Ganymede Quartet 3 - A Willful Romantic(3)

Henry Blackwell & Martin

Hiram Blackwell & Timothy

Louisa Wilton Blackwell & Pearl

Cora Blackwell

Henry’s classmates at the Algonquin School:

Walter Addison & Harvey

Jeremy Blankenship & Ray*

Joshua Brand & Miles*

Louis Briggs & Peter*

Freddie Caldwell & Tom*

Albert DeWitt & Stuart*

Randall Fox & Howard

Wendell Franklin & Ralph*

Maurice Gaines & Ollie

Daniel Hollingsworth & Allen*

Gordon Lovejoy & Julian*

David Maxwell & Alex*

Adam Pettibone & Sam

Charles Ross & Simon*

Victor Spence & Will*

Robert Townsend & Dick*

Philip van Houten & Davey*

*Henry’s friends

Blackwell Family Slaves:

Nurse: Esther

Butler: Randolph

Footmen: Billy, Paul

Housekeeper: Dora

Cook: Bertie

Scullery Maids: Vida, Ruby

Chambermaids: Peggy, Delia, Katie

Parlor Maids: Lucy, Ruth, Ellen

Laundress: Mary

Laundry Maid: Sally

Gardener: Pat

Coachmen: Jack, Old Bob

Grooms: Jerry, Arthur

Stable Boys: Little Bob, Danny

Errand Boy: Johnny

“He loves them.” Martin sighed. “He’s been so happy with them, and I’m sure they’ll drop him after this. I haven’t said anything to him because I certainly don’t want to crush his spirits, but with the casual way Jerry talks about him…I don’t think their feelings are as strong as his. If they loved him, too, then they might forgive him, but I don’t think that will happen.”

Henry supposed it was true that they might forgive him if they loved him; he suspected he could ultimately forgive Martin anything because of how he felt about him. Of course, he would never have the problem of Martin bringing him gonorrhea.

They shed their school uniforms and Henry waited naked on the bed while Martin put everything away. Housekeeping over, they fucked with wild intensity, Henry very conscious of how fortunate he was to have such a partner and treating him as he knew he wanted to be treated.

“Harder, Henry, harder,” Martin urged, his hands overhead, braced against the headboard, as Henry drove into him. He shifted beneath Henry, hitching his legs higher, and Henry plunged in deeper still, his hips moving with brutal force. Martin gave startled cries and stilled, his untouched cock jerking out hot stripes of semen over his belly and chest, and Henry felt a surge of adrenaline at the sight, muscles clenching at the base of his cock.

“Oh, god, Henry, Henry, please come, please!”

Henry did as Martin asked, his vision filling with violent bursts of light as his cock pulsed in Martin’s ass. Still shuddering through the aftershocks, he bent over Martin and kissed him the way he liked to be kissed, slow and thorough, and let himself be pulled down to rest on Martin’s sticky chest.

“That’s always so exciting when it happens, don’t you think?” Martin murmured in Henry’s ear, in reference to his spontaneous orgasm.

Henry rolled off of him, but stayed close by his side. “Oh, yes. I wish I knew why it happens sometimes but not others, if it’s something I’m doing differently.”

Martin shrugged and tightened his arm around Henry’s shoulders. “Sometimes we’re just perfectly synchronized, I think.” He frowned at a smear of slick white that had transferred to Henry’s chest and wiped at it with his thumb. “I do know that no one has ever made me come like you do.”

This was not the first time he’d heard this, but still Henry felt a swelling of pride. “We’re lucky. We’re lucky we found each other.”

“Sometimes I think of where I might have ended up instead.” Martin shuddered. He gave Henry a little squeeze and then rolled away from him, sitting up and getting off the bed.

He meant Adam Pettibone, of course. “Don’t think of that,” Henry told him. “It was never a possibility, anyway.” Henry had never actually discussed it with his father, of course, but Timothy had assured him that there had never been the least chance that Father would have let Martin go to another family, another boy.

Martin washed himself efficiently in the bathroom and emerged with his basin and cloth. “It’s all over your chest,” he said, nose wrinkled with distaste.

Henry did not mind the fluids, but he let Martin wash him: chest, belly, cock and groin, and the fingers he’d used to stretch Martin’s hole. Martin always looked happy to do it, and so fond of Henry, and Henry felt a sharp pang of desperate affection as Martin bent over his hand and gave special attention to each finger.

“I love you,” Henry blurted, the words expelled with awkward force.

Martin looked up at him beaming, his smile dazzling. “I love you, too, Henry.” He leaned forward and kissed Henry quickly on the mouth. He picked up his basin and went back to the bathroom. As he came back across the carpet, he asked, “Do you have homework? We could try to finish it before my dinner.”

Henry would have preferred to nap in Martin’s arms, but said, “You could help me with the Latin, I suppose.”

They sprawled naked on the bed with their schoolbooks. Henry had a paragraph about Hercules slaying a hydra that he had to translate for Dr. Foster. He took a stab at it on his own before admitting defeat and letting Martin do the work.

“You got some of the vocabulary right,” Martin said cheerfully. He spent a few minutes on the entire paragraph, referring to the textbook twice to verify his work before handing it over. “Read it over. I think I’ve got it all correct.”

“I’m sure you do,” Henry said. He began copying Martin’s translation in his own sloppy hand, intending, as always, to learn something from Martin’s answers, but in reality simply copying with only the barest understanding.

While Henry worked, Martin got up off the bed. “I’m going to dress and then I’ll come help you.”

Henry looked up from his copying. “Is it already dinnertime?”

“I want to go down a little early so I can speak to Mr. Tim beforehand. Are you coming with me?”

Henry did not want to go, but he didn’t see how he could get out of it and maintain Martin’s good opinion of him. Besides, Freddie had done the honorable thing by coming to Henry, and Henry felt he owed it to his friend to pass along the information.

“Yes, I’m coming.”

By the time Martin returned to Henry’s room fully dressed, Henry had finished with his paragraph. He got up and let himself be dressed.

“Martin?”

“Hmm?” Martin adjusted the ends of Henry’s tie.

“Didn’t Tom use rubbers?”

Martin shook his head. “Not usually. Mr. Caldwell said he thought Tom was smart enough that he didn’t have to tell him to use them, but Tom’s like everyone else and thinks it feels better to do it without.”

“What about at swaps? Do masters have slaves use them at parties?” Most of Henry’s ideas about party behavior came from James Briggs, who was decidedly anti-prophylactic.

“Sometimes.” Martin shrugged. “Mr. Caldwell is particular about them being used with Tom, actually, but his preference didn’t carry over into Tom’s personal life.”

Henry thought on this a moment. “What about at Ganymede?”

“We did it with and without. We were taught about preventing disease and rubbers were made available to us. With most partners, I used a rubber, but with my closest friends I went without. It probably wasn’t smart.” He shrugged again. “But none of the companions in my cohort had any problems with disease. There was a footman in the cohort who caught the clap from the man who drove the butcher’s wagon—an outsider. Maybe it was false confidence, but we felt quite safe so long as we were just having fun with our friends.”

“Well, I’m glad you never got sick.”

“Me, too.” Martin held up Henry’s jacket so he could slip his arms into the sleeves. “Ready?”

“Ready,” Henry agreed.

Together they descended to the basement.

Timothy was in the slaves’ mess standing with Dora near the head of the table. Their heads were close together and he was touching her hand as they laughed. Seeing her like this, she was prettier than Henry had realized. She might have been very beautiful twenty years ago.

Slaves quieted as they noticed Henry, and Henry felt very conspicuous crossing to where Timothy stood. Dora dipped in a quick curtsey and slipped away.

Timothy looked happy to see Henry, as he invariably did. “Good afternoon, Sir. How can I help you?”

Henry blushed in anticipation of discussing a delicate topic. “Can we talk to you in private?”

“Certainly, Sir. We can use Randolph’s office.”

Randolph was in his office, but made way readily with assurances that it was no trouble at all.

“What’s this about, Sir?” Timothy asked.

“It’s about Jerry and Arthur,” Henry began haltingly, eyes on the floor. He had imagined Martin would tell Timothy what had happened since Tom was Martin’s friend, but here he was, with Timothy asking him, and no graceful way to give Martin the responsibility instead.

“My friend Freddie Caldwell let me know today that his slave Tom has…has gonorrhea, and Tom has been, uh, involved with Jerry and Arthur for a little while, and it seems likely they’ll need to be treated, too.” The words came out in a rush. Henry dared a glance at Timothy’s face as he finished his speech.

Timothy smiled and patted his arm soothingly. “Don’t worry. It’s being seen to already, Sir. The doctor is at the stables now. Mr. Caldwell Senior’s companion called me this morning to inform me of the situation. But it was good of you, Sir, to come to me, and it was good of your friend to take responsibility, as well. You’re all fine boys.” He gave Henry’s arm a squeeze and reached for the doorknob.

“Are they in trouble?” Henry blurted.

Timothy let go of the doorknob and smiled at him. “No, Sir, they’re not in any trouble beyond this medical difficulty. It’s an unfortunate circumstance, and quite inconvenient, but they’ve broken no rules. It’s kind of you to think of them, though.”

Henry remembered them happy with Tom at the wedding party and felt so sorry for them all.

“Is there anything else, Sir? Martin?”

“No, no,” Henry said. “That’s all.”

“No, Mr. Tim.”

Timothy ushered them out of Randolph’s office and Henry went upstairs by himself and did his homework. He thought he might get a B in English, or at least a B-minus, if he worked at it a little.

When Martin came to dress Henry, he reported that neither Jerry nor Arthur had come to the house for dinner, staying instead at the stables, but Johnny had taken them their meal and reported to Martin that they seemed very angry and upset. Johnny knew nothing specific, of course, but Martin thought this did not bode well for Tom.

Martin had tears in his eyes and sought to hide them from Henry.

“Wait, wait. Why are you crying, Martin?” Henry put his hands on Martin’s face, turned his chin so he could look into Martin’s eyes.

Martin sniffed wetly. “Oh, Henry, it’s just that I know how much this will hurt Tom. I know he seems very cocky and confident, but he’s actually quite fragile.” He stepped around to help Henry put on his waistcoat. “He had a boy at Orpheus he cared for very much and misses him so, and Jerry reminds him so much of that boy.”

Henry considered this. If Richard hadn’t died, then he’d be out in the city somewhere with his own master, and Martin might be longing to be with him instead of loving Henry as well as he did.

“It’s too bad,” Henry said. “There’s no chance he’ll see that Orpheus boy again?”

“It’s unlikely. It’s possible he might see him in passing, but not so he could spend any time with him. It’s probably better not to see him at all.”

“I’ll bet Freddie would let him see that boy,” Henry said. “Why doesn’t he ask?”

Martin gave him a doubtful frown. “Mr. Caldwell already gives him such latitude, and it hasn’t worked out terribly well, has it? Besides, the other boy’s master might not allow them to renew their friendship.” Martin straightened Henry’s tie. “There. Perfect.”

Henry went down for his dinner and all during the meal thought of the stable slaves and poor lovelorn Tom. His feelings about Tom were complicated. He was suspicious of him and his intentions toward Martin, but he appreciated that Martin had such a good friend, and he liked how they looked together, and he had fantasized and actually dreamed about the two of them fucking—though that seemed less exciting in light of this medical matter—and he felt a bit guilty about that. He’d wondered how Martin would respond if he told him he’d thought of bringing Tom into his bed. Would Martin be delighted or upset? Henry would do no such thing, of course, especially not now, but he wanted to somehow know how Martin would respond if he did. It would be a test, and an unfair one, since Henry knew Martin would feel obligated to go along with anything Henry wanted to do.

“Henry, did you hear me?” Father was frowning, his fork held midair.

“No, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”

“Timothy tells me there’s been some medical trouble with the stable slaves. Is there any reason to think your Martin will be inconvenienced by this same malady?”

Henry’s face was flooded with embarrassed heat. “No, sir, absolutely not!”

“Good, then.” Father gave him a stiff smile. “It hasn’t escaped my notice that you’ve used your slave very responsibly, Henry. You’re to be commended for that, son.”

“Oh.” Henry blinked. Praise from Father! “Thank you, sir.”

“Hmm.” Father turned back to his plate and ignored Henry and his mother for the rest of the meal.

