I arrived in Canada at the age of 25 just 18 months after the nation had adopted the Maple Leaf flag. I fell in love with my new country and its new flag almost immediately. I also fell in love with its rugged, handsome men, but this love was a deep secret. Homosexuality was still a criminal act in those days of 1966. It would not be legalized for three more years.

I arrived on June 30th, the night before Canada Day. I didn't plan it this way. The ship I was travelling on had suffered several mishaps which caused it to be nearly three weeks late in reaching Vancouver. My first Canada Day was a pretty miserable one. I knew no-one other than some friends I had made on board ship, and most of those were, like me, newcomers. I was staying in a really bad, really cheap, run-down hotel which has long been demolished and replaced by a steel and glass tower. The toilets and showers were down the hall. There was only cold running water in the rooms. What more could you expect for $3.50 a night?

The only sign of Canada Day celebrations that first year was a couple of drunks, bums really, who had gotten a flag from somewhere. One was wearing it like a cape, while the other was waving a bottle in a paper bag as they staggered along the sideway trying to sing "Oh Canada."

Not only that, almost everything in the down-town core was closed for the holiday weekend, and the few restaurants that were open were priced beyond my meagre means. I settled for eating all my meals in the IHOP which was right next door to the lobby of the tawdry hotel, even though the idea of pancakes with everything was not an Australian's idea of food.

But I eventually found myself cheap accommodation in the West End, sharing half an old house with two Australian nurses I had met on the ship and like others who had arrived with us, we searched unsuccessfully for casual employment, while I tried to find a schoolteaching job and the girls searched for nursing positions. Neither I nor two nurses could find any employment at all. We had arrived in a summer of endless strikes and job action. We settled for getting up early every morning and collecting empty beer bottles from the lanes behind the high-rises. We could each carry six cases of empties at a time, and the local Chinese grocery would redeem them for 25 cents a case. We would make two or three trips each morning. Our rent was only sixty-five dollars a month, so each day we would each kick in a dollar for rent, electricity, and natural gas. The rest would go for food and entertainment. We were living in luxury.

I eventually found a job teaching high school English in a small country town well away from Vancouver, and became even lonelier, not knowing anyone at all in this town.

In my new town, I found myself a basement suite in a house about half a mile from the school in which I was teaching. It was handy, because I could easily walk to and from work, and it was also close to one of the town's small strip malls.

It was quite fine walking to and from school in the good weather. The scenery was quite lovely. But on the rainy days it was not quite so pleasant, especially when the loaded school buses would pass me by and gleeful students would laugh and flip me the finger as I plodded through the rain – and later, the snow.

But it was through these walks to and from school that I got to know one of my students a whole lot better!

It started one afternoon when I was about halfway home and a passing car honked at me. It was a little blue Morris Minor, and I wasn't sure whether the driver was honking at me or at some other person walking on the sidewalk. But it was the same the next day, and the next, so I became convinced the driver was honking at me. On the fourth day, when the driver honked I gave him the common Aussie wave, the "thumb's up" sign. Little did I know that this sign had quite a different meaning to most Canadians.

The car slowed, did a u-turn on the middle of the 4-lane road, and passed me again, going in the opposite direction. I stopped and looked back. The car was a bit down the road, doing another u-turn. I resumed walking. Soon the car pulled up alongside me and stopped, and the driver leaned over and rolled down the passenger window. I saw that it was, in fact, Al Works, one of my students.

"What was the 'Up yours!' sign for?" he demanded. At first I didn't know what he meant, and dumbly asked,

"What?"

"The 'Up Yours' sign," he demanded once more, and he clenched his fist and raised his thumb as I had done a few minutes before.

It dawned on me then.

"Oh, that," I said. "That's the Australian sign for 'Hi,' or 'Well done' or "That's good!'," I explained lamely.

"Well, that's not what it means here," he told me. "Here it means 'Up your ass!' It's a pretty rude sign."

"Yes, it can mean that in Australia, too. It all depends on how it's done," I agreed. "But I was just saying 'Hi' in reply to the toot on the horn you gave me."

"OK," he accepted my explanation. "Do you want a ride? I'm going as far as the Shell Station down the road."

