I slammed down the phone, an old fashioned model I'd kept simply for
the privilege of doing so; there's just something so thoroughly
satisfying about hammering the receiver back onto the base which can't
be matched by pressing a little red button. My anger was rather
exaggerated anyway - I was only mildly vexed that my agent had demanded
a meeting later that day, interrupting my important writing schedule.
Would I have written anything regardless? Probably not.
We met, as we always did, in a little cafe round the corner from St
James' Park. It was a survivor, this cafe, one from the old school of
cafe design. Formica tables were scattered about in a seemingly random
fashion, and the de rigeur source of news was a copy of the Sun, passed
round the room more times than a cheap hooker. Blue collar workmen of
all types used the place, and I absolutely loved it.
Daniel Marbery didn't appreciate Harry's Caff to quite the same extent.
It seemed to offend his upper middle class sensibilities, and for that
I loved it even more. Dan and I had a weird kind of relationship,
strained by my never-ending quest to fail to submit a manuscript on
time, every time. I think I made his life hell, but then he also took a
fair cut of my earnings, so perhaps it evened out in the end. When he
liked me he loved me, and when he didn't I was the author from hell.
His assessment of my character was that I was possibly the worst
undiagnosed bipolar case in the history of psychiatry. He might have
been right, at least when it came to writing.
He turned up that morning in a preposterous three-piece suit, with a
cravat, top hat and cane, looking like something out of a Dickens
story. This in fact turned out to be exactly what he was meant to look
like, having just come from being an extra on the film set of an
adaptation of another client's latest best-seller. He was meant to be
back on set shortly, but had apparently found time to give me a
rollicking. He looked gloriously incongruous among the hi-vis vests and
paint-stained trousers, though in that company even I felt overdressed
in jeans and a t-shirt, just because both were clean.
"I've got good news, Jack," he started, as he sat awkwardly, spilling
my milky tea and his unsullied black coffee in the process.
I raised an eyebrow. 'Good news' didn't necessarily mean I'd like it.
Actually, nine times out of ten it meant more work for me, and right
then that didn't seem an attractive prospect. He noted my less than
enthusiastic reception.
"Well, if you don't want to hear it, I'll fuck off then," he said, making as if to leave.
"No, no, please stay," I said, funnelling as much sarcasm as I could muster into my words. "Please tell me the wonderful news."
He sat back down with a grin on his face, and then winced slightly as
the close-fitting costume made clear its objections to being treated
this way. "That's my Jack, always bubbly and bright. You're off to
America, you miserable old git. Not sure how I managed to blag it, but
there you go. Bit of a tour, you and that Madeleine Atkins girl. You
know the one, she's with old Tittyface."
Tittyface was our affectionate nickname for Sarah Tattefasche, an
ex-lover of Daniel’s and a mean agent in her own right. I remembered
Madeleine Atkins, too, mostly because she'd appeared on the Richard and
Judy book list, and I'd made the mistake of suggesting to a tiny little
rag that nothing of literary merit ever appeared on the list. The whole
thing had been blown out of proportion, and I'd been forced to
apologise to Madeleine, who, being a sweetheart, took it all in
terribly good form, especially given that my apology included a nice
red of decent vintage. That had been three, maybe four years before.
Neither she nor I, nor practically any other British author, had really
broken America since. It seemed Daniel and Sarah had agreed to try
again.
"An old-fashioned tour, then?" I asked.
Daniel nodded. "Absolutely. A string of identikit motels, a soulless
breakfast each morning and then sitting in a bookshop being ignored by
a load of people who've never heard of you and probably wouldn't care
if they had. Are you up for it?"
"Er, do I have any choice?"
Daniel took a bite of the toast which had just been delivered to our
table, swigged it down with a slug of English Breakfast and smiled at
me. "Of course, Jacky boy, of course. You don't have to go if you don't
want to. And I don't have to get you a spot on Radio 4 next week,
either."
Great. A bit of unsubtle blackmail. But it had every chance of working,
because I desperately needed that radio slot. Damn. I shook my head,
letting a wry smile touch the corners of my mouth.
"OK, fine. I'll go to America."
Daniel smiled at me through another mouthful of toast. "Good boy, I
knew you'd say yes. Now, I've got to get back to that stupid set before
the director loses it at me again. You'll pick up the tab, won't you?
Lovely."
Bastard.
----
I stared up at the T-Rex, remembering with affection what it was like
to be nine years old and standing in this very spot for the first time.
Why was I drawn here, today? What was it about the museum which held
such fascination? It wasn't the first time I'd come here after a
meeting with Daniel. He seemed to bring out some need in me to see
something real, something genuine. The museum was a good place, because
everything there was real. Nothing was potential. It all existed
already.
I wandered the hallways, finding little spaces all of my own to hide
away. It wasn't busy, not on a weekday in term time. There would be the
occasional group of kids sharing the place with me, but if I was
careful I could avoid them. Not that I disliked kids, per se, but
there's something very special about getting lost in your own thoughts
in a museum. Well, there is for me at least.
I meandered around the place, lost in thought, and stumbled across one
of the inevitable groups. Deciding to play detective for a few moments,
I hung around nearby, apparently paying a great deal of interest in a
piece of Inca pottery. It didn't take long to work out they were
American kids, the accent ringing out clearly. I've always thought
there's something pleasingly sweet about an American kid's accent,
especially the East Coast ones. This lots sounded like a bundle of mini
New Yorkers.
They drifted off, in little dribs and drabs, until there was only one
boy left, standing there with a clipboard, making notes on a sheet of
paper I couldn't see. I realised with a start quite how utterly
beautiful he was. Genuinely, stunningly attractive, almost girlish in
features but with a definite hint of masculinity. I watched him for a
moment, spellbound, until he too wandered off in search of his
classmates.
I was stuck with the image of the boy for the rest of the day. I
wandered around the rest of the museum, but didn't see him again. I
thought I might have caught a glimpse of him leaving the building, but
I was a long way away, through two glass walls, and there was no way of
catching him and finding out for sure. What would I have done anyway?
I had come to terms at a fairly young age with the fact that,
generally, I prefer boys to girls. The problem was that as I grew
older, the boys I fancied stayed the same age. I tried to convince
myself that it was a phase I was going through, and when the phase
lasted longer and longer, I tried to convince myself that it was the
result of unrequited interest in my youth. Perhaps it was, but going
out and molesting a young lad wasn't going to fix anything, and I'd
settled down to a life of failed relationships with members of both
sexes, and a growing sense of dissatisfaction with the whole world of
adult relationships.
As I left the place a good four hours after entering, and no further
along with the manuscript I had promised to finish by the end of the
month. I let my old friend melancholy creep in; I walked into the first
pub I could find and ordered myself a stiff gin and tonic. And then
another seven to wash it down.
----
Daniel’s plan was for me to be in New York in late March, and to meet
up with Madeleine there. We would begin our country-wide trip a couple
of days later, mostly travelling by overnight train, a brilliant plan
if you need to save on accommodation and travelling expenses, a poor
idea if you want your authors to be capable of holding a civilised
conversation after several consecutive nights without decent sleep.
Yet there was something enthralling about the idea, something rather
romantic. Weren't some of the best stories of all time told on the
train? One of my personal favourites, From Russia With Love, certainly
was. Perhaps I would be inspired. My bag was laden down with my
preferred Moleskine notebooks, and enough spare Parker Royal Blue ink
to fill the lot of them, and not two but three spare nibs for my pen,
as if I couldn't get these things in America of all places. I hoped
that I might fill half a dozen books on the journey, but I suspected it
would barely be half of one.
As the wheels thumped into the tarmac at JFK I swore loudly in the
confines of my head, wondering if the pilot had ever flown a plane
before. I'm not a good flier at the best of times, and we'd had a
pretty rough crossing in the mid-Atlantic turbulence. I was more than
ready to be out of that damned metal tube.
This was a tour on a budget, and so with no car to pick me up I
wandered out into the warmth of a New York spring day and found myself
an iconic yellow taxi to take me into town. The scenery which passed by
the window was oh so familiar, and yet this was my first visit to what
must be one of the most recognisable cities in the world. I sat and
smiled to myself - it was going to be at least a month and a half of
hard slog, but maybe that was exactly what I needed to blow away the
cobwebs. Perhaps when we were done I might be able to write again.
The hotel-by-numbers was barely adequate but had the luxury of a pool,
and so for the first two days of the trip I went swimming for the first
time in far too long to remember. I was always alone apart from a pair
of near geriatric German guys, quite clearly a couple, who were very
happy to chat to me in English about this and that, and even claimed to
have heard of my work. When challenged, though, the charade crumbled,
and Dieter admitted to simply being polite. Ralf laughed himself silly
at his friend's discomfort, and then was rewarded with a dunking in the
pool. The last time we met they left promising to read one of my books
- I wonder if they ever did.
Madeleine turned up on day two, and gracefully accepted my repeated
apologies for my past boorish behaviour. When I insisted she allow me
to make it up to her somehow, she dragged me off to a quite exquisite
little stationers, crammed in between two faceless office blocks. What
a place it was, full of beautiful books and gorgeous pens, and we spent
a merry two hours between us, somehow emerging largely with credit
cards intact, though weighed down in my case with more notebooks (you
can never have enough!) and in Madeleine's case with my apology to her,
a lovely old Cross fountain pen, a bargain because it was used but not
yet a classic.
We meandered around town for a bit, taking in a few sights in a
haphazard way, not really taking advantage of the opportunity but not
feeling the need to either. Madeleine was a New York veteran, so she
showed me a few of the more off-beat places, like the 5 Pointz graffiti
space - as a fan of urban art, it blew me away.
Dinner was taken in a little out-of-the-way Italian place Madeleine
knew well, where we were treated like members of an extended family and
came away feeling thoroughly happy with the world.
If I'd known how short-lived that happiness would be, perhaps I would
have just gone AWOL in New York and never spoken to Daniel again.
----
I couldn't tell you where we were, I honestly had no idea. At one point
I asked one of the locals who came to peer at my stand, and she laughed
as if I'd made a hilarious joke, then walked off without buying a copy
of the book. It wasn't the worst day on the trip so far - that had been
reserved for the day when I spent seven hours in a sweltering shop with
no-one coming in only to discover that the manager had advertised the
event for the following week - but it was certainly up there.
Unseasonal damp drizzle fell in flowing waves outside the window, and
the street was deserted as far as the eye could see. Occasionally a
damp, bedraggled soul would accidentally wander into the shop and then
immediately leave, wondering how they had come to be in a bookshop
instead of the deli.
Madeleine called me on her mobile. Situated a few miles away in a
neighbouring town, she was having as bad a day as I was. We made the
tactical decision to call it quits and met in our hotel, somewhere
between the two towns.