Later, Henry and Martin made each other come with their mouths and lay in bed petting and soothing one another toward sleep.

“I imagine Tom will have a lot to say to you tomorrow,” Henry remarked.

“Oh, I don’t even want to think about it!” Martin shook his head emphatically. “It won’t be good news, I’m sure of it. And even though you won’t say anything, and I won’t say anything, all the slaves in our house are already talking, and I’m sure it’s the same at the Caldwells. Mr. Caldwell won’t be able to keep it quiet. It’ll be all over school in no time, and poor Tom will be humiliated.”

“I could ask Jerry and Arthur to keep quiet,” Henry suggested.

“That would be sweet of you, but I’m sure it’s too late already. Besides, Tom isn’t your slave, and people might wonder what your interest is. They might speculate that he’d infected you.”

“Really?” This seemed a stretch to Henry, but Martin sounded so sure.

“People love gossip, Henry, and I don’t want you to be the subject of any of it. We’d best stay out of all the talk.” He touched Henry’s face lightly, fondly. “I love you so much, Henry. I don’t want anyone to have the least reason to speak ill of you.”

“I won’t give them any reason,” Henry assured him, kissing him first on the tip of his nose and then on his mouth. It did occur to Henry that the very thing scandalmongers would find most gossip-worthy was his love for Martin, but he believed they were doing a good job of keeping it private. Despite their constant talking, Henry trusted that Martin had told Tom nothing, and he certainly wasn’t about to tell anyone himself. It seemed possible that they’d be able to continue like this indefinitely, never giving anyone reason to gossip, so long as they were able to keep their love to themselves.

Tuesday morning, as Henry’s classmates and their slaves milled about in front of the school, Henry noted that Tom was red-eyed and wan and looked quite despondent. Martin went to his side and Tom leaned on him. The raw pain on his face made Henry’s heart ache in sympathy and he had to look away. Henry’s friends might not notice anything was going on, but surely all the slaves would see Tom’s distress and wonder what had happened. Martin had been right: the news would find its way out.

It was rainy and cold again, and after lunch boys congregated in the library. The slaves stood together in a corner within sight of their masters but distant enough that the two groups could carry on separate conversations. Martin stood with Tom, an arm around his back, and Henry decided he would have to be okay with that. Henry sat at a table with his friends, slumped in a straight chair, idly flipping through a dictionary looking for interesting words but not finding any. Louis sat beside him, bored and talkative.

“Freddie,” Louis said, throwing a crumpled-up ball of paper at him. “Hey, Freddie. What’s wrong with Tom?”

Freddie frowned and blushed. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s nothing.”

“He looks pretty miserable for nothing,” Louis countered, flicking another paper wad across the table.

“Knock it off,” Freddie snapped, throwing the ball back at Louis with some force. “It’s private, all right?”

This did not, of course, cause Louis to respectfully withdraw his questions. Rather, it had the opposite effect, and then all the boys were interested in knowing what sort of trouble Tom was having.

“Oh, leave him alone,” Henry said, his tone disdainful, intending to shame his friends out of their interest.

“Wait just a minute,” Louis said. “Do you know something, Henry?” To the others, he said, “Martin is awfully close to Tom, after all.”

Freddie glared at Henry; Henry’s attempt to be helpful had not been successful.

Wendell said, “Why does Henry know? I’m your best friend, Freddie.” He crossed his arms over his chest and looked very much as if he expected an answer.

“Look, Wendell,” Freddie said, “Tom got into some trouble, and it involved some of Henry’s slaves, so of course Henry knows.”

Louis turned to Henry. “If Martin’s in the same trouble, why isn’t he upset?”

“Martin isn’t in the same trouble,” Henry said emphatically. “It’s other slaves at my house. It doesn’t involve Martin at all, except he cares about Tom.”

“Why all this secrecy?” asked Charles skeptically. “I seriously doubt whatever happened is as interesting as you’re making it seem.”

“I’m not trying to make it seem interesting!” Freddie insisted. “I want to stop talking about it!” He got up and stalked away and Tom reluctantly left the curve of Martin’s embrace and went after him.

Louis said, “So, Henry—”

“No,” Henry said. “I’m not talking about it. It’s Freddie’s business.” They would all know soon enough anyway, he suspected.

Louis pestered him for information on the way home from school and Henry did his best to ignore him.

“You’re like a stone,” Louis complained. “I used to be able to get anything I wanted out of you.”

“I used to let you boss me around,” Henry agreed. “I’m not doing that any more.”

Louis sighed. “You know I’m just curious. I don’t mean anything by it.”

“Listen,” Henry told him, “I think you’ll know anyway in a day or two. Word will get out. Just be a little patient.”

“I’m not good at being patient,” Louis pointed out. “I’m your best friend, Henry. Just tell me and I promise I’ll keep it secret.”

They’d reached the Blackwell gate. “Goodbye, Louis. See you tomorrow.”

Louis gave a frustrated growl and swatted at Henry’s back. “Fine. See you tomorrow.”

They climbed the porch steps and Martin rang the bell. Billy let them in and took their coats and they climbed to the second floor in silence. Safely locked in Henry’s bedroom, warming themselves before the fire, Martin embraced Henry tightly and pressed his face against Henry’s neck.

“Are you upset about Tom?” Henry asked. “He looked so unhappy today.”

“His heart is broken. Jerry was very angry and cold to him and Arthur was almost as bad. I can’t even say I blame them for being angry, but I do wish they’d given him another chance.”

Henry kissed his ear. “Stay out of it. Don’t interfere, all right? I don’t need trouble between you and the stable slaves.”

“He told them he loved them,” Martin continued. “He begged their forgiveness. But they don’t love him back, and they didn’t forgive him.”

“Maybe they just need a little time to cool off,” Henry suggested. “Maybe after they’ve all been cured they’ll feel more charitable toward Tom.”

“Jerry is so angry. Arthur is his treasure. Tom gave it to Arthur, you see, and then Jerry got it from Arthur.”

Henry sat a moment trying to understand what Martin was telling him.

Martin saw the confusion on Henry’s face. “Tom had the infection in his prick, and he fucked Arthur and gave it to him that way, and then Jerry got it having sex with Arthur.”

“Oh. So they were both fucking Arthur, but not each other.”

“Well, no, but Tom didn’t have the infection in his ass, so Jerry couldn’t get it from him that way, and he never let Tom fuck him.”

“And Arthur doesn’t fuck anyone?”

“Apparently not. I think he’s like me and prefers to be fucked.” He let go of Henry and shrugged out of his jacket. “The only reason Jerry agreed to keep seeing Tom in the first place is because Arthur wanted him and Jerry wanted Arthur to be happy.”

“But you told me Tom was especially attached to Jerry.” Henry let his jacket fall to the carpet, as well.

“Yes, that’s true. Tom is in love with Jerry, Jerry is in love with Arthur, and Arthur is fascinated with Tom.” Martin knelt and untied Henry’s boots.

“But no one loves Tom.” Henry was surprised to find he felt badly for Tom. It was unexpected that someone so attractive would have any difficulty securing the love he desired. He unbuttoned his waistcoat and let that fall to the floor, as well, and stepped out of his boots.

“No,” Martin agreed sadly, kicking off his trousers. “Well, I do, as a friend, but that’s hardly the same thing.” He paused with his hand on the button of his drawers. “Do you want to have sex, or are we putting on our clothes now?”

Offered the choice, Henry thought he would always pick sex. “Take everything off,” he said. “I’ll be happy to have sex with you.”

Martin seemed well pleased with this decision and quickly stripped off the rest of his clothes and helped Henry undress, as well. Martin hurried to fetch the oil bottle, and they lay down together, warm before the hearth, Henry on his back on the carpet and Martin straddling his hips. Henry oiled his fingers and reached between Martin’s thighs, teasing his hole and watching as his cock stiffened to near vertical.

“More,” Martin breathed, bearing down on Henry’s fingers. “Do it harder.” He leaned forward, bracing his hands on Henry’s shoulders, and spread his legs farther apart.

“Don’t be in such a hurry,” Henry murmured, stroking Martin’s side with long, soothing sweeps of his hand. “I’m not going anywhere and neither are you.” He wanted to look at Martin a little longer, anticipating the moment he’d push his cock inside Martin’s body and then savoring that moment when it came.

Martin’s impatience was palpable. He reached around behind his back and took hold of Henry’s cock. “I want to feel you, Henry, your beautiful cock stretching me tight. That’s what I thought about all day: how lucky I was, that I’d go home with the man who loves me, and he’d make me feel every hard inch of his cock, and—”

“I’ll do it,” Henry assured him, pulling him down for a kiss. “Everything you say, I’ll do, Martin, but just let me enjoy you a little, please. Let me look at you a moment.”

Martin sighed and removed the scowl from his face with effort. Sticky droplets of clear fluid had fallen from the tip of his cock to Henry’s flat belly and Martin ran his fingers through these droplets and used them to wet Henry’s lips.

“You like this, I know it. You love the taste of me.”

Henry blushed but did not disagree. He licked Martin’s fingertips and sucked his fingers, and Martin petted his tongue and then abruptly withdrew his hand and wrapped his wet fingers around Henry’s throat, not squeezing but just holding him. Henry liked the possessiveness of the gesture, but the implication that his breath could be cut off entirely made him a little uneasy, and Martin must have sensed this and let him go. He bent over Henry and kissed him with wet sweeps of tongue, his breath coming in harsh pants.

“You could do it to me,” he murmured.

“Do what?” Henry had resumed fingering Martin’s hole.

“You could choke me,” Martin suggested. “If you don’t want me to do it to you, you could do it to me instead.”

“Why?” Henry was baffled by this request.

“It feels good. It makes the orgasm more intense.”

“It does?”

Martin moved his hips against Henry’s, rubbing his hard prick along Henry’s length. “It does.”

How did Martin know this? Who had he done it with? Richard? Henry was suddenly filled with anxiety and jealousy where moments before there had only been loving desire.

“You can’t squeeze too hard, of course,” Martin continued blithely. “You wouldn’t want to kill me.”

Henry most certainly didn’t want to do any sex thing that might result in Martin’s death!

“Martin, no, I don’t want to do anything dangerous…”

“Oh, it’s not that dangerous! You just need to use common sense. It will feel so good to me if you do it.”

Henry did not trust that he had reliable common sense, especially when navigating such murky waters, and he was a little uncomfortable with the way Martin was coaxing him, but the idea that Martin must have done this with Richard and who knows who else at Ganymede was a powerful goad.

“What if I will do it, then? What do I do?”

“You just hold my neck when I get close.” He kissed Henry again and rocked his hips, dragging his ass over Henry’s cock, and it felt good enough that, despite his misgivings, Henry was prepared to do as Martin asked.

Again, Henry oiled his fingers and reached between Martin’s thighs, and now Martin seemed content to let Henry take his time, his wet fingers making Martin slippery and stretching his hole just a little. Henry knew that Martin liked best the shocking stretch and burn of Henry’s cock shoved into his minimally-prepared hole, and usually tried to accommodate him in this despite his worries that Martin might be injured—worries that Martin always dismissed. Now, Martin whimpered and twisted his hips down against the pressure from Henry’s fingers. He looked down at Henry as if from a great distance, his gaze hazy, and Henry had to wonder if Martin was really in the room with him, or if he was remembering other lovers he’d played choking games with.

“May I oil your cock?” Martin held out his hand expectantly and Henry poured a little oil on his palm. Martin reached around, arching back, and took hold of Henry’s prick in his slick hand, tested the length of it and drew it hard. He knelt up and held Henry’s cock in position. “Are you ready?”

“Go slow,” Henry said, putting his hands lightly on Martin’s hips. “Don’t rush.”

Martin did as Henry asked, sitting back slowly so that it seemed to take an exquisite eternity for the head of Henry’s cock to push through the tight ring of Martin’s hole, a squeeze that took Henry’s breath away. Martin rocked his hips, taking in more and more of the shaft until he sat solidly astride Henry’s hips, grinding his ass against Henry’s lap. It seemed that Henry would never get used to the incredible way Martin felt inside, velvety and feverish and perfectly fitted to his cock. Henry lifted against Martin’s weight and Martin moaned, shuddering, and let his head drop forward, his hair obscuring his face.

“Are you okay?”

