (and not anything that I do) that ends up making Scott a eunuch.

‘Take them off,’ Scott says.

‘What?’

‘Take them off.’ He tugs at the hip of my speedos and I pause. There is no way in the world I want to take them off. I don’t even want to be here.

‘Come on,’ he says. ‘If I’m going to triple it, you have to take them off.’

‘You have to quadruple it if,’ I say. I don’t know where this comes from. It excites me that I’ve said it, but I’m surprised at the same time ‘ – and you have to take yours off too.’ I say it without thinking – because I want to see him, I realise. It disturbs me and I kind of hope he will stop. Refuse. We should stop this, I think. But Scott's not like that. He doesn't know how to stop.

He shrugs his shoulders. ‘You’re never gonna win this,’ he says. ‘If I do four times you have to do eight.’ He is actually pulling my speedos down as he says this. He has grabbed them and slid them down over my thighs. I take a breath. They fall to my feet and I pause for a moment, breathing deeply, ashamed and excited and afraid. I want to pull the speedos up again but he tugs at them, pulling them against my ankles. I step up and he tosses them away like they don’t matter at all. He isn’t even thinking about it while I'm standing there naked - and with an erection.

‘Here,’ he says. He hands me the watch with his other hand and gets the hose. ‘Tell me when you’re ready.’

I’m not ready and I start the watch without thinking about it. He hasn’t even turned the hose on.

‘Put your legs apart a bit.’

I put my legs apart.

‘Go,’ I say. He turns the hose on and I take a breath. I really don’t know how any of this has happened.

‘Put one hand behind your head,’ he says, looking up at me and turning his concentration to my balls.

He isn’t half as kind as I was; and as it nears the one-minute-thirty mark I start to get angry. Scott is playing with my balls, angling the hose at them from any which way and playing the water around them, holding the nozzle as close in as he can and circling it around, hitting them from in front and under and behind, angling at them from the sides, so that they’re jiggling around every which way in my sack.

The pressure of the water stings; and inside I start to get a sick feeling which claws up inside my stomach. The worst thing, and the thing that makes me red with shame, is that it somehow feels good at the same time. My thighs keep wanting to collapse in together and they are shivering. I feel like something’s about to happen and it’s making me confused. I’m wanting him to stop and wanting him to keep going, but eventually the pain gets the better of me.

It is maybe one-minute-twenty when I turn away from the hose suddenly and bend and grab my groin. I know the time isn’t up but I let the watch run and I keep my hands concealed until I’m sure the time has passed – and it’s actually one-forty-three when I press the button and I turn around.

‘Here, what’d you do?’ Scott says.

I glance at the watch. I know I’ve stopped it but I haven’t looked at the time. One-forty-three. I hand it to him.

‘One-forty-three! Shit, that was pretty good. I bet it hurt.’

I nod. I can feel some hot tears in my eyes and I’m blinking. My erection has started to falter.

‘You’re such a pussy,’ he says. ‘Still – that’s pretty good.’

I swallow and look away toward the side gate where I see the top of someone’s head passing on the street. It makes me feel embarrassed and I look around me, looking for my speedos.

‘What’s four times one-forty-three,’ Scott says. He stands up and drops the hose. He is trying to work it out in his head; and at the same time he is taking his speedos off, pulling them over his hip with one hand and letting his erection bob forward as he bends down a bit to pull them over his arse. He pulls them over his feet and drops them. The watch is in his other hand.

‘That’s four ones and four forties and four threes. Four and five sixty and twelve – is five seventy-two.’ He frowns.

Now Scott isn’t stupid. I don’t want you to get that idea. He’s not the brightest guy, but he’s not stupid either. He knows he's made a mistake. It doesn't make sense, and he frowns. He’s not about to cheat.

‘It’s six-fifty-two,’ I say.

‘Yeah? Six-fifty-two?’ He’s not about to believe me either, and he does the math again. ‘Oh, yeah, it’s in sixties,’ he says. He looks up at me and shakes his head, sticking his toungue out as though he’s an idiot. He hits himself in the side of his head with the heel of his hand.