"They're not interested, are they?" she asked as we sat nursing drinks in the bar. I shook my head.
"Not a bit of it, no. And why should they be? You write murder
mysteries in sixteenth century London, and I make up weird tales about
holes in our reality. No offence, but why should they give a fuck about
us?"
She laughed and raised her glass for the toast, gulping it down it as soon as the two vessels touched.
"Another?" she asked, rising. I nodded glumly and wondered what would happen tonight.
----
She lunged across the lift at me, grabbing my head in her hands, great
handfuls of hair, pressing her lips to mine. Oh God how I tried to get
into it, but whatever the reason there was nothing. I liked her, found
her attractive, but the spark of lust wasn't there. She pulled away,
looking disappointed.
"Anything at all?" she asked. I shook my head and shrugged.
"Sorry."
"Oh it's fine, Jack. To be honest, it didn't exactly light my world up
either." She sighed and then thumped her fist against the wall. "One
long fucking road trip and we can't even have the decency to have a
fling and end the tedium. We're fucking useless, Jack. Useless."
Then the lift stopped, the lights vanished, and half an hour later, just for the sheer hell of it, we fucked.
Her hand found mine by accident. In the darkness, with sight diminished
and other senses heightened, it sent a shock through me. I jerked away
instinctively, and she apologised. A few silent moments later contact
was made again, this time deliberately. Her touch was stronger; her
fingertips dragged up the inside of my forearm and beyond. She grabbed
my bicep with one hand. The lift, hanging on its cables, swung ever so
slightly as she climbed into my lap. This time when our lips touched
the contact was full of passion, greedy, demanding. Exciting.
Then she was gone, lifted up. Hands landed in my crotch, right on top
of the hardness encased by jeans and boxers. Fingers tugged at my fly,
roughly popping the buttons apart, and I helped to denude myself,
gasping sightly as I sat back down on the cold, hard floor. She was
above me again, hands on my shoulders, lowering herself into my crotch,
one hand reaching down to hold my spear upright. Hot, damp warmth
encased the tip of my manhood. I reached between us to feel her sex,
finding it enticingly free of hair, then settled on her hard clit,
mashing it against her pubic bone. The heat around my shaft became
hotter, the tightness tighter and the pleasure magnified.
It was hot and quick and nasty. She shuddered to a climax with
surprising speed, then finished me with her mouth as I ran my fingers
through her hair.
When the lights came back on, we couldn't look each other in the eye,
but as we left the lift I caught the hint of a smile on her face.
----
Madeleine hit pay-dirt - as they say in the States - a few weeks in.
Our visit to a relatively provincial town coincided with a crime
fiction conference, which for some reason was being held in this rural
little backwater. She blagged a stand in the conference hall, and spent
the day making contacts and selling herself. Lucky bitch.
I consoled myself with walking around the place, having abandoned all
hope of any interest in my work while the place was overrun with crime
fiends. I was meant to be signing in a small independent book store,
but the owner agreed that there was little point even trying. So for a
couple of hours we just sat in a coffee shop around the corner and
chatted about books. When he had to return to take over from his wife
for the afternoon I found myself at a loose end, and as ever when I'm
unsure what to do I failed to do the proper thing and write, instead
choosing to see where my feet took me.
They took me to a great little local pool, an outdoor place only
recently opened with the improving weather. I rushed back to my motel
room, grabbed a few things and twenty minutes later was happily
splashing around in the cool water. I met a mum, Angela, and her brood
of little redneck kids and had a great time playing around with them
all afternoon, reminding myself quite how much I missed my little niece
and nephew back in Blighty. Angela was the model of politeness, too,
and tried to look interested in what I did, but at the end of the day
we ended up chatting about the only thing we had in common: motorsport.
She educated me in the ways of NASCAR, and I extolled the virtues of
Formula 1, and we had a thoroughly nice time doing so.
As I walked away from the pool toward my rendezvous with Madeleine and
our nightly binge I reflected on the afternoon, and came to a rather
shocking conclusion. The only thing which stopped me from going home
with Angela and fucking her brains out that night was the guilt I felt
for having spent the afternoon lusting after her pubescent son.
----
My head swam as I woke. I stumbled to my feet and lurched into the
bathroom, which span wildly around me. I ripped up the lid of the
toilet and retched noisily into the bowl. As I slumped onto the cold
tiles with my back against the porcelain I wondered what I had become.
It was still dark outside. It was darker still in my soul.
----
The sun shone brightly and we were on top of the world. Two days in a
row without having a single book signing or meeting to attend, and we
were taking advantage of it. Madeleine and I had stopped in a
delightful little place somewhere in New England, and frittered away a
whole morning in a local diner drinking gallons of coffee and downing
excessively large plates of pancakes, bacon and syrup. We threw plot
lines back and forth and thoroughly took the piss out of each other's
work, and in the end I admitted my jealousy of her success.
Only then, for the first time since we had begun our trip, did the
barriers come down and the true Maddy come out. Maddy the little girl
in the grown up world, scared and alone, and showing genuine concern
for Jack, who was now a dear friend, a confederate and compatriot. She
actually cared about me, and dared to show it for a delightful few
hours. And she really was a sweet little thing behind the mask. So much
so that I fell for her thoroughly, and I think she for me, but it was
too late, too late for any of that soppy stuff. Damn, if only we
realised before we slept together, how different things might have
been. But there was a sense of melancholy acceptance, and no more.
I tried to figure it out that night, as I sat out on the balcony of my
surprisingly upmarket motel room and listened to the frogs in the
creek. I tried to fathom how I could so happily fall for Maddy, and yet
hold such terrible, inappropriate feelings for young boys. How can a
straight male and a boylover exist in the same head? The only
conclusion I could draw was that at least I could feasibly find
happiness without having to abuse a boy to do so. I could find a nice
girl, settle down, have kids and all that crap, even if it meant part
of my sexuality was ignored. And it didn't seem like a compromise, just
a choice.
----
I woke, gasping. I blinked twice, trying to clear the mist from my
vision but unable to do so. Shutting my eyes let the vision of my dream
back in, but nothing could excite me now. I let my hand trail down
below the waistband of my shorts, but found nothing amiss. At least
there was that.
I tried to sleep again, but could not. Groggily I emerged into the new
dawn, and walked straight into Maddy, who had slept exceptionally well
and was full of the joys of life.
Damn.
----
Daniel’s phone call was strange and broken. How was I enjoying myself,
he'd asked. Was America everything I'd hoped it would be? I'd sounded
enthusiastic because I was. I genuinely was having a good time. I felt
inspired, too, and had written some of the best work I'd managed in
years. Even the fabled unfinished manuscript was submitted, I told him.
Daniel pointed out that yes, he understood the manuscript had been
submitted. After all, it was him I'd submitted it to. Somehow this fact
seemed to have slipped my mind. He, too, seemed to think that the work
I'd done on the last part of the manuscript was better than anything
else in the book, so much so that the rest would have to be re-written.
I almost dropped the phone at that point.
But there was a kicker, a reason to stay on the line. Daniel, so
impressed by the influence America had apparently had on me, had rented
me a house in Florida for two months. I was to go there and
revolutionise the manuscript. I didn't quite know what to say. The
independent streak in me screamed out at such obvious dictatorship, but
the other side of me, the side so in love with the States, knew that it
was an offer I couldn't refuse. I put the phone down and waited for
Daniel’s email.
Maddy left on a cold, rainy Tuesday in what should have been the
early days of summer. We'd made it as far as Denver, but had reached
the end of the line. The budget had run out, and there weren't enough
guaranteed bookings on the west coast to make the onward journey
worthwhile. I had my house in Florida to go to, and Maddy had dreary
old London. We parted as though we'd spent a lifetime together, and
suddenly I was very alone.
----
The house. How do you describe 'the house'? I'd have called it a shed,
myself. A wooden shed, with a hole in the roof and no heating, not that
you'd need it on the edge of the Everglades. More bugs than you could
shake a stick at, too. Not my idea of an idyllic retreat, not one bit.
It stood in the grounds of a much grander place, which I was told quite
firmly was not for rent. The owners of the estate, who lived most of
the time in upstate New York, used the house as a summer retreat and
might appear at any time.
All this was told to me by the estate manager, a grumpy chap in his
late sixties, burned a deep chestnut by the sun and with a shock of
silvery white hair which was kept immaculately trimmed, and named,
rather inappropriately, Mr Meeke. I was told the limits of my rental
agreement, which were effectively that I was to at no time to approach
the main house, and was to use the rear driveway, which led past my
hut. No visitors without express permission, no loud music, no alcohol
to be brought onto the premises, and absolutely no 'untoward
behaviour'. I asked cheekily what that might constitute and was met
with an ice cold stare.
Not so much a retreat as a prison camp, it seemed.
----
Tom's Cabin, for that was its official title, was in truth a perfectly
well appointed little place to spend a couple of months, especially if
you need to get away from the distractions of the outside world. It had
running water, a fridge, a cooker and even electricity, though the
closest it came to modern entertainment was a dusty long wave radio in
one corner. No television, and certainly no internet. For that I was
required to walk into the local town, something which happened on an
almost nightly basis at first, and then exponentially less often as my
stay wore on.
I began to lead a very simple life, up at dawn each morning, taking a
swim in a local pond, cooking myself a real breakfast, that sort of
thing. And I got work done, too. Masses of work. Thousands and
thousands of words poured from my fingertips until the letters on the
keys of my laptop began to fade. This was real writing, raw writing,
the kind of primeval output one has when first setting out into the
literary world. Lines, paragraphs, chapters, a whole book flowed out of
me in less than three weeks.
I could have been distracted, but wasn't as it happened, by the arrival
of the family who owned the house. Or at least part of the family. The
estate manager, in his most obsequious tones, came down to the cabin
one morning to remind me of the terms of the rental agreement, and
highlighted that the mother and her son would be arriving two days
later. I nodded to show I'd heard and understood, and then shot daggers
at his retreating back with my eyes just for having disturbed my
thoughts for such a banal conversation.
----
They did indeed arrive two days later. I knew this because Meeke interrupted my swim to tell me.
Idiot.
----
He walked toward me along the path,
kicking up little clouds of dust to be set afire by the afternoon sun.
He looked bored, and a little surprised to find me sitting there on the
veranda with a laptop on my knees, watching him come. Strange that we
should be in such an ordinary, sane setting, for this was surely a
dream. After all, was that not the boy from the museum in London all
those months ago? Strange that I should choose him for my fantasy after
so long, but I suppose the mind has a mind of its own, as it were.
"Hey," he said, passing by, with a little wave of the hand.
Damn, I'd better respond. Might be my dream, but there's no reason to be rude.
