The summer had turned into autumn and with it came the natural tendency to want to hold on to it for a moment longer.  At Croome Martin and Stephen still went swimming almost every day and on some days they asked their secretary, Harry Myles, to join them.  Martin was terribly excited when he learned, after the event, that Stephen had bought Myles his parents’ old home in Norfolk and he insisted that he should pay for half the generous gift.   When it came time for Myles to clean out the house so that it could be let, Martin had his heart set on making a party of it and so the three of them drove to Aylsham in Martin’s Rolls Royce, stopping at Cambridge for the night enroute.  Martin was in such a buoyant mood that he did not do much actual work but instead did a great deal of sightseeing.  In the end, Myles engaged a professional firm to prepare the house and store his family’s valuables, but it was a nice holiday and he enjoyed showing Martin and Stephen the scenes of his youth.

At Croome, Martin had been busy with his lending library project and had easily won the support of the Parish Council, but the local authority was more reticent, despite Martin offering the land and to build the structure himself.  At Stephen’s suggestion the library committee wrote to the Carnegie Foundation in the United States and asked if they might apply for a grant for a ‘free library’.  As yet no response had been forthcoming, but Martin persisted with his investigations and sought out libraries in other towns and excitedly reported back with all sorts of ideas for children’s corners, mural decoration, meeting rooms, lecture halls and lending policies.  He was particularly taken with a rubber stamp that inked itself and, in one authoritative movement, affixed the date on which the book was due to be returned.  He purchased one of these against the day that his library should actually be completed.

Stephen had persuaded Martin to engage Myles to layout the new road and the subdivision of villa allotment in Lesser Branksome in the hope that the success of the other building project could be repeated.  Here lots had been let on 99-year leaseholds and there had been restrictions on the type of houses that could be erected which gave comfort to the purchasers as well as to Martin. 

Myles surprised everyone by coming up with a novel scheme for the sloping land that looked out towards Pendleton.  Unlike the other roads, this one was gently curved along the contour of the hillside, with the vista unfolding along the thoroughfare.  Each house would enjoy an uninterrupted view from the front or the back.  On the downward side, the houses were to be positioned close to the road while on the high side they were to be set back against the rear boundary, with some variation in part caused by the wedge shaped allotments, adding to the appeal.  It boded well to be a very attractive scheme when completed and water pipes and electric light were promised within the year and Martin swiftly placed the little estate in the hands of the agent in the hope of good returns.

Increasingly as October drew on Martin talked of Antibes and Myles struggled to find a time when both Martin and Stephen had no obligations and when their friends might get leave from their more mundane employments to accompany them, which was essential they all agreed.

One of these obligations was a luncheon party at Branksome House for their old friend Winston Churchill who had just published, to wide acclaim, his third volume of The World Crisis.  Stephen, who was to host it, was frustrated by the competing ‘lions’ in the forms of Ladies Colfax and Cunard who each wanted the literary Chancellor of the Exchequer exclusively for their own tables in the Kings Road and Grosvenor Square respectively.

Stephen, who had fought under the great strategist, Sir John Monash, planned his campaign carefully.  He decided that if he could get Emerald Cunard to come to Branksome House, despite the dangers of having another dominating personality at the table, he could short circuit her own attempts to capture Churchill.  The bait for Lady Cunard was in the form of her lover, Thomas Beecham Bt the conductor, who was looking for backers for a new professional orchestra for London; he and Martin would propose themselves as likely investors. 

Sybil Colfax required a much more underhanded strategy and Stephen felt a little ashamed of himself as he affixed the three anna Indian stamp plucked from Martin’s album to the letter he had addressed to her.  In the deceitful envelope was a missive which hinted that Mahatma Gandhi was making a secret visit to London to discuss the civil disobedience campaign with the government and the author, who suggested himself to be Mr Gandhi’s secretary, declared that his master would be delighted to come to luncheon with the esteemed Lady Colfax, of whom the Mahatma had heard so much, (on the very date, she noted with annoyance, that she was planning to invite Churchill) providing that the menu should be a vegetarian one and that the guests served themselves.  The author of the note, who finished by urging confidentiality lest the crowds get out of control or that potential assassins be alerted, had been careless in signing his name and some beverage—perhaps chai tea— had smudged the signature so that it could not be made out clearly, even with careful scrutiny under a magnifying glass. 

Instantly Lady Colfax abandoned her pursuit of that enemy of Indian independence, Winston Churchill, and turned her mind to vegetable menus and summonsed her cook to ask her if she knew how to make dahl.

