Outside, the sun hit everything squarely black and white. He crossed the yard and dropped down into the shade of the henhouse and ate his second roll, not tasting a mouthful.

He saw John go into the house. He was raging thirsty, almost thirsty enough to contemplate yelling across to him to bring him out some beer, but he’d be damned if he would. This was all his fucking fault anyway. And he wasn’t going back in there either. He’d die of thirst sooner. Fuck them.

He lay back against the warm, gritty paintwork of the henhouse wall and closed his eyes.

“Here.” John’s voice spoke suddenly out of his darkness. He opened his eyes and squinted up against the light. John was standing there, a red-rimmed silhouette above him. Danny hesitated then took the offered can from his outstretched hand.

“Look,” he said, sitting down beside him, “I even brought you a glass.”

Danny took it and muttered a grudging thanks. What was he, a fucking mind reader? He filled the glass slowly so it wouldn’t foam up and put the can deep in the shade. He took a mouthful.

Suddenly John reached over and patted his stomach. “You’ll need to watch your belly, drinking all that beer.”

Danny flinched away, pushing his hand off. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Just don’t.” He could feel his face burning.

John only raised his eyebrows as if to say, Touchy, then leaned back against the shed again and closed his eyes.

Danny looked at him surreptitiously. His belly was hard and flat, his chest broad and muscular. He had definitely lost weight this summer.

Danny looked down at his own stomach. It was flat enough, but he was never going to have John’s washboard muscles – or his lousy tan for that matter. “Are you saying I’m getting fat?” he demanded abruptly. He looked down at himself again. From this angle it did look a bit podgy.

“What?” John sounded dopey. He didn’t move.

“Are you saying I’m getting fat?” Danny scowled at him irritably. He sat up further to flatten his stomach out. He even tried pulling it in.

John opened one eye, turning his head to him. “Mm?”

“For Christ’s sake. Fat, John – me. Is that what you’re saying?”

John opened both eyes, considered him. “You look alright to me.” He closed his eyes again and turned his face up to the sun, adding, “So far.”

Danny felt more irritated than ever. They were silent for a while, Danny taking covert glances at John’s body. His jeans were so tight it kept drawing your eyes down to his crotch. That had never been his style before, but now whatever Rab did…

Suddenly he realised John was watching him through deceptively half-closed eyes. He blushed violently, just like he always did.

“Well?” John’s lazy drawl.

“Well what?” Danny took another swig of beer and glared over at the house, studiously not looking in his direction.

“Have you seen enough?”

How the hell was he supposed to answer a question like that? I was only comparing sizes?

He continued to glare silently at the house, blushing harder than ever. He heard John climb to his feet, brush his hands on his jeans. His body moved level with Danny’s eyes, blocking his view, but Danny didn’t lift his head.

“Danny…”

He could hear the smug smile in the fat rat’s voice. He lifted his eyes slowly to look up at him.

John grinned down at him for a moment then blew him a silent little kiss.

Danny turned his head away with a violent jerk. “Fuck off.”

John reached out and rumpled his hair. “Only joking, Danny-boy. Only joking.”

Danny could hear him chuckling all the way across the yard.

They had been baling hay all afternoon, until the tractor had finally overheated.

“No water in the fucking radiator,” John said, slamming the hood back down. “Ian, you can be today’s hero, go and get some. Take your time. It needs a chance to cool down.”

Ian looked up at the hay wagon as if to say, Why not him? then turned abruptly and began walking towards the pick-up.

Danny dropped exhaustedly onto the hay bales and stretched out luxuriously, covering his face with his T-shirt.

After a minute or two he heard the pick-up roar off.

Almost a full minute passed before John called up to him, “Danny?”

He didn’t reply. After a second or two he felt the wagon rock, followed by the rustling sound of John crawling across the hay towards him, then the weight of his body settling next to his. “Not talking?”

He said nothing. He could feel John stretching out beside him, feel his skin sticking against his bare shoulder.

Under the shelter of his T-shirt, he felt suddenly blindfolded, abruptly afraid. He wished he could take it off to see what John was up to. He lay tense and unhappy. All his nerves felt rubbed raw. An insect tickled over his chest. He jumped and brushed it away.

A second or two later he felt it on his stomach. He brushed it off again.

A second later it was worming its way under the waistband of his trousers. He threw off the T-shirt and shot upright.

John was lying beside him, lazily playing with a piece of straw. “Something biting?”

