Chook was unusually quiet on our drive home that afternoon. We both stunk of bushfire smoke, and we pulled off the main road about thirty miles south of the city. I knew of a quiet, rarely used swimming hole on a little creek that somehow flowed all year round, even in dry years like this one. At the trail leading in, there was a sign saying the road was closed because of the bushfire hazard, but we took our chances. We knew we were not about to take chances with starting a fire after our previous night's experiences.

The fire ban worked in our favour, because there were not even the few local kids who usually hung around this little oasis at this time of the year. The pool was deserted. It wasn't very big. The water ran in over some rocks on the east side, formed a pool about 20 feet by twenty feet and maybe six feet deep at its deepest, then trickled out the west end as another creek and disappeared down the hills toward the sea.

We parked the VW and leapt into the cool water, shorts and all. They stunk of bushfire smoke anyway, as did our hair and skin. Chookie climbed out and tossed his speedos into the shallows to soak. He retrieved a bar of soap from our goods in the VW and we both stood in the shallows, soaping up. Of course, being alone, and naked, and soaping up ourselves and each other, we both soon got horny. Our rods stuck out like lightning rods! I was hoping Chook would ask to fuck me a second time. He didn't, but I did get to fuck him once more, on the rocks by the edge of the pool. There was something particularly exciting about doing it out there in the open, even though it was extremely unlikely anyone would see us.

When we were back on the road, I again tried to broach what Chook would do about Wayne, but all he would say is, "When I went off by myself the other day, I went to the post office in the Mindanup and made a few phone calls and sent a couple of telegrams. I think I got everything worked out. You'll see soon enough." Dongarup, the town we'd been teaching swimming in didn't really have a post-office. The general store sold stamps, and held "Care Of GPO Dongarup" mail for local and tourist customer pick-up, but that was about all. Mindanup was a slightly larger town with a real post-office just a few miles down the coast highway. I waited for him to say more, and after a while he repeated, "You'll see soon enough."

As it turned out, "soon enough" was that very afternoon.

When we got back to Wayne and Dot's we were both quite tired. I was thankful that I wouldn't have to take a double train ride home with my belongings or impose on Chook to drive me to my parents'. Having received my posting in the mail right after Christmas, I had rented a small apartment only a few blocks from Wayne and Dot's, right opposite a railway station, on the main bus route, and only two blocks from the ocean. It was also not too far from the school I had been posted to. This was more than I'd ever hoped for, but a retired great-uncle I hardly knew offered to lend me enough to pay the first and last months rents, the security deposit, and security for gas and electricity. I had taken the apartment only days before we left for Dongarup.

I helped Chook unload all the camping gear before we went into the house. Chook just wanted to say hello to his mother Dot before he drove me the short distance home.

In the kitchen, Dot and Wayne were both waiting for up, Dot excitedly waving a brown government envelope. "This came for you Friday, hon. I bet it's your posting!"

Wayne also looked excited about the envelope, but he also managed to give me a nasty stare. I think he blamed me for the confrontation he and Chook had that Saturday night just over a week before.

Chookie took the envelope from his mother and tore the end off. He slid the enclosed sheets out and unfolded them slowly. He perused the contents, keeping us all in suspense. A big smile crept over his face, and he winked at me.

"Well," demanded Wayne. "Where are they sending you to? Leederville High, I hope?" Leederville was the suburb surrounding the Football League Team that Chookie played for.

"No, I'm off to Broome Secondary!" Chook announced. Broome is a town 1500 miles north of the city, a very long drive in those days, about half of it over gravel or dirt roads.

"What?" screamed Wayne. "They can't do that! We'll get it changed. The Football League has lots of pull!" he stormed.

"No you won't," Chook informed him. "I don't want it changed. It's what I requested!"

"But you requested the city, near us," his mother objected.

"I did," Chook agreed, "but after Wayne's visit last week I drove down to Mindanup and made some calls to the Education Department from there. An old girlfriend of mine works in Postings, and she did a little juggling for me. So I'm off to Broome! This is my official notice and a cheque for travel expenses and accommodation expenses for the first month. Molly's coming with me!"

"I forbid it!" his father raged. "You're not 21 yet! I'm your legal guardian, and what I say goes!" Neither Chook nor I had yet turned 21, the legal age of majority at that time.

"Not yet," agreed Chook calmly. "But in just three weeks I will be. Then you'll have no legal hold on me at all."

"But I've given you everything," Wayne objected. "I got you into surfing and the Surf-Lifesaving Club, into cricket and the Cricket Club, into football and the Football Club. All for you. And you're throwing it all up."

"No," Chook replied. "Not all for me; all for you. So you could boast at work and at Rotary what a great son you had and how much you had done for him. But I bet you didn't tell them how much you had done to him, did you?"

