I recently came across an old briefcase in an attic, which had belonged to my late great-uncle Charles Nevin, who died fifteen years ago at the age of ninety. I remember him as a very handsome old man, upright and healthy to the last; he had always lived alone, and I suspected him of being gay, though I never talked about it to him - he came from a generation which on the whole didn't talk about sex. The manuscript which I have copied out below surprised me, but was also very interesting. I haven't any means of finding out what happened to his two young friends; they may have perished in the carnage of the first World War, which broke out less than a year after the event my great-uncle describes. I have added a line or two in square brackets to explain a few of the references; otherwise the manuscript is exactly as my uncle wrote it down.

I spent most of the summer of 1913 in Cornwall. I had come down from Cambridge, was waiting to take up a position with the legal firm of ***** and ******, in the city of London, and was determined to make the most of my last long summer of freedom. And a good summer it was: almost unbroken sunshine from May right through to September. My parents had taken a house at Lamorna Cove, just west of Penzance, and the coastline out towards the Land's End had innumerable small coves and inlets where one could swim and sunbathe - almost always alone, for those were the days before the West country became over-run with trippers and tourists. Unfortunately it was still the custom on those days to wear bathing-drawers which covered the whole body from neck to knee - though sometimes we rolled the tops down to our waists, when there were no ladies. I was astonished on one occasion, walking along the coast path, to see on the beach below me two young men who appeared to be completely naked, gambolling and splashing in the clear water. Once, I saw them lying together on the sand, close in each others' arms - an extremely dangerous posture for those days, though the cove in which they took their pleasure was a remote one. [Oscar Wilde had been sent to hard labour only fifteen years previously, for breaking the laws against homosexuality; men were often imprisoned merely for mutual masturbation, let alone sodomy, and the police were specially active at the universities. For two young men to be seen in a naked embrace would certainly have resulted in their arrest.]

I should explain that at that time I was already aware that I was what was then called 'a man's man'. My parents, my mother in particular, was always introducing me to young women - not that they wished me to marry - that would not be possible until I had established myself in the legal profession; but they were I think troubled that I showed no interest in the opposite sex. This was not entirely true, for I much enjoyed conversation with the most intelligent of the species; but as to romance, that was far from my thoughts. On one occasion, feeling it was my duty, I had kissed a young woman - but without feeling any emotion at all. The pornographic photographs of young women being fucked aroused no erotic feelings at all, and after seeing a close-up photograph of a woman's private parts, I had almost been physically sick. I had realized at university that I felt a warm appreciation of the persons of young men of my own age; indeed, I was careful to avoid those sporting clubs which would have thrown me into close association with them - especially those clubs where my contemporaries often exposed themselves naked to each other at private swimming baths or in showers, for I was only too well aware that such proximity was likely to result in my prick becoming erect, which would have been extremely dangerous for my reputation. There were young men who were known to consort together and were reputed to indulge in pleasures of the Oscar Wilde sort, but the danger of their situation was such that I was never tempted to join them. One of my friends had indeed been 'sent down' under a cloud simply for having given another friend accommodation in his rooms for a night when he was unable to return to his own.

At last, the long holiday came to an end, and a few days before my parents were to shut up the house, I took my seat in the Penzance to Paddington Express of the Great Western Railway. This ran directly from one station to the other, without intervening stops - a period of five hours, which was extremely speedy and convenient. I had reserved my seat, which I need not have done, for it being the middle of the week there were few passengers, and as the guard's whistle blew I was still alone in my compartment - and therefore would be so for the entire journey. [In those days the trains had no corridors, and thus there was no way of entering or leaving a compartment until the train stopped. The compartments had two generous seats, running the whole width of the train.] I did not mind the solitude, which I meant to employ in revising from three large law books which I had brought with me into the compartment, my main luggage having been placed in the guards' van at the rear of the train.

As we began to move, there was an uproar on the platform, and a figure appeared at the side of my compartment, and dragged open the door; two young men threw themselves in, and just closed the door as the train left the station. They threw themselves onto the seat breathless and laughing.

'Phew!'; said one of them. 'I knew we'd only just make it! We should have left at nine - you know that Lamorna omnibus is always slow!'