Martin lifted his head and smiled at Henry, the smile of a courtesan, or of Ganymede himself beguiling Zeus. “I just love the feeling of your cock, Henry. I just love it so much.” He bent down into Henry’s arms and kissed him lavishly, wet and eager.

Henry planted his feet on the floor and held Martin’s ass cheeks in both hands, spread them wide, and lifted his hips again and again as they kissed, fucking Martin’s hole with short, hard strokes. Martin whimpered and bit Henry’s lip, then buried his face in Henry’s neck and clung to him while he pounded up into his ass, their bodies meeting with loud, fleshy smacks.

When Henry’s pace faltered, Martin let go of him and sat up. “Let me do it now.” He ran his hands over Henry’s chest and teased his nipples hard while he rocked on his prick, taking it deep. Martin’s own cock was hard and slick at the head and he moaned and let his head fall back as Henry fondled it, exposing the length of his throat and offering Henry a reminder that he’d agreed to choke him.

Martin rose up on his knees, then sank down on Henry’s cock with a whimper. He rose again and said, “Let me make you feel good, Henry,” as he sat back down. He fucked himself on Henry’s cock at a vigorous pace, not too frantic but breathtaking nonetheless, and Henry ran his hands over all of Martin he could reach.

“Will you do it?” Martin breathed, leaning over him. “Will you put your hands around my neck?”

“Now?”

“Please.”

Henry’s hands began to shake and he blushed for fear that Martin would see and know how nervous he was. He reached up to touch Martin’s white throat, fingers around the back of his neck and thumbs over the hard bump of his Adam’s apple. Martin’s tattoo was bright where it peeked out between Henry’s wrists. “Now what?”

“Just squeeze a little. Don’t be nervous.” He leaned into Henry’s touch, putting much more pressure on his own neck than Henry would have felt comfortable doing, and Henry pulled his hands away, startled.

“Henry?” Martin caught himself from falling forward with a hand on Henry’s chest. “Do you not want to do this?”

In fact, Henry did not want to do it, but he wasn’t going to admit it, not if Martin had done this with Richard and other Ganymede boys. “How hard do you want me to squeeze?”

“If you let me lean on you, you won’t have to squeeze very hard.”

“All right, then. I know what to expect now, I think.” His cock had gone a little soft in Martin’s ass and this embarrassed him, too. He was a frightened boy, not a man.

Martin felt the difference and bent over him to kiss his mouth. Henry ran his hands up and down Martin’s back and ass, tangled his fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck, then tentatively wrapped one hand around Martin’s throat and felt his pulse. Martin moaned against Henry’s lips and then sucked on his tongue, leaning hard into his touch. He twisted his hips down against Henry’s lap, making Henry’s cock fully hard again, and Henry began to feel a little better about this choking game.

Martin put his hand on Henry’s wrist and sat up, taking Henry’s hand with him, still wrapped around his throat. Martin swallowed and Henry felt everything shift in his neck, sliding up and then down. The skin of Martin’s neck seemed especially warm, especially soft; the beat of his pulse felt round and rapid, like beads throbbing beneath his skin.

“Both hands, please,” Martin said softly, lifting up off Henry’s lap. His cock was leaking onto Henry’s belly, connected with a sticky thread of fluid, and it showed a vivid dark pink against the white of his skin.

Henry put both hands around Martin’s neck and felt Martin’s sigh, felt Martin come down emphatically around his cock and raise up off it again, over and over, slippery but with just enough friction to give Henry chills upon chills, his skin tingling all over. Martin leaned heavily into Henry’s hands and Henry locked his elbows and resisted the urge to loosen his grip on Martin’s neck. Martin’s breathing was rough and constricted, and he began to work his cock with his left hand, using the right to brace himself against Henry’s chest.

“Tighter.” Martin’s voice came out as a rasp. His face was red, and veins bulged in his throat. Henry hesitated, and Martin begged again. “Tighter, please.”

Henry squeezed Martin’s neck and Martin whimpered and closed his eyes. His face was dark, nearly purple, and a vein throbbed in his forehead. His face looked distorted and unfamiliar, and it was unnerving to see this stranger’s countenance atop Martin’s familiar, beloved body.

“Oh, Henry,” Martin said in a harsh, croaking whisper. “Oh, god, Henry, Henry!” He stilled, his hips stuttering to a halt and his hand hesitating over his cock, and he came hard, his jism hitting Henry in the face, hot and startling, and Henry let go of Martin’s neck.

“Henry! Did it get in your eye?” Martin raised his hand to his throat, touching the place where Henry had squeezed him. His color was blotchy but quickly returning quickly to normal.

“No, no, I’m fine.” Henry took hold of Martin’s hips. “Help me come.” He pulled Martin down into a kiss and rocked his hips against Martin’s ass. Martin licked Henry’s cheek clean and countered Henry’s thrusts with undulating movements of his hips, making little satisfied grunts as he did so.

Henry gathered Martin close and rolled him over, onto his back, and drove into him hard enough to make him wince. Martin drew his knees up, legs spread, wide open, and reached up to run his hands over Henry’s chest, pinching his nipples in passing.

“Come for me, Henry. Come on, do it.”

Henry looked down at him, at his beautiful face and broad shoulders, at his hair spread out on the carpet like the rays of the sun. No visual trace of the choking game remained, and he was his familiar self, and Henry loved him. Nothing could be easier than to come at his command. Henry bent to kiss him, and Martin’s arms came around his back and held him tight while he shuddered through a prolonged, intense orgasm that left him feeling relieved and blessed and loved.

They curled around each other, Henry’s head on Martin’s chest and Martin combing through Henry’s hair with languid flicks of his wrist.

“Thank you, Henry,” Martin said, bending to kiss the top of Henry’s head. “I always wanted to try that.”

Henry froze. Try it? “Wait. I thought you did this before, with Richard and whoever else at Ganymede.”

“Oh, no! People told me about it, but I’d never done it before. I didn’t mean to give you the impression I was practiced at it!” He paused a moment and then asked, “That’s all right, isn’t it? That I’ve only done it with you?”

Henry didn’t know how to feel. He’d only agreed to do it because he thought Richard had done it; it wasn’t anything he had wanted to do. On the other hand, he loved that it was something that Martin had only done with him, something definite he had over Richard and the others.

“Yeah,” Henry said slowly. “I guess.”

Martin drew him closer. “I appreciate it very much, Henry. I know you don’t always like the games I want to play, and you’re such a good sport.”

“I love you,” Henry explained. “I want to make you happy.”

“I feel the same, Henry.” He snuggled close and wrapped himself around Henry for just long enough for Henry to feel perfectly content, then unwound himself and went for his basin.

Henry lay naked before the fire and let Martin wash him: his cheekbone, his chest, his cock, his hands. Henry pawed and petted Martin while he worked, and when at last Henry was clean, Martin let himself be drawn down into a kiss and stretched out full-length atop Henry’s body.

“We’re bony.” Martin rubbed his cheek alongside Henry’s and kissed his ear.

“One of us should get a little fatter,” Henry remarked. “We could use a little padding.”

“It’ll have to be you, Henry. A companion shouldn’t ever be getting fat. It’s part of the job to be fit.”

“Be careful what you wish for, or I’ll end up a colossus like my father, and I’ll get on top of you and squash you flat.” Henry rolled Martin over onto his back and loomed over him, laughing. Martin tickled him and he collapsed in helpless giggles, hunched over trying to protect his ribs. They rolled back and forth across the floor, knocking into the basin and sloshing water on the carpet.

“I have to try to clean that up,” Martin said, breaking out of Henry’s embrace. “I don’t want your carpet all spotty.” He got up and went into the bathroom for a towel and then came back to blot at the wet spot while Henry watched.

“Do you have homework, Henry?”

Henry grimaced. “Yes, of course.”

“Let’s do what we can before I go down for dinner, shall we?”

“Do we have to get dressed?”

Martin laughed. “No, we can be naked.”

Henry got his school bag and plopped down before the fire again. He had another paragraph about Hercules from Dr. Foster and he translated the few words he recognized before putting this aside for Martin to do. He set about doing Mr. McLachlan’s math problems with good cheer; he would not need Martin’s help with these.

Martin went and put his damp towel in the laundry basket and returned to sit cross-legged at Henry’s side before the fire. He picked up the Latin mimeograph and a pencil and began translating.

They worked in a companionable silence for perhaps ten minutes, then Martin put down his pencil and the Latin text and said, “It’s done.”

“Thank you.” Henry reached for Martin, a hand around the back of his neck, and pulled him in for a kiss.

“I should get dressed now. It’s nearly time.”

“Of course. Go on then.”

By the time Martin returned fully-dressed, Henry had finished his math and lay on his back on the floor, hands behind his head, basking in the warmth from the fireplace.

Martin knelt down to say goodbye. “Are you going to fall asleep here?”

Henry smiled up at him. “I might.”

Martin smoothed his hair back from his forehead. “You look like a god resting in the forest. I don’t want to leave you.”

“Get your dinner,” Henry told him, kissing his fingers. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

Once Martin had gone, Henry bestirred himself to copy the Latin paragraph then flopped back down on the floor, wanting Martin to find him where he’d left him. He dozed a little and dreamed that he was fucking Tom and choking him, and Martin pointed out that he was safe, that he couldn’t get gonorrhea that way. He woke abruptly, embarrassed and aroused, and decided he would not share this dream with Martin.

Martin returned slightly upset, having spoken with Jerry, who had many unkind things to say about Tom.

“I tried to explain to him that obviously Tom had no idea he was spreading disease, but Jerry’s behaving as if Tom did this on purpose. He doesn’t have to be friendly with Tom if he doesn’t want to be, of course, but I don’t see the point of being hostile and vindictive. Poor Tom is devastated as it is.” Martin put the studs in Henry’s shirtfront, his expression pinched and fretful.

“Did Jerry know that Tom was carrying on other affairs while he was involved with them?” Henry held out his hands to have his cufflinks inserted.

“He must have. Tom never made any secret of it. Tom is—was—very popular.”

“Where did Tom catch it, anyway? Does he know?”

Martin made a disgusted face. “Oh, this awful girl. Edith.” He nearly spat the name. He knelt and held Henry’s trousers ready.

It was just a guess, but Henry asked, “Is she a little redhead? Really pretty?”

Martin went wide-eyed, astonished. “How did you know?”

“She was after him at Billy’s wedding. I overheard a conversation.”

“She wanted him to be hers and hers alone.” Martin said this disdainfully, as if it were self-evident that Tom would never belong to the likes of Edith. “Meanwhile, she had so many suitors! I wouldn’t be surprised if she knew she was diseased and fucked him anyway.” While Henry tucked in his shirt, Martin fetched his braces out of the wardrobe.

“If she’s so horrible, why was Tom involved with her at all?”

“Well, Tom doesn’t think she’s horrible, or at least he didn’t. She is very pretty, as you said, and Tom’s quite vain and liked the picture the two of them made together.”

“Why do you dislike her so much? It’s not just this latest thing, is it?”

“She’s always been dishonest, and she’s so possessive and clingy!” Martin shuddered with distaste.

Henry was a little worried by this, and a tiny bit offended. “I’m very protective of you. Some might consider me possessive and clingy.”

Martin waved this off as being of no account. “But you have every right, Henry. Edith has no claim.” He held Henry’s waistcoat up for him to put on. “Tom’s a companion, after all. Mr. Caldwell will always have first claim on his attentions.”

Henry went down to dinner with a few lingering questions. Did Martin actually not mind how possessive and clingy Henry could be? Or was it just that he accepted it as his due as Henry’s companion? Henry didn’t like the idea that Martin was simply putting up with him, though he supposed there was a certain amount of putting-up-with that free people did in their relationships, as well. Really, Martin didn’t behave like someone who felt burdened with Henry’s attentions, so he couldn’t be resenting Henry’s clinginess too much.

While he ate, he thought about the slaves he’d seen at the wedding dance and wondered which ones Martin would have gotten involved with if Henry had never made use of him and allowed him his freedom instead. Would he and Tom…? Would he have the clap right now? Henry hadn’t seen a lot of slave boys with his own looks at the party, very tall and dark; in the face of a lack of acceptable dark options, would Martin be more receptive to other types, like the Spanglers’ ginger footman? He debated whether he should ask Martin or not. He thought not; it seemed like it could easily lead to hurt feelings or a fight. It did seem obvious to him that someone who liked sex as much as Martin did would have eventually found a way to get it, sanctioned or not.