"Hi."
Yeah, that'll about cover it. Strange
dream, this. Almost as if it's real. But I know it can't be, not with
that boy appearing out of nowhere after all this time. He wandered off
up the path toward the house and was gone.
----
I languished on the veranda, the heat of the day undiminished by the
light breeze which blew along the path from the river. A freezing gin
and tonic sat on the table at my elbow, untouched, and my laptop lay
discarded on the floor. I watched in a stupor as beads of condensation
formed, coalesced and ran down the side of the glass to join the
ever-growing pool which ringed its base. Flies buzzed around me,
occasionally landing to drink the sweat from my skin. Their presence
had long since ceased to affect me.
All of a sudden I was alert. There was the boy again. I wasn't
dreaming, I couldn't be. It really must be him. I sat up and smiled as
he approached, and he smiled back. He was topless, wearing only a baggy
pair of board shorts, shod in flip-flops and carrying a beach towel
over one shoulder.
"Going for a swim?" I asked as he drew level with the hut. A stupid question.
"Yep, figured I would."
"Cool."
He'd stopped, apparently to chat.
"You know about the pond, right?" he asked.
"Yep. Been down there already this morning. Might go again if it stays this warm."
"Um..." He hesitated. "Want to go with me now? It's kinda boring on your own..."
He looked so dejected that even had I not felt aroused by his mere
presence I would have agreed to go with him. Poor kid must've been
bored out of his mind. But I needed no persuading.
"Sure, let me just get my trunks on."
I ran inside and squeezed into my still-wet shorts, cursing myself for
not having hung them out to dry, though I couldn't have known I'd need
them so soon. I grabbed a bag and stuffed in a dry towel and some
sunblock, though the latter, judging by his bronzed skin, would only be
needed by me. I caught myself thinking that might be rather a shame,
that somehow I might have helped him on with some. Shaking my head to
rid myself of the rebellious thought, I stepped back out into the sun,
pulling the door shut behind me and not bothering to lock it.
"Jack," I said, holding out my hand. He took it shyly, and I felt for
the first time the soft warmth of him, his hand slender but strong.
"Jay," he replied, with a blinding white smile. In that moment the
years fell away, and I realised of whom he reminded me, and why it was
that I was so drawn to him. Peter. A name I had not thought of for
nearly twenty years. At least, until three days ago, when on impulse I
searched through Facebook for him. No sign of Peter, but the
reincarnation of his eleven year old self stood facing me. Among the
thoughts which suddenly crowded my mind was one which I sought
desperately to suppress. Everyone's different, I told myself.
Especially there.
As we walked down to the pond, I reflected on the mad luck which had
brought this boy back into my life, three months after I'd seen him
last, thousands of miles away in grey old London. He was part of the
family which owned the estate, and had come down with his mother for
the summer. The coincidence dumbfounded me, and I walked in silence,
half listening to his excited chatter, happy to be its recipient.
----
"I'm glad you're here," he said as we sat by the pool, watching the
shimmering surface, tired of swimming and splashing about for the
moment. We had climbed out onto the huge rock which projected over the
water's edge. Beneath us, hundreds of tiny fish shimmered not far
beneath the surface, hiding in the shade. I gave him a smile as I got
up and wandered over to my pack, retrieving my sunblock.
"I'm glad, too," I said, sitting back down. "It's a great place to write, and now I have a buddy to go swimming with."
He smiled at the last, and then quite unabashedly offered to rub some
cream into my back. My head swam as his fingers worked over my muscles,
cold from swimming but still setting my skin aflame. It was such a
perfunctory action, nothing more than one friend helping another, but
to me it was heaven, bliss, an old feeling renewed, revisited, a
feeling dredged up by his mere presence from somewhere in the long
distant past. God, he looked like Peter. He refused my offer to return
his favour, and I was forced to agree that he hardly needed it, despite
my feeble protestations about skin cancer which he waved aside with a
laugh.
"My cousin, Bobby -" (does anyone have a cousin Bobby these days?) "-
will be here in a couple of weeks. He loves swimming, too. Last summer
we came down here every day."
It was idle chatter, the empty-headed ramblings of an excited juvenile,
but to my ears it was the sweetest birdsong. We sat there on the
unshaded rock until both of us were warmed through by the sun, and then
wandered back up the track. He dropped me at the shack, making me
promise to return with him to the pool the following day.
Inside, wearied by the extra exercise, I pulled off my swimming shorts
and fell naked onto the bed, and quickly into a satisfyingly deep sleep.
----
This time I smiled when I awoke. I was bored of hating myself for something I could not control.
----
Meeke looked angry, redder than usual. Apparently I had overstepped the
mark. I should not have gone swimming with the boy. I reminded him that
the boy's name was Jay, which only served to infuriate him further. I
was told that I should not interrupt the boy's play. He was told, in
polite, icy tones, that Jay had asked me to go swimming with him. I was
told that he, Meeke, would verify this, and if I had lied, my rental
contract would be terminated without notice.
He returned an hour later to apologise. So did Jay, a little later. He
giggled at my best Mr Meeke impression, and reminded me of my promise
to swim with him the following day.
----
It quickly became routine to swim with Jay, and added a pleasant
structure to the day. I woke early each morning, giving myself ample
time to throw together a few hundred words, before Jay, his body clock
already beginning to push him toward teenager-like late rising, would
saunter down at around ten. That would give us a couple of hours in the
pond before he went home for lunch, and I took a stroll into town to
find food of my own. I'd hardly fed myself once during my stay,
preferring to frequent one or other of the little eateries in the small
local town, both of which happily vied for the award of best ever
seafood.
All the time my mind was on the boy. He was, I discovered, twelve and a
half, played 'soccer' and swam on the relevant school teams (which
explained his fish-like tendencies and an ability to leave me stranded
in the water), didn't have a girlfriend at the moment (although there
was maybe someone he liked, he said), liked skating and surfing, too,
and during term time was educated in a rather prestigious New York
establishment. He liked the Knicks and the Yankees, because his dad
did. He wanted a dirt bike, but didn't think he would ever get one. He
hated Mr Meeke nearly as much as I did, and suspected the man of being
a bit dodgy; when I asked him to define dodgy, he said "y'know, likes
boys!". The way he said it made it sound like he was more amused than
mortified, but still I cringed a little inside. I was definitely more
than a little 'dodgy', I'd recently come to realise.
He inspired me, too. I began to spin tales. Not lustful tales, though
plenty of those went through my head, too. No, short stories of
adventure, of innocence, of days lost. I knew little of what I was
talking about, my own childhood lost in a haze of dreadful long term
memory, but I imagined that I remembered it a certain way, and wove
that into my words. It was, without doubt, my finest hour, the zenith
of my career. Jay was, it seemed, my muse.
I forwarded some of the work onto London, receiving an enthusiastic
response from Daniel, who seemed convinced that the stories would
herald a new dawn for me, that finally I would break through into the
realm of 'serious authors' as he put it. I wasn't entirely sure that I
liked the implicit snub of my prior works, but the praise was
sufficiently sugary that I made no complaint.
----
Bobby was a lanky, skinny kid, as pale as I was compared to his cousin.
He was almost the same age as Jay, but there the resemblance ended. I
suppose he was cute in his own way, in the way that all boys of a
certain age are cute to men of a certain persuasion, but where Jay
shone like the noonday sun, Bobby's star was somewhat less apparent.
His unfashionable glasses and undeveloped torso immediately gave the
impression of a much more bookish, less sporty youth than his cousin.
Still, despite their differences, the two seemed best of friends. Jay
was genuinely delighted when I responded positively to his request to
allow Bobby to join us, and Bobby, whose nerves seemed to have taken
hold of his tongue, gave me a shy smile which did wonders to improve
his looks.
I could see their closeness as they swam, the physical contact between
the boys far greater than that I enjoyed with Jay. Initial guardedness
gave way to youthful exuberance, and before long I was left behind as
they horsed about. It was a shame to be excluded in this way, though
doubtless unintentionally, but as I sat on the warm rock watching them
play, I reflected that perhaps there were benefits after all. As the
sun warmed my skin, it infused into my libido, too, and set my mind to
impure thoughts of the boys.
I could survive my internal tensions for only so long before I was
forced address the issue. Leaving the boys with a shout and a wave I
made my excuses and started back toward my hut. I had almost made it
when I realised with a start that I had left my bag behind. Doubtless
Jay, who was well brought up, would notice and bring it up for me, but
I didn't want to be interrupted, and so instead chose the turn back for
it.
The glade in which the pool lay was thickly wooded, and hid it from
prying eyes. As I entered the outermost ring of trees something
undefined caused me to pause. Perhaps the relative silence of the
place, the calm when I had expected to hear joyous, raucous splashing
of water. Perhaps they had tired, and were sitting on the rock,
talking, drying off. But maybe not, maybe they were... well, what was I
thinking they might be doing? It was a tenuous hope which caused me to
slow, to deaden the sound of my footfall, to watch for dry twigs which
might reveal my presence with their mutinous crackling underfoot. I
imagined, in the way that a desperate man often does, my deepest
fantasies fulfilled. My mind's eye conjured images of the boys in
flagrante, burning with sexual passion, pawing at each other, mouths,
tongues, delicate morsels of boyish flesh combining to set the
atmosphere ablaze.
As I drew ever nearer to the pond, the soft sound of a sigh drifting
through the trees set my heart pounding. My ears throbbed to the sound
of my own heartbeat, and it felt as though my tongue was swelling and
choking me, my stomach full of hot lead. This was excitement as I had
never felt it before, a jolt of nerves so strong it felt akin to fear.
My hands trembled with it, and my head swam. Whether the scene my mind
had conjured was a premonition or simply wishful thinking, it showed me
clearly the strength of my inappropriate feelings for the boys.
I saw the water first, glinting a little where the sun reached its
surface, half the unnaturally smooth oval unhindered by shadow. The
rock was at the far end, in full sun, in the direction I was looking,
but remained obscured by the foliage of the trees which lay below me on
the bank. I slowed my descent until I resembled a hunter on the trail
of an easily-frightened prey, creeping between the trees as stealthily
as I could manage. I spotted what might prove to be a good vantage
point, the thick trunk of a tree, its surface covered in lichen, stood
twenty paces further on, and not that again from the water's edge.
Making my way there, I found it offered a perfect view of the rock.
And, it seemed, of the boys. My body convulsed and I doubled over in
shock, as if I had taken a blow to the stomach. Never in all of my
darkest fantasies had I come close to comprehending how strongly the
sight of their naked forms would affect me. I was insensible with
excitement, lust overwhelming my senses until the corners of my vision
darkened, the blood draining from my head, its oxygen-deprived form
swelling until I felt my head would explode. The tightening of my
throat and the constriction of my stomach felt previously was but a
pale shadow of the physical change which came over me. For long,
agonising moments I was frozen in place, unable to do anything other
than watch them.