'Don't be a bore, Dick!"' said the other. 'We're here, aren't we? Hello!' - he turned to me - 'I'm Dick Forrest and this is my chum Andrew Braithwaite - Andy to you.'

'Charles Nevin,' I said.

'You won't mind if we take our jackets off? We ran all the way down Market Jew Street to the station!'

I smiled, and they took off their jackets. Obviously they had been running - there were patches of perspiration under their arms and across their backs. They undid a couple of the buttons and grasping the material of their shirts fanned themselves as best they might.

'Look,' I said, 'do take off those shirts if you wish. No ladies present!'

'Well,' said Dick, 'they'd certainly dry off quicker. Thanks - if you really don't mind!'

I didn't mind, and I minded less when they'd removed the shorts and draped them over the edge of the luggage rack above us. I had some difficulty in not staring at them. They were, I guess, round about my own age - that is 21 or 22 - and their upper bodies were almost completely smooth. Dick, the dark one of the two, had a little scattering of hair on his chest, and at his waist, below the navel (where his trousers rode a little low) a few black hairs showed, which I guessed as in my own case ran down in a track towards his pubes. Andy, however, whose hair had been so bleached by the sun that it was almost white, seemed to have no body hair at all - not even a similar showing on his belly, though I supposed there would be some blond curls around the base of his cock (as later indeed proved the case). The lads' bodies were darkly and evenly bronzed by the sun, and their chests bore a resemblance to those shields shaped by the masters of Greek art, the muscles defined, the nipples clearly marked and at present erect from the effect of the coolness of their wet shirts upon them. When Andy turned and reached up to put the shirts on the rack, the waist of his cream-coloured slacks fell somewhat down, exposing the topmost curve of his arse and the division between the cheeks, the dark bronzed skin giving way at no point to white, whereupon I wondered whether the two could be those I had seen swimming naked from the little beach west of Lamorna.

They sprawled on the seat opposite and grinned at me. I smiled back. If I was to have companions on this long, uninterrupted journey, they seemed to me to be likely to be very pleasant ones.

'Did I see you batheing along the coast last week?' I said.

'I expect so,'said Andy. 'We certainly did a lot of that.'

'If it was you,' I said rather hesitantly, 'you were . . er ... unclothed.'

They both grinned again.

'That would have been us,' he said. 'We don't believe in wearing bathers! Don't want to go about with transparent shorts on!'

'And we don't,' said Dick. He stood up and to my astonishment, quickly turned and undoing the old necktie at the waist of his trousers slipped them down below his arse, showing indeed an expanse of brown skin covering those delightful if rather plump globes.

'Come, Dick,' said Andy, 'our friend may not want to inspect your arse.'

Dick simply smiled and pulled up his trousers. (I asked him, during the later course of our journey, whether it had not been very rash in him to expose himself in such a manner when I might have objected. His response was that I 'had the look' - by which he meant that he had realized simply from my glance at his body that I was the sort of man who admired other men; I now know what he meant, for it is indeed possible to recognize men of the same taste from a tell-tale glance, though impossible to convey precisely how one does this!)

We for a time gave ourselves over to talking about Cornwall and the pleasure we had had in exploring the countryside; then after a while I began to feel drowsy - and to be frank wished to close my eyes and think for a while about the pleasant sight I had been allowed of my two companions' pleasurable play on the beach. It had been almost the only glance I had ever had of the naked bodies of other lads, apart from experiences in the changing rooms at school, where a close watch was kept by the masters.

I sat back for a while in a daze of half-sleepy pleasure. My two friends did not talk, and I assumed themselves were dozing; but it was not so, for when I opened my eyes after perhaps fifteen minutes, I was astonished to see the two young men sitting opposite me, their trousers down to their knees, and their hands upon each other's cocks, which they were stroking with every sign of enjoyment while they kissed, their tongues clearly playing together and their lips closing upon each other with the utmost enjoyment! My surprise was such that I was quite incapable of pretending not to see what I saw, and Dick, suddenly seeing that he was observed, grinned at me, asked whether I would not like to join in their pleasure.

'Come and sit between us,' he said - but first, let us all remove our clothing altogether - unless you have an objection.'