"You spiteful little shit!" Wayne screamed in absolute rage. He threw himself across the kitchen at Chook, knocking Dot down as he leapt. But this time Chook fought back. He'd been bigger and stronger than Wayne for a couple of years now, but this time he used that strength, not just giving in to the older man. He grabbed Wayne and flung him back against the wall, knocking the breath out of him. Wayne stared at him, astonished.

"I'll take you to court," Wayne screamed. "I'll take the Education Department to court," he threatened.

Calmly, Chook told him, "I don't think you want to go near the courts," he said. "It might turn out very badly for you, if you get my meaning." The veiled threat was enough to shut Wayne up. He leaned back against the wall where Chook had thrown him, panting impotently. Chook helped Dot up from the floor where she had fallen when Wayne knocked her over.

"And if I ever hear of you hitting Mom again, I'll come back and beat the living shit out of you! Understand?"

His mother started to say something, but Chook interrupted her. "As for you, you never once tried to stop Wayne from what he did to me," he told her. "What sort of mother's love is that? Molly and Yogi love me far more that you two ever have.

"I'm going to get some of my things now, and I'm leaving with Yog. I don't want to see either of you ever again. Broome is about as far away from you both as I could get, and I don't want to see either of you anywhere near there."

Wayne tried to break in, but Chook said, "Shut the fuck up. You're dead to me, understand? Dead!"

While I helped Chook pack a whole lot of his clothes and belongings, Dot sat at the kitchen table, head in arms, blubbering, while Wayne remained against the wall, fuming but powerless to stop us.

"I hope I can stay at you place till Molly and I head off for Broome," Chook asked as we drove away. "I've nowhere else to go. I sort of burned those bridges, didn't I?"

"I'm so proud of you," I told him

It seemed that it took some sort of crisis in Chookie's life to initiate sex between toe two of us, and that afternoon was no different. It was a very small apartment , only a living-rom/kitchen area, a small bathroom and a small bedroom with a twin bed in it. I apologised t for the sparse furnishings, especially the twin bed. Wayne chuckled, "Hey, for the last month we've been sleeping on the hard ground in a tent, and last night we slept under a wet blanket in the middle of a bushfire, so what's a twin bed between friends?"

"You were no wet blanket last night," I joked.

"And you're not one right now," he kidded right back. "In fact, you're kinda hot. Wanta fool around for a bit?" He leapt up onto the twin bed and bounced on it. Even though I was a bit afraid it might collapse, I joined him, standing on the bed, and he drew me to him and kissed me hungrily, our tongues pushing into each other's mouths and exploring. His hand found the waistband of my shorts and slipped in side, and his fingers went exploring down there. They slid into my ass-crack and found my hole. He probed me with a finger. I pressed back, forcing it further in.

"Yes, do me," I whispered, and we collapsed down onto the twin bed. He spat on his hand, but I stopped him. I had some skin lotion just a few steps away in the bathroom and I retrieved in and rejoined him on the bed. I lay face down and spread my legs. Chook put a few drops of the skin lotion on my rosebud and smeared a few drops more on his rock hard shaft. He guided it to its target and lowered himself gently down onto me, his cock head parting my buttcheeks, forcing my asshole to open and receive him into me. Further and further he went, driving his whole rod deeply into me. It slid in even more easily that the night before, helped, of course, by the oily skin lotion. Soon he was flat down upon me.

He whispered into my ear,"I love you, Yog. You're my best friend ever. Male friend, that is…" But he didn't have to remind me that Molly was his first and foremost love. I already knew that, and accepted it. I knew, too, that I had to enjoy and cherish the next few days with Chook, because soon he'd be gone. Away off in Broome. With Molly. Without me.

Accepting this future, I lay there and enjoyed one of our final fucks together. When he had deposited a massive load deep inside me, we played switch and I did the same for him, then we took a proper shower together, finally washing the stink of the bushfires and a month's worth of camping from our bodies completely.

About a week later, I said goodbye to Chookie and Molly as they set out on the long drive to Broome. It would be almost two years before I saw him again.

Most of what happened next, I gleaned from the newspapers and a couple of letters and phone calls from Chookie.

The first occurrence was about eight months later. I was stunned to pick up the evening newspaper on my way home from school and see Wayne's picture plastered across the the night's headlines.

PROMINENT BUSINESSMAN ARRESTED AND CHARGED WITH CHILD ABUSE the headline screamed. The photograph showed Wayne being led off in handcuffs.

My first thought was that Chook had finally turned his father in, but scanning over the article, I found that Wayne had been charged with the sodomy and rape of a 14 year old boy. The boy was not identified, other than being a neighbour of the accused.

I phoned Chook immediately from the payphone on the landing of my apartment. He and Molly were lucky enough to have their own phone in the apartment they were renting. Private hones were hard to come buy in Oz back then.

Yes, he had heard about his father; Dot had phoned him in hysterics. No, he was not ready to forgive his mother, and had hung up on her. No, he was not going to get involved. Yes, he hoped his father got a long prison sentence. Long distance was expensive, and I even though our conversation was terse, I ran out of coins – but not before Chook told me "Love you, Yog!"