Pearl had clearly enjoyed reading The Ghost of Hedgecombe Manor, and her new book, The Lady in Blue, seemed to be another ghost story, or at least a mystery. Henry was immediately suspicious that the lady in blue would turn out to be some sort of madwoman who was meant to be locked up, perhaps a relation of the mysterious gentleman whose estate was the setting for the story. In Henry’s experience, rich people’s lives were much less interesting than novelists imagined. Even the Blackwell household, boasting the drama of marital estrangement, a long illness, and a hopelessly queer son, didn’t seem particularly novelistic.

It occurred to Henry rather suddenly: were there novels that catered specifically to the interests of slaves? Were they written by slaves or free people? What were the dominant themes? No novel Henry had ever read dared hint at a romance between master and slave, but might a novel written for an audience of slaves cross this line? Even if such taboo stories were told, though, they would surely only describe romances between males and females; slaves might do what they wished with other slaves, but it seemed unlikely that a book would be published that suggested a master might engage in queer behavior with a slave. There was Drake’s Progress, of course, but it might only be Henry and Martin seeing the romance there. Henry felt a deep longing to read a book about people like Martin and himself, young men in the throes of a forbidden passion; he would have to ask Martin about slave novels.

After the reading, Henry kissed his mother goodnight and went down the hall in a distracted daze. Preoccupied, he kept quiet while Martin undressed him.

“What are you thinking about, Henry?” Martin untied Henry’s tie and slipped it from around his collar.

“What do slaves read?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Besides regular books, obviously. Are there books meant just for slaves? About things that are particularly interesting to slaves?”

Martin considered this while he undid Henry’s shirt studs and cufflinks. “I...never thought about it. I suppose there might be. What do you think they’d be about?”

“I’d like to read a book about people like us,” Henry told him. “People who are doing what their hearts tell them, but it’s forbidden.” He shrugged out of his shirt, catching it before it fell to the floor and putting it in Martin’s hands. “You didn’t have slave novels at Ganymede?” The more Henry thought about it, the more convinced he became that whole genres of slave novels must exist.

“I don’t think so,” Martin said slowly. “We had things like regular boys would have, though not as many of them, and not as nice. We had regular schoolbooks and regular storybooks. We had many of the same books I see on your shelves.”

“Well, that’s what I want to read,” Henry asserted. “A slave story. A real forbidden love. A romance between master and slave, like us.”

Martin considered this, lip held between his teeth. “You know, there might be such books, but offered for sale discreetly. For adults, adult gentlemen. I’m thinking of the dirty book we passed around at Ganymede; it wasn’t the sort of thing you’d be able to buy at a regular bookshop.”

“How does a person find a dirty bookshop?” Henry mused, not really expecting Martin would know.

“I-I’m not sure? I can find out if you’d like. Or you might ask Mr. Briggs; no doubt his brother knows exactly where such shops are located.”

It was a good idea. James would surely know where to buy pornographic books, but Henry didn’t want James knowing that he wanted any such thing; he didn’t even want Louis to know.

“No, I’d better not ask James,” Henry told him. “He’d feel entitled to know what I wanted. He’d want to know all my business, and Louis would be just as bad.”

“I’m sure I can find out for you, if you’ll give me a little time.” Martin put Henry’s laundry in the basket and hung his dinner suit in the wardrobe. He stripped off his own clothes with efficient speed while Henry admired him from his perch on the edge of the bed. Gathering everything up, Martin said, “I’ll just go put my clothes away.”

“All right.” Henry followed him as far as the bathroom, where he brushed his teeth. After he had rinsed and spit, he went to lay down, sprawled across the bed.

“I’ll be right back.” Martin bent over him in pajamas and dressing gown. “Get under the covers, Henry. It’s cold.” He kissed Henry on the mouth and left the room with their laundry.

While he waited for Martin’s return, Henry thought more about what a good master-slave forbidden-love romance would read like. He thought his own story was a good example, actually, though he’d leave out the ridiculous part where the master was essentially afraid to touch his slave for weeks and weeks, as he felt this would make the master character laughable. No, in his story, the master and slave would be unquestionably drawn to each other in the auction hall, and they’d consummate their desire as soon as they were alone. Or no, hmm, maybe it was better if they had to wait for some reason, and the waiting would make it that much more exciting when they finally did touch one another.

Martin returned and climbed into bed. They kissed all entwined, and Martin ran his hands through Henry’s hair, holding Henry’s head where he wanted it. His hard cock was slick and insistent alongside Henry’s own.

“You’re my dirty boy, aren’t you, Henry?” he breathed. “You’ll do anything for me.”

Henry thought he maybe shouldn’t agree this was true; it wasn’t very masterful to admit it. But all he said was, “Yes. Yes I will.”

The invitations for the Metropolitan Ball were arriving all during the week, the boys at school visibly relieved when theirs arrived, and those still waiting taking pains to hide their anxiety. The Metropolitan Ball was just one of many spring balls but it was the only one where Algonquin boys traditionally served as escorts. Although it had never happened before, there were rumors that not all the boys in their year would be asked, as there were boys from other schools invited, as well, and there were only so many girls in need of escorts.

To Henry’s great relief, his invitation arrived on Wednesday, and when he and Martin returned home from school, Pearl congratulated him and explained the arrangements in his mother's place, as Mother was down with a headache. Henry remembered hearing all of this before, when James had been an escort four years prior. As an invited escort, Henry would participate in a quadrille that would show the young ladies being debuted to best advantage. It would require a great deal of practice, of course, and Gill's Dancing Academy would see to his training beginning the first week of March.

“I'm sure Martin is a wonderful dancer, Sir,” Pearl remarked. “He's such a well-trained boy. And, of course, you have always been very light on your feet. You needn’t worry about the quadrille, Sir; it will just be dances you already know made into combinations.”

They would attend lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school for two months, dancing with their slaves for the first six weeks, but partnering with the girls for the final two weeks before the ball, which would take place the last Saturday in April. Henry did not care if he ever danced with another girl, but he was excited about the ball. He wanted to see Martin in his formal clothing, and, because it was a white-tie event, the slaves would wear collared shirts and black ties; he'd never seen Martin in a tie, with his mark covered.

The only bad thing about the invitation, and it was minor, was that Henry’s full name had been written out, and his hated middle name had received the calligrapher’s flourished treatment.

“Eustace, Sir,” Martin said, a smirk quirking the corner of his mouth as they climbed the stairs. “How have I known you this long without knowing your middle name?”

“I don’t exactly make it known,” Henry said in a warning tone. “If you care about what I want, you won’t be saying it often.”

“Where does it come from, Sir? Is it a family name?”

“It was Grandfather Wilton’s name, I think. It’s from the Wiltons, anyway.”

In Henry’s room, Martin set the invitation on Henry’s desk, propped up against his pencil cup.

“I’m a bit excited,” Martin admitted. “It’ll be a real grown-up party, won’t it?”

“It will be,” Henry confirmed. “When it was James’ turn, Louis and I heard all about it, of course, and it’s very grand. As you might guess, all James wanted to do was to sneak liquor and kiss girls, but I think most boys are pretty well-behaved.”

“I imagine being dressed up gives everyone a sense of occasion,” Martin remarked.

After homework, they had a little time before Martin’s dinner, so Martin helped Henry write Reggie a letter.

Dear Uncle,

Thank you for your letter. I hope you’ve been able to rid yourself of some of your unwanted possessions since you wrote. It seems to me it must be very trying to dismantle a life and I do not envy you the task. I hope you are able to do it with a sense of hope and a feeling that the future holds much for you, as I believe to be the case. We are all certainly eager for you to return home.

I’ve received my invitation to the Metropolitan Ball, which is quite exciting. We start our lessons for the quadrille next Tuesday. They’ll be with Mr. Gill, who taught me when I was little. He probably taught you when you were little, for that matter!

I haven’t seen Jesse since your farewell party, but I intend to call him up. I like him very much, but I think he’s a little wilder than me, and it’s a bit intimidating. I do have the feeling, though, that I could tell him anything about myself and he would understand. Do you think that’s the case?

Do you have a camera? I would like to see pictures of your house and the lake and vineyard, if possible.

Thank you for writing to your friend Sully. I look forward to learning whatever he might have to tell you.

I will write to you again soon. Love to you and Benjy from me and Martin.

Yours,

Henry

“Do you think that’s all right, then?” Henry read it over, unsure. “I’m sure Jesse has written him a poem or something.”

“Don’t be jealous of Jesse,” Martin chided gently. “Your uncle likes you best, you know this.”

“He liked me best when I was 7,” Henry pointed out. “I think Jesse got a lot more interesting in the meantime.”

“If you’ll just seal it up, I’ll take it downstairs to Randolph to be mailed.”

Henry held out the pen. “You address the envelope; your handwriting is better.”

Martin laughed. “Very well, Henry.” He carefully copied the address off Reggie’s envelope and then slid it across the desk for Henry to seal, watching as Henry licked the flap and pressed it down.

“You should telephone him, you know.”

“What?”

“Your cousin.”

“Jesse?”

Martin smiled. “Who else?”

“Should I invite him over, or something?” Henry immediately worried about how he might entertain Jesse. He didn’t have nude drawings or cigarettes or really anything interesting to share, except maybe his relation to Martin, which he wasn’t prepared to talk about with anyone beyond perhaps Reggie.

“Certainly, or you could do something with him outside of the house,” Martin suggested. “You could go to the arcade, maybe? Or Mr. Wilton might have some suggestions of his own.”

The idea of seeing Jesse was appealing, and Henry liked even better the idea of seeing him somewhere other than either of their homes, as it seemed possible that Jesse’s exhibitionism would take over any bedroom in which he found himself, and Henry wanted to avoid a confrontation just as much as he wanted to avoid temptation.

“Let’s go down together,” Martin suggested. “I’ll take Randolph your letter and you can call your cousin.”

Henry allowed himself to be quickly dressed in his grey suit and followed Martin downstairs. Randolph was in the front hall and was happy to take the letter off Martin’s hands; they went together to the telephone alcove, where Henry sat and Martin stood in the doorway, listening with interest.

When the telephone was answered on the Wilton end, Henry asked for Jesse.

“May I tell Mr. Jesse who’s calling, please?” Henry could picture the face of the slave who spoke, but he couldn’t remember his name.

“It’s his cousin Henry.”

“Very good, Sir. I’ll just go inform him.”

There was a lot of clatter at the other end of the line, the sound of Jesse and Russ laughing, and then Jesse said a breathless, “Hello? Henry?”

“Yes, hi, it’s me.”

“Henry! How nice to hear from you! I’ve been wondering how you’ve been doing.”

“You could have telephoned me,” Henry pointed out.

“I was worried I upset you last time we were together,” Jesse said, not sounding worried at all. “I didn’t want to be a pest.”

“Well, I’m calling you now. I was thinking we could do something.”

“Do something?”

“See each other. Or something.” Henry felt his cheeks growing hot.

“That would be great, Henry. I’d like that. Say, I’m meeting Eli for lunch on Saturday—why don’t you come, too?”

“Eli wouldn’t mind?”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t,” Jesse said blithely. “Eli likes you, too.”

“All right, then. Where are we meeting?”

“It’s this place Reggie took me,” Jesse explained. “It’s called the Third Eye Café. Do you know it?”

Henry laughed. “He took me there, too. Did you have couscous?”

“I did! Russ really liked it. I ended up drinking half of Reggie’s wine and my father was furious with him for letting me get drunk.”

Henry felt jealous—he had not even been given the opportunity to drink wine. He made the effort to not exhibit this jealousy, however. “Should I meet you there?”

“Eli and I are meeting at the Garibaldi statue in Washington Square at eleven. Why don’t you meet us there instead?”

“All right, I will. Saturday at eleven.”

“Yep! Oh, Russ wants me to say hello to Martin for him.”

“Oh. Okay. I’ll let him know.”

“Thanks for calling, Henry. I’m glad I’ll get to see you again so soon.”

They said their goodbyes and Henry hung up the telephone and turned to Martin. “Russ says hello.”