The luncheon, when it came, was a tremendous success, despite Asquith being too ill to attend and Stephen thought it was just as well that Lady Margot was not there as she didn’t get on well with Lady Cunard.  Emerald Cunard, however, was delighted to be surrounded by important political personages in the form of the Prime Minister and Mrs Baldwin, the Secretary for the Colonies, Leo Amery, Mr and Mrs Churchill, and Sir Thomas Beecham.  Beecham was pleased that Stephen and Martin had offered a small subsidy for the proposed Philharmonic orchestra, which would be a permanent and salaried affair, and waxed lyrical about the lesser-known composers he was hoping to be given an airing for the increasingly sophisticated taste of British audiences.  Martin thought with shame of his own collection of recordings and gave whispered instructions for Glass to quickly cover his gramophone with a shawl and to make sure Tain’t No Sin to Shake of Your Skin (and Dance Around in Your Bones) was nowhere visible when they retired to the pink drawing room for their coffee. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr5cb2f5mV0.

By one of those sheer coincidences that come to haunt the guilty, the conversation at the table alarmingly kept returning to the topic of India, with Churchill recounting an adventure from his youth on the Northwest Frontier while, at the other end of the table, Lady Cunard, meddling in political appointments, was heard to say to Baldwin and Amery:  “…so that’s all settled then; Freddy is to have India…”  Stephen felt himself going red and then Glass and the footmen served the main course: M Lefaux, knowing it was a favourite dish of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had made a delicious curry.

Churchill was persuaded after the last course to read from his great new work.  He made a lectern from a plate and a finger bowl and read in a thrilling growl, seemingly unaffected by his consumption of a bottle of champagne and half a bottle of good brandy:

"…Will a new generation in their turn be immolated to square the black accounts of Teuton and Gaul? Will our children bleed and gasp again in devastated lands? Or will there spring from the very fires of conflict that reconciliation of the three giant combatants, which would unite their genius and secure to each in safety and freedom a share in rebuilding the glory of Europe?"

There was silence when he finished and applause seemed inappropriate.  Instead they all sat there contemplating the future.  The optimistic thought of the League of Nations, scientific progress and Émile Coué, while the pessimists contemplated the unemployed miners, Bolshevik Russia and the vague fear of another war. 

***** 

The boys pushed through the crowd of natives dressed in its Sunday best but which, alas, smelled appallingly of garlic and sweat that had been attempted to be concealed beneath the cloying of the perfumes of the region.  Eventually they found a flight of steps that led upwards from the road blazing in the noontide sun. The steps gave access to some whitewashed houses curiously elevated above the road.  Beyond an archway was a further maze of front doors and twisted passages almost invisible in the contrast of the deep shade.  It was on this raised terrace that they unfolded their chairs and unpacked their picnic.

It was the day when the Tour de France was to pass through Antibes on its 12^th stage from Toulon to Nice and the whole town had turned out to witness the great spectacle and cheer on its favourites.  Antibes was not the quiet village it had been before the war and Mrs Chadwick had remarked that the population had doubled in just the last six years.  Nevertheless it retained a fond place in the hearts of Stephen and Martin and those of their friends who had been coming to Stephen’s little house for many years.

On this occasion they were accompanied by Harry Myles on his first visit as well as by The Plunger and his boyfriend, Teddy Loew.  In a few days they were to be joined by Charles Fortune and Jack Thayer and their lodger, Stephen’s old school chum, Donald Selby-Keam.  Stephen was very excited to have a full house of boys.

They uncorked the wine and broke out the charcuterie and tore at the bread, still warm from the boulangerie, just as a brass band started up.  It played sentimental French tunes and then those from the war years that caused people of a certain age to hum.  The crowd was thick on both sides of the main coastal road just a few feet below them and there were many shouts as ill-founded reports that the peloton was imminent.  The Provençales were impossible children to discipline and people excitedly dashed across the road whenever they spotted friends on the other side and pushed and shoved to acquire better vantage points to such an extent that the mere half dozen gendarmes had hopelessly lost control of the throng.

Ahead of the competitors came a trickle of motorcars bearing officials and those who were accompanying the race as spectators.  Then there came cyclists who were also following the racers—or rather who were trying to keep ahead of them in order to stop and cheer the competitors at each town.  They would have started hours earlier from Cannes or Saint-Raphael, perhaps, and have pedalled their way along the winding Corniche.

