Five years later
Posted by Ian on December 11, 2020 at 14:58:57
A lot has happened in the five years since I first met Tony. I met up with him again in the summer of 2019, it was the middle of May some six weeks before my 20th birthday.
After leaving school Tony had got a job working in a restaurant kitchen and has since worked in various restaurants in both the UK and France. I had been persuaded by my parents to do a law degree. It had never been an ambition of mine to be a lawyer and I didn’t enjoy the course or the particularly like any of the other students on the course, not that they were horrible people as such but they all seemed consumed by studying and had no ideas about having fun, so uni was not the great life experience that I had sort of expected it to be. I was sufficiently unhappy that after the first year I was contemplating just quitting the course.
It had also been a troubling year before we got to that stage. The week after I had finished my A Level exams in 2017 my older brother Sam (who had just turned 20) had starting feeling very unwell with constant severe headaches, loss of balance and bouts of sickness. He went to the hospital to be checked over and various scans showed cancerous tumours throughout his body – lungs, liver, brain, testicles and spine – none of which showed up in the form of bumps or swellings (we’d all been indoctrinated in checking our balls for unusual swelling as dad’s brother had had testicular cancer) so Sam was operated on and luckily all were proven to be non-malignant, but he did end up having one testicle removed. Following that we were all scanned and I was found to have small tumours on both testicles but nowhere else. So I ended up having both removed after having some sperm frozen for future use. I opted to have prosthetic implants to replace them and I was pleased to find that they feel just like the real thing. So that was all an unexpected and not entirely welcome late 18th birthday gift.
The other big change in our lives was that in the early spring of 2018 mum and dad sold their business and our lake-side house and bought a dilapidated old chateau in France, leaving us boys mostly on our own in the UK in a flat in the nearby town whilst they lived in a caravan at the chateau and started to restored the place. Dad has always been good at do-it-yourself so he was in his element and mum enjoyed spending money on decorations and furnishings. I was mostly at uni, but Sam was working locally for an insurance broker and the twins – Charlie and Eddie – had just celebrated their 17th birthdays and were still at school.
So I was chatting to my dad on Skype in the early part of May 2019 and he asked why I was so seemingly miserable and we ended up chatting about my course at uni and him saying, quite out of the blue, “Well, if that course and doing law is not for you and making you miserable, give it up and come and live with us. We have the B&B rooms and the wedding business all set up and starting to get bookings now, you could help us run it until you decide what you want to do. I know your mum and I pushed you into doing law but we don’t want to see you miserable just for our satisfaction, and besides our original intention was to maybe see you take on the law firm we started, but that’s not an option now we’ve sold it. Leave your car there for the twins to use and I’ll sent you a flight ticket, think of it as a holiday and pack accordingly. If you decide to stay permanently we can bring all your stuff over next time we visit. What do you think?” It was the last thing I expected to hear. I said I needed to think it over and would call him back the next day. I spoke to my tutor at uni and he agreed that if I didn’t enjoy the course I should drop out and take time to consider; he was very understanding and even said I was brave to make such a tough decision rather than carry on.
So a week later I flew out to France. The biggest surprise was at Bordeaux airport and a tannoy announcement asking me to go to the customer service desk. I didn’t really notice the young man standing with his back to me at the desk as I told the attendant who I was.
“Of course you are Ian; how are you mate?” said a familiar voice.
It was Tony. I was speechless and he was laughing at my shock before giving me a huge hug and ruffling my hair as he grinned at me.
“Lost your voice?” Tony asked “First time for everything I guess.”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Picking you up and taking you home, of course!” Tony grinned “Come on, we’ve got an hour’s drive ahead of us.”
So we walked out to the car park and Tony unlocked a smart Mercedes mini-bus with the name of mum and dad’s chateau painted down the sides.
“Guest transport.” Tony said as we climbed in “Not my choice of car, but I don’t have to pay for the fuel ……”
“You mean you are working for them?” I asked.
“Well I am a chef and they do run an upmarket wedding venue and B&B business, so you work it out!” he laughed.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought it would be a nice surprise. I only started six weeks ago. Your dad rang me just before Christmas and asked if I’d be interested as they had decided after doing their first wedding using a local caterer that it would be better to employ a full time chef, plus they’d have control of the costings and so on without relying on outsiders. So I worked out my notice and came over. Your dad is a very generous employer, I have my own cottage in the grounds and the use of a new car. I run the kitchen on my own with up to four part-time assistants as and when we need them and I do all the menus for the weddings and cook breakfasts for the B&B guests and the monthly gourmet evening meals. It’s hard work but I love it.”