I ought to describe to you the scene, though even as I begin to do so I
realise my meagre skill is utterly insufficient for the task. They lay,
trunks discarded on the hot rock, naked as the day they were born,
though I knew Jay would be wearing the small leather surfer's necklace
he always wore. They were not, however, still. An activity common to
boys across the world was being played out in front of me. Each boy was
absorbed in his own pleasure, immune to the influences of the outside
world, or so it seemed. I lurched again when Jay's eyes wandered down
to where Brian's fist wrapped around his long, thin boyhood, its form
matching its owner's body. Brian's own view shifted so that he, too,
was looking across the narrow divide between their bodies.
At an age where the destination was always more important than the
journey both boys worked toward their goal at full speed, and it was no
surprise to soon see their stomachs tense as their movements reached a
well-timed crescendo. The painfully contorted masks of ultimate
pleasure came across their faces as air was greedily sucked in, held,
and expelled with excessive force. Their juvenile pleasure was intense
but short-lived, and then they collapsed back onto their rock in their
own private worlds, panting with the exertion of their recent
activities. Sweat adorned both boy's bodies, all too apparent on
Bobby's brow as he pulled himself up onto his elbows, inspecting his
pale stomach and pointing out something to Jay in low tones which
failed to carry across the water. Jay looked and giggled, tugging
absentmindedly at his deflating spike.
I stole away, suddenly aware of the dampness seeping along my inner thigh.
----
Back at the cabin I closed my eyes to replay the scenes which had so
excited me. Only when calmed by a second self-induced peak could I take
stock of what I had seen, of the minute details which over the coming
days I would burn into my memory. What nature gave to Jay's features
with one hand, it took from his boyhood with the other. The small
morsel stood little more than two inches clear of his groin,
undeveloped, his testes small and clearly unproductive. His cousin,
though, had been given a gift to compensate for his plain looks - an
early bloomer, Bobby had something to be proud of; though clearly yet a
small boy's piece, it was almost twice the length of Jay's, and
somewhat thicker, though not proportionally so. And joy of joys, Jay's
appendage appeared to have been unmolested by the surgeon's knife, a
rarity from what little I knew of American boys.
Such details swam through my mind as I lay back, provoking some of the
same emotions as I had earlier felt. I attacked myself until exhausted,
until unable even to lift my head from the pillow, and still I wanted
more. I shocked myself with my visions of what 'more' might be, of my
thoughts of what I might allow myself to do.
That night, alone with my thoughts and unable to think of anything
better to do, I wandered into town, into a bar, and got blitzed on sour
mash.
A morning of regret followed my night of indulgence. I need not
describe a hangover for those of you who have experienced one, but for
anyone who hasn't, let me give you one word of advice: don't. Whatever
it is you're thinking of drinking, don't.
Jay's cheerful greeting grated on my tender mind, and I found myself
grateful that Bobby was as bashful as he had been the previous day,
remaining silent and raising a hand to me by way of greeting.
"What's up, you sick or something?" Jay asked when he saw me hobbling
down the steps of the cabin, sunglasses already shading my delicate
eyes.
"Sort of. I went and had a drink or two last night."
His face fell.
"Oh. You drink?"
"Sometimes. I don't make a habit of it, if that's what you're thinking."
"My dad drinks," he said in a quiet voice. It took no special intellect
or insight on my part to determine that this was an issue for him, that
his father's love of alcohol had caused problems in the past. Bobby
seemed nervous, too, suggesting that he, too, had seen the ill effects.
"OK, mate, well I promise not to get drunk again while I'm here, alright?"
That seemed to brighten him up somewhat. I didn't understand at the
time why I felt the need to placate him, though with the benefit of
hindsight I can understand my motives. I needed to appease him because
it was important that he looked up to me, that he wanted to please me
in return. I was making the first forays into the realm of mutual
attraction, and was determined to make myself as likable as possible to
him.
I smiled, listening to his chatter as we walked down to the pond. He
strode ahead, seemingly unaware that both Bobby and I had dropped back
slightly. I glanced across at Jay's cousin, and gave him a brief smile,
which was shyly returned. There was a hint of something in Bobby's look
which I could quite interpret. Was it frustration? Was he angry at me
for intruding? Perhaps after what had happened the previous day, he was
worried that I would interrupt an activity he and Jay presumably
enjoyed on a daily basis. I resolved to 'leave' early again, and to
double back once more.
----
The tree hid me as well as it had the previous day. I had made all the
signs of leaving, but returned immediately. At first the boys splashed
around in the water as they had done when I left them, but after a
couple of minutes Jay suddenly stopped.
"He's far enough away now, right?" I heard him asking.
Bobby nodded straight away. "Come on then," he said, making his way to
the side, taking the lead in a way I'd not before seen. As they reached
the rock and climbed out they continued to talk, but just as before
their voices failed to carry as far as my hiding place. They stripped
without compunction, throwing aside their shorts. The cold water had
brought a measure of equivalence between the boys, levelling the
playing field somewhat, but as the sun and youthful lust warmed their
bodies, the disparity once again became clear.
A repeat of the previous day, it seemed. Both boys seemed intent only
on their own pleasure, and worked admirably toward that goal with the
energy of youth. Except suddenly there was a pause for conversation, a
slowing of flailing limbs, a conference of urgent whispers. A trade,
perhaps, and then an agreement. A deal was struck. Had I made a guess,
it would not have been what happened.
Bobby shifted forward on the rock, and then with no sign of hesitation
plunged his head into Jay's lap. An involuntary groan escaped me, but
was masked from reaching them by the loud gasp which burst from Jay's
lips. His back arched, hips propelled into the air, toes curling. This,
then, was the ultimate pleasure to him. I wonder now if it was his
first time, though while it happened my mind was focused on recording
every detail of the sordid act. I dared not allow myself even the
slightest stimulation, fearing that were I to reach climax I might no
longer feel the need to remain. That, I sensed, would be a disaster.
I'd read stories in the past, accounts of youthful exploration. In many
ways, they often matched my own experiences, and one overriding theme
was that any boy sucking the dick of another boy would soon grow bored
and stop, demanding his own satisfaction before the recipient of his
attentions achieved their own. Not so here. Bobby, committed to the job
and with a hand free to continue his own pleasure, continued his
efforts and in time brought Jay to a shuddering, gasping, writhing,
aching climax, so powerful that the spasms in his body threatened to
throw him from the rock. Bobby sat up with a rather pleased expression
on his face, and looked down as Jay's dick as the morsel of flesh
returned to its sleeping state.
Reciprocation is key to the adolescent sexual experience, and it was
clear before long that Bobby demanded Jay's attentions. His words were
muddled but their meaning was plain. Wearily, his muscles drained from
the exertion of receiving such divine pleasure as had recently been
visited upon him, Jay moved into a kneeling position. He was cautious,
much more so than Bobby had been. Bobby was the experienced one, the
leader, that much was obvious. Jay may have been the cooler kid, but it
was Bobby who held all the cards when it came to sex. The first motions
were half-hearted, nothing more than the dragging of lips across the
unveiled glans of Bobby's boyhood. With coaching, or encouragement, I
could not discern which, his style evolved until his lips closed around
the heart of his compatriot's shaft and did not open again. Even his
inexperienced actions were enough for Bobby, who, either possessing a
hair trigger or thoroughly overdue an orgasm, was within a matter of
moments gasping himself, thrusting into Jay's mouth. The less
experienced boy immediately rose and complained of something, and after
a brief exchange could be seen turning around and leaning out over the
water, spitting several times into the depths. Oh, what a waste of such
surely sweet nectar!
I stumbled back to the hut. Jay and Bobby, in that way so innate to the
youthful experimentalist, had returned to their waterborne games as
quickly as they had abandoned them. They would forget what they had
done, at least until their libidos recharged. I, however, was not so
lucky. I could not escape the vision in my mind, nor the feelings it
stirred within me. Once again, exhaustion was the only brake on my
relentless self-abuse.
---
When your sexual imperative is not something to which you are enslaved,
there is no pressure to relentlessly search for satisfaction. Young
boys at the cusp of puberty may seek pleasure several times daily, but
often only if there is nothing more pressing to occupy their thoughts.
A saw-like buzzing cut through the normally quiet air of the estate,
disturbing me in contemplation of a particularly sordid fantasy
involving the two boys who were shortly due to turn up for our daily
swim. It was such a sudden intrusion that I jumped off my bed, ready to
fight or fly. Moving to the window, my heart slowly returning to
resting pace, I glanced out over the grounds toward the house. A sort
of rolling scrub, populated by native grasses, the soil more sand than
dirt, covered most of the ground between the edge of the carefully kept
walled lawns to the rear of the house and the edge of the woodlands
which eventually evolved into mangroves closer to the coast. This wild
space, several acres in size, shimmered with heat haze from mid-morning
until the sun set.
Suddenly, among the barren, rolling grasslands there appeared a flash
of movement. Someone was among the dunes, moving fast, and whoever it
was, was bringing with them the terrible noise. I watched and waited,
listening to the droning whine of whatever dreadful machine it was that
had destroyed the delicate peace of my haven. Another flash of light
reflected from something metallic, which arced briefly into the air
before once again disappearing out of sight. It looked almost like
someone was driving a dune buggy over the ground, but unless my sense
of scale was thoroughly out, that couldn't have been true.
Except, it was. Sort of. A few minutes later I became quite aware of
what was causing the racket, as it grew closer and painfully louder,
followed by the giggling forms of Jay and Bobby. Actually, it wasn't
one dune buggy but two, with the crucial extra detail that neither was
more than two feet long. Mini versions of adult toys, just like those
the boys hid in their shorts, I couldn't help but think.
They were inordinately pleased with their new toys.
"Dad sent them," Jay said, out of breath having chased his car across
the dunes. "He can't make it down until next week now, so he sent these
to give us something to do!"
I kept my thoughts about the dollar value of affection to myself. I
could see what the boy's dad was doing, but all Jay and his cousin
could think of was the joy of the new toys. And they were pretty
special bits of kit, too, if I was any judge. Much better than the
battery-powered pieces of plastic I had as a kid, always running down
and needing recharging, which always took far longer than the batteries
lasted. No, these were something altogether more mechanically capable -
aluminium chassis, fully independent suspension, motors which ran on
methylated spirits. Jesus, they were better engineered than my car!