Teddy was bending over the picnic basket to see if there was anything kosher he could eat while Martin, Stephen and the Plunger were taking it in turns with Stephen’s camera.  Myles was intent on the surging crowd— a sea of fedoras, cloth caps, parasols and all manner of modish feminine chapeaux— from his elevated vantage point.  Suddenly there was a cry and a sickening clatter as a cyclist came off his machine and hit the wall below them.  It became apparent that someone from the crowd had walked out in front of the poor fellow who was now bleeding on the ground with his bent machine come to rest on top of him.  Myles was the first to his side and managed to drag him out of the way while The Plunger collected his mangled bicycle and stood it against a wall.  Martin let forth a stream of invective, chiefly in English, toward the spectators who had caused this, but the actual perpetrator had melted away and the rest simply shrugged.

The injured man was helped up the steps to safety and wetted handkerchiefs were employed to clean him up.  There were many grazes on one side of his body but no broken bones, however his ankle was badly sprained and was already starting to swell.   Myles touched it and the chap yelped.  He was Italian.  Myles gave him some wine for which he was grateful.  His name was Luca and he lived in a town near Genoa.  It appears he had taken time off from his job at a shipyard in order to follow the cyclists from Toulon to where he had taken a train from his native land.  Now his bicycle was ruined and he had no way of getting home.  Myles looked at the others and they nodded.  “Vi assisteremo” said Myles, summoning up his few words of Italian and schoolboy Latin.  Luca began to thank them, but a wince of pain cut it short.  He was given more wine and grinned for an instant.

A rising tide of noise from the crowd indicated that the peloton had indeed been sighted and Luca grew excited and tried to stand.  He half collapsed so Myles offered himself as a support for the young Italian who must have been no taller than five foot-three.  There he stood with his arm around Myles’ neck, Myles half crouching to allow for this.  Marius Gallonni was Luca’s favourite but he was well back when the cyclists whizzed past, with the great champion, Pelissier, in the lead to the delight of the crowd.  There were no more incidents, despite the spectators surging onto the road before the last of the stragglers had passed.

Luca was terribly excited and was trying to describe a previous winner of the prestigious race, Ottavio Bottecchia, who had died only a few weeks before in mysterious circumstances. “Non è stato un incidente?” asked Myles.

“No,” said Luca firmly, shaking his head, “assassinio!” and went on to blame the Black Shirts of his own land.

The problem of how to get their patient back to the house soon arose.  Stephen shouldered his way through the crowd and found a horse and carriage that they had often used before.  The driver was just negotiating with a prosperous-looking husband and wife when Stephen loudly offered a large sum for his services.  There was indignation from the two, who would now be compelled to walk and it was very hot and the wife was rather plump and under many layers of finery, but it could not be helped and the driver slowly eased his vehicle towards the stone steps.  Luca and his broken machine were loaded along with his rucksack and there was only room for one other, so Myles accompanied him while the others walked back to the old part of the town where Stephen’s house was situated.

When the pedestrians arrived they found Luca sitting up in one basket chair with his bad leg on another.  Myles had taken the fellow’s trousers off (always a good sign, thought Stephen) and was dabbing iodine on the deep scratches.  Martin immediately went to the pharmacy for some bandages and soon the ankle was neatly swaddled. “I have no money to pay you,” said Luca in English.  Stephen waved this objection aside and bossily organised the others: The Plunger was sent to buy more wine and Teddy was dispatched to the fishmonger.  Martin and Stephen were to take the bicycle to be repaired after inquiring of a place from Mme de Blazon.  It just so happened that she had a nephew (not Hélias) who repaired bicycles in his spare time and she told them to leave it with her and to pay her the money in advance (which she thought they would find more convenient) and that her husband would take the defunct machine to her relative that very afternoon.  Thus Martin and Stephen were free for a short walk and a cup of coffee, in order, according to Stephen’s cunning plan, to leave Myles alone with Luca.

When they did return they found the two of them still together in the main room, but Luca was now wearing trousers.  “I thought it best that Luca should sleep in my room downstairs, Stephen,” said Myles.  “There are fewer steps or we could even go around by the street door.  Luca has written out a telegram to send to his family so they won’t worry.  I’m going to the Post Office now.”

“No I’ll take it,” said Stephen.  “You stay here with Luca; I want to buy some stamps in any case.”

The hot evening passed pleasantly playing cards and drinking wine under the lamplight.  Stephen kept casting furtive glances at Myles and Luca.  Luca could have been anywhere between 17 and 30 and had skin like leather that told of toil in the sun and rain.  He was not exactly good looking when one analysed his features, but like most Italians he had a high opinion of himself and this was persuasive.