We chatted as we drove and the journey seemed over in a flash. I’d seen pictures of the chateau before but I was stunned by how magnificent it looked in reality now that it was all done up and looking pristine in the spring sunshine. An avenue of lime trees flanked the driveway leading to a gravelled forecourt. The house itself is three floors with steeply pitched roofs and square turrets rising from the first floor to above the roof ridge. There are wings extending backwards to form a three-sided courtyard at the rear which is laid out as a formal garden with paths and flowerbeds. From the right-hand side of the front, a single-storey L-shaped block extends partway down the side of the front forecourt.
My parents came out as we pulled up and it was great to see them looking so well and happy. Tony excused himself saying he needed to start on getting lunch ready and mum and dad showed me around the whole place. They themselves lived on the first and second floors of the main block, they had their own dining room, kitchen and living rooms on the first floor and four bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, above that. Dad had his office in a room in one of the turrets and mum used the other turret for a sewing room. I was was told to choose one of the bedrooms as mine and plumped for one with views over the courtyard garden at the rear. All in all they had twenty two rooms to let for B&B and two additional one bedroom cottages for self catering. The main ground floor rooms were used as a wedding room and a reception dining room. All very grand with high ceilings, ornate decoration and period furniture. By the time I had seen it all it was time for lunch which Tony served in the staff dining room next to his enormous kitchen. We had wild boar pie with numerous vegetables and a delicious bottle of vintage wine. Wow, how the other half lives!
In the afternoon Tony showed me around the grounds whilst mum and dad showed a prospective bride and groom around, hoping they might get a booking for the autumn. Tony had the afternoon off as they had no B&B guests staying until a few days later. The grounds extended to some sixty acres, mostly woodlands, and he showed me almost every square foot and tree until about half-way around, at my guess, he took my arm and led me down a small path through the trees.
“Something special here for you to see – you’ll enjoy this.” Tony said “I’m told by one of the locals that the last owner was a life-long fan of scouting and he used to let the local groups use his grounds for camping weekends and so on.”
We walked out of the trees into a small clearing. It took a moment for me to realise what I was looking at.
“And he build this activity area for them to use and have some wild fun in.” Tony grinned.
I looked around; a few feet a head of us was a ditch with chicken wire over the top, it stretched away from us forty, maybe fifty, feet. To our right was a pit with a pole laying across the middle. Further away were two log-built towers with some monkey bars joining them, further lines of A-frames with suspended walkways stretched away from the towers. In the middle of the clearing was a large pond.
“Follow me.” Tony said and with that he stepped down into the ditch and proceeded to crawl away under the chicken wire. He had to almost lay on his belly to fit under and as he did so I could see that the mud was oozing up between his legs. I let him go a few yards and then followed suit. The mud was ankle deep to start with and the whole of my front was soaked through as soon as I lay down. The further we crawled the deeper the mud got and the wetter and more sloppy it became. At one point I was struggling to crawl along and keep my mouth out of the mud, I could feel it washing over my butt and across the small of my back. Tony was waiting at the far end as I crawled ut from under the chicken wire and was able to stand up.
Tony’s pale blue jeans and grey polo were now a uniform muddy brown. My blue jeans and black polo were the same. It felt great to be muddy and soaked again and we clearly both had the same reaction as we had had at fifteen the first time we got wet and muddy together, and being that much older just meant the erections were bigger and tented out our jeans that bit more. Tony ran to the pond and threw himself down into the water when he was almost knee-deep. Turned out the water was not quite up to my waist as I waded in, so we splashed about a bit, enough to wash most of the mud off and then just lay back in the shallower water so that we could keep our heads above water and let our legs float around pointing towards the middle of the pond.
“Happy to wet again?” Tony asked.
“Yeah ….. particularly seeing you so happy to be muddy. Back home I really miss not living by the lake. I really resented mum and dad selling that place, we were all so happy there and it seemed for a while that they were just interested in doing what they wanted and simply disregarded the rest of the family. I know Charlie and Eddie felt the same too. But actually coming here and seeing this place now, I can fully understand how they were seduced into making the move. I’ll be very happy if I end up living here – particularly if you stay as well.”
