Skinny & Buff H.School Teachers

[BigLittleTim]

I enjoy reading the stories here, and actually prefer the ones that are less fantastic and more within the realm of believablity.

I went to a Catholic boys' prep school. It was run by a religious order, but there were lots of lay teachers. Looking back, with the knowledge of hind-sight, there was so much gay subtext going on.

There were two teachers who were "room mates"; they shared a beautiful old victorian near the school's campus. They were both in their mid-thirties, I would say, but that's where the similarity ends.

"Mr. Patrick Fitzwilliam" was the football coach as well as an History teacher. He was absolutely JACKED! About six feet, four inches tall, big ruddy red-head, goatee; he always seemed to be bursting out of his tweedy jackets in the classroom or his coach's polo shirt on the playing field. I remember seeing him drying himself after an early morning shower, and I'm still struck with just how BIG his pecs and... well, his ass were. The man was an artist's study is circles and spheres.

No-one ever questioned an order or request from him. I believe he had been in the Army, and had what the millitary calls "Command Presence." He was the un-official "bouncer" at school social events, and I can remember being chided by my date at a school dance for spending half the evening talking with him. Well, "talking" isn't quite the right word, as he was a very quiet man. I think I just made a nuisance of myself hanging around him and asking stupid questions in my cracking geeky voice. Although he was definitely King Jock in what was for all intents-and-purposes a "jockocracy", he was a very kind and thoughtful man. With my adult knowlege I'm now sure he must have picked me out as a fellow homo, and I am still absurdly gratified that he encouraged my questions and treated me with a respect and courtesy one wouldn't expect a nerd to recieve from such a perfect physical specimen. I think many of the boys, straight as well as gay, had a "schoolboy crush" on him. You just wanted to be around him. You felt special just that he nodded kindly at you.

His room-mate was "Mr. William Fitzpatrick". Mr. Fitzpatrick was a little younger and much, MUCH smaller than his good friend, the beefy football coach. I think he was actually the smallest teacher in the whole school, even smaller than the few female teachers we had. He also was irish, but with the pale ivory skin, Superman-black hair, and electric blue eyes that are commonly called "black irish" good looks around here. Mr. Fitzpatrick was an English teacher, and very much the aesthete. A sensitive man who truly loved English literature and poetry, and who inspired at least this skinny young gay boy to explore the works of the great English writers. He had a passion that overrode the innate malice of schoolboys which usually drives them to torture the less physically dominant masters. Looking back, I can tell he was a man of great character and passion for teaching young minds. I wonder if at home they ever talked about us, wondering who among us would eventually, years from now, come out.

Anyway... at the time I dont think any of us thought it amiss that these two desparate characters should be joined in such felicitous harmony. The tiny figure of Mr. Fitzpatrick could always be descerned at the edge of the football field when Mr. Fitzwilliam was running practices, talking with students all the while keeping a smiling eye on his hulking friend. I don't have any specific recollection of it, but I have a vague memory that he also made Coach's lunches. I think on several occasions he brought the cooler that contained the ton of food Coach Fitzwilliam consumed every day. This contrasted highly with the salad and apple he would eat himself between classes. He had a bunsen burner "liberated" from the Chemistry Lab, I believe, on which he would make a pot of real tea from tea leaves every afternoon. When their schedules overlapped you'd sometimes see the two roommates sharing 'a cuppa' together in the otherwise empty classroom. The coach would sit on Mr. Fitzpatrick's desk, as he couldn't have possibly gotten his arse into one of the chairs we boys used.