When it was time for bed, Stephen scooped up Luca and carried him down the stone steps to the cellar room and dumped him on Myles’ bed.  Martin hastened after him and pulled Stephen away lest he insist on undressing Luca and prescribing sleeping arrangements.  “Let nature take its course, Derbs,” he said as they climbed the stairs.  He also stopped him from giving Myles, who they passed going down to bed, riding instructions.  Stephen was very excited for them and his eyes shone.

Teddy and The Plunger met in their bedroom for a conference at which Luca and Myles were the main items on the agenda.  “Suppose Myles tries something and Luca objects violently,” said Teddy.

“Yes, Luca might go for his stiletto,” said Martin, “we don’t really know anything about him.”

“Well Harry will just have to look after himself and Luca can’t chase him very fast with that leg,” said Stephen who was busy removing his own clothes.  “Do you think that you two would like to sleep in here tonight?”  Martin felt that he should have been consulted, but said nothing.

“I know what Stephen wants; it’s my Teddy’s cock,” said The Plunger pretending to be indignant.

“I won’t play favourites; I’ll have yours too Archie.”

The Plunger thought that this was a ‘good deal’ as the Americans say and ran his palm over Stephen’s hairy buttocks.  “Slap them, Archie.” said Stephen.  Archie did and they didn’t move, in fact his hand stung.  “It’s the rowing machine,” said Stephen by way of simple explanation.  “Do you want some of me too, Mala?”

“I was looking forward to your cock, Derbs, but if you’re going to be otherwise engaged…”

“I think both things can be arranged,” said Stephen, grinning. “Now, all of you get to work!” he said lifting one leg high and resting it on the bed.  They too shed their clothes and got busy with their tongues on the intimate parts of the beautiful Stephen.  The Spong’s was liberally applied and Stephen entered Martin, with his right arm about his neck, while shortly afterwards Teddy inserted his hard cock into Stephen whose muscles fought the invasion all the way.  However congress was finally achieved and Stephen was subdued to some extent. 

Teddy’s member was curved like a banana and Stephen, who was now hanging on to Martin’s shoulders, derived great pleasure from it, but this was nothing to what he felt when he lay flat on his back on the bed and Teddy probed him from a standing position.  The crescent shaped phallus seemed to touch some spot inside Stephen that shot jolts of pleasurable electricity into his own private parts which were conveniently transmitted to Martin who was now impaled on Stephen’s cock in a squatting position, straddling Stephen’s big chest.  The Plunger found he was unemployed but assisted where he could and wished that he had his sketch book and pencil to record the rather baroque coupling— if three people could be so described.

It remained hot all night and there was little breeze off the Mediterranean through the louvered shutters when the morning light found Stephen surrounded by his harem on the feather bed, with two offerings of masculine seed sown in his innards, while Martin and The Plunger had taken Stephen’s cock to their complete satisfaction.  Stephen lay there awake and placed a kiss on the top of the golden head of the sleeping Martin.  He wondered how things had gone two floors below and if Myles had enjoyed himself in any capacity.  Still, he reminded himself, it was none of his business and he mustn’t match-make.  Luca might well not go in for that sort of thing, he thought, and no doubt Luca was used to sharing a chaste bed with his brothers and cousins whom he had said populated his father’s small house in Arenzano in alarming numbers.  It is best to let nature take its course.

Stephen lay thus for ten minutes, feeling his cock in a contemplative manner, then he suddenly slipped from the bed, sliding downwards so as not to disturb his lovers.  His cock was quite hard as he tiptoed naked down the stairs to the main room.  He opened the back door; there was M. de Blazon watering his tomatoes at the bottom of the garden.  He could have returned indoors and pulled on a pair of trousers, but he decided that this expedition required a trouserless state, so he waited until the Patron’s back was turned before crossing the flagged terrace and descending the ten steps to the cellar.  Beside the stout door was a small window.  Stephen cocked an ear; he couldn’t hear anything, so he risked a peek through the glass.  There was weak light from the window on the side street and in it he could see the bed partly obscured by his punching bag that hung from a beam.  However on the bed could clearly be seen the blond head of Harry Myles and next to him the curly dark locks that belonged the Italian cyclist.  What had happened during the night?  Stephen tried to form a conclusion from the sleeping figures beneath the light sheet.  Their heads were almost touching and they certainly were unencumbered by pyjamas— even if Luca had possessed any, but this was not surprising as it had been a hot night.  Their arms and legs told of nothing.  It was maddening and Stephen had so wanted Myles to have a romantic adventure.  Stephen was holding his cock and was just about to turn away in frustration when he spotted something on the floor near Luca’s discarded shirt and trousers; it was red and white and rather familiar: it was a tube of Spong’s Soothing Salve (the larger ‘economy’ size at 1/6) and Stephen smiled to himself and tiptoed away, his fleeting naked form just catching the corner of M. de Blazon’s eye as he bent over the chard to inspect for greenfly.

