Page 10

R aoul fretted around the apartment. John had been gone most of the day, and he was irritated that they had lost many hours they could have shared together.

When his lover returned, Raoul demanded, “Where have you been all morning? With my regular hours at the French embassy and your career as a writer, the weekend is the only time we have together.”

John crossed the room and kissed Raoul, long and hard, so that Raoul’s anger melted. “Now that I have finished my broadside about the Suez Canal financing, my next will be in support of the Artisans' and Laborer’s Dwelling Act," he said, as he poured himself a glass of wine from the bottle of red on the sideboard.

He lifted the balloon glass and swirled the wine, then took a long sip. “Ah, delightful,” he said.

“This is the act you were discussing last week at Sylvia’s dinner party,” Raoul said. “What is it about this act that intrigues you, and Janner?”

“Prime Minister Disraeli’s government has proposed it to Parliament,” John said. “It will allow local councils to buy up areas of slum dwellings in order to clear and then rebuild them.”

“Sounds admirable.”

“It is indeed,” John said. “It is part of Disraeli'ssocial reforminitiative aimed at the elevation of the working class. There are many areas of London that could benefit greatly from new, more salubrious housing. Unfortunately the bill as proposed does not force any council to do so, and many consider it an attack on landlords and an infringement on property rights.”

“Does your father have any landholdings in such slum areas?” Raoul asked.

John’s father, Earl Badgely, was a wealthy man, with his fingers in many pies. Though his ancestral landholding was in Cornwall, where John had been raised, he also had many commercial interests.

“He does own a few buildings in Aldgate,” John said. “I plan to have dinner with him at some point and convince him that there can be a commercial benefit for him in redevelopment. That is generally the way to sway his opinion.”

John’s relationship with his father had improved over the last two years, since certain details of both their romantic lives had become known. Because of his own affairs, the earl had become more tolerant of John’s relationship with Raoul.

“I am concerned about Silas’s love for Ezra Curiel,” Raoul said. “He is always extolling the man’s masculine virtues. Yet Curiel is married to a woman, and I cannot see any positive outcome for that.”

“I have watched him box in the past, and even placed the odd wager on the outcome of the match. He has quite the impressive musculature.”

“So Silas has said. He seems to relish the boxer’s strength.”

“He could probably hoist Silas up and spear him on his cockstand,” John said. He smiled wickedly. “Now there’s an image for you.”

Raoul felt his cock harden. “Beller has gone to visit his sister for the afternoon, so we have the apartment to ourselves.” Though Beller had accepted Raoul’s presence in John’s home, the man had the ability to move soundlessly about, and Raoul was often nervous about having physical contact with John when Beller might surprise them.

“Then I say we take advantage of it,” John said. “How quickly can you be in the bedroom with your clothes removed?”

“Quicker than you can finish that glass of wine in your hand.” He jumped up and hurried into the bedroom, undoing the buttons of his shirt as he went. It was an odd quirk of their relationship that both experienced a thrill when John was fully clothed and Raoul was naked, spread before him like a feast. It was perhaps a play against the old idea of the droit de seigneur, when the lord of the manor could have any local wench he wanted on her wedding night—though in Raoul’s case he was certainly no wench.

He tossed his shirt away and quickly kicked off his shoes and socks, then struggled to get his trousers undone, hopping from one foot to the next. He let the slacks pool on the floor and tugged down his drawers, allowing his hard cock to spring free.

Then he had to decide—lay on his back, or his front? Present his cock to John to be ravished, or his ass? He thought of the image Silas had presented, of being spread-eagled on his bed and his arms and legs tied to the bedposts. But before he could make a rational decision—as if reason and logic could be present at such a time—he heard John’s footsteps in the hall and flung himself down on the bed, his head buried in the down pillows, his legs spread and his arse open.

“Well, what have we here?” John said, as he walked into the bedroom. “Roses are red and ripe for plucking. I see a beautiful ass ripe for fucking.”

Raoul giggled into the pillow as John kneeled behind him flicking his tongue against the rosebud of Raoul’s arse. John’s long, slender fingers pried apart Raoul’s cheeks and John applied himself, rubbing his stubbled cheeks against the softness of Raoul’s skin, and Raoul shivered with delight.

“I am a goat,” John muttered into Raoul’s skin. “A randy goat who will munch on anything.”

“I hope that goat has a stiff cock, because that’s what I want in my arse.”