I smiled at the enthusiastic way Jay described the all-but-identical
cars to me, his red and Bobby's green. Bobby demurred, standing back
and letting Jay take the limelight, though my eyes kept being drawn to
the boy. He spotted me staring at him with my brows wrinkled, and
silently laughed as Jay continued his diatribe unabated. He mimed
glasses with fingers and thumbs making circles in front of his face,
and suddenly I realised what was different about him - the glasses were
gone, and I have to say, despite wearing glasses myself, he really was
far better looking without them. 'Contacts' he mouthed at me, and
immediately I understood. There was no explanation as to why he hadn't
worn his lenses so far, but it hardly mattered. Along with what
appeared to be a slightly different hairstyle, Bobby suddenly took on a
cuteness I'd not really noticed before. Damn, that confused issues
somewhat.
Jay was still yammering away when I returned my attention to him. He
had the rear wheels of his car lifted off the floor and was revving the
engine, showing me with delight the way the little engine blew out jets
of almost invisible blue flame on the over-run. I wondered if it was
really legal for boys that age to have such potentially explosive
devices, then I reminded myself not to be such a boring old fart and
just enjoy it for what it was - pure fun.
"So, you want to have a go then?" Jay asked.
----
The morning passed in a blur of hot sun, engine fumes and laughter. Out
in the dunes, with the help of a shovel filched from Mr Meeke's shed,
we built a track, all banked turns and little jumps, and some really
rather big ones. It took us hours, and all the while the cars sat
untouched in the sun, because digging things up is always much more fun
when you get down to it. I was one of the boys again.
In fact, we were so involved in our play that we hardly noticed the
time passing, and certainly didn't realise it was lunchtime. It was
only when there came a polite, gentle cough from behind us that we
stopped at all. We'd been in the middle of sculpting a particularly
steep ramp, and it was taking all of our concentration. All three of us
turned in unison, sensing that something was up.
A tall, red-haired woman stood with her arms folded, an ironic smile curling the corners of her mouth.
"Lunch has been on the table for fifteen minutes, boys. And you haven't."
I didn't feel it would be appropriate for me to suggest that the boys
wouldn't have been on the table even if they had made it to lunch on
time.
"Hi," I said, walking over and extending my hand. "I don't believe we've been introduced. Jack Ellison."
She took my hand rather uncertainly. Something in her eyes spoke of panic, but so well suppressed that it was hardly visible.
"Martha Jones, Jay's mother. I... are you the tenant in the cabin?" she asked.
"Yes, yes I am," I replied, somewhat surprised that she had no idea who I was.
"This is terribly silly, I know," she said, "and I hope you aren't too
offended, but what is a grown man doing building a model racetrack with
two twelve year old boys?"
I didn't really have a good answer for that other, than it was fun, and
if I was to be thoroughly honest I really wanted to get into her son's
pants. The second part of that answer really had to be kept to myself.
"I was bored with my writing, and the boys seemed to be having so much fun. I hope you don't mind."
She looked at me for a long, drawn out moment, head titled slightly to
the side. When she spoke, her voice had regained all of its strength.
"Tell me, Jack, are you hungry?"
Lunch in the house was a serious affair. I was glad I'd taken a few
moments to run back to the cabin and change my sweat-stained t-shirt
for a clean, fresh polo. We were joined by Jane, Martha's PA or
secretary, I couldn't quite tell which. Apparently she travelled with
the household at all times, and managed all aspects of Martha's life,
which was a great deal busier and more complex than I could possibly
have imagined.
"And what do you do?" Jane asked when she had bored of explaining her role to me.
"I write books. Sort of."
"Sort of?"
"Well, my agent sent me here to get a manuscript finished. I did it,
but now I've ended up writing a whole load of other stuff which seems
to have gone down better, so he wants me to stay and write some more.
But it's not really novel stuff, just handfuls of short stories."
"They can make a book out of that though, can't they?"
"Oh, yes. Just a strange book."
"Who's your agent?" Jane asked, laughing.
"Daniel Marbery."
Jane looked uncertain, and glanced over at her boss.
"London," Martha said. "You know, the camp idiot."
I just about managed to stop myself spraying my drink out of my nose with laughter.
"Yeah, that's about right," I said, as Jane nodded her understanding.
"Would you excuse me a moment," Martha said, rising and leaving the
room, returning a moment later with a hardback book. I thought for a
moment that I recognised the cover, but dismissed it as an
impossibility.
"Jack, you don't write under the name Ellison, do you?" she asked.
"Oh, no. Jack Brenner."
Martha gave a triumphant little smile, and held up the book. I almost
fell off my chair - it was a first edition copy of my first ever book.
"Where on earth did you get that?" I asked, my voice weak.
"Picked it up on a visit to London a few years back," she said with a
smile. "I thought I'd seen your face somewhere before. I don't often
forget a face," she continued, opening the cover to show the bio, with
an embarrassing mugshot of me looking very much out of date. I groaned
at the sight of it, and she laughed.
----
That was the turning point with Martha and I. By the end of lunch she
was insistent that I become another member of the household. Mr Meeke,
grumpy old Mr Meeke, was informed that I was moving into one of the
guest rooms in the house, and that I was to be given my choice of the
west wing study or the orangery for my workplace during my stay. His
face was pure thunder, and behind Martha's back he shot daggers at me
with his eyes. I simply responded with a beatific smile.
I don't know exactly what it was that prompted Martha to be so
generous, even if - as the well-thumbed copy of my novel was anything
to go by - she had for some reason found herself to be a fan of my
works. She was in some way connected to the literary world, though in
what fashion I couldn't fathom, and I didn't have the guts to enquire.
As I sat the in the orangery - "you have to choose it!" Jay had said
with enthusiasm, and I could see he was right - I reflected on how my
luck had turned around, and how much of a fool I had been to be jealous
of Madeleine's success earlier the same year. Success comes and goes,
just like luck.
My bedroom was somewhat more austere than the look of the house might
have suggested. It contained a bed and a washstand, no longer in use,
and a chair to sit by the open window. It looked out over the gardens,
which was a pleasant enough view, but the reality was that I would be
spending little time there, with such a place as the orangery to work
in.
I can't quite fathom why an orangery would exist in such a place as
Florida. As the name suggests, it is a type of building specifically
designed to protect delicate, home-grown fruits against cold
temperatures. In England it would be entirely appropriate, but out
here? Completely pointless. For one, the high windows in the box-shaped
roof extension had to be permanently open in order to catch the
slightest breeze. Even then it was stiflingly hot without the
intervention of a series of fans. With the fans, it was merely very
warm.
But what a place to work. So light, and airy, and with the delicate
scent of flowers drifting in from all around. It lifted your spirits
simply to be there, and when your work was done for the day it was - I
noticed - but a moment's walk from the pool.
The pool. The massive, very close to the house, not-at-all-a-murky-pond
pool. The clean, temperature-controlled, thoroughly modern and
convenient pool. As soon as I had a moment, I quizzed Jay; he blushed
strongly.
"Yeah, well, it's more fun going down to the pond," he said evasively, eyes looking anywhere but at me.
"More fun?"
"Yeah."
"To walk half a mile in the blazing sun down to a muddy hole that's
probably full of things which want to eat you, and swim there."
"Uh... yep."
"I suppose it would be fun if you and Bobby -"
I cut myself short. I'd nearly forgotten myself, nearly said something
I shouldn't, nearly revealed that I could think of a very good reason
why he would want to go down to the pond - to play his little sex games
with cousin Bobby. I supposed that he went every day, even before
Bobby's arrival, just to get his mother used to the idea, so she didn't
become suspicious when Bobby turned up and they suddenly started taking
their dip in a freezing, remote, bug infested hole in the ground.
" - keep out of your mother's way," I ended, lamely.
I couldn't help but notice the slight look of panic which flickered in
Jay's eyes when I nearly spilled the beans. Now he knew that I knew, or
at least suspected. Perhaps he clung onto the slight hope that I didn't
know, and that the end of my sentence wasn't originally meant to be "go
there to suck each other off every day".
----
Mind you, not every day in Florida was blazing sun, because with heat
and humidity inevitably comes nature's party piece, the thunderstorm.
Boy could Florida have a storm to be proud of - lightning searing the
earth in fizzing bolts of fury, thunder ripping through the heavens and
shaking the earth, alternatively crackling like snapped twigs and
rumbling like the passing of a megalithic tube train.
I sat at my desk watching the skies tearing themselves to pieces with
the force of another storm, the third this week but comfortably the
strongest. All week it had felt as though each storm had failed to
properly clear the air, that something stronger was needed to do the
job. This storm was the 'something stronger'. Something much, much
stronger.
I was all but alone in the house for once. Martha had announced at
breakfast that she was flying to a nearby city for the day - I don't
remember which - to do some business, the nature of which I did not
enquire; of course, Jane had gone with her. I hoped fervently they'd
managed to avoid the effects of the storm. Meeke had already informed
us he would be absent for the week, as if anyone really cared, and
Jay's dad, David, had still failed to turn up for his promised
fortnight, which seemed to be getting pushed back further and further.
Which left just me, the housekeeper, Rose, and the boys, who apparently
could be trusted to take care of themselves in their mother's absence.
With Rose bumbling around doing something in the far end of the house
in her unhurried way, and the boys nowhere to be found, I was left in
utter solitude in my orangery, allowed to watch the storm unbothered.
I got bored and restless, though. The writing would come later. The
storm was great, but it had been going on for a while, and frankly I
was after a new distraction. I decided that I hadn't seen enough of the
house, and that a quick wander around was in order. Rising from my
chair, my heart started to beat a little faster - this was slightly
illicit, slightly outside the bounds of the unwritten host/guest
contract. If I hadn't been invited into part of the house, perhaps I
shouldn't have been there.
I was passing through the central entrance hall, with its grand
sweeping staircase, when one of my worst case scenarios reared its head
- Rose. With hindsight, how could she possibly have suspected me of
anything untoward? She was the housekeeper, a member of staff, and I
was a guest, and there were all sorts of reasons I would be passing
through that hall at that moment in time. I really had nothing
whatsoever to hide from her, and yet my heart jumped into my throat.
Rose, however, couldn't have cared less.
"I'm off to town, Mr Ellison," she said, grabbing her coat from a
cupboard and a set of car keys from a hidden nook beneath the stairs.
"What, in this weather?" I asked, slightly in shock. It was blowing a
gale outside, and rain was coming in sideways. Rose laughed at my
incredulity.
"Yes, Mr Ellison. You know, this really isn't that bad, and by the time I get there it'll be all but gone, you mark my words."
"Well, good luck," I said, giving her a mock salute, setting her
giggling. She shook her head and wandered off toward the garage.
That, I thought to myself, went about as well as it could have done.
