Room with a Secret Ch. 01

Jim was not gay, but that was not what the women thought. Perhaps it was his slightly effeminate manner and the care he took over his appearance; probably it was something to do with him sharing a room at university with another young man for the whole three years and neither going out with a girl. Not that they had not tried. Indeed, how they had tried in their own way! It had just not worked.

They had been 'just good friends,' liked to style themselves the most eligible bachelors around – eligible but unlucky – and because they went around so much together, a reputation grew. Not that they realised that others had made such an assumption until their third year, by which time it was rather too late to protest their heterosexuality.

Post university the reputation followed him, probably because a couple of the girls doing the same degree ended up in the same firm.

Of course, Jim had had offers, 'go on, you'll like it' and similar suggestions from very pleasant young men at university but Jim really was not interested in hard male bodies: it was the softer, more rounded bodies that caused his arousal. He and his very good friend had not even wanked together. Well, that was not strictly true, they had spilt possibly pints of semen together in the same room but, not pleasantly sharing a magazine or reading a 'dirty book' together in the light, perhaps in, or completely out of their pyjamas, politely complementing the other on a good deposit onto their own stomachs or into a paper tissue: rather they had tried to be as quiet as anything in their own single beds after dark, positioned either side of their large bedroom, neither mentioning to the other that he knew what the other had been doing but rather hoping the other did not realise what he had also been doing.

It would have been a lot easier to have come out in the open, not to be in any way gay together, just to be frank about masturbation. Indeed, why not come out in the open – cum in the open – keeping the lights on so each could enjoy a magazine and not stifle a groan when the time for ejaculation came. Indeed, make a friendly comment when the moment had cum and gone. It was not as if there were not such magazines around the room. There was a joint stash, they shared them, wanked to them secretly when the other was out, but neither discussed the real reason for buying them. All rather stupid really: but they had been young.

Twenty-three and still a virgin despite an awful lot of girlfriends – girls who were friends. Perhaps it was his assumed gayness, but the girls seemed to happily gravitate to Jim, yet gave no indication they would like to 'go out' with him. They seemed to like his company but nothing more. No 'I was thinking of going to XYZ, would you like to come' or, if such a suggestion was made, it was always 'We are thinking of...' and he would tag along with a couple or bunch of girls. Very pleasant, and rather arousing when they did something girlish like adjust a bra strap or make some rather personal remark which they would not normally do with men present. Enjoyable to think back on such things in his own bed – on his own – and engage in his almost nightly wanking but... but would he not like a romance and that other thing – sex with a woman. What was it like? What did breasts, female breasts, feel like in your hands? What was it like to be sucked? Yes, indeed!

Jim did not live alone. He shared a flat with... two other young men, of course – and one turned out to be gay. At least he no longer shared a room but had his own bedroom which he kept immaculately tidy to the amusement of his flatmates. It was rather different in that respect from his university room. His good friend had been anything but tidy. The room in the flat was a very nice room on the second floor of a Victorian house with a splayed bay looking out across a wide road to more Victorian or Edwardian houses. It was in what had been a good residential neighbourhood but had become rather run down with many of the large houses becoming bedsits or converted to flats and let out. Across from Jim's house was a particularly large and fine double fronted villa looking sadly in need of attention. The front garden was overgrown and there was even ivy growing over the balustrade at the top of a few steps leading to the front door. Jim had concluded it was deserted, perhaps its elderly owner had died, and no one knew who would inherit it. He was wrong.

Walking back from the shops along the pavement on the other side of the road from his home, just about to cross, newspaper in hand and carefully hidden within it the current month's 'Mayfair,' Jim heard a groan. He paused and pushed open the rusting iron gate. By the path to the front door of the house he had supposed vacant was an old man lying awkwardly.

"You OK?"

But it was obvious he was not.

"Not at all," the man said through clenched teeth. An old man, well dressed but with his grey hair far too long for his age and grey stubble all over his cheeks and chin. A mixture of the kempt and unkempt.

Jim bent to help the man up and as he did, so the adult magazine slipped from his newspaper and flopped down and open at the centrefold. A very fine-looking young woman, and it was very clear she was a woman because all her womanly bits were very on display. It elicited a smile from the old man, "Very nice. But not really at this precise moment... No, no, I can't move, think I've broken..."