Neither Myles nor Luca mentioned anything over the next three days and Stephen, burning to know himself, continued as usual to be a good host.  He held the ceremony of the outdoor bath when the sun had lost some of its fierce heat and where the boys sat around the tub and drank champagne and chatted while Stephen bathed like Nero.  The next day Stephen declared that all peers of the realm had to remain trouserless while the following one was for those who had not been circumcised and Luca joined Myles and Stephen in lower body nudity.  Luca was now able to walk to the Bistro de Blazon but Myles kept him company when the others went off to the plage.  On the third day, with the aid of a stick, Luca made it to the sea wall and watched the others on the sands.  On the fourth day, Luca was taken to the station on his stick and his bicycle, with its new front wheel, was placed in the guard’s van.  Farewells were said and Stephen slipped 200 francs into his hand.  There were no tears, but Luca was clearly moved and hugged Myles as the whistle sounded.  Then he was gone.

With the house now full of people, Stephen found it hard to be alone with Myles and added to that, Martin had insisted that he must have exclusive bedtime with Stephen on even numbered days and on those that were prime numbers.  “It is a rule, Derbs,” he explained, still smarting from being forced to go trouserless again because he alone could not translate ‘Habetne animus tuus satis saplentiae?’  However one day in the following week Myles and Stephen were out in the L’espoir in light air and they fell to talking.

“Are you having a good time, Harry?” began Stephen.

“Of course, Stephen; who could not in a place like this?  Thank you for inviting me.”

“That’s not quite what I meant; I mean are you happy in your heart?”

“Well, that is certainly a difficult question and I don’t want to make the mistake of confusing some other organ with my heart.”

“Not like I sometimes do.  Is that organ happy, Harry?”

“Not happy, but no crying out, either.  A Luca or two might scratch an itch, but it’s no cure for loneliness.”

“I hope you are not lonely; I’m not, Harry,” said Stephen in a reflective voice, “and my heart is full, but I still feel that itch and it’s very exciting; I hope I always will.  Fortunately Martin understands and I think he has the urge to scratch too.”

“Is it possible to be a little lonely, but still be happy in your heart?” asked Myles.  “I mean, I love Croome and I love London, I love working for you and Martin.  I’m so lucky really and then there is the house and this holiday and all of you.  I am happy, but I see that you are all couples— except for Donald—and I wonder if I am missing something.”

Stephen shrugged.  “Perhaps if you found the right person… and before that happens, there are a lot of sailors on the quay of an evening, Harry.”  Stephen adjusted the sail as there was a slight breath of wind.  “I hope that I never cause you feel left out, Harry,” said Stephen “and if there is anything I can do— maybe even now—to help…?” he continued with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh no, Stephen, replied Myles, archly, “you include us all and after Luca and how he satisfied me, why I don’t think that anyone could…”

“What did he do?” asked Stephen consumed by ill-concealed curiosity.

“Oh Stephen,” responded Myles airily, “what he could do…the things he did…why I couldn’t begin to…no it wouldn’t be right to betray what passed between us and I shall say no more.  Don’t ask me to tell.”

Stephen sat back in the stern and turned over in silence what Myles had just said.  “So you won’t tell me what you did?”

“No Stephen.”

“Well, will you show me then?” said Stephen grinning.

“I think that could be arranged,” said Myles, “although you are a much taller fellow, of course.  I say, you don’t think we will upset the boat, do you?” he asked as he made a move towards Stephen who had spread his muscular thighs that strained at the fisherman’s short trousers he wore. 

***** 

Carlo was feeling very pleased with himself and hummed a music hall tune as he tidied and reordered Martin and Stephen’s clothes in their wardrobes, brushing lint off the shoulders of their suits and separating the summer garments from winter ones.  Mr Stephen, he reflected as he slid the shirt trays in and out, had looked very handsome in the new soft-collared shirts that accommodated a gold collar bar under the tie and the lift it gave to the tie and collar only seemed to accentuate Mr Stephen’s broad shoulders.  Stephen had purchased half a dozen of these in pinstripes and plain colours from Austin Reed.