“Oh! That was nice of him, don’t you think, Sir?”

He filled Martin in on their Saturday plans and Martin seemed well pleased.

“The Wiltons are such nice people and like you so well, Sir,” Martin remarked. “Since your father is willing to let you have them, you should definitely take advantage.”

As of Friday morning, everyone knew about Tom’s affliction. The news had passed among the neighborhood’s slaves and from there up to their masters. Boys were furious with Freddie for not telling them, worried that they might have somehow contracted the clap from Tom’s pretty mouth.

“If he didn’t fuck you in the ass, then you’re fine,” Freddie snarled to the group at large. “He couldn’t have given it to anyone by sucking a cock. I didn’t tell you because you didn’t need to know.”

“But you told Henry,” Robert said.

“Because Tom was fucking Henry’s slaves!” Freddie’s frustration was making him loud and sharp.

Robert turned to Henry. “So Martin has it, too?”

“No!” Henry said emphatically. “Tom was having sex with some of our stable slaves. He’s never had sex with Martin.”

“He wants to, though,” some small voice said knowingly, and boys snickered in agreement as Henry felt an angry blush color his cheeks. So even his friends saw it, then.

The slaves had split up into several smaller groups instead of their usual undelineated massing. Tom, seeming full up with shame, stood apart with Martin, Julian, and the rest of the Orpheus slaves, Simon, Miles and Allen. Miles had his arm around Tom and whispered in his ear.

Robert stepped out of the huddle of boys and called out, “Dick, come here.”

Dick did as he was told and Robert took him aside, although within hearing of everyone. “Listen, I want you to keep clear of Tom for the time being,” he said. “Just a precaution, all right?”

Dick, seeming somewhat bemused, said, “Of course, Sir. Whatever you want.”

Several other boys immediately followed Robert’s example, and all the while Freddie shouted over them.

“He can’t give it to anyone by talking!” Freddie yelled angrily. “No one’s going to catch anything in school, for chrissakes!”

At the bell, they went reluctantly to class. Henry felt bad for Freddie and Tom both, and disdainful of the boys who had forbidden their slaves any contact with poor Tom, who surely needed his friends now more than ever. After lunch, as they all went out to the yard, Henry noted that Miles was quietly furious, tight-lipped and tense, keeping his distance from Tom but gazing at him mournfully all the while, and realized that Joshua had ordered Miles to abandon his friend.

Henry had noted over the months that the Orpheus slaves were close, closer than slaves from the other Houses. Despite having slept in the same room—often the same bed—as Stuart for several years, Martin showed little interest in spending time with his childhood friend. Likewise, the Endymion slaves, Peter and Will, were not particularly close. But the Orpheus slaves were all clearly fond of one another, demonstrative and affectionate, and habitually spent time together. Not only would this forced separation hurt Tom, but it was clearly hurting Miles, as well.

Henry didn’t know what he’d say, but he wanted to say something. Because Tom would be hurt, Martin would feel pain, too, and Henry felt he should try to do whatever he could to alleviate it.

“Where are you going?” Louis asked, catching at his sleeve.

“I have to talk to Joshua. I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t get involved, Henry,” Louis called after him.

Gordon and Joshua were standing apart talking in low voices, Gordon looked up as Henry approached.

“What do you want?” Gordon snapped, and then just as quickly said, “Sorry. I’m just trying to talk some sense into this moron.” He jabbed at Joshua with his finger, stopping just short of actually poking him in the chest.

“Stop calling me names,” Joshua complained. “I’m just trying to be safe.”

“Is this about Miles?” Henry asked. “Because that’s what I wanted to talk to him about, too.”

“Good,” Gordon said. “You try.”

“Josh, he can’t get the clap from talking to Tom, or standing with him, or anything he might do with his clothes on. You know this.”

“I’m just trying to be safe,” Joshua repeated. He had his arms crossed stubbornly over his chest, and Henry sensed that they were at a delicate place with Joshua’s state of mind.

“Anyone can see how upset Miles is,” Henry tried. “He just wants to be supportive of his friend. By keeping them apart, you’re making them both miserable. Tom hasn’t done anything to you or Miles, after all.” And then the argument occurred to Henry. “He did give the clap to my slaves,” Henry pointed out, “and I’m still letting Martin be a good friend to him. He’s just a sick fellow, Josh, not some diseased monster.”

Joshua’s shoulders relaxed ever so slightly, but all he said was a haughty, “Thank you for your opinion. Now, can we not talk about this any more?” He walked away, leaving Gordon and Henry shrugging at this inconclusive outcome.

However, something must have gotten through to Joshua, because after school Miles was at Tom’s side, albeit for only a few minutes before being called back to attend to his master’s needs.

Freddie caught up with Henry and Louis on the way to the omnibus, Tom following close behind.

“Henry, wait up!”

“Hey, Freddie.”

“I just wanted to thank you,” Freddie said, slightly breathless, “for sticking up for Tom. He’s caused a lot of trouble for your house, and you’ve been really kind. It’s a different side of you for me.”

Henry laughed. “What did you think of me before, then?”

“Oh, I don’t mean anything by it, Henry. You’re just a really good guy, is all. Tommy appreciates it, too.”

Behind Freddie, Tom looked sheepish but grateful. “Yes, Sir,” he said. “I can’t thank you enough, Sir.”

“People need their friends in hard times,” Henry said, shrugging. “I’m glad Josh changed his mind.”

They all rode the omnibus north, Henry and Louis getting off with their slaves while Freddie and Tom continued on.

“That was nice of you,” Louis said. “I don’t think I’d go out of my way for anyone else’s slave. Well, maybe Martin, since he’s yours, but not any of the others.”

“What about Ralph? He’s Peter’s good friend.”

Louis shrugged. “Maybe. I’m just not as nice as you, Henry.” He laughed. “I should probably try to be more like you, though, and less like James. That should be my whole plan going forward.”

“Maybe.” Henry wasn’t going to discourage him. “Tom’s having a rough time of it,” Henry said. “I feel bad for him.”

“Remember when James had the clap? He was actually proud of it.”

Henry remembered. He and Louis had been so impressed by James, how James was living life to the fullest, consequences be damned!

“The treatment was pretty terrible, though,” Louis said. “I think the cure was worse than the disease for James.” He turned to Martin and asked, “How’s Tom taking it?”

“Oh, he’s quite miserable, Sir,” Martin assured him.

“This is all Freddie’s fault for letting him run wild,” Louis decided. “I imagine they’ve both learned a lesson.”

Louis as moralizer was such a ludicrous proposition that Henry laughed, snorting, but did not explain himself when Louis gave him a quizzical look.

They all said their goodbyes at the Blackwell gate. Paul let them inside and took their coats.

Martin took hold of Henry’s wrist on the stairs and hurried him along, moving down the hallway just short of a run.

Inside Henry’s room, Martin locked the door and pushed Henry up against it, hands flat on his chest.

“What—”

“I want to thank you,” Martin murmured, “for being so kind to my friend.” He gave Henry a searching, hungry kiss while he busied his hands with Henry’s trouser buttons.

Henry kissed him back, his hands light on Martin’s shoulders and then pulling his hair loose from its tail. “I was happy to do it,” he said, “for you. I did it for you.”

“You did it, Henry, and that’s all that matters.” He drew Henry’s prick out of his drawers and went to his knees. “Hold still, and let me thank you properly.”

Friday afternoon and evening were spent mostly naked, Martin rewarding Henry again and again for his kindness toward Tom. Waking on Saturday, he pulled Martin down into the bed with him, aching with love. He wished Martin could sleep in with him on Saturdays and Sundays, that they could depend upon his parents being absent from the breakfast room so that Martin might take weekend breakfasts with him.

Showered and shaved, Henry dressed in his blue plaid suit, but then remembered he’d worn it last time he’d seen Jesse and changed instead into the black-and-grey check. As he dressed, he noted that Martin was wearing his chrysanthemum waistcoat and kissed him for it, full of fondness.

He ate a big breakfast alone and Martin sat down and had a cup of coffee with him, their feet touching under the table. Mother came in with Pearl as they were leaving.

“Where are you off to so early, darling?”

“I’m meeting Jesse, actually, Mother. Eli, as well.”

Mother gave him her rare, beautiful smile. “Oh, darling, that’s wonderful!” Pearl set a cup of tea down before her, along with a scone on a gold-rimmed plate. “My family are special people, don’t you think?”

Henry thought that they were, but he wasn’t sure he meant it the same way his mother did. “Um, yes, they are.”

“Well, have a nice time with your cousins, darling. I’ll want to hear all about it.”

It was only half-past nine, but Henry thought they might go to the arcade beforehand to check out the peep show reels. They got their coats and hats and went out into the chill to wait for the omnibus. Henry felt slightly nervous about seeing his cousins, especially Jesse; Jesse was unpredictable. Jesse wouldn’t be suggesting any voyeuristic games in a restaurant, to be sure, but Henry felt a little pleasantly wary of him nonetheless. Jesse was exciting in a way that reminded Henry of James, yet without James’ mean streak. With James now dishonored, it would be nice to admire someone’s audacity again.

The omnibus had plenty of seats open so Martin sat down with Henry, their knees touching where no one could see.

Henry leaned close and whispered, “I love you,” in Martin’s ear.

Martin drew back, his cheeks pink, and said, “Sir!”

“It’s true,” Henry said with a shrug, grinning, delighted to have made Martin blush.

They got off the omnibus a block from Union Square and walked over to the arcade, where they were among the morning’s first customers. The younger boys who ran back and forth between the strength-testing machines seemed fascinated by Martin, his long hair and tattooed chest, and Henry recognized that he resented their gaping fascination far more than Martin did. Martin ignored them and bent over the Mutoscopes, plugging in pennies as he made his way down the row.

Henry stayed close, taking every opportunity to let his shoulder brush Martin’s or to touch his hand in passing as they traded turns at the machines, and Martin let him do it. He sensed that some of the boys were envious, and whether their envy was because he was rich, or because he had Martin, he enjoyed feeling superior and privileged.

At a quarter of eleven, they left the arcade and walked down 5th to Washington Square and the Garibaldi statue. They saw Jesse and Eli at a distance, Jesse horsing around with Russ while Eli and Owen watched. Henry had somehow imagined that Jesse would behave more conventionally in public, but he’d actually had no reason to think that, and here was Jesse proving that he’d been foolish in his imaginings. There were very few circumstances in which Henry would be willing to roughhouse in public with Martin, and midmorning in a busy park wasn’t one of them.

“Henry!” Jesse caught sight of him and waved, his other arm around Russ’ neck. They looked to be having a great time. Eli looked a little uneasy, but glad enough to see Henry. Jesse insisted on hugging Henry, but Eli was content with a handshake.

“Did you come straight from home? Or were you somewhere else before you came here?” Jesse asked.

“We went to the arcade in Union Square,” Henry told him. “We wanted to see if there were new peep shows. Those are our favorites, both mine and Martin’s.” He felt it wasn’t too out of line to make such an assertion of unity to his cousins.

“Owen likes the gambling games,” Eli said. “He never wins, but he likes to gamble anyway.” Owen seemed embarrassed by his master’s remarks, but amused, as well.

“I like the peep shows, too,” Jesse said, putting Russ in a headlock that he patiently tolerated. Jesse ruffled Russ’ hair with his other hand and said, “Russ, what’s your favorite thing at the arcade?”

“Strength testers, Sir.”

“That’s because you’re stronger than me,” Jesse said, laughing. He let Russ out of the headlock and gave him an affectionate squeeze before releasing him entirely. “Are you fellows hungry? We could walk over to the restaurant.”

Henry was always hungry. “I could eat.”

“Me, too,” said Eli.

The three boys and their slaves began walking.

“Say, Henry, is it true your family lets the slaves eat at the table?” Jesse seemed energized by the idea.

Henry blushed, feeling scrutinized. “Not always. My father does it if he’s eating alone, or if he’s just eating with me, so I do that with Martin, too. But when the whole family is eating together, the slaves wait on us, like normal.”

“I wouldn’t mind trying it,” Jesse said. “What do you think, Eli?”

Eli squirmed a little, looking very uncomfortable with the idea. “You mean now?”

“Why not?” Jesse threw his arms wide, open to the possibilities. “If they don’t eat with us now, when will they eat?”