I remember one occasion, in Sophmore year maybe, when a student (a football player, actually) was giving some 'lip' to the diminutitve English master, and from out of nowhere the gigantic form of the football coach, bulging thighs in corduroy trousers, tweed sports-coat straining at his arms and shoulders, had entered the classroom and was right in the kid's face, holding him a few inches off the ground by his shirtfront! (This was a CATHOLIC school, remember. They can get away with this sort of discipline. Catholic schoolboys learn so much more than public schoolboys. They are AFRAID.) Without taking his eyes off the football player's petrified face the giant man, as cooly as you please, says "William, I trust there is no problem here?" I think we all could have fallen out of our seats, not just at the sight of brute power exhibited by the popular coach and teacher, but by hearing him refer to another teacher, in front of the students, by his FIRST NAME! His voice was calm, but you could see the veins in his neck standing out beet red. I honestly think that if the sweet, gentle words of Mr. Fitzpatrick hadn't assured him that there was nothing going on but a little high-spirited debate, that the hard-breathing muscle man in front of us would have hurled the trembling football player across the room and probably would have put the guy in the infirmary.

I hope you don't think it perverse, but shock was mingled in me not only with excitement but desire. A 'good' boy, I couldn't help thinking of what I could do to make him so angry that he would lift me off the floor like a kitten. What it would be like seeing those icy blue eyes burning into mine, as well as seeing up-close the shirt button that always seemed to have popped at his chest, hidden by his knecktie.



I can still see them, their "Mutt & Jeff" forms, walking together through falling leaves back to the house they shared in the center of town. I mean, the football coach was probably Three times the size of his friend, but they walked together like one school chum with his best mate or (go ahead and say it) like the sweetest of lovers.

One summer vacation I rode my bike by their house and said "hi". I would have been embarrased if they knew just how often I rode my bike past their house. Maybe they knew.
Mr. Fitzpatrick was painting the spindles on the victorian porch while Mr. Fitzwilliam was mowing the lawn with his shirt off (!!!) Also in retrospect I now think the coach must have done a cycle of steroids during summer vacation because he always seemed to double in size during these months. He joked that it was due to all the wood he split for firewood; his summer occupation. Little Mr. Fitzpatrick, or "William", would be wearing a pair of what would now be considered 'retro' gym shorts (this was the early 80's) and a simple t-shirt. Although he was so tiny, he really had a great boyish physique that you wouldn't normally notice under the school blazer he wore the rest of the year. With an older man's eye I can now appreciate his tight stomach and teeny-tiny pecs, as well as a surprisingly high and tight butt.
The thought of what they may have done with each other after that long-ago afternoon of yardwork just gave me a boner after almost twenty years!

Looking back, I have to say the memory of the muscle-bound gentle giant and his beautiful and elegant little friend has provided me with fantasies for more than one dull evening, I can assure you. A huge muscular man pouring his love into the tiny friend of his heart. A beautiful little slip of a man giving up his whole self to the infinitely more powerful man he pleases and takes care of. It seems as close to the idea of perfect contentment as I ever would hope to experience.

They no longer are on faculty at St._______'s, but I hear from fellow alumni that they both left the school at the same time when one of them got a job outside academia. They must have decided that they liked being 'room-mates' too much to let life separate them.

[arpeejay]

Great story, BLT, thanks for sharing!

xoxo

richard

[small-fry]

That is my fantasy right there... any jock that loves geeks is a friend of mine. Oy!

[BigLittleTim]

I changed the names, obviously, but I just can't help but let slip that the little fella's last name was "Roy", as it led to his nick-name among us schoolboys: "Boy Roy".

If I had any literary talent I think I might take my hand at crafting all these old memories into a real story. Believe me, this is only the barest outline of these two school teachers' characters and lives. I'm only afraid that for the thousands of boys who came through St. ______'s it would be too blatently obvious whom I was talking about. How many predominantly Irish, Catholic boys' schools are there with a love story like that going on right in front of everyone?

I am also overcome with an urge to find out where they are today. I am as old, now, as they were then; thirty-six. They would be in their mid-fifties, if they are even still alive. I am always brought up short when I think of the handsome muscular men I idolized when puberty first opened the doors of desire for me, back in the early Eighties. How many of them are gone? How many best survived the lives they led?

-BigLittleTim