"Perfect!" I accepted his offer. "That's only a couple of doors from where I live." He swung the door open for me and I clambered in beside him. It seems he already knew where I lived, because he pulled up right outside.

"Thanks," I told him. "Saved me a little bit of a walk."

"No problem," he told me. "I come this way every day at this time. I work at the gas station. I often see you coming home. I'll watch out for you in future and give you a ride if I see you."

"Great!" I said, and he drove off, turning into the Shell station fifty yards further on.

As I changed clothes in my basement suite, I considered my lift home and the young man who had given me the ride. Al was handsome, dark-haired guy, one of those big-boned sorts. He was well-padded with muscle, and maybe a bit of fat. Even in class I could not help but notice he had a nicely-packed crotch. I idly wondered whether he had a big cock. But I put those thoughts aside. After all, he was a student, and although he was nineteen, he was only in Grade Ten. He was not slow or retarded or anything like that. He was one of those guys, common at that time, who had left school as soon as they were legally allowed to, to take one of the many well-paying jobs available in this town, which was seeing a boom as the mill was going through a major expansion, so there was work on construction, in the forest industry, and in the mill itself. Al, like others of his kind, eventually found that he didn't like working in the logging camps too much, so after three years of that, he had returned to school to try to finish and graduate.

He was living back at home with his aging parents while he tried to finish school.

I briefly had some fantasies about going to bed with him, even imagining his a "teacher's pet," rather like a cartoon I had seen in a men's magazine I had bought in the adult section magazine racks of the local corner story. In those days, those mags were sealed in plastic so you couldn't browse and you didn't know what was is them. I had taken a chance and bought the magazine, which was full of pictures of naked men, but none with full erections. Pretty tame by today's standards, but good enough for me to jerk off to.

The cartoon which caught my eye featured a naked teacher getting his cock licked by an adult student hiding under his desk. It seems it was OK to portray such things in cartoons, but not in real-life photographs.

Al was good to his word, and in the days that followed he would often pick me up as I was walking home and he was heading to work at the local Shell station as a gas jockey. His boss was also teaching him rudimentary auto mechanics whenever it wasn't busy and there was an automotive job in the shop.

Then one morning he turned up at my door, his car idling in the drive.

"Woke up early this morning," he announced when I opened the door, surprised to see him there, especially as I was still in my underwear. "Thought you might like a lift to work." He gave me a huge grin.

"Well, yes, OK," I told him. "I'm not quite ready yet. Would you like a coffee while you wait?"

"Sure," he told me. "I'll just turn off the engine."

He was back in a flash and I led him in and poured him a coffee. He didn't want cream or sugar. I handed the coffee to him, quite aware that he was openly staring at the bulge in my undies.

"I'll be right back," I said, as he settled on a chair in the living area, heading into the bedroom to finish dressing. The first thing I did was pull on some pants. I heard his voice behind me.

"Aw, too bad. I liked the view without them."

He was standing in my bedroom door, grinning. That was the first inkling I got that Al might be anything but straight.

But that was all. He sipped at his coffee while I finished dressing, gathered my books, and we went off to school.

In the months that followed we became good friends, even spending quite a bit of time together outside class. He showed me much of the area, driving me deep back into the mountains, and climbing up to viewpoints. He led me to hidden pools at the base of a dam which supplied water to the local mill, and there I caught my first ever trout.

He even took me to his place where I met his mother and father. They were far older than me, and even older than my own parents. They had had Al, their only son, quite late in life, after their first child, Al's sister was already grown and married. Mr. Works – "Just call me Ivan – was an easy-going guy, but Mrs. Works was one of those uptight women who is just too fussy. No-one was allowed to wear shoes in their house. All shoes must be left at the entry landing. All furniture in the living-room had slip-covers and antimacassars. Clear plastic runners covered all parts of the pile carpet wherever people might walk or normally rest their feet. Everything was kept in its place "just so." She was pleasant enough, but the upstairs part on the house was her domain, and heaven help anyone who disturbed it.

Only downstairs were Ivan and Al free to relax and not worry about things like that. Downstairs was their rumpus room and Al's bedroom – and Ivan's bedroom. Apparently he and his wife no longer slept together and he preferred his own room downstairs where he could be a slob if he felt like it.