Jim called an ambulance. He dialled the number 999 from the pillar box red public telephone a few yards down the street. This was all decades before the appearance of mobile 'phones. This was the 1970s. A long time ago when things were rather different. He stayed until the ambulance arrived and watched the men carefully lifting the old man into the ambulance and taking him away, newspaper and recovered contents safely under his own arm.

Being Jim, he was concerned, and when he happened to mention the incident to the girls at work, they all said he must go and find out if the old boy was OK, perhaps even run errands, if the old man had nobody to help. Sophie wondered if he was a recluse. Jim spoke to a neighbour and discovered Sophie was probably not too far off the mark.

He realised the old man had returned from hospital when a succession of nurses started turning up. Quick visits perhaps to change dressings or check on him. Saturday morning Jim thought he really should go and visit the old man and ask how he was getting on. Before his morning shower he had seen from his bay window a young nurse arrive in uniform, had watched her with interest as she had got out of her car, a Mini, had watched her cotton dress riding up her black nylon clad legs as she did so. She looked really nice and his penis thought so too, rising up in front of him and pointing in her general direction. He watched the rise and fall of her buttocks under her dress as she opened that rusty gate, watched as she walked up the tiled path and up the steps. He even wanked a little standing there, sure no-one could see his nakedness from the street. He was naked from the waist downwards. He had never spanked a female bottom – or a male one for that matter – but he was thinking about that as he watched the door close. Jim walked stiffly to the shower. His flatmates were away. It was safe to walk around the flat naked and stiff.

Washed, shaved, dressed, Jim walked out of his front door and was surprised to see the Mini still there. Normally the nurses were gone within minutes. As if on cue, the door of the house opposite opened, so Jim continued across the street on his intended mission – and to see the nurse close to. She was as 'fine' as he had thought: neatly tied back long hair, a full bosom, though discretely hidden by her blue work dress, her silver nurses' belt emphasising the swell of her hips. A pretty face under her dark hair.

"Good morning," he said.

"Oh," a pause, "what?" The nurse looked at him a little blankly, paused for another second or two and then looked at the watch hanging from her breast. "I'm way behind. How... oh, good morning." She looked confused and more than a bit puzzled.

"You've got something on your chin."

"Oh... thanks," she brushed at it with her fingers.

Probably it was simply spittle, but it did look like, and Jim rather liked the idea, he would store that away for bedtime, it looked like cum. The nurse stood looking at her fingers, rubbed forefinger and thumb together looking the more puzzled. Jim liked her face.

"Is it all right if I go in and see him?"

"Yes, of course, Mr. Crowfoot is..." again that puzzled look, "...fine." She hurried on to her car not looking back. Jim, on the other hand, stood looking after her, watching her buttocks move under her dress. She was fine! He did like the idea of cum on her face.

The door was not locked, indeed was a little open, Jim pushed, and, like the garden gate, the heavy door creaked on its hinges, and he called out.

"Who is it?" Out of a door at the back of the large hallway came the old man. Gone the wild long hair and unshaven face, instead smartly cut grey hair and a smooth chin. The silk dressing gown rather matched the neatness of the clothes Jim had noticed when first finding him on the ground. The old boy was in a wheelchair, complete with raised platform for his left leg, now in a white plaster cast. A smile of recognition lit up his face as he trundled forward and held out his hand.

"My rescuer. So grateful, sir. Your name?"

"Jim, Jim Costin."

"Archibald Taciturn Crowfoot, quite a mouthful, eh? Shall we have some tea, tell me about yourself, not so easy for me to make the tea. Could you?"

Jim was led, not into the back room, from whence Mr Crowfoot had appeared, but first into the kitchen to make the tea and then into a front room where he put down the tray with tea and Garibaldi biscuits and continued giving the old man a bit more of his life history.

"This is a very big and rather grand house, Mr Crowfoot, have you lived here long?"

"Born here, always, well, on and off, always come back here. Not what it was, as you will have noticed. These last ten years... been a bit down I suppose. I read a lot. Don't go out like I used to. Shouldn't have gone out that day..." He paused, looking thoughtful, "well, yes and no. So, no girlfriend then?"

"I hadn't mentioned..."

"No, precisely, rather gave the game away, a young man like yourself. Not good. I..."

He looked wistful, clearly remembering back. Jim wondered at his thoughts. What had the old boy been up to in his time?