My answer was to leap to my feet and throw off my shirt, trousers and under-briefs - at which I was surprised to be taken and thrown down onto the seat by my two friends. This, as it turns out, was not eagerness but caution, for we were just at that moment passing through a station, and (as Andy put it) some of the inhabitants of Lostwithiel might be offended at the sight of a naked gentleman passing through - while other, on the other hand, might not! The result however was that we were all sprawling together upon to wide seat of the compartment, limbs intertwined in a warming manner; and when we had sorted ourselves out, I was indeed seated between the two others, and each took one of my hands and placed it on his cock. I found the fleshy rigidity of these delightful to my palms, though it was even more pleasing to feel their hands upon my prick, for though I had masturbated for the past nine or ten years, it was the first occasion on which any other man had had his hands upon my privates.

The delight of holding a cock in each hand was keen enough, but my curiosity was such that I could not resist bending to look more closely at each. I was interested to see the difference between them: Dick's was somewhat thick (though distinctly hard), of considerable length, and uncircumcised, so that the movement of my hand on it moved the foreskin back over the round domed head and back again, each movement revealing the slightly moist deeply pink head, from which a faint almost scented odour arose. Andy's prick was slimmer and whiter, and the skin had been cut away from the head - it was the first circumcised cock I had ever seen, certainly in arousal, and to my mind was prettier than the other - though it lacked the novelty of a foreskin which could be drawn back in a sort of 'undressing' of its head. Andy's body too - as I was not able to see - was slimmer and prettier of the two, for while Dick was muscular, with a fine fullness of chest, well-developed thighs, a somewhat prominent belly (not to the extent of being fat) decorated as I had supposed with a little thicket of black hair thickening at the base of his prick, and flanks and arse somewhat fleshy, Andy was slim as a girl, his waist narrow, thighs smooth and firm, and with an arse held high and handsomely rounded. I cannot deny that it was his body which I found the more attractive, the very smoothness of the skin being in itself seductive.

The problem now arose of my being so keenly excited by what was going on - no less by the proximity of their naked bodies, which pressed against my own, than by the movement of their hands, that I began to pant. Noticing this, the two lads lowered their heads and to my astonishment began each to lick at my thighs, belly and at last my prick, at each side of which an attentive tongue was soon flicking. On feeling this, my emotion was that in less time than it takes to tell, I ejaculated, the semen erupting with such force that (the two lads, feeling the tremor of my cock, quickly removing their heads) it struck me under the chin, then running copiously down over my chest and belly. To my amazement, Dick and Andy, laughing, gathered it in the palms of their hands and rubbed it over my chest and stomach, it being (they said) excellent for the skin!

Seeing my downcast looks as my cock began to shrink, consequent upon my emotions being released, the two boys laughed.

'We'll bring you round in no time,' said Dick; 'meanwhile, Andy, let's give our friend a demonstration of the pleasure he can expect from becoming one of us - for his innocence is written on his face!'

With a smile, Andy got up and taking himself to the seat opposite, lay upon his back, whereupon Dick knelt over him - but to my amazement, top to tail, so that while his face was over his friend's attentive cock, Andy's lips were within an inch of his own cock - and, indeed, in a moment had fixed upon it and was sucking upon it with every instance of enjoyment, while he reached up to grasp the globes of his friend's arse, his fingers even seeming to insert themselves into the crack. Dick, above him, lowered himself so that both lads now had each other's cock between their lips. The pleasure they took in this activity was clear, for far from regarding it as a duty, they sucked at each other as though upon the most delicious fruit, saliva mixed with a whiteish liquid which extruded from their cocks, running out at the corner of their lips. The sight was an inspiring one, and in a very short while my cock had recovered its vigour and began to rise. Dick, removing his friend's member for a moment, said to him: 'Andy, I think our friend is ready for renewed attention,' whereupon the larger lad climbed off his friend's body and the two boys once more seated themselves on either side of me, and in a moment asked what I would like to do?

It was impossible for me to make a suggestion, for I had no conception of how two young men could best pleasure each other and indeed myself - though the sight of them at their play had given me considerable eagerness to feel a pair of lips around my own cock.

Seeing my confusion, Dick - who was the chief instigator in all their play - smiled and said he thought it high time that I lost my virginity. I felt a shudder at this, for he clearly meant that I should be sodomized, or buggered as we then called it; I knew the meaning of this, though my study of the classics (the Greeks being especially fond of the practise); but no instrument had ever penetrated that part of me which Dick now proposed should be punctured, though I had sometimes, when bathing, inserted a finger into my arsehole, and knew it to be pleasant enough. The thought of Dick's substantial instrument forcing itself into that aperture was however a worrying one.