“Yeah, a six foot blonde horsefly.”

“Blonde?” John’s laugh was incredulous. “Either I’m improving or you’re going blind. And that’s six-three.” John gave him an unsettling look then added, “Of course, maybe you’re just mixing me up with Rab.”

Danny flushed and threw himself on his stomach. After another minute the tickling started again. “Fuck off, John,” he said without turning.

The tickling continued with exactly the same irritation as a fly. “I said, fuck off, John. Are you deaf?”

“Me? I’m not doing a thing. Just lying here, minding my own business, going slowly blonde.”

“Like fuck you are.” Danny jerked his elbow in, blocking the straw’s path to his armpit. It withdrew.

After a few moments it started again. Danny saw red. He flung himself over and on top of John’s body, knocking him flat and pummelling his sides with his fists before John could stop him. It took several seconds and too many hard blows before John came to his senses. But he outweighed Danny by almost two stone, and outstripped him by at least four inches. He threw his arms around him in a tight bear hug, effectively pinning his flailing arms down.

They lay breathlessly locked together for a second or two, panting heavily, stupefied by the violence of the skirmish. Danny became aware of the scent of hay and sweat, a faint hint of something else. John’s soap? No, it was the stink of Rab’s fucking cigarettes. And then he realised. In the dream – that was the strange exotic smell in the dream.

It couldn’t be.

He was trapped tight in John’s arms, pinned down in the hay, the stink of him invading his nostrils. Suddenly he was tired beyond all reason, emotionally exhausted. He felt himself go limp. He didn’t care anymore. “Let me go,” he said numbly.

“Why? So you can beat fuck out me?” John’s voice was ugly with damaged ego and fright.

“I won’t touch you,” Danny said dismally. It was the wrong thing to say, inferring as it did that John had nothing to fear from him. It wasn’t what he’d meant.

“Too fucking right you won’t,” John said and rolled him onto his back, pinning him down with his weight.

The smell of his sweat, with that faint hint of spice, seemed to rise out of the hay itself. Their skins were stuck together, their hair soaked with sweat. Danny felt panicked. All he could see was John’s dark silhouette, outlined in red. He couldn’t read his face at all. His eyes watered with staring up at him. “Let me go, you shit.” He tried to push up, but his exhaustion and the soft base of hay gave him no leverage at all.

John sensed the rising panic in him and his anger fed on it. “You look like a girl, know that?”

Danny could feel tears of frustration begin to form in his eyes. “I said, let me go.”

John rammed his shoulders down as he tried to lift himself. “Dream on.”

Danny jerked his head away, feeling a drop of sweat run down into his mouth, filthily salt. He licked his lips feverishly, straining his head to one side.

John saw the tongue darting over his dry lips. They looked swollen, cracked. Another drop of sweat dripped from his forehead onto Danny’s cheek. Danny scrubbed it furiously against the hay, eyes tight shut all the while. In that one movement, petulant, skittish, he really did look like a girl.

John brought his face close. “Come on then, give us a kiss.”

Danny struggled violently, suddenly galvanised with something very like terror. “Don’t.”

But John pressed his mouth down on his.

Danny tasted of salt, his lips, not cracked at all, moist and open with shock under his own.

It was all he had intended to do, humiliate him. But the thing felt surprisingly good. Danny groaned beneath him, still struggling, making things worse for himself. John kissed him again, hungrily, enjoying his struggles and, he realised dimly somewhere in his overheated brain, enjoying the kiss.

“Hello?!” A door slammed. “John?!”

“Christ.” John sprung off him as if he had been stung. Ian. Christ, the little shit must have fucking raced it. Shit.

“John?!” Querulous now, full of suspicion.

“Here!” John’s voice sounded shaky. His face was white.

Danny lay flat on his back, his eyes blank with shock, his face streaked with sweat and dirt.

John crammed his fist into his pocket and yanked out his handkerchief, pushing it at him. “Here, clean yourself up, for Christ’s sake.” He turned away, sitting up and dragging his hands through his hair.

The wagon rocked. John yelled, “Hang on, I’m coming down,” and scrambled quickly over to the edge. He swung his body over then paused to check his footing. He looked up for one second, right into Danny’s eyes, then whispered fiercely, “Move, Danny. No-one’s fucking raped you.” He looked down over his shoulder to judge his distance then back up into Danny’s face. “Yet.” And then disappeared from view.

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