And, rather more importantly, it left just me and the boys in the
house. Which gave me butterflies, for some reason. Actually, I knew
exactly what reason. Part of me, a depraved part which held hope in
higher esteem than dull probability, part of me wondered if there was
any chance I might find myself in a compromising situation with the
boys. Ridiculous to even imagine it, I know, but that's what unmet
desire will do for you - it breaks down all common sense.
On soft feet - now a spy on a mission - I sought out the boys.
----
Where in the hell were they? I'd been end to end in the house, searched
all the rooms and drawn a blank. Perhaps they'd left completely, had
escaped the house, knowing that they wouldn't be bothered by anyone. I
couldn't help but wonder at Martha's parenting skills, leaving two
twelve year old boys on their own in the house, but then I reflected on
my own youth, shoved out the door in the morning and expected to keep
myself busy all day, and I realised that I was being unfairly
judgemental. They were twelve - they could probably get up to some
mischief, but that didn't make them inherently unsafe.
It didn't feel like I was alone, though. I don't know what it was which
made me feel that way, but I knew there was someone else in the house
with me. The place wasn't old enough to have ghosts, so the only option
was that Jay and Bobby were somewhere in the building; but where? Now
my mission had evolved from merely satisfying curiosity and sating
boredom, to unravelling the mystery of the missing boys.
I went back over everything, wondering if perhaps I'd dismissed
something I shouldn't have. Then it occurred to me - I had dismissed
something. Something which at the time had seemed rather irrelevant.
I'd poked my head around the corner of Jay's room and found him
entirely absent. Not wanting to miss the chance, I took a quick look at
his world and found it no different, or more tidy, than one would
expect of a lad his age. Jay loved baseball, and that was apparent in
the theme of the posters and ornaments around the place, including in a
frame on its own on one wall, a signed shirt from the New York Yankees,
about the only baseball team I would be able to name at gunpoint. He
also had a fair amount of the expected clothing scatter - there, for
instance, were his board shorts hung by the window to dry - and the
floor was mostly covered in discarded clothes, toys and magazines,
which he seemed to devour.
What I didn't really pay attention to the first time, and what jumped
into the forefront of my mind now, was the strange way part of the
floor had been cleared. In front of his bookcase, in the corner of the
room diagonally opposite the door, the detritus had been swept aside in
an arc. I hadn't paid heed to it before, but now, as I stood directly
in front of it, I realised immediately what had happened - the bookcase
had swung out. I knew then, with absolute certainty, that Jay and Bobby
would be found wherever this hidden feature led.
There was no artifice to the design, as it happened, no book to pull
free or hidden latch to trigger. The shelves simply swung out, albeit
slowly and with a feeling of great weight. I moved them only a fraction
before the sound coming from beyond could be heard. Peering around the
corner of the secret doorway revealed a short, dark corridor, with a
much lighter room beyond. I couldn't see the boys, but they were
definitely in that room. Plucking up my courage, determined not to let
this chance past, and prepared to bluff my way out of it if I was seen,
I opened the door wide and slipped into the corridor.
Thankfully the floorboards didn't creak beneath my feet. I crept
forward, seeing more and more of the room as I advanced, but still
unable to see the boys. I could hear them though; muffled sounds,
giggling and the occasional gasp told me that something naughty was
going on. The room looked like a private sanctuary for whoever occupied
the bedroom. Light seemed to come solely from a single window high on
the wall. It was sparsely decorated, but from my vantage point I could
see a television, and what looked like the edge of a sofa. Luckily,
there was another chair just around the corner into the room, something
for me to hide behind as I tried to spy the boys. On hands and knees
now I made my way forward until I could take the briefest glance into
the room.
Jesus. Well, fuck me. Actually, fuck Jay, because that's exactly what
was happening. He lay on the sofa with his knees drawn up, and Bobby in
between his legs, hips gyrating as he pushed his little dick into Jay,
buttocks tensing on each rapid-fire forward thrust. Jay's eyes were
squeezed tight shut, but he was definitely enjoying it, if his hard
little spike was anything to go by.
I ducked back out of the way and tried desperately not to collapse from
light-headedness. My heart was hammering in my chest, and there was the
tinny flavour of adrenaline in my mouth. Quite simply I'd never been so
thoroughly aroused in all my life. I looked down and my hands were
shaking, my skin pale. Desperately trying to remain undetected, I
reversed out of the corridor, pushed the bookcase shut and made good my
escape.
----
They arrived in the orangery half an hour later, instantly causing me
some discomfort as mental images were dragged from my memory to the
forefront of my consciousness by their arrival. They were both
pink-cheeked, and though Jay was his usual self, Bobby seemed more
withdrawn than ever, not wanting to meet my eye. He left a few minutes
later, muttering something about going and reading in his room.
Jay, though, draped himself over one of the wicker armchairs in the
corner of the room and simply sat there watching me work. If anyone can
concentrate while the boy they have a crush on - the recently-fucked
boy, mind you - is sitting behind them watching, then they are a better
man than I.
"So," I said, turning away from my computer with an affected air of
resignation, "what have you and Bobby been up to this morning, then?"
Even with his cheeks already flushed, they somehow managed to become even redder.
"Uh, nothing much. Bored with the storm and everything, couldn't find much to do."
"Oh, right. Bet you found something to do, though, right?"
"What do you mean?" he asked. Suddenly he was on the defensive. I
really shouldn't have pushed it any further, but for some stupid reason
I felt the need to say,
"Well, at least it's not like you were up there fucking, eh?"
He looked at me with hatred in his eyes. He knew I knew. The secret was
out. There was no way I would have just pulled that out of the air.
"Fuck off, dick!" he said, in barely more than a whisper. He didn't
even storm out of the room. He just got up and walked out, shoulders
slumped.
I turned back to my computer and wondered how quickly I could find somewhere else to stay.
I felt like utter shit. I had embarrassed him, and for what? To make
myself feel clever? For some vain hope that me hight turn round and say
'yes, we were fucking, do you want to do me now?'. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
I wandered around the house, looking for him, but there was no sign,
even in the secret room. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to say
when I found him, but it would certainly have to involve the word
'sorry' somewhere along the line. I found Bobby, who hadn't seen Jay,
and didn't seem too keen to talk to me, either. There was definitely
something going on there, though I couldn't work out what it was. Bobby
didn't like me, for some reason. I wasn't sure what it could be, but
right at that moment I didn't really care - I was far more worried
about where Jay was and what he was feeling.
He wasn't in the house, I decided. That left the gardens and the
grounds to search, and suddenly I knew exactly where he was. Even
though it was still raining heavily, I walked straight out of the back
of the house and down the garden, past the wall and onto the track. I
passed Tom's Cabin, standing empty and silent, and in five minutes was
making my way down the slippery, muddy bank toward the pond.
As I thought, there was a lone figure, soaked to the skin, sitting on the rock above the pond.
----
Jay didn't even look at me when I sat down, let alone say hello. He
just stared at the water, hugging his knees to his chest. Even with the
rain running down his face I could see that he had been crying. He must
have been soaked to the skin, too, because I certainly was. Fat
droplets of warm rain continued to hammer down onto our heads.
"I'm sorry, Jay," I said, simply. It seemed like the right place to
start. "That wasn't fair of me. And I shouldn't have spied on you,
either."
He didn't answer. We sat there in the pouring rain, soothed by the
sound of it hitting the water of the pond. Slowly Jay unwound, the
tension beginning to leave his body, the frown smoothed from his brow.
"It's not what you think it is, you know," he said, after what seemed like an hour sat beneath the downpour.
"I know, mate. Most lads try things out when they're your age. Doesn't mean anything."
He didn't answer straight away, instead returning his gaze to the
water. When he spoke again, I could hardly hear him above the weather.
"You can't tell mom or dad, OK?"
"Of course not, mate. Of course I won't."
"Dad would go nuts. He's all alpha male, you know? Like king of the jungle sort of thing."
"And you're not?"
He looked across at me and laughed.
"It turns out I kinda like taking it up the butt, so no, not really."
I couldn't help but laugh at his candour.
"Yeah, well, that doesn't mean you can't be a rough, tough man, though. You're still into baseball, right?"
"Yeah, I guess. It's just now sometimes when I'm watching the Major
Leagues I'm kinda looking at how hot the guys are in their uniforms.
Pretty gross, huh?"
I looked at him. He was grinning, but there was so much self-doubt just
beneath the façade. It was a hell of a risk, but I had to reassure Jay
that actually, it wasn't so abnormal.
"It's not that gross, Jay. I mean, I couldn't help but notice how hot
you look in your board shorts. Bet you're smoking in a baseball
uniform."
He turned and stared at me, his mouth slightly open. He seemed to have
been struck speechless, but there was a hint of amusement in his eyes,
or maybe joy, it was hard to tell.
"Tell you what, mate," I continued, before he could find the right
words to say, "I'm soaked through already and I've not had a swim yet
today. I'm going in."
And without waiting for him to respond, I stood and stripped out of all
of my clothes, and dived into the water. I didn't look back, but a
splash only a few moments later told me that I was no longer alone in
the water, and when I turned round there he was swimming toward me. A
quick scan of the rock told me all I needed to know - he was as nude as
I was, his clothes in a ragged bundle with his drenched boxers clearly
visible on top.
"It's better like this, isn't it?" I asked, already suspecting that
both Jay and Bobby swam nude when no-one else was around. He
immediately confirmed my suspicion.
"Well, Bobby and I kinda do it like this when it's only us. I reckon
Meeke must spy on us sometimes, 'cause we reckon we've heard someone in
the trees a few times."
I didn't dare admit that it was almost certainly me they'd heard. Instead I said,
"I'd like to see that!"
Jay's face clouded a little.
"You really wanna see Bobby. He's the one with the big dick. I wouldn't bother, he's not into guys."
Jesus, was that jealousy in his voice? I sought to reassure him.
"Only have eyes for you, mate. I like your little dick."
"Oh yeah?" he said challengingly, coming close to me. "Come on then, feel it."
And with that he grabbed my hand and dragged it down to his crotch. His
little dick had shrivelled to a tiny flap of skin in the cold water,
but as I did as he commanded, it began to grow. He, too, was nimble of
finger, quick of hand, and in seconds I was somehow erect, despite the
conditions.
"Mate, I really, really want to suck you off," I said, the desperation
in my voice making Jay laugh. "Can we get out so I can do it?"
He nodded vigorously, and I followed his gorgeous, naked arse through the water as we both swam for shore.
By now the storm had at last abated and, as is often the way in that
part of the world, strong sunshine immediately followed. Jay draped
himself across the rock, and in a moment of sheer poetry a shaft of
sunlight pierced the trees above our heads and fell directly upon him.
He glowed in the sun, his skin paler at the waist where it was more
frequently covered. And there, in the middle of the whitest patch of
all stood my prize, proudly erect, long sought and hard won.