Seeing, he saw my hesitation, he smiled and said 'Don't worry, old boy - it'll be a doodle! - as long as you relax and enjoy yourself.'

He then proposed that I should kneel upon the seat - which in those old days ran the whole width of the carriage and was handsomely wide, providing a couch almost of the size of a single bed - whereupon Andy knelt in front of me, offering his now rather relaxed cock to my lips. I eagerly took it between them, experiencing for the first time the pleasure of feeling a limp tool grow slowly larger and firmer until it seemed as hard as wood, though warm and responsive. My saliva coating it, together with a little more of that viscous fluid the slightly sour taste of which I found delightful, and its tip being disencumbered of skin by the operation of circumcision, I was able to slip my lips down its whole length, the feeling of the skin as it gently moved over the hard muscle beneath, its softness, the thick vein which ran along its length giving me such enjoyment that my cock soon fully recovered after expelling its vital fluid not so long before. That Andy found my attentions pleasant was obvious, for he placed his hands upon my head and encouraged a somewhat swifter motion, before sliding them down along my back, and somewhat to my alarm resting upon the cheeks of my arse and separating them.

In a moment, however, an astonishing sensation between those cheeks forced me for a moment to remove Andy's cock from my mouth and to look round - when I realized to my absolute astonishment that Dick, kneeling behind me, was applying his tongue not only to the inside of the cheeks of my arse but to the very fundament between them. First, he licked the surrounding skin, the round cheeks themselves, then the arches between balls and cock and the top of my thighs, the balls themselves, taking each in turn into his mouth and sucking upon them, and finally very gently tickling the rim of my arsehole with the tip of his tongue before positively inserting it as far as it would go into the responsive orifice.

The feeling this gave me was of such delight that I gasped with the pleasure of it, and applied myself yet more forcefully to sucking Andy's cock, swallowing it so completely that I felt its head knocking at the very back of my throat! In a moment, however, Andy himself removed it, and stood at my side for a moment.

'A little rearrangement, I think,' he said, whereat to my sorrow Dick ceased licking at my arse and also removed himself - but only so that Andy could lie at full length upon the seat, whereupon I was persuaded (not with reluctance) to kneel above him so that while I continued to suck upon him, he could take my cock in his mouth, in turn, while Dick returned to his task not only of so tonguing my fundament that I completely gave myself over to the pleasure, but of applying generous supplies of saliva to make it slippery - slippery enough, as I now anticipated, to apply himself to giving me my first fuck.

Content with having made his cock and my arsehole sufficiently lubricated, the head of his cock positively dripping with saliva, he at last applied it to the hole and began to attempt entry. However, as I have suggested, his cock was thick as well as long, and some slight nervousness on my part no doubt contributing to the failure, he was unable to effect entry despite my willingness - nay, eagerness - to receive him. Indeed, the pain was such that Andy felt my cock began to shrink between his lips, despite the best applications of his tongue.

'I'm sorry, Charlie,' he said; 'don't want to put you off, old boy ... maybe we'll try again later; unless Andy ...'

'Well, I'm not so enormous as you, Dick,' said Andy from beneath me; 'it was a couple of weeks before you were able to shag me. Let me try ...' We all re-arranged ourselves, or rather I remained kneeling while Andy in turn knelt behind me, and the two boys, spitting into the palms of their hands, both turned their attention again to making my arse as thoroughly slippery as Andy's cock. But alas when Andy applied his cock to my rear it became immediately somewhat pulpy, and insufficiently hard to make progress.

Dick, who had been standing at our side so that I could toy with his cock and balls, said, 'The trouble is that Andy's really a bottom' (it was the first time I had heard the term applied to a lad who preferred to be buggered rather than to take the active position). 'I think I'd better give him a shag at the same time - that usually sets him up.' At which he took himself behind his friend, who in a moment gave a gasp as Dick thrust his member home (I only wished that I could have been at their side to watch the operation, for I had never seen such a thing). After only a few thrusts of Dick's cock into him, Andy's own member was once again fully stiff, and pausing only to wet it again with his spit, he applied it to my arse and without difficulty slid it in.

