Mark 2 sequel to Uncle and Mark 1

His black jeans were also on the tight side to emphasise his lean body and he had ensured that his boots were shined, their toe caps glossed to parade quality. It was Saturday morning and he had called into the barbers to have his weekly trim, his neck clean and a No.2 buzz cut of his wiry red hair.

Dark glasses completed the outfit in which Mark had waited by the platform exit. Mark wondered whether the dark glasses were "over the top" adding mystery in a situation where openness was his key virtue – he would remove them once he had spotted his quarry.

In one sense that quarry might be lost in a crowd, dressed in the required but conventional plain jeans and T-shirt over trainers but he should spot a No.2 buzz cut like his own and someone clearly on the look out to be met. And "boy", Mark recalled as he had begun to think of him, might already have met a member of the network on an earlier platform.

As the train approached Mark took a more formal stance, his arms behind his back, hands grasping the opposite wrist.

When the train came in, one of the first off it matched Mark’s expectations – jeans, T-shirt, No.2 buzz cut – but his eyes were quickly diverted to a nearby figure – uncle with his septum CBR, his brief, well worn, washed out. cut off jeans, short socks and polished boots, his sleeveless denim jacket revealing that tribal band tattooed on his upper right arm and swiftly adopting a stance that matched Mark’s with his arms behind his back, hands grasping the opposite wrist.

Mark watched boy look right and left and right again, as if preparing to cross a road. He saw the further figure’s head nodding and boy turning to walk towards him.

‘Here goes,’ Mark thought whipping off his glasses and stepping towards boy hand outstretched to greet this searcher.

"Call me, Mark, boy ! We’re going back to my place to talk."

"Yes, Mark, Sir", boy replied. It was not quite as crisp a reply as a master would have expected.

"No, boy, just Mark will do well enough as we chat," Mark noticed the slight hesitation in boy’s voice and wondered what had brought this clean, unspoilt looking, lad to a turning point in his life which it would be Mark’s task to explore with him.

The two men walked out of the station and Mark decided to let some silence leave a space for boy to think. Boy’s thoughts were cycling fast trying to keep pace with the butterflies in his stomach but everything was going round and round in inconsequential circles.

Mark knew little about boy and boy knew nothing more about mark than he had observed. In an effort to get a grip on himself he decided to consider what he had observed.

Mark was a bit taller than boy and well built – boy could see him as one of those tough guys in the gym doing sets of pull-ups and tricep dips against their own weight – boy guessed that Mark was in his late twenties so a few years older than boy himself.

Certainly the all black kit with its close fit and those well polished boots combined with Mark’s brisk manner to impress boy with smartness and authority, an authority powerful enough to make boy reluctant to break the silence as they walked, Mark indicating with modest hand gestures when they needed to turn.

In due course they turned off a main road into a street lined by high Victorian houses, now mostly in multiple occupation, they walked on and reached No.37 where Mark led boy to a basement front door – boy was not surprised to find it painted in black gloss – he could not see through the neighbouring bay window because Venetian blinds concealed the room within.

"Come in, boy," said Mark, ushering him into a long hallway floored with studded black rubber tiles polished to a good shine. The lower walls, up to a dado rail were black and above that the walls were white. A row of hooks ran along the left hand side, a black leather jacket hanging from the first. Below the hooks was a row of well polished shoes and boots.

Beyond them was a container that looked like wastepaper basket in metal mesh with a miscellany of black sports kit, running shorts, vests and the like… Mark gestured to these, "boy, you may find something in there more comfortable than your present gear which you can hang up on one of the hooks".

As boy stripped, Mark went to get him a drink - deliberately ignoring the naked figure rummaging in the basket for some kit – boy chose a black singlet and a small pair of lycra shorts with very little inside leg – he was just realising that the shorts revealed his erection when Mark returned with a pint mug of water.

"Drink this and then put your trainers back on and join me in the front room."

Mark guessed, rightly, that the silence had done little to lessen boy’s apprehension and he reckoned that some exercise might take boy’s mind of the uncertainty and give him a concrete task. He gave boy little time to take in the front room but sat him straight down at a rowing machine, reset the counter and told him to deliver 400 calories; Mark guessed that this would take boy about half an hour.

"Not too fast, boy", said Mark, "I want to be able to talk with you as you row."

Mark was so masterful that boy already had a sense of confidence in him. The apprehension that had been with boy from the moment that he had got up that morning had begun to calm. After the shock of meeting uncle and their mutual discoveries about each other, he had begun to come to terms with the fact that this journey had moved him from that mixture of fantasy and virtual reality on the Web into physical reality and into interaction with people who were living in what had, up to then, been for boy a strangely distant country. Yet these people were around him all the time and, in the case of uncle, actually in his own family had he only known uncle better.

Today’s journey was one of discovery in a variety of ways, not least discovering how he himself reacted to what was going on and to an individual like Mark as his life came under their influence, even under their control. He thought of Mark calling him "boy" and realised that, though uncle knew him by his family name, Mark probably only knew him by the nickname he used on the Archive. He was beginning to think of himself as "boy" and liked the idea.

When he had been choosing shorts just now he realised that he had deliberately chosen the briefest, tightest ones that he could find, not the flappy running shorts that had been available. Excitement seemed to have tussled with apprehension as his cock had firmed up inside those tight shorts and as he had gone to join Mark in the front room. He had had little time to take in the room before being told to sit on the rowing machine but there seemed to be a kitchen area at the back, a black leather sofa and a bar-height glass topped table with high stools like the seats on old tractors. The floor, as in the hall, was covered in studded black rubber tiles.

He got onto the rowing machine; Mark reset the display and boy grasped the handle and began to row.