"Was a time when – parties, young ladies aplenty visiting. But no reason for them to come now. No reason for them to grace my hallway in their pretty, flowing dresses, their gay laughter no longer lighting up my days..." He looked down into his teacup and then looked quickly up at Jim and leaned forward, "until my accident. How pleasing to have young nurses coming in to see me." He took a sip of tea. His eyes flashed at Jim, he seemed rather animated by the thought of the nurses.

"Yes," said Jim, "she seemed very... nice."

The old man looked up again with a smile and a very definite twinkle in his eye. It was an expression Jim had not really understood until that moment. Mr Crowfoot really did have a twinkle in his eye!

"Nice enough to appear in your magazine, eh?"

An embarrassment to have the magazine dropping incident recalled. Even on the ground, and in pain, the old man had not missed that.

"Ah, oh, sorry about that."

"Just confirms the lack of a steady girlfriend to me."

"I have lots of friends who are girls..."

"Really?"

"But none seem to want to go out."

"Hence the magazine. Pretty young things with little on, exotic lingerie and so on; though, if I saw correctly, rather more in the photographs than I would have expected – pubic hair indeed! Things have relaxed since I was a boy. What they call the 'Permissive Society' I suppose. Perhaps you might lend... I would be interested."

Jim had hardly expected to find himself sharing his girlie magazines with the old man just like Mike and he used to do in their shared room. It would have been churlish to decline and he said he would bring the magazine – he had said 'magazines' which rather gave away it was not at all a 'one off' purchase.

"So, would Nurse Evans have been good enough for the magazine, in your opinion. I have my own view having had the advantage of seeing rather more of her close at hand."

Jim thought it might have been rather pleasant to have had her fingers attending to him, checking his cast had he had the accident rather than the old man.

"The bed bath was rather nice." The old man was looking at him with amused interest, clearly wishing to see his reaction.

Jim gulped, the idea most attractive. The idea of Nurse Evans and a sponge, washing him down, applying the soap and then sponging him off. He could imagine being naked but even with her probably no nonsense trained efficiency how would he not erect? But probably nurses were well trained in dealing with unexpected, or perhaps expected, tumescence. Perhaps they kept an ice-cold flannel all ready to drape and cool manly enthusiasm. Perhaps it was part of the training. The severe matron explaining to the teenage nursing recruits how to 'deal with men.' Perhaps, though, she had not washed that 'part.' He was instantly disabused of that notion:

"I got quite a stand – like old times!"

"Mr Crowfoot!" The old man simply laughed at Jim's evident embarrassment at the revelation.

"Well, we're just men talking manly talk eh? I certainly liked that: whether Nurse Evans did or not. She'll be back the day after tomorrow. Why don't you be here when she calls – see a bit more of her." There was a chuckle at that. "Perhaps ask her out, eh? If you get the chance."

"Oh, I couldn't."

"Be here and we'll see what happens. What time did she say?" He picked up a diary, "Eight o'clock in the morning. That's when she's due. First on her morning's round, I think. She's certainly brightening my days again. I feel, despite the leg, so much better. Tell me more about these young ladies that you know..."

Jim came down the steps from the house a whole hour later. Mr Crowfoot was quite engaging. Clearly a bit of a naughty old boy – or was that dirty old man – and had been rather more so in his younger days. He had implied much but given little detail. He did not seem an obvious recluse. The outside of the house was pretty run down but the interior was merely old fashioned, not in decay at all, more than clean indeed, well dusted in fact. That was the sort of thing Jim noticed.

On the other hand, the now missing long hair and the days of stubble had implied a man not taking quite the care he used to. Was he a man who suffered from depression, a man of highs and lows? Jim smiled, Nurse Evans seemed to have brought out a high. Jim chuckled to himself as he opened the rusty gate. A high indeed! What had Mr Crowfoot said? 'Quite a stand!' That would have been amusing to see – to see her reaction - even if Nurse Evans had had a quick and professional way to deal with it. Had she soaped and sponged it, the man's 'stand' like that? Did she perhaps have a way of making it go down?

Jim walked back across the road with the easily risen 'stand' of a young man. It did not take that much to cause that. Nurse Evans was very nice.

Two days later found Jim planning to be a little late for work. It was silly really, he knew he had no chance with Nurse Evans, she was probably 'accounted for,' married even. On the other hand, he would quite like to see her again and be close to her. Had he not been thinking about her in bed the night before and the night before that, and done something rather pleasant whilst thinking and, well, showed his appreciation of her in a rather private way? A little before eight he crossed the road all ready for work, suit and tie, black polished shoes.

Mr Crowfoot looked approvingly. "I like to see a man well dressed," he paused, "and a woman undressed!" It was a very male sort of comment. Jim smiled. Mr. Crowfoot really was a 'dirty old man,' not that he looked anything dirty now. He seemed to have managed to shave, his hair was neatly combed, and his silk dressing gown looked pretty immaculate. Jim could even smell Cologne. "Just sit over there, Jim, and enjoy the view.

A knock at the door and in came Nurse Evans, "Good morning, Mr Crowfoot, and how are we today?"

The old man described a degree of pain and itching under the cast. The sort of rather private talk between patient and doctor or patient and nurse.

"Let's have a look." Jim watched in pleasure as the young woman crouched down, her dress riding a little up her black nylon legs above her knee showing more thigh. Her hand pushed the silk dressing gown out of the way and examined the cast. Jim was a little embarrassed to see the action had opened the dressing gown and, with no pyjamas or pants, Mr Crowfoot's penis was half exposed. Nurse Evans obviously saw the same and tugged the silk modestly back over his upper thighs.

"All seems well, I..." she caught sight of Jim, "Oh, I didn't realise you had company, Mr Crowfoot. Shall we go into your lounge?" She frowned, "To be private." She took a step towards the front room but instead Mr Crowfoot began moving his wheelchair the other way.

"The back room would be better. Could you open the door?"

Nurse Evans followed him in but failed to close the door behind her. What had been a brusque professional voice seemed to faulter, "I see you've shaved yourself, so I don't... I don't think you... a bath...you don't need..."

Jim very clearly heard Mr Crowfoot saying, "On the contrary, I very much need one."

"I'll, I'll get some water..."

The young woman came out of the room looking rather different, her face seemed to have lost its business-like focus, the eyes rather blank seeming not even to see him when she walked past Jim in the direction of the kitchen. Returning with a bowl of steaming hot water she seemed more herself again. "Do you really need this, she said as she went back through the door, I am sure you can do this for your... yourself."

"I would be terribly grateful, Nurse Evans, really I don't think I can do everything for myself. The towels are over there."

Sitting in the hall and listening, Jim could only imagine not see, Nurse Evans rolling up her sleeves, helping Mr Evans out of his dressing gown and generally preparing to wash down the old man, a man incapable of having a bath both because he would not be able to get into the bath or out of it, and because the cast should not get wet, let alone soaked. Jim could not help imagining the juxtaposition of naked man and young nurse with her poised above him with wet flannel dripping from the bowl of hot water. In his suit trousers Jim's erection came. Had perhaps Mr Crowfoot's?

Through the door he again heard the old boy speak. I wonder if it would be easier, Nurse Evans, so you don't get you nice uniform wet if you were to take it off. Go on, I won't mind."

Jim's eyes widened. Probably nurses had to get used to lewd suggestions from senile old folk, but he had not though Mr Crowfoot like that, albeit clearly a rather naughty old boy. What made his eyes not so much widen but pop out of their sockets was hearing Nurse Evans agree that it would be a sensible idea. The rustle of material, the thought of Nurse Evans going down to her underwear made Jim's mouth open. Dare he get up and casually take a peek through the half open door? He didn't need to dare.

"Jim, you can come in now."

There was no objection from Nurse Evans, no talk about being 'private.' Jim got up, tentatively at first, yet he could not resist the prospect of seeing Nurse Evans out of uniform and then stood in the doorway 'gobsmacked.' Mr Crowfoot was naked, his dressing gown removed, and he did indeed have an erection, a very obvious one, but it was not at all that which Jim was looking at: Nurse Evans had not merely removed her uniform dress but everything, belt, tights, brassiere and knickers. It was like seeing a photograph in one of his magazines only this was real and the picture not static. And it was a modern picture, Nurse Evan's pubic hair, dark curly hair, was very much on display, not in any way 'airbrushed' out. The place on her body where, on Jim's his penis was rising ever so strongly, was completely natural – a mass of dark curls – not the little girl valley of a shaven women as in some photos or, indeed the unblemished triangle of skin without the intriguing little slit of the airbrushed photographs, recalled from when he had first tentatively peaked at girlie magazines on the newsagent's stand. Things had changed in a few years.