----
He lazed in the sun next to me, our bodies warmed through and now
dried. His arms supported his head, his eyes were closed and there was
a contented smile on his face. Frantic passion had overtaken us and he
had gasped in orgasmic bliss only a handful of moments after leaving
the water. His soft lips, so often host to a wicked smile and today
grinning like the devil's apprentice, had coaxed a similar peak from my
body. The result now adorned the face of the rock, drying to a crisp
white streak in the hot sunshine.
God how I needed that. Years of pent up tension, years of failing to
find satisfaction, all blown away in five short, hot minutes. I
realised now what I hadn't before: loving a boy was different to loving
a woman, and I needed both to feel whole. Well, at least for now I had
one half of my satisfaction.
----
I had neglected to write properly for too long. A less than subtle hint
to that effect had arrived from Daniel by email. I resolved to remedy
the situation, and inspired by the love and lust I felt for Jay, I set
to work on wearing the letters off my keyboard. The stories which
flowed out of me over the coming days and weeks were eventually woven
together into the book which made my name. Looking back on it, they're
inspired by a feeling of lightness, and to a certain extent unreality.
Sometimes, when he and Bobby were bored of each other, or perhaps just
because he wanted to, Jay would come and sit with me as I worked. More
often than not he would lounge on a chair, book or magazine in hand,
and do nothing to disturb my concentration, beyond merely existing.
Occasionally even that was enough to stop me working altogether, and
with the uttering of our codeword in a sentence ('pond') he would slip
away to some pre-arranged location - it changed every day - and wait
for me to come to him. There, hidden away from prying eyes, we would
make love. I preferred to worship his boyhood on my knees, and he liked
to allow me my release in the deep crease of his behind, though never
within, not there, not yet; Bobby was small and thin, I was fat and
long by comparison, too large for comfort or enjoyment. He would grin
and run his fingers through the sticky, slimy mess with which I adorned
him, and push his slender finger into his behind just to tease me, or
smear it around his rejuvenated spike and shiver at the sensations.
So it went on, day by day, exciting, unencumbered by emotional
baggage, sex for the sake of lust and a little love mixed in.
----
Jay buried his tear-streaked face in my shoulder and sobbed. I'd heard
the shouting match he'd had with his cousin, and moments later had
found myself with my arms full of a crying boy. For now there was
little point enquiring as to what had happened. Instead, I just rubbed
his back, worried for him but at the same time pleased that he felt
close enough to me to rush into my arms for comfort.
When he'd cried himself out he looked up at me with a pathetic expression.
"I'm sorry," he said, making to get down from my lap. I held him there,
though, both from enjoyment of the closeness and concern for his
well-being.
"What happened? Why were you and Bobby yelling at each other?"
"Because he's a dick."
"Why? I thought you guys got on really well."
"Yeah, well, so did I. But he's being a dick today."
"That's it, is it? He's just being a dick. Any specific dick-ish behaviour?"
Jay paused for a moment, sighing heavily before he continued.
"I told him I didn't want to do stuff with him any more," he said.
"What, like playing with your cars and stuff?" I asked, just in case that's what he meant. It wasn't, though.
"No, sex stuff, idiot," he replied with a cutting look.
"Why aren't you going to do it with him any more?"
"'Cause I'm doing with you instead!" he said, reaching down
between his legs to place a hand on my crotch. My heart jumped into my
throat.
"You didn't tell him that, did you?"
"No, of course not. I just said I didn't want to do it with him."
"And he got angry with you?"
"Yep. He got real mad. Called me a stupid faggot. So I shouted at him that if I'm gay then he is, too."
"Then what?"
"Well, that's kinda all I remember, until I was sitting here with you."
"Where is he now? Don't you think we should find him and make sure he's OK?"
"Why? He's the one who was being a dick."
"Yes, mate, but he's still your friend. You ought to be worried that he's alright."
"I guess."
----
He was in the garden, on a swing chair beneath the canopy of a big old tree.
"What are we going to say to him?" Jay asked as we approached across the lawn.
"I'm saying nothing," I said, stopping where I was. "It's up to you."
"But I have no idea what to say!"
"Just check he's OK, alright?" I said, turning to walk away. I found a
spot on a wall near the house and watched from a distance.
Bobby looked up when Jay was a few feet away, and there was an exchange
of words, culminating in Bobby moving up and making space for Jay to
sit down. They spoke for several minutes, sometimes in an animated
fashion, and at one point I noticed them both looking my way. By the
end they were laughing, and Jay gave Bobby a high five before walking
back across the lawn to where I was sitting. There was a big grin on
his face.
"Well?" I asked.
"We're good," he replied, nonchalantly.
"What did you say to him?"
"Oh, this and that, you know."
"You're not going to tell me anything, are you?" I asked.
"Hey, Jack," he said, avoiding the question. "Wanna find somewhere so you can suck my dick?"
We were in an attic, another lost remnant of this vast house, full
of slightly mouldy packing boxes. Jay had chosen it as today's meeting
place. Thankfully there was an old mattress up there, which made our
coupling more comfortable, though the heat and humidity served to bathe
us both in sweat as we worked toward our pleasures.
I lay on my stomach between his outspread legs, gently suckling on his
steel-hard boyhood. I marvelled at the quality of erection he could
achieve and maintain, a spike as rigid as marble with a velvet skin
able to glide up and down its length. It fitted my mouth as if made to
measure, the little cherry on the end nudging the roof of my mouth each
time his hips gave a gentle upward thrust. It was a no-hurry day all
round, and our sometimes frantic lovemaking was shelved in favour of
gentle exploration. As was becoming a more frequent theme, Jay's mother
was out of town, which left us with the time and space to explore, with
only Bobby to be kept at bay.
I lifted my head out of his crotch, causing Jay to raise his head and open his groggy eyes.
"Hey. Why'd you stop?" he asked.
"What does Bobby think you're doing when we're together like this?"
Jay shrugged. "Not sure."
"Do you think he suspects we're doing stuff? If he finds out, we could be in serious trouble."
"Don't worry, he won't tell," Jay replied.
"And how do you know that?"
"Well, he kinda worked it out already. When I went to speak to him in
the garden - you remember that? - he told me he knew we were doing
stuff, and he was so mad he was going to tell mom."
My heart rate shot through the roof at that thought, but Jay seemed quite calm.
"But then I told him I'd tell Talisa what me and him did before, and he nearly shit himself."
It was beginning to become a little clearer. Talisa was Rose the
housekeeper's daughter, who sometimes appeared at the house. She was a
year younger than the boys, but already on her way to womanhood. I'd
noted the gentle curve of her backside on more than one occasion, but
didn't harbour any serious interest in her, especially with such a
pliant boy as Jay to keep me occupied. It was clear from what Jay said
that Bobby was keen not to put the girl off.
"He wants to get into her pants?" I asked.
"Yep!" Jay said with a grin. "I told him I would tell her about him
screwing my butt if he told about us, and he promised he never would."
"Just like that, huh?"
"Yeah. Well, kinda. I promised to help him try to get her, too."
"You better keep that promise, Jay. I don't want to be doing any jail
time just because of this little thing," I said, grasping his tool and
flicking my tongue over the exposed head of his boyhood. He gasped in
pleasure and dropped his head back onto the mattress, eyes closed and
mouth agape. I claimed it with my mouth once more, and urged him on to
his peak with a sharp, rhythmic bobbing of my head.
I loved the feel of his shaft kicking uselessly in my mouth as he got
there, the way his back arched, the shuddering from his muscles as they
tensed to their fullest, especially across his slender stomach where a
narrow ridge of muscles tapered toward his groin. But none of these
things was as wonderful as the expression of unbridled desire on his
youthful face, his mouth hanging open in a silent scream, eyes clamped
shut as his heels thundered on my back. Then, when the very zenith of
pleasure had passed, the slightest hint of a salty tang which passed
for his fluids sprayed into my mouth on the very last kick, same as
always.
Then my release, as the now-sleepy, sweat-slicked boy rolled willingly
onto his stomach, allowing me to nestle gently in between the twin
globes of his narrow backside, to slide back and forth and eventually
dress his lower back with my adult offering. Each day I became more
daring, pushed his trust a little further. Each day I lingered when the
tip of my shaft passed over his pucker, sometimes pressing forward,
other times simply teasing.
It was on this hot, humid day, with our bodies both already tacky with
drying sweat, that Jay finally relented. Or rather, I knocked at the
door and found it open, the interior mine to plunder should I desire.
His hips lifted as I pressed into him, and suddenly, with little drama
and no ceremony our bodies merged into one.
I did not surge into him with all of my strength. I did not become
sheathed to the hilt within his soft treasures. I managed all of two
fingers' width before he weakly protested, yet he allowed me to keep
the territory I had gained, and to use it for my pleasure. I took his
compliance and used it to best effect, making short work of meeting my
own desire in the depths of his behind, flooding it with happiness. He
sighed as I slipped free, and appeared to drop into an exhausted sleep.
I tumbled down beside him, draped an arm across his shoulders and
drifted gently on a cloud of dreams, dreams of boys and their
energetic, selfless love.
----
David, for the third time in about an hour, laughed uproariously and
slapped me on the shoulder, in what I assumed was a friendly gesture.
This, then, was Jay's dad, quite the alpha male as his son had
suggested. I was never quite sure how David saw me, but as a threat to
his dominion wasn't even a possibility. He arrived one evening quite
out of the blue, a month late and unapologetic about it.
Jay's demeanour changed instantly, and our sex play stopped altogether
while his father was around. It was as if the sheer force of David's
masculinity turned him straight. Of course the reality was that Jay was
scared, and though sometimes it's important to stick up for yourself
and be who you are regardless of anything, at the age of 12 there are
some fights which are better delayed until you are old enough to cope
with the emotional battle scars.
I retreated into my work, the stories taking a darker twist now,
fuelled by my darker mood. The remainder of the household seemed to
lift when David arrived, but I took issue with his boorish stance and
found myself intensely disliking him. Jay, aside from the suppression
of his burgeoning, non-conforming sexuality, worshipped his father, and
the two of them spent many happy hours doing the sort of father-son
things which wouldn't seem out of place in a tourist brochure - going
to baseball games, fishing for enormous fish out at sea, and other
wholesome pursuits. Bobby, of course, was always close at hand, his
idolisation of his uncle quite clear.
It was with some sense of relief that the two long, dragging weeks of David's holiday finally passed.