“If Owen gets hungry, I’ll feed him,” Eli said, sounding defensive.

“What, peanuts from a street vendor?” Jesse said derisively. “Henry does it all the time, Eli. Let’s just give it a try.”

Henry did not, in fact, do it all the time, but he liked the idea of sitting down to a meal with Martin with his cousins. It made him feel that he was very unconventional, very bohemian. He glanced back at Martin, who cocked a quizzical eyebrow at him but did not seem unduly concerned about the impropriety of sitting down with masters.

Eli was red in the face and seemed almost angry, but he said, “Fine. We’ll probably get kicked out of the restaurant, though.”

“Oh, no,” Jesse assured him cheerfully. “Not from this restaurant. It’s run by theater people.”

The Third Eye Café was just opening for lunch, the waiters yawning and unenthusiastic about having customers.

“A table for the three of you?” asked the host.

“We’ll need a table for six, if you don’t mind,” Jesse said, shrugging off his coat into Russ’ hands.

The host raised an eyebrow but did not suggest this request couldn’t be accommodated. “Certainly, sir. If you’ll allow us a few minutes to prepare a table.”

Jesse elbowed Henry and said, “I’ve never sat down with Russ in public before.” He sounded quite excited, bouncing a little on his toes.

“I’ve never wanted to sit down with Owen,” Eli said crankily, and Henry darted a glance at Owen to see how he took this; he seemed unaffected, which Henry suspected was Owen’s default state.

Two tables had been pushed together for them; Jesse immediately sat at the head, with Russ at his right hand. Eli sat at the other end, Owen taking the chair next to Russ. Henry sat at Jesse’s left hand with Martin sitting next to him, in the chair between Eli and himself.

Jesse was looking over the menu in high spirits. He reached over and put his hand on Russ’ wrist. “Order whatever you want,” he said. “Anything at all.”

“Thank you, Sir.” Russ smiled at Jesse with such fondness that Henry was a little flustered. He was more and more convinced that Jesse and Russ were actually lovers, but could think of no possible way to find out except asking, and he wasn’t prepared to be so bold.

Henry turned to Martin and said, “Same goes for you. Whatever you’d like.”

“I think I’ll have what you had last time, Sir—the roast chicken.”

“It was good,” Henry said by way of agreement. “I’ll get something different this time and we can share.”

Eli seemed tense and Owen kept quiet, both perusing their menus.

The waiter came with water for the table.

“Might we order some wine?” Jesse asked. “A carafe of the house red should be sufficient.”

The waiter frowned and looked doubtfully at Jesse, and then at the rest. “May I ask how old you gentlemen are, sir?”

Jesse gave a very arch laugh and said, “Oh, we’re certainly old enough to drink!”

The waiter shook his head and said firmly, “I’m afraid not, sir. Would you care to order now?”

Jesse pouted a long moment. “Very well,” he said at last. “I’ll have the veal.”

The rest ordered, Henry choosing roast beef with horseradish and potatoes and Martin getting the roast chicken with the exotically-spiced couscous. Henry wondered if he could get away with feeding Martin a bite of the roast beef from his own fork and colored pleasurably at the thought; Jesse would certainly do as much, and much worse, and would deflect all attention from Henry.

Jesse was interrogating Eli. “Why are you so uncomfortable?” he asked. “I’ve seen you eat with him plenty of times at my house.”

“That’s snacks in your room,” Eli said. “It’s not a meal in public.”

“But you care about him,” Jesse said urgently, his voice lowered fractionally for the sake of propriety. “Why aren’t you happy to do it?”

“Don’t push, Jesse,” Eli said, warning in his tone. “Everyone isn’t like you, all right? And I’m doing what you want, anyway, so leave off, will you?”

Henry cleared his throat. “Please, Jesse. Don’t make Eli uncomfortable.” He felt responsible, it being his supposed example that had put Eli in this predicament.

Jesse put his hand on Henry’s arm and squeezed. “I want to share everything with Russ,” he offered by way of explanation. “I’m closer with him than anybody. Don’t you feel the same about Martin?” He did not wait for an answer, saying, “I think you do.”

Henry felt his face grow hot and red. “Y-yes,” he admitted.

“I’m sorry, Eli,” Jesse said. “I have a habit of bossing you, don’t I?” He gave Eli an especially winning smile, and Eli smiled back a little unwillingly. To Henry, Jesse said, “I’ve talked Eli into all sorts of things over the years. It’s astonishing, actually, that he’ll spend any time with me at all.”

“You have your charms,” Eli said dryly. “Besides, I can’t avoid you. We’re in the same class. I see you practically every day.”

Henry’s cousins were both twelfth-year students at the prestigious Lawton School.

“I wish you went to Lawton, too,” Jesse said, touching Henry’s arm again. “I know you’re a year behind us, but it would still be good to see you at lunch every day.”

Henry blushed and shook his head. “I’m not smart enough to go to Lawton,” he said.

“I doubt that’s true,” Jesse said charitably. “I’m not all that smart, either.”

Henry frowned, doubting Jesse’s self-assessment. Jesse was very clever. He might not be the smartest boy at Lawton, but he was surely smarter than the highest-achieving Algonquin student. Henry was not Lawton material, and he knew it.

Jesse looked around the table. “When you eat with Henry, do you always keep so quiet?” he asked Martin. He did not wait for an answer, but said, “Russ, Owen, you can talk, you know.”

“I don’t know quite what to say, Sir,” Russ admitted. “I’m a little ill-at-ease.”

“Aw, don’t worry.” Jesse reached out and tucked Russ’ hair behind his ear, the gesture very tender—and not at all appropriate for either master and slave or for any two boys. Henry blushed again at the implied intimacy, and he felt a hard nudge from Martin’s foot under the table.

Jesse turned to Henry and said, “Eli and I talk all the time, you see. I’m surprised we find anything else to say to one another! But tell us what you’ve been doing, Henry. Have you been in touch with Reggie?”

“I just wrote to him this week,” Henry said. “I got my invitation to the Metropolitan Ball and I told him about that.”

Eli and Jesse exchanged an amused glance. “Ah,” Eli said. “Lawton’s ball is the New Amsterdam Cotillion. We had a great time last year, all of us.”

“Eli and I rented one of those big carriages and went together with our girls,” Jesse said. “They were awful girls, weren’t they, Eli? But we had fun anyway. I loved seeing Russ and Owen and all the rest of the slaves in their black ties.”

“I’m looking forward to that, too,” Henry admitted. “I’m not really looking forward to escorting the girl, though.”

Eli looked surprised. “Why not? You’re such a catch, Henry. I’d imagine girls make it easy for you.”

Henry blushed. He had no idea how to say what the problem was without causing more problems for himself.

Jesse said, “Oh, Eli, Henry’s so shy. I’d imagine that having some saucy little minx flirting with him is practically torture!”

The wait staff arrived with their plates and served the masters first. The boys were all quiet a few minutes as they began to eat.

They had been the restaurant’s first customers of the day, but now the room was beginning to fill up. About half the patrons were accompanied by slaves, and all seemed very artistic, in Henry’s opinion. A pair of nattily-dressed gentlemen sat at a table at Jesse’s back, their slaves at attention behind them. There was something Reggie-ish about them that made Henry wonder if they were simply friends, or if the relationship might be more intimate. He could not very well eat his meat and gape at the strangers at the same time, so he turned his attention to his plate with a red face.

Jesse was feeding Russ bites from his plate off his own fork. Henry didn’t know if he could manage such a thing himself; surely, his hand would shake too hard.

Martin leaned close and said, “Sir, would you like a bite of my chicken?”

Henry blushed a deeper crimson. “Yes, please.” He waited a moment, and Martin waited, too.

“Sir...did you want me to feed it to you?” Martin asked tentatively.

“Yes,” Henry told him. He held his breath and watched as Martin neatly cut meat from the bone and then hesitantly held it out on his own fork for Henry to take.

“Sir!” Martin said in a low, thrilled tone as Henry drew the morsel off the tines of the fork with his lips and began to chew.

Henry looked up and saw that Eli was glancing back and forth between Jesse and himself with a look of horror on his handsome face. Owen was eating from his own plate with ostentatiously good table manners, his back very straight, his eyes cast down.

“Oh, what is it, Eli?” Jesse asked with a put-upon sigh. “Are you fretting about nothing?”

“I hoped Henry would be a voice of reason,” Eli remarked, scowling. “Instead, he’s just as incorrigible as you.”

Henry blushed again, but was pleased to be categorized with his impetuous cousin.

Henry fed Martin a taste of his roast beef from his own fork, scarcely able to breathe at his own bold actions. No one in the restaurant seemed to notice how they were carrying on, which was a little disappointing—he wanted to be recognized for his daring!—but mostly a relief.

Jesse offered Henry a bit of his veal, as well, but did not attempt to feed it to him from his own fork. Eli declined a taste of anyone else’s food, and no one offered or asked for tastes from any other boy’s slave.

“But back to the ball,” Jesse said. “We got hold of some champagne and got quite drunk, all of us and our slaves. I imagine that happens at all the balls, actually.”

“You practically had to carry Russ,” Eli remembered. “You on one side and Owen on the other, dragging him out to the carriage.” Russ was shamefaced at this revelation and looked down at his plate.

Jesse laughed. “Our girls were furious. They wouldn’t even sit with us in the carriage. It was us with our slaves and them with theirs.” Jesse reached over and smoothed Russ’ hair. “Don’t be embarrassed. I didn’t mind taking care of you. You take care of me all the time.” Russ tilted his head against Jesse’s hand, welcoming the touch.

“Jesse!” Eli said in a sharp whisper. “Knock it off!”

Jesse waved off Eli’s concern. “No one notices anything,” he said blithely. “And no one cares, either.”

“Does no one really notice?” Henry blurted. He was dying to know. “Because at Christmas I certainly noticed!”

Jesse laughed. “You were shocked, I could tell!”

“Don’t your parents…?”

“I’m told my father and his Harold were exceptionally close when they were young,” Jesse said with a shrug. “Reggie and Benjamin, too. So perhaps it’s a Wilton tradition.” He reached over and squeezed Russ’ shoulder. “I have a great need for affection in my life, both the giving and the getting.”

“You like shocking people,” Eli said accusingly.

“I don’t mind it,” Jesse admitted. “I don’t set out with that intention, but it doesn’t bother me when it happens.”

“I could never get away with being so demonstrative,” Henry noted. “My father would definitely disapprove and my friends would have something to say about it, too.”

“I don’t want to get away with it,” Eli said. “I’m quite content to keep everything between me and Owen private.”

Jesse cocked an eyebrow at Eli and snorted. “Semi-private, maybe. I’ve seen plenty from you and Owen.”

Eli blushed a furious red and glowered at his cousin. “Shut up, Jesse.”

They were all quiet an uncomfortable few seconds before the waiter appeared to take their dessert orders, four chocolate tortes, two coconut cakes, and coffee for all.

“Sorry, Eli,” Jesse said after the waiter left. He actually seemed contrite. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, you know.”

“You never do mean it,” Eli grumped, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. “But you cause problems for me all the same.”

“But Henry’s our cousin,” Jesse pointed out. “It’s okay if he knows. He cares about his slave, too. I let him in on my game—”

“Sprung it on him, more likely,” Eli said knowingly. “Cornered him and made him play.”

Jesse snorted again. “I’ll admit that the first time we played, Eli, I surprised you, and maybe you felt like you had to go along with it. But all the other times…what’s your excuse for those?” When Eli did not answer, Jesse said, “I always have such fun with you, Eli, but if you want to stop, you should stop. I don’t like the implication that I’ve forced you into anything. You’ve definitely been a willing participant, and I don’t like you pretending otherwise. You never even had to start, you know. Henry didn’t want to play, so he didn’t, and we’re still friends.”

“You said he watched,” Eli said, suspicious of Jesse.

“And that was all that happened,” Jesse told him. “He was startled—” here, he turned to Henry. “You were startled, weren’t you?”

“Er, yes,” Henry said. “It was…unexpected.” Martin’s knee bumped his own under the table.

“Stop if you want to stop,” Jesse repeated. “I have other friends who’ll play, and I have Elizabeth to tell stories to. I don’t want to have a falling out with you because you’re uneasy about this one aspect of our friendship.”