I went to dinner at their home several times, and it was pleasant enough but always a little edgy whenever we were upstairs. Downstairs, after dinner, Al, Ivan, and I could ease off and play cards or darts. I got along very well with Ivan.

But Al never took advantage of our friendship in the classroom, partly because he was three or four years older than the other students in the classroom, as he was a returnee, and he had very little to do with them. He didn't confide to them that he and I were friends outside of the classroom.

In late spring, Al drove me to one of the local isolated lakes where many young guys went to go skinny dipping. He had only told me we were going swimming, and I had worn my bathing suit under my shorts. When he saw them he laughed at me.

"Don't be stupid," he told me. "Leave them here in the car. All the other guys will be naked," he told me.

Reluctantly, I stripped off my bathing suit, and tossed it and my shorts casually back into the car. Al, dropped his cut-off jeans too toosed then into the car and locked it, and for the first time we both saw each other naked. He sat on the tailgate of a pickup belonging to one of his buddies and eyed me appraisingly. I eyed him in return. he had a great muscular body and a thick, uncut cock with a huge head hidden under its foreskin.

Neither of us said anything, but I know my heart rate stepped up a notch or two. I was praying I wouldn't get a woody, especially when it became clear that Al was aroused. His cock was swelling fast.

"Lets' go!" he said abruptly. He stood, turned, and naked, with me trailing behind admiring his bubble butt, led the way, running down the trail to the lake edge. Arriving, he took a running dive into the cold, shallow water. When he stood, dripping, his cock was no longer semi-erect. The cold water had done its job.

Al had been telling the truth. There were about twenty guys there, frolicking in the shallows. or diving off a low cliff. All of them were stark naked. It was the local version of a nude beach. Unlike many nude beaches today, however, there was no indication that this was a gay cruising area. The guys just seemed to be having fun, not checking each other out — although I did see one pair of guys emerge from a clump of bushes looking a little guilty or embarrassed – and both their cocks were a little swollen.

We swam around in the shallows for a while, and mingled with the other guys there, most of whom Al knew, and many of whom I recognized from around town. But the water was a little cold so early in the season, so we headed back to the parking area. There was a brand new, shiny red Mustang park beside Al's little Morris Minor.

"That's Gussy Gustafson's new car," Al exclaimed. "I didn't know he was here. I got to drive this beauty last night," he confided.

"Who in their right mind would let you drive their brand new car," I joked. "How much did you have to pay him?"

"No money," he told me frankly. "Just had to suck him off."

I was astonished. "You're kidding!" I exclaimed.

"Nope," he said. "It was no big deal. I've sucked plenty of cocks.

He saw me eyeing him differently, digesting this knowledge.

"You hate me now?" he asked.

"No," I confessed. "I've sucked a few cocks myself." I never thought I'd hear myself admit that to anyone, let alone to one of my students.

"Good," he said. "I'll suck you off right here if you want," he offered.

I stared at him for a moment, not knowing how to respond, but wanting so much to accept his offer. My cock was hardening at the thought. At last I made my choice: "Thanks for the offer," I told him, "but no thanks."

"OK," he responded. "I don't suppose you'd want to suck me off instead?" he asked with a laugh. I laughed, too, as if it were just a joke.

Al had unlocked the car doors for me, and I had to clamber in to find my shorts, which had fallen to the floor when I discarded them earlier, bending down to retrieve them, and exposing my bare butt and asshole to Al.

"Hm, nice asshole," he commented. "I suppose a buttfuck is out of the question?" he said, cheerfully, again as if it were just a joke.

"Yes," I said lamely.

And we dropped the matter and he drove me back to my place. As I lay in bed jerking off that night, I fantasized about what had happened. In my fantasies I took Al up on his offer. Imagining him sucking me off or fucking me made me cum very fast!

It was on the very next Friday night that Al turned up at my door about 9:30 at night. He obviously had not been home from work yet, because he was still in his work clothes and smelled of gasoline – and beer. He was lugging an open 12-pack of Molson's Canadian beer.