----
He lay face-down beneath me, submissive, back arched, bottom in the
air. His blue eyes were squeezed tight shut, his mouth hanging open,
little 'ah's emitted on each gentle undulation of my hips. He'd needed
me as much as I'd needed him, but been scared to seek me out, scared in
case his father found out. I didn't bother trying to explain that the
situation for me would be a great deal worse. Instead I accepted his
submission, tenderly making love to him now that I could, holding him
close as I kissed the back of his neck, gliding my fingertips over the
smooth skin of his chest and stomach, raising goosebumps as I went,
until his hard little spike was beneath my fingers, begging to be
pulled away from its position tight up against his stomach and toyed
with to add to his pleasure. Fully half of my length was accepted into
him now, passion and practise combining to make him more pliable than
ever, more receptive to my manhood.
We moved in unison, flowing, feeling each other, floating along on a
wave of pleasure. There was no goal, no hunting for release, there was
merely the pleasure of the moment and the joy of the union between us.
Some time passed, but how much was impossible to say. My peak arrived,
but so gently that it was merely another moment in the union, my
essence flowing into him in one long stream. Unable to continue I fell
to one side, dragging him to me, hand snaking around and grabbing his
spike, abusing it until he reached a gasping, writhing peak, head
pushed back against my shoulder as his back arched in pained pleasure.
I held him tightly to my front, inhaling the scent of his hair, feeling
his heart hammering in his chest, listening to his panting breath,
tasting the sweat in the crook of his neck and watching his boyhood
slowly return to its sleeping state.
When finally enough breath returned to his lungs, he spoke.
"It doesn't hurt any more. Thank you."
Time. I've never really understood its passage, nor been able to
track it. A common affliction for the artistically inclined, so they
say. Summer days blended into each other; one long, hot, humid blur of
writing furiously and making love gently. And sometimes furiously, too.
But time had been working in the background, heedless of any lack of
interest on my part, and time had passed until there was no time left.
No time for more writing, no time for more sun, no time for more
swimming in the freezing pond, but most devastatingly of all, no time
for making love to Jay.
With a suddenness which dropped a ball of molten lead into my stomach I
realised there were but a handful of days left before my return flight
to the UK. I tried to work out any way of extending my stay, and Martha
insisted that I do so if at all possible, unaware of my real drive for
doing so. She liked what I had written during my stay, wanted me to
stay longer and write more, said she might be able to put me in touch
with a friend who would be similarly interested, a friend in New York
who could pull a few strings. But there was nothing to be done. Daniel
insisted that I return to take meetings he had arranged for me in
London, meetings which apparently could not be conducted remotely, and
so I complied, because I could sense that my career hung on it.
It upset Jay in the way that a good friend leaving always upsets a
young boy. He became angry, not understanding why I could not stay. He
shunned me, forcing me out of his life before the last days were done.
It pained me that he did so, but I couldn't be angry with him, not with
Jay. I cared for him a little too much. Not loved, perhaps, not yet,
but cared for a great deal.
Only on the last night, as I sat alone in my room on my bed, surrounded
by the unpacked detritus of my months abroad, did he come to me,
contrite, apologetic, upset, demanding of love, physical love. We
fucked on my bed, he on top, face in the crook of my neck, biting down
on me as he forced me further inside than ever before, until there was
no more forcing to do. He sat up then, triumphant but unsmiling, his
boyhood a shrivelled flap of skin, unresponsive to my touch. He stared
into my eyes as he began to gently oscillate above me, until the
sensations at his waist grew too great, and those ice blue eyes
fluttered closed. He made love to me, even though it was my shaft
buried in his behind. He controlled the pace, the tempo, my pleasure.
He owned me, deciding when I would be allowed to reach my peak, and how
intense it would be.
As he climbed free of me, having received my sacrifice, he shunned my
attempts to pleasure him and lay down with his back to me, pulling my
arms tight around his body. That night, for the first and last time we
slept together.
----
Delivery Failure Notification: message returned to sender. Reason: the address could not be found.
I stared at the screen, unable, or perhaps unwilling to comprehend. It
was, judging by the undelivered emails in my inbox, the nineteenth time
I had tried to send an email to Jay. I wanted to scream, or cry, or
thump the damned machine. Anything but sit here futilely staring at
that same message. I'd gone through the obvious, checked and rechecked
the address scrawled on a scrap of newspaper, hastily shoved into my
hand as I was leaving their house. I'd substituted the oh's for zeroes;
no luck. Tried the same user name at a different domain, but that
hadn't worked either.
If only I'd thought about it ahead of time I could have tested the
address, made sure I could get through to him. But no, instead I
overslept, had to rush to gather my things, and ran out to where the
taxi waited to whisk me off to the airport. Perhaps it was better that
way - no long, drawn out goodbyes, no chance of Martha seeing quite how
upset I was to be leaving her son, or her son's reaction. It was just a
simple departure, my parting gift for Martha hastily handed over, not
even wrapped, and a quick, chaste hug for Jay, who somehow kept from
crying though I could see that he desperately wanted to do so.
Now we were separated by thousands of miles and an email address which
didn't work. I spent frantic hours trying to find some sign of him on
the internet, but to no avail. He could not be traced. I even tried to
get Martha's details from Daniel, thinking there might be a way to get
her to pass a message on without being obvious, but he claimed never to
have met her, and I believed him.
I thumped my hand down on the table. When the pain had subsided, I gently stroked and apologised to the antique oak surface.
----
A grey morning to be out and about in London. I met Daniel for
breakfast, his enthusiasm for my latest work still undimmed, his
admonition that it really needed to be tidied up and published ringing
in my ears. I hardly listened to him, agreed a date to deliver, and
promptly forgot it as soon as he had left the cafe.
I took a wander around to the museum. The place where I had first spied
Jay all that time ago, before remarkable coincidence brought him into
my life one more, all those months later. It reminded me of him, and
highlighted how empty my world was without him. Kids ran around the
various halls, making a thunderous commotion, happy to be in here
rather than out in the dank, cold city beyond the walls.
I paid little heed to them, not even to the rather feminine boy who
shyly returned my smile. Cute enough, I suppose. Just not... well, Jay.
As the first flakes drifted down out of a leaden sky, I smiled to
myself, probably the first lightening of my features in months. I was
still here, stuck in this grey metropolis, feeling it like a cage
around myself. Yet, for the first time in years I had reason to be
thankful, at least where my career was concerned. My summer's work was,
it seemed, in some considerable demand. The series of short stories I
had written whilst love was foremost in my mind had really taken the
fancy of a publisher in New York, and so here I was. I'd given up the
lease on my flat in London, and had all my possessions moved into
storage. I was here indefinitely, starting with Christmas and seeing
where I went after that.
And now it was Christmas. Or at least, the Christmas season. The
Holiday Season, it was called. I tried but failed to protest against
the name. New York was freezing, and now, on the 18th day of December,
seven days before what was usually my favourite day of the year, I was
going to a party and it was snowing. Somehow this felt right, as if I'd
slipped into a movie and was simply following the lines of the plot.
I stepped out into the swirling maelstrom, surprised by the totality
with which the storm had engulfed the city in a few short hours.
Darkness had descended like a huge hand over the tower blocks, snuffing
out light and spawning shadows at each turn. Lights flickered
unexpectedly to life only a few hours after they had ceased burning. I
felt strangely lifted by the darkness, given a purpose and an ill
intent, a stalker in the night, a secret agent on my way to a
clandestine rendezvous.
My moment was ruined as the first cold trickles of melted snow invaded
the warm cocoon of my utterly inadequate shoes. Cursing loudly enough
to justify the cold stare I was given by a passer-by, I shook the snow
from my hair and looked desperately around for a taxi. My saviour came
in blessedly short time, and through a hole wiped clean on the misted
window I watched the city glide by, blurry, distorted.
The party was part business, part social. I liked Matt Piezovski, the
publisher, and so I was pleased to be invited to his 'little do'. I
knew, though, that there would be plenty of opportunities to speak to
people I really rather needed to speak to. I'd never been particularly
astute when it came to business, but one thing I did understand was the
traditional maxim 'it's not what you know, it's who you know'. But
mostly I was going there for the enjoyment of the occasion. Madeleine
Atkins, that beautiful author with whom I'd shared the tour which
kick-started this whole phase of my life would also be attending, and I
looked forward to catching up with her and renewing our friendly
rivalry.
I was impressed the second I passed through the door and into his
apartment. My coat was taken by a charming young man, and in its place
appeared a glass of champagne. Not at all what I expected from a
Christmas party, and another reason to love this city.
Matt was on dazzling form, breaking off from a conversation to
immediately dance his way through the already crowded room and greet me
with a bear-hug, his favourite way to say 'hello' since we'd started
doing business. I was immediately dragged through the crowd to talk to
someone - I don't remember who - and then the whirlwind evening began.
I had fun, actually. In fact I enjoyed myself immensely, and somehow
skated that fine line between sobriety and inebriation. The people
there were fantastic, and I made several contacts I maintain to this
day. As two in the morning rolled round, I found myself wondering where
the time had possibly gone.
I slumped heavily into a beautifully designed but thoroughly
uncomfortable chair and stared at a wall of photos. I was, if truth be
told, a little drunker than I wanted to be just at that very moment,
and needed a pause to compose myself. I was getting loud, and it
wouldn't do to be louder than Matt. And besides, someone had asked
about the inspiration for my short stories, and I was a hair's breadth
from telling them the truth before my survival instincts kicked in and
diverted my mouth elsewhere. But it was too close a call. Memories of
the time had flooded my head, clouding my emotions. It hurt to think of
what I had surrendered at the end of summer, the recall what I had
walked away from.
Suddenly I was jolted to attention, the feelings of insobriety washed
from me in an instant. There he was. There was Jay. My god, he was
everywhere! Not in all of the photos, but enough of them to thoroughly
freak me out. What on Earth was he doing in all those photos on Matt's
wall? And there, I realised, was Martha, too. Martha and Jay, smiling
and laughing. And David, and Bobby. I sat dumbfounded, and barely
noticed Matt's arrival on the other chair.
"Great party, huh?" he asked, thumping me on the shoulder.
"Sorry?" I asked, turning to him.
"You OK, buddy?"
"Yeah, sorry Matt, just zoned out there for a moment."
"Zoned out, huh?"
His gaze travelled to the wall of pictures, and I felt my stomach lurch with guilty fear.
"Oh, I see..." he said, voice full - I thought - of accusation. Oh God, what have I done?
"Must be hard for you," he went on, "being stuck out here without any family at this time of year."
I nodded, thankful that he seemed to have misinterpreted my interest in the pictures.
"Look, Jack, I like you, buddy. I think you're one of the good guys.
Why don't you come spend the holidays with me and my family, yeah?
That," he said, pointing to a portrait of Martha, "is my big sister,
Martha, and that's her husband David, and their boy Jay. She has a
great little place down in Florida where we go this time every year.
Why don't you come with us and see them, huh? Get a bit of family time?"
I nodded dumbly, and fell off the chair.