It was about six more months before I heard any more about the case. Most of what appeared in the newspapers was heavily censored by publication bans because of the age of the young male victim. The way the papers told it, at one point it appeared that the accused, Wayne, was likely to go free. There were no witnesses to the professed rape, and the defence found witnesses to say that the youth was known to hang round outside the local pub, offering oral sex for money.

Then a surprise witness came forward. Dot appeared to testify that on the day of the professed rape, she heard cries of the young boy coming from the garden shed. Before she could investigate, the boy had run out of the shed, crying, naked, with his shorts in hand. He managed to pull them on before he ran off down the street.

She questioned Wayne about what was going on. He claimed the boy had cut himself while fiddling about with Wayne's tools. She knew it didn't explain what the boy was doing in the shed naked, but she didn't press the matter, knowing Wayne's temper.

She had later found the boy's torn and blood-stained underpants in the shed, but had burned them.

Although the defence tried to refute this, the jury was convinced. Wayne was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in maximum security. He was imprisoned in Fremantle Penitentiary, a rather dreadful place, much of it dating back a hundred years to when Western Australia was still a convict settlement.

Chook was in court for the sentencing, and dropped by to tell me all about it before heading back to Broome.

"When it looked like Pop was going to get off, I agreed with the Crown prosecutors to testify that he had raped me many times. It was agreed that this would all be in camera – behind closed doors, and that my testimony would never be published, that my name would never be in the papers – but I knew it might get out sooner or later."

"Then Mom came forward with the stuff about the naked boy and the bloody underpants, so I didn't need to testify. The judge has ordered that everything I have said to Crown be sealed for now and destroyed after 10 years."

"Pop deserves ever minute of his sentence!" he declared.

"I can almost forgive Dot now, but I still don't want to see her," he told me. He also told me that Molly was pregnant. Chook was going to be a Daddy! I was happy for them both, but a little jealous of Molly. After all, she had Chook all to herself – even though Chook and I did spend the night together before he caught a morning flight home.

Very little of what remains of this story is pleasant to recall, let alone retell. As I have said, Wayne was sentenced to ten years in maximum security at Fremantle Penitentiary. It was a very ominous, foreboding place even to just drive by, and stories had it that it was even worse inside.

But Wayne didn't last long in Fremantle. Even hardened convicts and murderers don't take kindly to child rapists, especially rapists who prey on young boys. Even tough Wayne was supposed to be under protective custody, less than six months after he was imprisoned in Fremantle, he was found dead with multiple stab wounds in the groups showers, where he had been supposedly showering alone. No-one was ever charged with his murder.

Neither Chook nor Dot claimed the body, so Wayne was eventually buried in an unmarked grave in Potter's Field, and area of nearby Fremantle Cemetery set aside for paupers, unknowns, and persons unclaimed, like Wayne, from the prison.

I phoned Chook to give him my sympathy, but he assured me he didn't want any sympathy. He was sorry Wayne was dead. Nobody deserves to be murdered, but he would not mourn for him. He had Molly and their new son, Teddy – already nicknamed Yogi– to love and care for. Yes, Teddy/Yogi was named after me!

Even the last time Chook and I had sex together was not a completely happy time. His mother didn't last long after her husband. She passed away less than 3 months later. Chook once more flew down from Broome to Perth to settle things up. He had his mother cremated, and put the property in the hands of agents to sell for him.

He arrived at my place with a cardboard box. I thought it must be some of his cherished belongings from the house, but I was wrong. It was his mother's ashes. Not even an urn.

"I'm going to scatter them into the sea, just over the hill from where we used to live," he told me. "You want to come with me and help me?" he asked.

"Right now?" I asked.

"Right now," he insisted. "I want to go out on the groin and scatter then from there." So we both changed into shorts and sand-shoes and drove in the same old VW to the beach nearby. From the beach, a groin, a spit constructed of large granite boulders, projected out into the sea, built there to stop beach erosion. We clambered over the rocks to the very extremity of the groin, where waves rolling in from the Indian Ocean threw spay and foam up at us.

I don't know what I expected of human ashes. Certainly not the gritty, sandy stuff with little chunks of bone that we cast to the wind. I was glad when we scraped the last of Dot's remains out of the plastic-lined box and cast her to the wind. It was also somewhat unpleasant when the winds threw some of it back at us and our salt-spray damp bodies.

We clambered back over the rocks of the groin, across the white sandy beach, and up the path to the road and the VW.

"I dunno about you, Yog," Chook told me, "but I think I need a shower after that. How about you?"

"Yep, me too," I agreed, my cock already springing to life, knowing what Chook was hinting at.

"Together?" he asked.

"Of course," I agreed.

"Before or after we fuck?"

"Both," I grinned. "We need one right now, and I'm sure we'll both be pretty sweaty again after!"

By the time we arrived back at my apartments and climbed the stairs to my unit, we were both sporting massive tents in our shorts any young man would be proud of!

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