With the boys away in France for at least two weeks, Carlo knew he would have an easy time of it, with very little to do and so would divide his time between London and Dorset.  It had worked out very nicely, he was thinking.  At Croome, young Lance the footman now visited Carlo’s room on a regular basis to have his eager eighteen year-old cock serviced by the willing valet who was now thirty-two.  This was despite being enslaved by Mrs Vetch, the farmer’s wife, who had also developed a taste for it and made the big lad mount her in a variety of ways that Carlo was privy to by way of a convenient window in the old buttery twice a week, except when the hens went ‘off’ in November.  Lance had become very eager and it was only a matter of time before he would be induced to sample the added pleasure of taking Carlo’s own cock up his plump, juvenile arse.  Carlo licked his lips at the thought.

At Branksome House he had the honour of taking William Glassbottom (he chuckled at his cousin’s name)— Glass the butler—whenever he liked, in his official bedroom discreetly, but conveniently positioned under the main staircase by the entrance hall.  He and Glass ‘went back a long way’ and he knew he was still able to delight the butler who loved nothing better than to run his fingers through the thick mat of hair on his chest (and indeed on his arms, legs and buttocks— for Carlo was half Italian and it grew as fast as he could trim it with the barber’s clippers) and Glass willingly took Carlo’s Latin cock between his English lips and into other concavities.

However Carlo was greedy by nature and had taken to prowling certain public houses in the N1 postal district in search of fresh meat and it was to one of these that he returned that evening.

Johnny was a well-developed young lad and Carlo wondered for a moment if he was too young to be served on licensed premises.  He wore an ill-fitting suit under a cloth cap and a thin cigarette protruded from lips that still bore the bloom of youth.  Unlike Lance who was blond, Johnny had ordinary brown hair and was perhaps not as fleshy.  Carlo eyed him over his glass and wondered if he did physical work, as there was juvenile muscle under those rough clothes he rightly guessed.  They made eye contact and, as they were both alone, Carlo bought him a pint and they fell to talking.

Johnny worked in the goods sheds at Paddington Station and had done so for the last twelve months since coming up to London from Essex.  “I was asked to leave school for I was always getting into trouble— not fighting like— but just small stuff, like, and the teachers took agin’ me.”

“So you’re alone in London?”

“No, Carlo, I have a bruvver—me older bruvver.  He’s already down here; he works in the maintenance sheds and it was him wot got me the start on the railways.”

“So you live with him?”

“No, he lives in Camden Town and I have a room in Islington, but he looks out for me like.

“I’m saving up—or tryin’ to— for me weddin’,” he continued as he took another pint from Carlo.

“I would have thought that you were a bit young for that, Johnny that is unless the young lady…”

“No, no, nothing like that.  My Beryl is desperate to get married and we have been careful…if you get my drift…but we can’t afford it and so I’ve come to London for work, but I don’t half miss her, especially in the evenin’s.”

Beryl, it turned out, worked for a barge maker in Maldon and was a good ten years older than Johnny.  Carlo suspected that she had been disappointed in love sometime before and that Johnny presented a youthful second chance.

Despite all this, Johnny kept accepting drinks from Carlo and had a way of rubbing his chest and adjusting his groin that let Carlo know he was available and Carlo was sure that a few coins would seal the deal.

“What do you think I do?” asked Carlo as the pair walked in the direction of Johnny’s lodgings.

Johnny regarded him.  “Well that’s a nice suit you’ve got and that shirt and tie must have cost a few bob,” these last were castoffs from his employers, “and you seem a clever chap…”

“So sharp that I’ll cut myself,” put in Carlo.

“…so I’ll bet you’re a bookie’s tout or a man from the brewery.”

“Wrong; I’m a ships steward, said Carlo.”  This was true many years ago, but it saved complications, thought Carlo.

They had reached the house and with little ceremony, Johnny let them both in and they climbed some narrow stairs to a corridor that led to a small room at the back of the house.

“Three bob will do it Carlo.  What do you want to do?”

“What do you want to do, Johnny?”

“I need some relief, somethin’ shockin’—me balls is full,” he laughed.

Without asking, Johnny began to remove his clothes.  Carlo produced a tube of Spong’s Soothing Salve.  “That’s fancy,” said Johnny eyeing the medicament.  “Is that for you or me?”

“You, I think, tonight,” replied Carlo as he regarded the lad now standing before him in his underwear.  He was at that interesting stage of maturity in flesh and bone; still with a little ‘puppy fat’ but with a good-sized bulge in his drawers that Carlo could see were slightly stained with urine.  “Take them off and get on the bed.”

“You done this before, Carlo– like on the boats I mean?”

“Yes,” said Carlo, still looking at him like a cat with a mouse.  He licked his lips.

