Hayle

I just sat on the loo watching him - funny how you've so little self-consciousness about that kind of stuff when you're young - and noticed, while he stood there, that his cock stood upwards from between his legs. He had what looked like a pretty full-on erection.

Again, there was nothing odd about that - when you're staying over at youth hostels with groups of other guys, you're going to get used to seeing morning woodies pretty soon - but I was kind of impressed by how large he was down there and I guess I must have stared over at him. His cock seemed so much bigger than mine - it must have been six or maybe even seven inches long. Even with two years head-start it seemed quite a remarkable organ.

He gradually became more uncomfortable as he waited for the water to become warm and scowled over at me. I just sat on the loo and stared back.

He made like he was acting busy, rinsing the base of the shower cubicle and then grabbing his soap and stuff, with that swollen cock swinging around between his legs like a branch in the wind as he did so. It was beginning to lose some of its stiffness but none of its impressive size.

When I kept staring, he turned to me and snapped, "Stop looking my arse, weirdo! D'you wanna bum me or something?"

I didn't know what he meant so I shrugged. "What do you mean?"

He laughed scornfully. "Don't you even know what that means? Bain't they be doin' that down thar in Devon?" His mock country accent grated on me.

But I just shrugged again.

He sneered. "It means you're looking at my arse because you want to stick your dick up it..."

I was confused. "Why?"

His grin became broader and more triumphant. "Because you want to fuck me."

He emphasized the words 'fuck me', intending to shock.

I was still pretty confused but starting to understand. "Your arse?"

"Yeah. You want to fuck my arse. That's why you were staring at it. You're a gay..."

Now I understood. I shook my head. I considered telling him that I had actually been staring at his dick but I thought that might be a bad move.

So I just stood up, wiped myself and flushed the toilet.

As he got into the shower, I said, "I wasn't looking at your arse, Martin. I wasn't looking at anything..."

He grunted, "Yeah, right." And closed the cubicle door.

I walked over to the sink and got on with brushing my teeth. Martin began washing himself in the shower, his back turned toward me through the glass door. I looked over at him through the mirror above the sink and saw that, after he'd quickly washed his body and rinsed himself, his elbow began moving rhythmically alongside his right hip. He was attending to his erection under the spray of the water.

I wasn't much interested in that - I'd kind of expected him to wank himself off under the shower just as I probably would have done if I'd awoken in a similar state - but my eyes were drawn back to his arse time and again, despite my attempts to ignore it.

What he'd said simultaneously fascinated and disgusted me: the idea that I might want to have sex with his bum was revolting in that it was such a taboo and dirty place, and yet surprisingly attractive for exactly the same reason. A guy's arse couldn't really be used in a sexual way, could it? My eyes were drawn back to his again and again as if the answer would somehow be revealed by it.

I realised that I must have been brushing my teeth for three or four minutes, staring hypnotically at his bumcheeks repeatedly visualising and then dismissing the image of working my cock in between them, when Martin turned around to glower at me over his shoulder. His hand was working at full whack against his cock and he obviously wasn't too pleased that I was hanging around a little longer than necessary.

He snapped, his voice breathless from his exertions, "Quit looking at my arse, pervert!"

I hurriedly spat into the sink and picked up my towel. "I wasn't..."

He glanced down at my crotch and saw that my cock was now fully erect and arching upward in front of me.

He sneered. "You really do wanna bum me..."

"Fuck off! Everyone gets a morning hard-on... it doesn't mean anything..."

He turned back around to return to working his own, muttering, "Yeah, whatever... like I'm so convinced..."

I flushed scarlet because he was right. I had been imagining what it might be like to have sex with his arse and I had developed an erection thinking about it. That wasn't such a good sign, was it?

I think I must have blushed every time I saw Martin sneering over at me that day. I think, actually, I was pretty hung up about what had happened that morning at Hayle for a couple of years afterward.

It was only when I came to accept that I happen to have - how shall I put it - an appreciation for certain aspects of other males' bodies, which in no way undermines or challenges my heterosexual attractions, that I managed to look Martin in the eye again. It took a few more years for me to realise that his harsh comments in the bathroom that day had inadvertently awoken a side of me that I might otherwise have never have experienced, and from then on I could sneer back at him.

But to get that far meant wading through a lot of guilt, and much of that guilt was felt in the dorm rooms at Hayle in the months and years following Martin's confrontation.

From then on visits to the youth hostel became sources of endless opportunity followed by relentless self-reproach. I'd find myself looking desperately forward to trips down to Hayle and at first I'd try to convince myself that it was because of the anticipation of seeing a rugby game. After a few visits, though, I had to acknowledge that the main enticement was the possibility that might get a glimpse of a couple of guys' arses. I'd feel dirty about myself for wanting that but I'd want it anyway: I'd know I wasn't supposed to think of other males in a sexual way, but I was unable and ultimately unwilling to stop myself.

I must have checked out a succession of thirty or forty naked men over the following couple of years. I'd chat to them while they were undressing at night in our dorm, while they were showering the next morning and while they were pulling on their underwear, all the time peering over at their arses and becoming more and more fascinated by the differences and similarities between them.

There was this guy Darren from Walsall who had a firm, round arse that almost drove me crazy. He spent ages between showering and dressing, checking out his muscles and obsessing over the scar of a tattoo he'd had removed, and I just lay in my bed staring over at him, gently rubbing at the wet tip of my engorged cock beneath my duvet as my eyes feasted on his amazing backside every time he turned it towards me.