I cannot say that I immediately felt pleasure; but in a moment or two, when he adjusted his position so that his cock played upon my prostate, the pleasure indeed began, and Dick's movements being sufficiently vigorous to move his friend's body against my own, while Andy reached down to play with my cock, I once again came almost instantly, whereupon Andy (who took little pleasure from playing the active part) withdrew. Moving from my position I allowed him to fall upon his face while Dick continued to fuck him, and kneeling at their side I was able to watch his cock entering, removing, and entering again his friend's arse, the foreskin being pressed back over the head as it entered, only to slide back as he withdrew. I took the liberty of caressing his balls as he swived, when he remarked that I might like to put a finger up his arse, which would speed things up - then we could all have a rest and be at it again.

Without any hesitation I wet my finger at my lips, as my friends had done, and thrust it between the cheeks of his arse, where only a little cluster of wiry hair met it, and I found it easy to slip it into the aperture up to and beyond the second knuckle. I bent it downward, seeking for the distinctive nub of the prostate gland. That this gave Dick pleasure I cannot doubt, for withdrawing his cock he sent a spurt of semen over Andy's back as far as his neck, when I took the liberty of rubbing it into his skin as they had done to mine. Andy, now sitting up, enquired whether Dick and I were to be the only ones to have the pleasure of coming. I asked whether I might have the pleasure of sucking him until he came off, whereupon he smiled, and lay back, opening his thighs to allow me, kneeling, to place myself conveniently between them, and while I sucked on his cock to play at the same time with his balls, and even - having learned my lesson - to slide my finger down and play with the aperture of his arse; then, eager to experience what I had seen, I placed my hands beneath his arse and encouraged him to lift himself so that removing his cock from my mouth I could run my tongue down its length, and take each of his balls into my mouth.

Lifting my head for a moment, I saw for the first time the delightful sight of an arsehole devoid of all hair and open to whatever pleasure I cared to offer: the whole area of his groin indeed was entirely smooth, the pubic hair merely curling above his cock and extending only to its sides; the delightful grove at each side of his sack was smooth, as were his balls and the area between them and his arsehole - which itself was surrounded by a little pink ring of muscle clearly extremely sensitive, for when I touched it with the tip of my tongue, gently licking around it, and then thrusting my tongue as best I might into it, Andy gave a little moan of pleasure, and Dick, who was sitting at his side, from time to time kissing his lips and biting gently at his nipples, said: 'The boy certainly learns fast!'

However, by then I had returned to Andy's cock, and moving the tip of my tongue up around the side of his balls and up the line of the thick vein at its under side, had taken first its head then its entire length into my mouth - at the same time thrusting not one but two fingers into his arse. In a moment, he came off, the flood of liquid filling my mouth and trickling from its corners, so generous was it.

Relaxed as we now were, and only taking the precaution of crouching to the floor of the compartment when the train passed through the stations, we produced the sandwiches and bottled beer with which we had provided ourselves, and had an enjoyable picnic dressed only in our skins - after which there was time for only one more frolic, which consisted of my being introduced to the pleasure of being (might I say) the fucker rather than the fuckee, penetrating Andy's arse without difficulty after it and my instrument had been well greased by some butter from our sandwiches, as he lay upon his back with his legs over my shoulders, his face meanwhile obscured by Dick's lower limbs (for he sat with his arse over his friend's mouth, who tongued his arse while I played with Dick's cock, and he with - Andy's. It would be good to say that we all came at the same moment, but this has only very rarely occurred to me during my life. In fact, I came first, ejaculating into the very bowels of my new friend - then withdrawing, and taking Andy's cock from Dick's fingers sucking upon it until he once more gave up the ghost - just as Dick too came, spurting his semen, alas, into my hair (from which we had some difficulty in removing most of it before the train arrived at Paddington Station).

The three young men who, fully if somewhat carelessly dressed, descended from the train had left few traces behind them except for certain stains upon the Great Western Railway's upholstery. Of course we met again, and often, during my London days; and the introduction they gave me to the pleasures of frigging, sucking and buggering made my subsequent life a great deal more enjoyable than it otherwise might have been. I may, if I have time, set some of them down for the pleasure of posterity, but for the moment will take my tale no further.