“I probably shouldn’t tell you this because your dad wants you to come to your own decision, but he has said that they hope you will decide to stay and take over the running of the place – become the general manager if you like – as they love living here but want to have time to travel around France and get to know other areas and even maybe buy another property or two and do the same with that. Your mum thinks a couple of smaller winter ski chalets would be a good idea and that maybe they can persuade Charlie or Eddie, or even both, to take on the running of them. Your mum is a real empire builder, you know, ‘une femme très formidable’ as the French would say!” Tony laughed.
“Wow, didn’t realise they had that sort of money available. And they must have spent a fortune here. I guess I’d need to brush up on my French if I took on the day-to-day running of this place.”
“Yes, you would. You can get by with English and a smattering of French, but you’d earn the respect and goodwill of the staff and local business people if you had a good command of their language. It would help in not getting ripped off as well. You soon pick it up when surrounded by French speakers 24/7. If I can do it, I’m sure you can. You’ll have to come to the market next time I go for provisions. It took me maybe nine months to become fluent, but I was also surrounded by Poles, Italians, Spaniards and even a Russian which didn’t help. I worked with a few guys who have been all over the place; one waiter I knew was from Venice but spoke fluent English, French, German and Russian and was busy learning Chinese so he speak to the tourists in their own tongue, very impressive.”
“I did do German GCSE, but got only a grade D if I remember correctly.” I laughed “Not sure I could cope with Russian or Chinese.”
“Yeah, your German accent was terrible as far as I remember!” Tony laughed, so I leaned across grabbed him and rolled us both into the deeper water to teach him not to be so rude, we surfaced gasping for breath before I felt him push his hand inside my boxers, grope my crotch and start to squeeze my balls.
“They feel bigger than I remember!” he grinned.
“Yeah, the surgeon said he could do that to compensate for losing them….” I said.
“Oh right – top man!” Tony laughed “Do they feel like the real thing to you? What are they made of? They certainly do to me ….”
“Pretty much – I still get an erection when playing with them but it takes a bit longer to achieve a full erection even though I have regular testosterone injections, and it still feels like having balls just moving around normally, only difference is my semen contains no sperm when I ejaculate. They’re made of silicon rubber and filled with either a silicon gel or saline solution, not sure about mine.”
“Cool. We could continue this in the comfort of my bed at a later time; let me show you the best part of this place. Yes?”
So Tony took me over to the pit with the log placed across it.
“Do we try and walk across?” I asked.
“No, dummy! We sit astride it and try and knock each other off with these.” Tony said as he picked up a couple of poles with padded ends, a bit like giant cotton buds.
“So how deep is the mud in the pit?” I asked.
“About chest deep on me, but if you fall in you’ll get totally submerged at first before you can get to your feet. The mud is pretty liquid – I added a load of water just a few days ago – so you’ll get drenched in mud but there’s no danger of not being able to get to your feet after you fall in.” Tony explained.
“Who says it will be me who falls in first?” I grinned.
“Only if you are very lucky, mate!” Tony laughed.
So we took our places on opposite ends of the pole and inched our way towards each other. Tony took the first swipe at me as we got within striking range but I leaned back and avoided any impact. After that I moved forward as quickly as I could and struck him a blow on the shoulder and then another to his torso and suddenly he was falling off and tumbling head first into the mud pit below with a huge splash. I watched as his legs disappeared below the surface and then seconds later he surfaced and stood up with the liquid mud lapping around his chest and washing over his shoulders. He was totally covered in mud and looked amazing. I felt myself getting stiff just looking at him. I swung my leg over the pole so that I was sitting on it as normal rather than astride, and then started to lower myself into the mud, the surface being about a foot below my feet as I sat there. I splashed ito the mud next to where Tony was standing and wiping the mud out of eyes. He put his hands on the top of my head and pushed me under briefly.
“Can’t have you not getting totally muddy, can we?” he grinned as I surfaced.
“No, that wouldn’t be fair would it? …... particularly after I knocked you off the pole!” I laughed.