“Do you like to suck boys?” asked Johnny.

“Yes, of course and I like them to suck me too, but it’s you tonight.”

Johnny had a nicely untamed light brown bush, but apart from under his arms, had very little hair elsewhere on his pale flesh.  Carlo thought that Johnny would trim up nicely and made a note to bring his scissors and clippers on another occasion.  Johnny had a plump cock of unremarkable length and he was uncircumcised.  Carlo suddenly realised that he had become slightly jaded knowing Stephen’s cock so intimately—this boy actually had a fair-sized one between his thighs, he reconsidered, and Carlo had hopes of its further development.  Johnny himself seemed proud of it and of those tight balls that he complained of.

Carlo sucked him until he was hard.  Johnny thrashed around, saying: “You’re good Carlo.”

“On your hands and knees.”

The lad obeyed and Carlo bent his cock downwards, grasping it firmly in his hand moistened with the Spong’s.  He proceeded to milk the railway operative, commenting as he massaged his balls, that lads like him needed to be ‘drained regular’ lest…Carlo couldn’t actually think of a reason, apart from that he liked doing it.  Johnny had his young buttocks in Carlo’s face.  Carlo licked them and pulled his cheeks apart.

“Don’t put anything up there; I don’t like it.”

Carlo shrugged, thinking that this could wait too.  He changed hands as he was getting tired.  Moaning from the boy caused Carlo to ask:  “Are you close, Johnny?”

“Yes,’ he managed to say.

Carlo picked up a saucer from under a teacup with his spare hand and placed it on the bed under Johnny.  He increased his tempo until the barge builder’s fiancé spilled his seed downwards where the first jet hit the saucer, making it ring.  Carlo kept up his action, making sure the lad was well drained until he cried out for Carlo to stop.  He collapsed on the bed.

Carlo took the saucer for him to inspect.  “Not bad, but I think you can do better.  Shall we say tomorrow night?”

“No, not tomorrow; I’m going to the pictures, but I’ll meet you at the pub on Wednesday.”

“Don’t touch yourself until then.  Do you want to taste it?” asked Carlo offering him the saucer.

“No I don’t think I’d like it.”

“Yes you would; it’s nice,’ he said tasting some on his finger.  He offered another scoop to Johnny who looked at it for a moment and then put out the tip of his tongue.  Carlo anointed it and looked for a reaction.

“It’s alright I suppose.  Salty.”  Carlo put more on two fingers and Johnny took it more greedily.

“Good boy.  I’ve left ten bob on the washstand.  That’s for Wednesday too.”

 *******

Wednesday was a repeat of Monday.  Johnny was already at the pub drinking with some other fellows but left them and came over with his glass when he saw Carlo.  They made conversation and Johnny told Carlo of problems he was having with his supervisor.  Carlo, on his part made up some nonsense about ships and leave, calling on actual events from the past when he was indeed a ship steward on the Union Line.

“And you have never had a girl?” said Johnny quietly, leaning in so that Carlo could smell his beery breath.

“I never said that.  I was married once…matter of fact I still am,” replied Carlo, almost shocking himself.

“But you prefer boys?” he whispered.

Carlo nodded and Johnny grinned.

“What about your fiancée in Maldon?  Isn’t she lonely?”

“I hope so,” replied Johnny with a swagger.  “Least ways she can’t get enough of me when I go home.  Of course she can’t suck me as good as a chap— you’re the best Carlo, and I can buy her nice presents from the few bob I’m making on the side, like.”

“Well, let’s put you to work,” said Carlo as he put their empty glasses down on the bar and indicated the door.

“Wot’s in the bag?” asked Johnny when they were in the room.  “It looks like somefin’ Jack the Ripper would carry and it has me unnerved, Carlo.”

Carlo put down the small handbag he was carrying on the bed and opened it.  He drew out a razor and Johnny gasped.  Then he drew out a comb, scissors and finally a pair of hand clippers.  Johnny visibly relaxed.

“I thought you’d like a trim downstairs.  The gents would like it— just enough to put your nose in, but short enough to show off that nice cock.  Get me some hot water.”

Johnny returned with the water and submitted to Carlo’s barbering.  He did a professional job—not that there was much to shave off— but Johnny was left with a neat wedge of pubic hair against the background of his pale skin and rose-hued scrotum.  Johnny admired himself in the hand glass Carlo had brought. 

“Lovely Carlo, but excuse me, I have to go out to the privy.”

“Do it here,” said Carlo, dragging a china chamber pot from beneath the bed.

“Wot, in front of you?”