"Care for a cold one on me?" he asked. "My boss did the bootlegging for me," he explained when I looked at the box of beer with a raised eyebrow. The legal drinking age was still 21 in British Columbia at the time.

I invited him in, and we sat in my living room, slugging them down. We watched TV while we chatted about nothing in particular. Eventually I needed to take a leak, and when I returned from the bathroom, Al was gone. At first I thought he had slipped out and away, but then I heard his voice from the darkened bedroom.

"In here," he said. I went into the darkened bedroom, and reached for the light switch. "No," he demanded. "Leave it off!" His voice was coming from my bed. "Get into bed with me," he ordered.

Although everything told me I shouldn't, against my better judgement I did as he asked, climbing into bed with him, fully clothed. He brushed against me, and I realized he was naked. "Take off your clothes," he said, and I wriggled out of them and dropped them on the floor. We lay there for a minute or so, still, our naked bodies touching. My cock was hard as a rock. Al fumbled at my crotch. He found my stiff dick and grasped it. With his other hand he searched for my hand, and finding it, guided it to his own cock. I was amazed at how large it was, hot and throbbing. We lay there and mutually masturbated each other in the darkened bed. I didn't feel too guilty about it – just a mutual hand job. Lots of guys do that. even straight ones.

Then he bent his face down close to my ear.

"Fuck me, Tom," he whispered. He let go of my cock and turned face down. "Fuck me now," he pleaded.

I thought about it long and hard. My dick was screaming 'Do it! Fuck him!'. My brain – and my conscience – was telling me 'No! Don't!'

In the end, my brain won. "No," I told him. "Apart from the fact that you're only 19, I can't fuck one of my students. It's against all my standards. I'd never be able to forgive myself." I know that sounds prim and proper and stuffy, but at the time I really believed that – and do to this day.

"Damn!" he said. "Then can I stay the night? I'm a bit drunk and I don't want to drive."

I agreed to his request, and we went to sleep together naked, just like that. I think he thought that maybe during the night he could get me aroused enough to do him, but it didn't happen.

At some time during the night, I awoke to the sound of his car starting up. The place beside me where he had been laying was empty. He had dressed in the dark and was leaving. I went back to sleep – after I jerked off!

Regular classes had finished for the year and now began the rounds of student exams, marking tests, and report cards. Al had passed my class and all others, so he had no need to come to school. But when I did didn't see him at all for several days, having to walk home without any lifts, I began to wonder. Was he avoiding me because of that night in my bed? Had he told anyone about it? Would I be arrested? What was going on?

But then he turned up again. His little blue car pulled up alongside as I was walking home, and I automatically hopped in.

"I've been worried," I told him right out. "I thought you might be avoiding me because we went to bed together. I thought maybe you told someone about it."

"Hey, don't be dumb!" he exclaimed as we drove off. "I'm not stupid. I haven't been around because I've been working full days at the garage. My boss has kept me hopping. By the time I get home, I'm beat.

"By the way," he added. "My mom wants to talk to you. She's gonna phone you tonight!"

Immediately I panicked. Did she know about last Friday night? Was she worried that her little son and I were seeing too much of each other? Was she worried that there was even more to our relationship? Was she going to ban me from being with him?

"What about?" I asked, breathlessly.

"Not exactly sure," Al told me. "Something about their trip to Vegas." I knew Ivar and Mrs. Works were planning a bus trip to Las vegas, but how that would concern me, I had no idea.

Al was heading back to work after having run an errand for his boss, so he dropped me off at my place. Sure enough that night, the telephone rang.

"Hello, Tom, this is Dorothy Works. I have a big favour to ask of you.

"You probably know Ivan and I are going on a one-week bus trip to Las Vegas?

"We are leaving this coming Friday and we will be gone until the following Saturday.

"Well, the thing is, I don't like leaving Al alone in the house. He's such a scatterbrain, he's likely to invite all his friends over for a house party. He did it once before when we left him alone. There was all kinds of damage.

"Do you think you could see you way clear to stay here in the house with him for a week? You are such a good influence on him!"

Of course I agreed. I would get a whole week alone with Al whenever he wasn't working. My heart leapt – and so did my cock. It was at this moment that I realized I had fallen in love with the young man.