We waded to the side and clambered out – not as easy as it sounds when soaked in mud – and stood looking at each other for a few moments. Tony fished out the two “weapons” we had used and put them back on the rack at the side of the pit. He came back with a bucket which he filled with mud.
“Just to make sure you are fully covered …..” Tony said as he poured some mud down the inside of my shirt, front and back, and then tugged at the waist of my jeans and tipped some down the inside of my jeans. Then he took my hand and made me hold my jeans and boxers out before he tipped more mud down the inside of them. Another instant erection moment; it felt wonderful as he rubbed and squeezed my crotch, making the mud squish around.
“That’ll do!” Tony grinned as he stepped back to admire his handiwork.
I didn’t say anything, just took the bucket from his hand and filled it with mud. I then gave Tony the same treatment he had given me which resulted in him getting a huge erection too. Now both completely soaked again, we wrestled each other to the ground and rolled around trying to hump each other’s thighs, crotch and bum, enjoying the feel of our muddy clothes against bodies. We were rolling around so much that we actually rolled into the mud pit again, which was a nice unintended surprise. After that Tony suggested that we clean up in the pond and then head back to the house. In fact we ended up at Tony’s little cottage which adjoined the walled garden, his front door being outside facing the gardens and the swimming pool a little way off, and his back door opening into the walled garden itself.
“Fancy a swim in the pool?” Tony asked as we were pulling off our wet clothes after showering.
“Yes, that would be nice.”
“Have you got some trunks? Your dad doesn’t like clothes in the pool, the filtration system needs up-dating, he says the filters will get blocked.” Tony asked.
“No I haven’t – I didn’t know there was pool here until today.”
“You better borrow a pair of mine until you can buy some. Best to look on-line, there are no decent local clothes stores …… although thinking about it there is a stall in the weekly market that might sell them.” Tony said.
“OK, thanks.” I said as Tony opened a drawer and pulled out a couple of pairs of swim-shorts. One pair was plain black with a wide horizontal white stripe all round at crotch level, the others were red, yellow and blue vertically striped. I decided the multi-colour stripes would be best, I didn’t fancy finding out that the white stripe at crotch level might turn transparent when wet. Tony had slipped on a pair of orange and green check shorts, very smart.
“Here’s a fresh towel to use. I’ll put our wet clothes on the line to dry, nice sunny afternoon, they’ll be dry quite quickly. Do you want to borrow a tee as well?” Tony asked.
“No thanks, I might try to get a bit of a tan, I have some cream in my room.” I said.
“No need, there’s always some in a dispenser by the pool – for our guests to use.”
So we spent the rest of the afternoon in and around the pool and were joined by mum and dad after an hour or so. It is nice to see that they treat Tony almost as a son of theirs and the four of us found ourselves getting on really well. My parents seemed more relaxed and happy than I can ever recall seeing them before. Over the following two weeks or so I came to see how I could contribute to the running of the business at the chateau and at that stage I approached mum and dad and asked what they would think about me wanting to stay and make my life in France helping them run the chateau. You’ve never seen two previously up-tight parents show such emotion – mum even shed a few tears, something I’d never witnessed before – and by mid June we had everything sorted and mum and dad had invited my younger brothers to come and stay during their school holidays. Sam also managed to take three weeks holiday in one go and joined us all for probably the best and most family oriented holiday we had ever had together.
Well, all that was 2019, and 2020 has proved to be a “treading water” year and despite only few guests during easing of lockdown and no weddings we have got a load of work done to the chateau and converted some more of the outbuildings to self-catering accommodation and enhanced the grounds and further buildings on the estate to more imaginative uses. I’ve become fairly proficient at plumbing and carpentry/joinery (which I really enjoy) and Tony and I have unofficially become what I believe is now called “an item” which – much to my surprise – mum and dad have wholeheartedly supported. As mum said “Oh well, we’ve got three other sons to give us grandchildren!” - I’m not sure what she thought I could do about that given my status as an infertile man with no balls, ah well, that’s mums for you. Of course the lack of bookings and guests has give Tony and I plenty of opportunities to get totally soaked and muddy as often as we like. Mum and dad have caught us muddy and wet on a few occasions but, again much to my surprise, have just laughed and said “Well whatever turns you on, go for it!”
Here’s hoping 2021 just gets better for us all. Merry Christmas and a Happy 2021.
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