The waiter brought their cakes. Henry had coconut, Martin chocolate, and they took bites from each other’s plates with their own forks, the dessert course being much more socially acceptable to share, and the means of sharing certainly nothing to raise eyebrows.

Halfway through his torte, Eli looked up at Jesse. “What friends?”

“What?”

“You said you have other friends who’ll play. Are you talking about our group?”

“Well, of course our group,” Jesse said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Others, as well.”

“Which others?”

“I don’t tell other people about you,” Jesse pointed out. “I’m not going to tell you about them.”

“You already told Henry about me,” Eli said.

“Henry’s different. Henry’s our family.”

“Is it other boys from school? I guess it has to be. Or maybe you’re just making things up.”

Jesse turned to Russ. “Russ, am I making things up?”

“No, Sir, absolutely not.”

“Haven’t we just recently entertained guests in splendid fashion?”

Russ laughed. “Yes, we have, Sir.”

“Of course, you don’t have to believe Russ.” Jesse picked up the last of his torte with the back of his fork and licked it clean. “I can’t force you to believe either one of us.”

Henry was shocked that his cousins were having any of this conversation in front of him, and in public, but no one seemed to be paying their table any mind. Henry ate nibbles of cake, sipped his coffee, and listened.

“You’re going to give Henry the wrong idea,” Eli said. “He’ll think we’re more involved than we are.”

Jesse turned to Henry. “You understand, don’t you, Henry?”

Honestly, Henry wasn’t sure that he did, but he nodded. “I-I think so.”

“We’re just playing,” Jesse explained. “I think everyone is curious at our age, don’t you?” He shrugged, fantastically unconcerned, while Eli blushed and looked fretful.

Henry was dying to know exactly what they’d gotten up to. He knew they’d shared slaves, and he knew they’d watched one another have their cocks sucked, but now he suspected they’d done more than that. Had Eli and Jesse kissed or touched? Had they fondled their slaves for the other to see? Had they flaunted the rules with each other’s slaves? He wanted to know, but was quite sure Eli wouldn’t answer, and that Eli wouldn’t want Jesse to answer, either. Henry would have to work up the nerve to ask when Eli wasn’t around.

“Can we talk about something else?” Eli asked. “This is making me really anxious.”

“Of course,” Jesse said. “Anything you want, Eli.”

“Tell Henry about Elizabeth’s letter.”

“Oh, right,” Jesse said happily. “Elizabeth sent me a very dirty letter, and she included a lock of hair.” He paused a moment for effect and added, “Not from her head!”

Henry was impressed and his face surely showed this. While he wouldn’t want a lock of a girl’s pubic hair, he believed that most other boys would be thrilled, and that Jesse was lucky.

“It has a very distinctive scent,” Jesse said confidentially. “Essence of Elizabeth. Amazing. It’s purely carnal.”

“Are you going to send her some back?”

“Of course! She requested it, naturally, but I would have sent it anyway.” Jesse leaned close. “Have you ever had occasion to smell a woman? Intimately, I mean.”

“Not directly. My friend Louis got involved with a fast girl while we were at the amusement park and he had the smell of her all over his hand. He made everyone have a sniff.”

“What did you think?” Eli asked.

Henry felt he was being truthful when he said, “Not bad,” with a shrug. It hadn’t been great, but it hadn’t been terrible, either.

“I don’t have a girl yet,” Eli remarked. “What about you, Henry?”

“Me, neither. I’m not really looking, though.”

“You need to be careful about opportunists,” Jesse noted. “Schemers. Girls who are after your money.”

This, Henry realized, was probably the excuse he should use with his friends. All he needed to do was tell Louis that his father had warned him off girls for this very reason. Louis might think him disappointingly meek and obedient, but he wouldn’t think he was queer.

“Of course, you’re very handsome,” Jesse continued. “Girls will like you for your looks even if they don’t know about your father’s money.”

The waiter came and cleared away their dessert plates and brought them fresh coffee.

Because it wasn’t clear to him, Henry asked, “Jesse, have you actually met Elizabeth? Or has it all been letters?”

“We went to Chicago to visit Mother’s people at the beginning of last summer and I met her then. It was love at first sight.” He turned to Russ. “Wasn’t it, Russ? I fell for her immediately.”

“It’s true, Sir. You were crazy about her from the get-go.”

“I think she’s absolutely beautiful, and obviously I noticed that right away, but I could sense something so perfectly wicked about her, something delicious, and when we had a chance to talk, I discovered we’d read so many of the same books, and liked the same poets and painters. All the things that are important to me are important to her, too. She’s refreshingly sexual, when so many girls pretend they have nothing at all beneath their skirts. At my great aunt’s house, when she finally sneaked into my bed—”

Here, Henry gasped. It was astonishing enough the things that working-class girls would do, but for a young lady to get into bed with a young gentleman was unimaginable.

Jesse laughed, pleased to have elicited such a response. “It wasn’t entirely scandalous. We kissed and talked and just touched each other through our clothes. She had strict rules! She’s not a complete hoyden. I told her right then that I wanted to marry her and all she’d say was, ‘We’ll see.’ It wasn’t until I’d returned home and started writing to her regularly that she began to take me seriously.”

“Your parents must have no idea,” Henry said wonderingly, quite impressed. “They just think you’re pen pals.”

“There’s no point in telling my parents I’m going to marry her now. They’ll only argue with me about it and try to convince me otherwise. We haven’t decided what we’re going to do, exactly. She thinks she can fend off suitors until she’s 18, and at that point we’ll either make a case to our families or we’ll just run away together.”

“I think they should wait,” Eli said. “She wants to go to college, so I think she should go ahead and do that, and then just keep refusing to get married for long enough that Jesse starts to look like a better option than no husband at all.”

“She can go to college when we’re married,” Jesse pointed out. “I certainly won’t try to keep her from going. I love how smart she is.”

“You just want to start having sex with her as soon as possible,” Eli said.

“Is that so terrible? When you fall in love, you’ll want to have sex with that person, won’t you?”

Henry thought this was very true. “Of course you will,” he answered for Eli. To Jesse, he said, “When will you see her again?”

“We’ll go out to Chicago again this July. Chicago has even worse summer weather than here, did you know? Terrible! But I’ll get to see my Elizabeth. She’s hinting that we can go further physically this next time we’re together, and I’m definitely looking forward to that!”

“You’ll be bathed in sweat,” Eli pointed out. “You probably won’t even want to touch her.”

“Oh, you’re so practical, Eli! Be a little romantic, won’t you?” Jesse urged.

The waiter brought separate checks for the three masters. Henry laid down the money for his own bill along with a generous tip, as he was grateful to the restaurant staff for allowing them to eat with their slaves without fuss.

“Do either of you have a quarter?” Jesse asked. “I didn’t bring enough money.”

Henry gave Jesse a quarter, and they all put on their coats and hats and left the restaurant.

Eli checked his watch. “I have to go home,” he announced. “I’m supposed to meet up in an hour with some guys from school.

“Oh. Peter and them?” Jesse asked.

“Yeah. They’ve been asking me to do things recently.”

“They don’t like me,” Jesse remarked. “Even though I’ve never been anything but nice.”

“I think you scare them,” Eli told him. “You intimidate people with your enthusiasms.”

Henry could see that this might easily be the case.

“Well, have fun,” Jesse continued. “Say hello for me, if you think it’s worth bothering.”

“I will,” Eli promised. He stiffly accepted a hug from Jesse and shook Henry’s hand. The slaves all said their goodbyes, and Eli turned and headed down the block with Owen at his side.

“Now what?” Jesse asked cheerfully. “You don’t have to leave, too, I hope?”

Henry shook his head. “I don’t have any other plans. We just have to get home in time for Martin’s dinner.”

“It’s kind of cold, but maybe we could just walk around for awhile anyway,” Jesse suggested. “It’s so nice to see you, Henry! I don’t want to go our separate ways just yet.” He gave Henry’s arm an affectionate squeeze.

“We could go to the arcade,” Henry suggested. “We’d be out of the wind and we could still talk.”

“I’m out of money, though,” Jesse said. “We don’t even have change for the omnibus.”

“I’ll give you money,” Henry assured him, waving off his concern.

“Well, if you’re sure…”

“I’m sure.”

Jesse turned and looked over his shoulder at the slaves. “Want to test your strength, Russ?”

Russ laughed. “Me against Martin, Sir?”

“Why not?”

Henry could see that Martin liked this idea, as well.

“I think I’m up to the challenge, Sir,” Russ told him, grinning broadly. He elbowed Martin and Martin smiled down at him.

“Martin’s stronger than he looks,” Henry told them. “There’s practically nothing to him but muscle.” Muscle and soft skin and a beautiful, tender cock.

“I can see that. You’re both very lean,” Jesse remarked, “but you look like men. Me, I get taller and taller but I still look like a boy. Russ may be short, but he looks more manly than I do.”

This was actually true. Henry said, “You must be exactly what Elizabeth prefers, though. I think it’s remarkable that you found each other, you know.”

“Her family wasn’t even supposed to be at my great aunt’s house, but her mother decided to come at the last minute. Clearly, it was kismet.”

It took about twenty minutes of walking at a leisurely pace to get to the arcade and they made frequent window-shopping stops. There were clothes in the windows of the haberdashers here that made the wildest garments from Hamilton & Sons seem staid, and Henry wondered whether or not he could get away with wearing a velvet jacket as Reggie did.

Henry bought them all fresh, warm pretzels from a street vendor and they ate them as they walked.

“Have you and Eli always been as close as you are now?” The older boys, especially Jesse, had always been nice to Henry, but it hadn’t been until this past Christmas that he’d felt accepted into their circle.

“We always liked one another when we were small—just as you and I have always gotten along—but we became close when I started at Lawton. Eli’s been a really good friend to me,” Jesse said, tearing off a piece of pretzel and putting it in his mouth. “I actually have a lot of friends at Lawton now, but when I first started there, the only reason anyone would talk to me was because Eli vouched for me. Lawton is a very snobbish school.”

“When did you start there?”

“Sixth year. My old school wasn’t anything special. I suspect your father pays for me to go to Lawton, though I’ve never asked. I know you have your problems with him, but so many of the good things in my life have come from him that I can’t help but have a high opinion of the man.”

Henry was glad that Father had done so much for Jesse. Really, Father did a lot for Henry, too, of course, and was always generous, but Henry couldn’t help feeling that Father was always at least a little disappointed in him, and this sense left Henry feeling hurt and disgruntled.

There were crowds of boys, most younger than them, standing outside the arcade passing around cigarettes.

“I have cigarettes, if you want,” Jesse offered.

“No thank you.” Henry made a little moue of distaste. “They always make me sick. I think I’d better just stop trying to smoke.”

“Fair enough.” He and Henry stopped walking and let Russ step forward to open the door so they could all go inside.

Henry got change for a dollar and split most of it between the slaves. Russ led Martin to the punching machine with its spring-mounted leather pad. Henry and Jesse followed and stood watching while they took turns. The first round was inconclusive, the slaves seeming evenly matched.

“Do it again,” Jesse said. “Do it until someone wins.”

It took three rounds before Henry and Jesse agreed that Russ had the slight edge.

“Do you want to do it?” Jesse asked, casting a doubtful eye on the machine.

“Not really,” Henry admitted. “I don’t care who’s stronger.”

“Well, it’s you, obviously,” Jesse said. “But I don’t really care, either.”

“Can we try the punching bag, Sir?” Martin asked. He and Russ both looked very eager.

“You can do whatever you want,” Henry told him. “I’ll just watch.”

Henry leaned back against an lung tester and Jesse stood beside him and they watched as Russ and Martin took turns, one holding their coats while the other one punched.

“I’ve met a few other Ganymede companions,” Jesse remarked, “and they seem the most rigorously-trained of all. Is that your experience, too?”

Henry only knew his friend Albert’s Stuart, Russ and Martin, and he hadn’t thoughtfully compared them to one another, much less to companions as a whole category.

“I really haven’t paid attention,” he admitted. “I’m very pleased with Martin, obviously, though.” He blushed, heat rising from his collar, and did not look at his cousin.