“All in good time, young man,” John said. Though John was only his elder by a pair of years, sometimes they used that conceit in their lovemaking. John pulled his head back, and slapped his palm against Raoul’s right ass cheek, then repeated the favor with the left.

Raoul squirmed and panted, and felt the clear fluid that emanated from the tip of his cock become a fountain. “Please, my lord,” he said. “Do your kind servant the honor of pressing your cock inside me.”

“Since you ask so prettily.” John stepped back from Raoul, and a cool breeze swept across his arse, furthering the feeling of emptiness left behind by the removal of John’s tongue. He closed his eyes and focused on sounds—John’s fingers undoing his flies, the removal of the lid from the jar of oil. He visualized John stroking his cock, pulling back the cap to make sure the tip was well-oiled.

Then the bed sank as John climbed up. “And now for the transit of your personal Suez Canal,” he said. “Open the lock and let the warship in.”

He put his hands beneath Raoul’s waist and hoisted him up, then tickled Raoul’s hole with the tip of his well-oiled prick.

“Oh, how you tease and torment me,” Raoul said.

“And how you love it.” John took hold of Raoul’s arse cheeks and pushed forward into his hole, and the sensation was exquisite. The pillows blocked out much of his vision and hearing and he concentrated on the feeling of his arse and what that did to his own cock, which was hard as steel and pressed into the bedclothes.

As John began a relentless motion, in and out, Raoul was pushed into the mattress and then released, and the continuing friction was a glorious sensation rising in his cock. John accelerated his movements, a sure sign that he was about to spend, and Raoul beat him to it, shooting what otherwise might have been a geyser of spend into the coverlet.

Then he shared in John’s orgasm as his lover shot off into his ass, the fluid pushing forward where the member could not reach, until Raoul thought it might rise up his throat and come out his mouth.

Of course it did not, and John pulled back and stood up. “What a mess you have made of your clothes,” John said, looking down at the floor. “Beller will quite disapprove.”

Raoul turned onto his side and smiled seductively. “Beller will not return for a while. Why don’t you shed your attire and join me here?”

John smiled. “Because you have been a good boy.” Then he stopped. “I am sorry. I know you do not relish being called a boy when we are making love.”

Throughout his teen years, Raoul had been at the sexual service of his parish priest, Father Maurice, who had taught him all the ways in which two men could make love. He had called Raoul his bon petit garcon , or good little boy. And though Raoul had relished his attention then, when he was a bookish boy who was an oddity to his parents and his schoolmates, eventually he had realized that Father Maurice had been wrong to take sexual advantage of him.

“I know your meaning is different.” Raoul waved his hand. “Your clothes, my lord?”

John smiled. This was another part of their play, when John removed his clothes piece by piece, revealing his fair skin and light-colored body hair as an on-stage seductress might. Since he had already removed his jacket and cravat upon arriving at home, he began with his linen shirt, unbuttoning it slowly and making as much eye contact with Raoul as possible.

Then he lifted the hem of his undershirt, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of flesh, then lowering it again. He swayed his hips seductively as he undid his belt—his flies having remained undone, though his cock had retreated beneath the fabric.

He turned his back to Raoul and bent over to undo his shoes. He had a sweet arse, muscular round globes that strained against the fabric of his pants. With his shoes kicked off and his socks removed, he turned back to Raoul and let his slacks slide down his sturdy thighs and well-muscled calves.

Part of his work as Janner involved walking around the city, talking to people and getting ideas and insights, so his legs were particularly strong and shapely. He stood there for a moment in his drawers, letting Raoul admire him, then turned to give him a rear view as well.

Raoul surprised John by quickly reaching over while his back was turned and snatching down the drawers so that they rested halfway down his thighs. “You rogue,” John said. He shimmied them down the rest of the way without touching them, then bent over when they reached the floor and seized them up. He leaned over and pressed them against Raoul’s nose and mouth.

“Smell my spend, you rascal,” he said.

Raoul inhaled deeply. The scent was strong and rather like ammonia, with an overlay of the lavender soap that John used in the bath. It was uniquely him, and Raoul loved it.

Then John hopped onto the bed and rested beside Raoul. He curled his left leg protectively over Raoul and pulled him close, and they kissed deeply, then drifted off into dreamland together.

Raoul’s last waking thoughts were of Silas, in the hope that he found the same pleasure with the boxer, for however long it could be sustained.