“Yes.  I didn’t have you pegged as the shy type.”

Johnny shrugged and stood there naked and released into the flower-bedecked receptacle as he held on to the brass bedstead with one hand.

“That’s a good manly stream, Johnny” said Carlo at one point.  Johnny showed no immediate signs of stopping and just grinned at him.  At last with diminuendo he finished and was just about to shake when Carlo stopped him.  “The last drops for me,” said Carlo who leaned in and sucked on the lad’s cock.

“Do you like that, Carlo?” asked Johnny in surprise.  “Wot’s it taste like?”

“Beer mostly,” said Carlo, “and young lad.”

The foaming pot was between them and Carlo decided that he didn’t like the stench that was filling the tiny room.  Johnny had reached the same conclusion.  “I’d best empty it in the karsy.” 

He left the room on his mission and Carlo removed his jacket and tie and looked around.  This didn’t take very long because there was not much to see.  Face down on the dresser was the framed portrait of a young women who was obviously the fiancée who worked for the barge builder, although this last fact was not immediately evident from her photograph.

Johnny returned and removed his clothes again.  “Did you touch yourself?” asked Carlo. 

“No I didn’t and it weren’t half hard not to.  I usually do myself at least twice a day, but I’ve saved myself for you, Carlo,” he said with a realisation of the humour of this last declaration.

Carlo sucked him and made sure that Johnny touched the back of his throat.  The boy loved it.  “Beryl doesn’t do that, Carlo,” he said in ragged breaths.  Carlo was pleased.

Once again Johnny got on the bed on all fours and his cock was bent downwards towards the saucer and Carlo commenced his vigorous milking with his slicked palms and fingers.  Johnny was putting more effort into it this time and his tempting rump was in Carlos’ face.  Carlo seized his chance and pushed his face right in and licked the tender hole.  Instead of objecting, Johnny urged him on and soon Carlo was tapping the ring with his finger and massaging it in tiny circles.  “I’m going to slide a finger in, Johnny, you’ll like it.”

“Yes, yes!” cried Johnny who was still being milked.

With the Spong’s this was easily effected (it was a marvellous product, thought both participants in unison) and soon Johnny was pushing back onto Carlo’s extended digit with abandon.  When he spilt, the saucer had a third again as much in it as it had on Monday.  Johnny looked at it proudly and Carlo ate some and smeared the rest on Johnny’s chest as a young warrior of old might have been anointed with the blood from the kill.  Then Carlo unbuttoned his own fly and masturbated until he too spilled on the boy’s chest, inviting him to taste what remained.  He hesitated but did and Carlo fed him some more.

“Are you up for this tomorrow night, lad?” asked Carlo, sweetening the request with another ten shillings on the dresser.  Johnny did not see any impediments, either physical or social, so arrangements were made.

Carlo returned to the room the following night.  He was a little ashamed, for he had actually come to like young Johnny and was sorry that he had told so many lies about himself, but it was too late now.  Yet he also knew that the country boy was no innocent and he was contemplating introducing him to a few new activities now that he proved that he could spill like a man.

Johnny was on the bed on all fours again and Carlo was gently cleaning his crack with warm soapy water and a flannel— Johnny was perhaps a little careless—when suddenly there was a hammering on the bedroom door.  There was nowhere to escape to so Johnny slipped under the bedclothes and Carlo, who was fully dressed merely returned the flannel to the washstand and stood there awkwardly.  “Open the door!” hissed Johnny and Carlo advanced and turned the key.  A large man burst forth into the room.  “What the hell are you doing with my brother?” he screamed.  His eyes were ablaze as he looked about the room and then at Carlo.

“Are you in there, Johnny?” came a woman’s voice from the passage behind him.  It was the fiancée.  “What are you doing in there?”

“He’d had a bit too much to drink at the pub and I brought him home, began Carlo, warming to the lie, “and I was just putting him to bed to sleep it…”  He did not finish because the man grabbed him by the shirtfront and jabbed him in the face with his fist.  Carlo knew his nose was broken.  There was consternation, blood and protestations from Johnny, accusations from his brother and shrieks from the woman.  Carlo legged it for the door and made it into the passage, only to find that he was being pursued by the barge woman who no doubt had scenes of her much-anticipated nuptials evaporating before her red and angry eyes.  He started down the stairs at a great rate when the harpy hurled her umbrella at him causing him to trip and he ended up in a heap at the bottom.  A searing pain told him his right arm was broken, but he made for the street, hugging his arm, and didn’t stop until he reached Pentonville Road.  

To be continued…