That Friday was the last day of the school year. There were no classes. Kids came in to the office to pick up their report cards, and the teachers spent the morning in endless staff meetings. At 1:00 P.M., there was a staff barbecue with all sorts of great food and a well-spiked fruit punch. I managed to get nicely drunk on it, and had to beg a ride home at the end of the day.

I had already packed a small bag of stuff to take to Al's parents' place, and arranged for Al to pick me up when he got off work at 9:00 that night. It gave me a chance to sleep off some of the alcohol before he arrived.

When Al did come for me, I was awake and dressed again, but I was still groggy. His boss had bootlegged for him again and he had a cold case of Molson's Canadian on the back seat. He was already drinking one, but I declined. I'd had enough to drink for now. I was not hungry, but as Al hadn't eaten yet, we stopped by a take-out place for chicken and chips.

I'm afraid I wasn't much fun when we got to his place. I was still feeling the effects of the spiked punch, and although I tried to down one of his cold beers, it was without much relish. I apologized to him for being such a slouch.

"Tell you what," he said. "While I take a nice long shower, why don't you crawl into bed for a while. Get another quick nap and see what you're like after that?" I liked the sound of another nap. He took my small bag which I had left on the entry landing and led me downstairs.

"Dad said you can sleep in his bed," he told me, "but who knows?" I stripped naked – how I always slept – and climbed into his father's bed, even though it was still light outside, the long twilight of daylight savings time in Canada.

I'm sure Al had hardly left the room before I was sound asleep again. I don't know how long his shower was, or how long he left me alone after that, but the next thing I knew he was climbing into bed with me. I awoke with a start, but fully awake now, not groggy as before. The room was dark now, but I felt his body against me and knew he was stark naked also.

"What are you doing?" I mumbled, rather inanely. I knew exactly what he was doing … and I wanted him to!

"Shh!" he said. "You know what I want, and tonight we're going to do it." I felt his stiff, stiff cock brush against me.

"I can't," I objected.

"Yes you can," he insisted. "And in case you are going to bring up that school-teacher student shit agin, let me remind you that school is over for the year. And on top of that, when I picked up my report this morning I also officially quit. I've completed my Grade Ten now, all I need for an apprenticeship. Dennis has hired me full-time, and is also going to apprentice me. So I'm not a student any more. And if that's not enough to calm your conscience, you're not going to fuck me; I'm going to fuck you. That way you can always tell yourself I raped you.

"And besides …" He paused before finishing what he had to say, then blurted it out: "I'm in love with you!"

"Oh, my God," I responded. "I was wondering how to tell you the same thing."

He laughed out loud, and kissed me on the lips before he practically dragged me from the bed and pushed me face down bent over the edge of the bed, my knees on the floor. Standing behind me, he spread my butt cheeks and lubed me up with some gel he had produced from somewhere. Then he smeared some of it onto his rampant cock. I expected that huge knob would hurt me as it went in, but there was only brief pain at first entry, then his whole lubricated rod slid into me with ease. It felt as if it belonged there. It sank fully into me and he began a pumping action.

We fucked for a long time that first night, always him fucking me. We tried many different positions, and each one felt better than the last, but my favourite was spooned together on our sides, his arms around me playing with my cock while his own was buried deep inside me. After he finally came inside me, we went off to sleep that way, his dick still in me. I was gloriously happy. I was in love with a man for the first time. And he loved me.

We awoke early next morning. He was no longer inside me but laying facing me, fiddling with my cock, which was already hard.

"Good morning, darling," he said to me, smiling. "You know what's special about today?"

"Apart from the fact that I'm in bed with a man I love, no." I replied.

"It's July First," he said. "Canada Day. And we're going to celebrate it by staying in bed all day and fucking each other silly!"

"Oh wow!" I said. "I've never celebrated Canada Day before. My first one was a real bust!"

"I promise you this one will be truly memorable. Now get that dick good and hard. It's your turn to fuck me. Welcome to Canada."

With that, Al turned face down on the bed and spread his butt cheeks exposing his inviting hole to me. I took him up on his invitation on that Canada Day morning and many other Canada Days in the years to come.

I would appreciate your comments on this story: