Four and a half months. Four and a half lousy months and not a word from Taylor. Not that I didn't love him any more, I loved him more than ever. I was just disappointed that after all we'd shared together, I hadn't heard from him. From the show of emotion he gave as he left my house (and my life) that beautiful summer's afternoon when we came back from Alton Towers, I simply couldn't conceive that he didn't want to speak to me again.

I on the other hand had been doing my homework, so to speak: I traced his every move via all media sources available to me - Sky News, CNN, Hansonline, even the headache-inducing Hanson IRC server. But I heard nothing from him.

In the four-and-a-half months since my euphoric day (and night) at Alton Towers, things had changed quite a bit at my school, and I was now caught up in an emotional dilemma. No longer was it the hellhole I described to Tay - the whole attitude to life at school had changed. This had been brought about by what the student body thought was quite an amusing incident, our views being shared by the local press.

Our smarmy, old fashioned, fat wanker of a Headmaster had been, unbeknownst to him, under surveillance by the School's Governing Body on the suspicion that he was embezzling school funds. Now this in itself is not unusual - private schools in the UK are, to a great extent, self governing - if we don't want to we don't have to follow the national curriculum and such, as long as we get the grades... What was unusual, though, was that the governors decided the problem was so acute they hired a PI, acting as a stand-in teacher, to watch over him. After a month, he had enough evidence to do a very large amount of damage to the man.

When he'd been presented with this, the governors' decided to give him the option to settle out of court: He would pay back every penny he ever stole, and they would not press charges.

I'm sorry, I'm rambling ... Anyway, to cut a long story short, the old HM was kicked out on his arse and a new, dynamic, young, modern-thinking HM was employed. And what a difference it made! It started with little things: I was allowed to grow my hair back to a 'decent' length and ware it in a pony tail, the only condition being that I looked presentable in uniform. Without the ponytail I was the first to admit I looked like a hippie, so ponytail it was!

The girls were allowed to wear make-up, again using common sense (no bright purple eye shadow etc) and, best of all, as soon as school finished at six in the evening, we were allowed to change into our casual clothes. Previously we had to wear uniform all day, except in games lessons when we had to wear school-issue strip that cost a small fortune.

Everyone was now a whole lot happier and, as a consequence, numbers started picking up (the school had been on a steady down-hill run for the last five years or so...).

Some of the governors didn't think that these ideas were applicable to "a learning institute of our calibre", but soon shut up as they saw potential fee-paying parents pleading to allow their kids to go to school here.

But the change that had the most impact on me was his views on sexuality. One morning in Chapel (our equivalent of Morning Assembly) he shocked the whole school, staff included, to silence by talking openly and freely about drugs, sex and sexuality. Chapel normally lasts for twenty minutes. We were there for three hours.

After his drugs bit, he announced that he had no hang-ups whatsoever about a pupil in his school being a gay, lesbian or bisexual.

"You are who you are, not what you are. In my opinion sex is the most fundamental and natural thing in the world. I know in the past, pupils were expelled for not being 'straight', and that is appalling. So I've invited them back with my apologies. Sexuality can be bad enough at your age - you don't need to have it suppressed: it needs to be discussed in the open, talked or argued over, but never, and I mean never discriminated over. "Sex wise, there are only two things you can be expelled from this school for. The first is rape. I will not tolerate it. It is wrong. Fundamentally wrong. One of the definitions of sex is a pleasurable experience by two or more consenting people. The other is discrimination. Just because that lad in your class happens to be gay and you think it's wrong does NOT give you the right to call him a shirt-lifting arse bandit every time you see him. If I find it happening, you will only get one warning. If it happens again, you're no longer welcome here. Dismissed."

And with that, he swept out of the room. There was silence. Not a single giggle or whisper. The prefect on duty then stood up and let us out form by form.

From that moment on, the school was never the same. I was almost expecting the school to turn into a permanent orgy, but it never happened. He'd robbed us of the Taboo that goes with sex and in doing so, got rid of the 'look I'm cool' element.

It also prompted me to come out, along with two other lads in my year, I even told my parents! However, they managed to steal my thunder a bit: It took me a whole week to wind up to it and when I announced that I was gay, I got a "We know."

"He? Bu ... bu ... bu ... "

"We've known for a while. Or at least suspected. We didn't want to say anything in case you weren't and we hurt your feelings..." my mum replied.

Oh great, now they tell me ... "Sooooo, you're not mad or anything?"

"Why should we be, daring? We're your biggest fan's you know!"

Something wasn't quite right here. What did they know? "How d'you mean?"

"Well, when we saw the look on your face when you came back from Alton Towers with that Hanson lad, we knew. Plus the photo was a fairly big hint ... "

"You've seen the photo?" This was not good. I only left it out once by mistake and I could only hope that this was when they saw it. At any other time it was wrapped up inside a towel with about 30 loads of cum on it ...

"Yes. We think you ought to get it framed or something. It's getting all crumpled in that towel"

Oh, shit ... "Uh, yeah, I might now ..." I said, trying to slide out of the door.

"Dean, darling?"

"Yes, mum?"

"Remember, a friend of yours is a friend of ours. If you ever feel like having someone special to 'sleep over' or something, just let us know and we'll get out of your way, OK dear?"

If the rest hadn't shocked me enough, this was the icing on the cake! "Sure, mum. Thank you ... " I raced over to them and gave them a hug. I just decided I had the best parents in the world.


On to Chapter Two

Chapter Index

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Touring with Hanson is © 1998 by Dean Lidster. This work may not be duplicated in any form (physical, electronic, audio, or otherwise) without the author's written permission. All applicable copyright laws apply. All individuals depicted are fictional with any resemblance to real persons being purely coincidental.

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