I, meanwhile, have been looking at his dick. I can’t believe it. It’s so thick and hard and long and it’s jutting up at such an angle that it’s making me ashamed of myself. I’m starting to get hard all over again and I look around for my speedos. They’re way over near the fence and I want walk over and grab them, but I’m too embarassed. Something tells me that it would look silly to be covering myself up when Scott doesn't care. It would make it look like I cared and so I decide not to worry about them. Scott is fiddling with the watch and I steal a glance at his balls. They’re big and bulging loosely in his sack.

Suddenly, I remember the front sprinkler. It’s been on all this time and Mum has said to me, before she goes to work, not to leave it going all day. I don’t really think about what I’m going to do. I simply do it. ‘I’ve gotta have a piss,’ I say.

I walk into the house and grab a towel before I race out the front and turn off the sprinkler. I come back into the house where it’s dark and cool, hang the towel in the bathroom and flush the toilet. And then I walk back outside, naked, acting all cool and collected as though nothing has happened, all the time picturing the pressure building in the pipes.

‘I’ll just say seven minutes, eh?’ And again, this is Scott. Six minutes fifty-two is so close to seven and he’s such a good sport and he’s got so much to prove, that he’ll just do seven. Looking back, all these years later, I really have to wonder about that. What the fuck did he have to prove? The guy had everything going for him. He didn’t have to prove anything – not then. After the accident, sure. But not then.

Then, he was just like that. He holds the hose out to me. ‘Eight seconds is bullshit – and you’ll have to do an hour anyway.’

He guffaws.

But I frown. I don’t know what he’s talking about – but I realise. He thinks I’m going to let him do it to me again. He thinks I’m gonna want to better him if he makes seven minutes. I frown again. I just don’t understand this sort of thing. I smile a bit and he misinterprets it.

‘There’s no way you’ll handle it for an hour!’ he says.

No, I think to myself. There’s no way I would, and no way I would want to. And I’m certainly not letting him do it with the extra pressure I’ve just added to the pipes.

I kind of wonder why I did that and I’m smiling a bit to myself. It seems kind of funny when I'm not going to let him do it to me. I turn the hose on and Scott says, ‘Oh shit!’ like he just got some huge surprise.

He actually cries. By the third minute or so, there are tears streaming out of his eyes and he’s trying to hide it. I look up at him but he turns his head up. He doesn’t want me to see. He looks out and up, way over my head but I can tell that he is crying.

Something in me clicks and I angle the hose in. I hit from underneath and from behind. I’ve realised, when he’s doing it to me, that it hurts a lot more from under and behind. I play the jet round to the sides and sees his balls roll but I keep coming back to that position, and as I look up at him, I can see him taking deep breaths. His legs are twitching inward. I start to breathe deeply and kneel up onto my knees – and then suddenly, I come. For the first time in my life I blow a load.

I’ve had my hand on my cock all this time – ever since Scott looked up and away, I’ve had my hand on my cock without realising. I’ve been pulling myself – not even thinking about it, and now, for the first time in my life I’ve come.

I’ve shot a load onto Scott’s thigh and I’m staring at it. I’ve never seen come before and it’s sliding wetly down the front of Scott’s thigh. Suddenly, I swallow. I look up at Scott but he hasn’t even realized.

He screams. I’ve done something with the hose. Something new. I’m not really sure what it is because I haven’t been looking.

And then he’s on the ground, and he’s crying for real, taking huge gulps of air and clutching his balls. He’s in a fetal position and showing me his pink arse like he doesn’t care – and while he’s laying there, I turn the hose to a lighter spray, and wash my cum from his thigh.

He doesn’t even notice.

‘Are you okay?’ I say to him. I’ve turned the hose off and I crouch down. I put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Scott?’

He sits up after a while, cross-legged, still holding his groin. He nods and wipes the tears away, and then – he starts to smile. It’s silly really. He’s been silly.

There's bits of cut grass stuck all over him. There's even some in his hair.

'Here, I'll wash you off,' I say, and I help him up.

I grab his arm and something changes. A cloud slides in front of the sun.