Kane

Walking back down the length of the garden, l'd scarcely put one foot on the BBQ decking before Kane had spotted me! He leapt up from the bench press in the gym and bounded into the pool area, taking off his tshirt as he did so. He turned deliberately to face me through the glass bifold doors, dropped his sweats, revealing he'd been commando, then grinned and dive bombed into the pool!

'Ben, you have to teach me to swim! Please.', he shouted as I opened the door.

Just inside, on the table that held the drinks when we hosted a pool party in the summer, there was a two-plastic water bottle, half-full of water with a distinct greenish tinge. I poured its remaining contents in the nearest flower tub, screwed it tight and lobbed it intentionally at his head!

'Hey!' He attempted to splash me but anticipating that would be his response, I had moved the door in front of me as a shield.

'I meant for you to use it as a float. Like this!' I mimed, holding out my arms extended in front. And, using forefinger and second finger, how to keep his legs straight so as to propel himself along in the water. Which he did reasonably successfully too.

'As you go along, try turning your head to the side to breathe!! Like this!'

He stopped and stood up in the shallower end, the water just at the level of his pubes, and cocked his head to one side:

'It'd be easier if you were in with me, you know!!'

'I might shrink! Already been in today! Sorry!'

Looking at his perfect butt poking up out of the water, I knew shrinkage wasn't the problem! Rather expansion was! I slipped my hand in my pocket to adjust myself when his head was looking the other way, making a mental note not to go commando while Kane was around.

When I could see him start to flag, I went to grab him a towel from the changing room, calling out behind me 'Let's knock it on the head now. You've done brilliantly considering it's your first time in a pool?'

'Yup!'

He hauled himself out and padded his way across to me, smiling smugly at me and making no attempt whatsoever to hide his tackle. I couldn't help notice the hard, dark nipples or how his dick had retreated into its jacket perched above a wrinkled, tennis ball sized sack below that looked rock hard. His brazen confidence in his ability to get me going wound me up. I felt like I was losing control, that he was holding all the cards.

'As it's after half twelve, l think I'm allowed a wee beer!'

I immediately regretted my attempt at winding him up in revenge. He tensed up and his smile vanished. He quickly wrapped the towel around him, and, still bare-chested made for the door, picking up his tshirt and pants as he went.

'I'm going to get some clean clothes!'

I followed, somewhat shocked at the strength of feeling l'd aroused. I'd only reached the top of the first staircase when I heard him slam the bedroom door on the top floor.

I sat down in a leather armchair, 'my' armchair, wondering how to play it. Have a beer or not have one? I actually felt like a stiff gin! How could he have got under my skin like this? And why the over-reaction?No, have the beer. You don't want to hand over that much control in your own home dammit! But put a glass and a coke out for him to show you're not angry or expecting him to drink. Ok, good. Now, do l ask him why he's clearly so anti-alcohol? Bite the bullet? No, it's obviously a sore point. So let him tell you when he's ready. If he's ever ready. My eyes fell on the tin, on the coffee-table in front of my armchair and the sofa, where he'd left it. Grey gun-metal coloured, it sat there, daring me to pick it up, to open it. I dismissed the thought, placing instead a tumbler and a Coke from the drinks fridge on one side of it and my beer and glass on the other.

I'd drunk half of my beer before I heard the door open upstairs. I was regretting that I'd taken a smaller can rather than one of the larger beers, partly not to antagonize him further and partly so there was less alcohol to lower my inhibitions. But that had been twenty odd minutes before.

He'd changed into a plain, white tshirt and a pair of ripped designer jeans that suited him perfectly. He looked absolutely stunning. I'd bought them in the States maybe ten years ago, thinking they'd bring out my young, trendy side and had paid a small fortune for them. Getting back home, I'd realized the young, attractive salesman had failed to point out that I didn't have a young and trendy side.

But Kane most certainly did!

'I love these! Don't they just show off my cute li'l ass off real good?', he said in a mock American accent. Then more seriously, 'Are you sure I can wear these?'

Relieved the grumpiness had walked, I nodded and pointed at the Coke and he poured himself a glass, before plonking himself on the sofa, happily.

'I bought them a while back ... in New York. In fact, if you've got a passport tucked away in that tin of yours, I should introduce you to the little shit who sold them to me for a couple of hundred dollars!!'

I sat back, congratulating myself at having introduced the tin into the conversation so smoothly and subtly.

'You wanna know what's in there. Fair enough. Definitely ain't no passport, that's for sure!'

I felt so stupidly transparent. I was stupidly transparent. But Kane was busy edging up the tight fitting lid, first at one end, then turning it around to push the other end free.

Exhibit no 1, a rolled up bundle of notes.

'I saved up £435. My emergency cash stash, I call it!'

It went back into the tin and instead in its place an A5 sized brown envelope. He flashed a birth certificate at me ... Kane Desmond Banda and 2nd November 1999 were all he details I could manage to see before it was refolded and slid back inside. Next, two photos. The first, a young woman in her early twenties, pretty and smiling as she held a toddler in a hideous yellow and brown outfit, obviously none too impressed with having to have his photo taken.

'That's my Mum and me. Apparently it was taken on the day I started to walk!'

He stared at it briefly before it followed the birth certificate into the envelope.

'These are my grandparents at Popa's retirement party from British Rail. Mum left me with them even before she left my father. They brought me up ... till I was seven.'

He rapidly put that back too picking up the last item, a simple gold chain.

'It was Mum's but he broke the clasp. I wouldn't ever wear it though. In case I lost it!' He brought it to his lips and then it too was stuffed back into the tin and he pushed the lid down, needing it to to do its job and keep that part of his life tightly contained.

'See ... no passport ... no drugs! I'm clean, man!'