"Come!" exclaimed Curruthers' voice as I knocked on the chemistry lab door. "Ahh... Lidster, Henson, good to see you!"

"It's 'Hanson', sir..." I corrected.

"Rubbish! Your name's Lidster, Lidster..."

"No... I mean Tay's name's 'Hanson'..."

"Ahh... I see..." said Curruthers, still not quite clicking. "Anyway, what can I do for you?"

"It's a tutorial first two this morning, sir..."

"Oh yes, so it is... I spose you'll be wanting your timetables, then?"

"Please..."

"Right, now let me think....." Curruthers scooted over to his computer desk on his wheely chair thing and booted the modified power "button" on the front of the mini-tower. Seeing as his back had been playing him up over the last few months, he found it difficult to lean over and press the recessed power button on the front of his PC, so he decided to do something about it. Rather than move the whole machine up onto the desk like any other sane person would have done, Curruthers went to the trouble of super-gluing a lump of wooden dowel to the front of the power button, so making it about an inch proud of the poor machine's fascia. To this he screwed a two-inch square section of steel plate and, for effect, painted a bullseye on it. Now all he had to do was push off from his teaching desk, spin round mid journey and by the time he was at his computer desk, was in exactly the right position to kick the bullseye, so provoking the machine into life...

After a few minutes of fruitless searching through tens of folders, he opened the one he'd opened first and fired up a spreadsheet containing our timetable.

His tired old laser printer spluttered into life and coughed out two pages of A4, both with a thick black line down one edge of the paper, caused by Curruthers' blatant refusal to change the toner cartridge...

I picked up the sheets from the tray and handed one of them to Tay.

"Tuesday... Cool! Games four and five..."

"What do we have after this?"

I explained the timings of the day to Tay, him correctly concluding we had the final part of what would've been a double maths lesson.

However, it wasn't even time for the first lesson to start yet and as the first two had been reserved for the tutorial, we were on free time.

"You wanna take a look round the estate?" I asked, not being able to come up with any better ideas of things to do.

"Heh - you gonna take me on a nature walk?" he asked, belittling the idea.

"Depends on the kind of nature you want to see," I replied, rather unsubtly. We thanked Curruthers for the timetables and left the lab, walking back through the quad and onto "Football Lane", the dirt track that led down to the games fields. About halfway down footy lane, there was a break in the hedge and a small, dilapidated style. I climbed over and motioned for Tay to follow. The morning was still cool and fresh, but the sun was gradually beginning to have an effect. As we walked slowly, hand in hand, along the little narrow path in the dingle I noticed, seemingly for the first time, how beautiful the surroundings were: The sight of a single beam of light breaking through the canopy and reflecting on the droplets of water suspended in a spider's web almost reducing me to tears.

We both spontaneously slowed and then stopped at this sight, both wondering why all our emotions had been amplified to such a great extent. I then felt the warmth of Tay's hand in mine, the reason becoming suddenly self-apparent. I turned to face him, our eyes meeting yet again. How could the mind create such a huge, unquantifiable feeling when two people were in close proximity? Right then, I knew what we felt for each other could transcend this life and this world knowing that something this fundamental could not be broken. Ever.

My mind swam as we drew closer together to kiss, thinking how generation after generation of man experienced this sensation; and then I realised why, even with our inherently destructive nature, we had managed to survive. Nothing in all of Creation could equal such an immeasurably strong force - we were experiencing the very core of our existence surging into and from each other, and I never wanted it to end.

I lifted my hand to Tay's hair and ran my fingers through his shiny locks, provoking a little moan from him. My whole body shivered as something that resembled an orgasm, but was definitely not one, shook me both mentally and physically.

For a brief instant, I was not me. I was next to me, observing as a third party: able to see the two adolescent forms in front of me entwined in an infinite embrace, surrounded by a vortex of colour and light.

Then I was someone else. I was Taylor. I was feeling his feelings, thinking his thoughts, knowing what he knew and, as our consciousness merged, diverged, then merged once more, felt myself become one with him.

Just as suddenly as it had begun, it ended. I felt the familiar thoughts of myself and the feelings of my body return, yet retained a large proportion of the things that were Taylor also.

I suddenly found that I had no strength with which to support my weight, and collapsed into an untidy heap on the woodland floor. A second later, Tay followed suit landing practically unconscious next to me.

Once the world stopped spinning, I was worried about two things: Tay, and the fact that I'd just shot my biggest load to date in my school trousers. "You all right, Tay?"

"H..... Holy sh..... Shit... What happened?"

PIP PIP

I looked at my watch. The green figures displayed 10:00. I looked at Tay and felt slightly afraid, yet elated at the same time.

"We... We've been here for over three quarters of an hour...."

"Say again?! We only just arrived!"

"Look at your watch...."

"But how...."

"I dunno..." I pulled myself into a cross-legged sitting position to try and help get my mind focused, as well as to get my nob away from the slimy damp patch in my underware that was threatening to cause my hard-on to reemerge with great success. Glancing over at Tay, I saw he had had the same problem.

"We'd better get back to school - don't want to be late for your first lesson!"

"Heh, yeah..." smiled Tay shyly. I stood up and extended my hand toward Tay, and pulled him up. We looked at each other as if to confirm not just one of us had experienced what happened. The look on our faces was obviously enough of a confirmation: we kissed briefly and headed back towards footy lane and school...


On to Chapter Nine

Back to Chapter Seven

Chapter Index

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The Exchange is © 1999 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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