“There are a few others in my class with Ganymede slaves, and to me the Ganymede boys seem far more invested in their masters’ happiness than the rest. Comparing Russ to Owen, for instance, Ganymede to Apollo, Russ is fixated on things being exactly right for me, always, and beats up on himself if I’m the least bit inconvenienced. If we ever actually fought, he’d be devastated. Owen, on the other hand, does his best and then just shrugs if Eli is unhappy.”

This fit the idea Henry had of Owen, to be sure.

“I think Owen is a perfectly good slave,” Jesse continued. “He’s obedient and makes Eli happy, which is all he needs to do, after all. But Russ is an excellent slave, and he wasn’t even top tier at Ganymede. It’s eerie sometimes how good he is at being servile, like a human couldn’t actually be that devoted. It’s not that I think there’s something wrong with him, but maybe there’s something wrong with doing whatever the House did to make him this way.”

Henry had had similar hazy thoughts in the past. “Martin is somewhere in the middle, maybe,” he offered. “He’s very obedient, but he also has very strong opinions about the right way to do things. He can’t seem to hear some of the things I tell him because all his training prepared him for his master to behave differently.” Recently, of course, Martin had been much more receptive to Henry’s declarations, but Henry was not prepared to share that information. “He’s also sort of crazy about rules, and he worships my father and Timothy like they’re gods.”

“I feel so close to Russ,” Jesse said, “but sometimes I wonder if he’s only like this with me, or if he would have been this committed to anyone who’d taken him at auction.”

“I worry about that, too,” Henry admitted.

“But even so, even if he’d have been this way for anyone who’d bought him, I still want him to have whatever happiness he can get. Don’t you feel that way?”

“Well, of course—” Henry began.

“By being born slaves, they’ve missed out on everything. They won’t have families of their own. They won’t follow their dreams—they won’t have dreams, most likely, since their training discourages it.”

“Martin has dreams,” Henry insisted. Martin’s dreams seemed very modest, however, and not in keeping with his considerable potential. Martin was much better-suited to be the scion of an industrial empire than was his master. Thinking of the violin, Henry said, “He’s got things he loves to do, and I encourage him in that way.”

“Well, I’m glad you do,” Jesse said. “And I’m glad he’s got interests. Sometimes it seems like I’m Russ’ only interest, which puts a lot of pressure on me to be fascinating.” He laughed and elbowed Henry. “Not that that’s so difficult for me, of course!”

As they watched, Martin punched the bag and then shook out his hand, laughing. Russ handed him their overcoats and stepped up for his own turn.

“I want to apologize in case I embarrassed you today, treating Russ like I do. I know I embarrassed Eli. I always embarrass him.”

“I don’t think I’m embarrassed, exactly,” Henry told him. “It’s a little shocking, but I guess you don’t mind that, do you? You really aren’t worried at all about what people might think?”

“Not really. I know myself pretty well, after all, so it doesn’t matter so much what other people have to say about me.”

Henry wished he could say the same.

“I love Russ a lot,” Jesse said, matter-of-fact. “Eli is sweet to Owen in private and he thinks that’s enough, and maybe he’s right.” Jesse shrugged, unconvinced. “But I feel like Russ missed out on so much just by being born a slave that I have to make it up to him somehow. If he’s going to get love, where will he get it except from me?”

“Well, he could have someone of his own,” Henry said tentatively. “Another slave.”

“He doesn’t want that,” Jesse said. “I offered him the possibility and he turned it down. Maybe someday he’ll change his mind, but for now…we do genuinely like one another, you understand. We’re very compatible.”

Henry sensed that here he might ask questions and satisfy his curiosity as to the true nature of Jesse’s relationship with Russ. However, he would feel obligated to share in turn, and he wasn’t a good enough liar to tell a sanitized version of his story and so let the moment pass.

“I like showing affection,” Jesse said, “and he likes receiving it. He’s like a little cat.”

Henry had a memory of Russ naked, draped over Jesse’s lap on his bedroom floor.

“He’s my baby,” Jesse continued in a low voice. “Even when I’m finally with Elizabeth, I don’t think I’ll be putting him aside like everyone says they’ll do with their slaves when they marry. Elizabeth says I needn’t bother, that I can keep him close and she won’t mind, so long as I let her do the same with her slave—she’ll be getting her girl at the end of this summer, of course—and I love that idea. There are so many possibilities! We could watch each other with our slaves, or we could even—”

Jesse stopped himself then, though it was quite clear to Henry that Jesse imagined he could swap slaves with his future wife. Henry was rendered speechless by the decadent perversity of such a scheme, and was impressed anew by his cousin’s unconventional nature.

Returning to the slightly safer topic of the treatment of slaves, Jesse said, “Feeling the way I do about Russ, I’ve become really picky about what sorts of boys I’ll be friends with. I know you don’t share Martin, but you’ve probably heard things about the boys at your school—who treats the slaves kindly, and who uses a party as an opportunity to be cruel, or to take retribution for their little disputes with other masters. And from there you can guess which boys are good to their slaves in private and which are cold and callous.

“I’ve stopped talking to three guys I’d been friends with since sixth year based on how they treated Russ, or how they treated their own slaves. I don’t see the point of being mean to a slave at all. All they do if you’re mean is try harder to please you, especially the Ganymede boys. They can be strangely helpless in the face of unkindness, you know?”

“There’s a boy at my school who was so cruel to his slave that the slave killed himself at Christmas.”

“Really? That’s terrible.” Jesse shuddered. “Poor thing. I can’t imagine what you’d have to do to get a slave to give up like that.”

“He tortured him,” Henry said. “At least that’s what Martin tells me.” He thought a moment, then added. “The boy, the master, was the other party bidding for Martin. It just makes me sick that it could have been Martin instead.”

“Your father would never have let that happen, though,” Jesse said. “Not once he knew you wanted Martin.”

Henry was baffled. “Everyone says that. It must be true, but I guess I just can’t see how my father actually cares much for me at all.”

“Well, we’re together right now, and Reggie’s coming home,” Jesse said with a shrug. “Your father is allowing it because you want it.”

Henry didn’t actually like this idea much. If this was true, then it was also true that if he had only asked about Reggie when he was younger, and expressed a preference to have Reggie nearby, Reggie might have come home years ago. If he had only spoken up during his lonely childhood, he might have spent more time with his Wilton relatives.

Henry didn’t want to talk about Father anymore. “I actually don’t hear much about the way the others treat their slaves,” he admitted. “I sort of assume they’re being treated all right. The only one Martin has ever mentioned was the one who killed himself. Almost all the boys in our year knew about it and tried to get something done, but of course it isn’t illegal to mistreat a slave—to a point. I tried to get Father to talk to Mr. Pettibone—that’s the other boy’s father—but there wasn’t anything he could do, either.”

“Well, if your father couldn’t do anything, there probably wasn’t anything to be done,” Jesse said confidently, and Henry felt slightly irritated by Jesse’s faith in Father.

Henry made another effort to get off the subject of Father. “So, I wanted to ask you…your, uh, games. Aren’t you afraid someone will accuse you of being queer or something?”

Jesse laughed. “Don’t tell Eli, but so many of the boys in our class have played with me,” he said. “If they try to cause trouble for me, I could cause trouble for them just as easily. Besides, they have fun with me. I create a nice atmosphere, very permissive.”

Henry blushed, thinking of Jesse’s invitation to watch, how it had seemed so dirty and so innocent at the same time.

“I write down everything that happens for Elizabeth, of course, and she sends me back assignments, things I’m supposed to do with Russ or have one of my friends do, and sometimes they’re really difficult to accomplish! People have limits, after all!”

“What’s the most you’ve gotten anyone to do?”

“Well, I’ve gotten people to do all kinds of things. Just the other day, I got a friend to suck his slave’s cock,” Jesse said, clearly enjoying the memory. “He said he’d never done it before, and I believed him. I don’t think he was any good at it, though. I’ve gotten lots of boys to kiss their slaves, of course. Practically anyone will do that, really. Elizabeth wants me to get someone to lick his slave’s hole, but I doubt I’m going to be able to achieve that one.”

Henry felt his cheeks grow hot and turned so that his red face was a little hidden from Jesse. “How are you getting people to do these things?”

“I’m very persuasive,” Jesse said with a shrug. “I didn’t try very hard with you because you’re my shy cousin and I didn’t want to make you mad or scare you off, but I can make doing forbidden things seem very attractive, very modern and daring. Sometimes, of course, I have to demonstrate a little willingness to cross the line myself.” He laughed again and nudged Henry with his shoulder.

Henry’s face grew hotter. He was tempted to say something, to tell Jesse a little of what had happened between Martin and himself these past few months, but he was afraid. No matter what Jesse might do with slaves, or even other boys, it was clear to Henry that he had genuine feeling and desire for Elizabeth. Jesse would end up married to Elizabeth—or some other wild bohemian girl—and even if he did continue some level of intimacy with Russ all the rest of his life, he wouldn’t really be queer. Henry supposed other people might see it differently, but it was obvious to him that there was a vast difference between Jesse and himself. Jesse could pass for normal and didn’t want to; Henry was barely holding onto his normal façade.

The moment passed. Henry said nothing.

Martin had proven better than Russ at the punching bag. Now they had moved on to a machine where they took turns pulling hard at a handle attached to a cable that moved a needle on a dial. A group of girls stood nearby, pointing and giggling at the boys and their slaves.

Jesse rolled his eyes and turned his back on them. “You don’t mess with working-class girls, do you, Henry? It just seems so sordid.”

“I’m not interested,” Henry admitted. “My friends think I’m crazy for not taking advantage, but I don’t like the idea at all.”

“I’d rather rely on Russ,” Jesse said. “He’s clean and he won’t get pregnant. Besides, I really enjoy him. Between him and Elizabeth, I’ve got everything I need.”

“You’re lucky,” Henry told him. “I’d rather rely on Martin, too.”

Jesse leaned close. “You know, if you ever change your mind, Henry, I’d love to see you and Martin together.” Jesse blushed a little saying this.

“Uh…” Henry didn’t know what to say. He knew Martin would want to do it, put on a show, but he didn’t think he could stand being so vulnerable, so exposed. He didn’t think he could stand for someone else to see how Martin looked with Henry’s cock in his mouth, or how Martin looked when he stilled to come, his cock jerking. Flooded with embarrassment, Henry said, “I, uh, appreciate that you’re interested, but I don’t know if I could ever feel comfortable enough to do that.”

“I won’t bother you about it again, all right? I just wanted to let you know that the invitation still stands.”

“I’ll, um…keep it in mind?” Henry said hesitantly. He would, for that matter: it was tempting, flattering, and embarrassing, and it made him feel guilty because he had a good idea how much Martin would enjoy doing it, and he wanted to be bold enough to do the kinds of things Martin liked.

The slaves were conferring at the machine, gesturing toward the dial, their faces showing disappointment.

“What’s the matter?” Jesse asked, stepping forward to look at the dial with them.

“It seems to be broken, Sir,” Russ told him. “The needle only goes so far, no matter how hard we pull.”

Jesse rubbed Russ’ back between his shoulder blades. “Oh, well. Do something else.” He gave Russ a couple of friendly thumps and came back to stand at Henry’s side.

Giving up on strength testers, Russ and Martin moved down the row to look at the peep shows, and now Henry and Jesse also took an interest in spending their pennies. They spent the better part of an hour watching all of the reels once through and then going back again to look at their favorites. Henry was particularly taken with a reel of well-muscled wrestlers in tiny trunks; while the gentlemen pictured weren’t exactly Henry’s type, he appreciated the chance to see male bodies grappling, the men behaving as though they were unaware they were observed. He had a sudden fantasy, a reel of Martin and himself fucking, completely lost in one another; they’d watched themselves in the wardrobe mirror many times but it wasn’t the same. He thought that as an adult he might be able to have such a thing made, if he were brave enough, and no one would even try to stop him.

Martin and Russ seemed to really enjoy one another’s company, talking about boys they both remembered from Ganymede. Henry stood beside them, bent low and sneaking glances at their faces as he turned the crank of his Mutoscope very slowly.

“…definitely remember him,” Russ was saying. “So many boys got sick that time, but only Richard died, right? He was a good one, your Richard. It was really too bad.”

Martin seemed quietly pleased. “I’m glad you remember him fondly.”

“Do you know what happened to Noah from your year?”

“I’m afraid not,” Martin said haughtily. “I didn’t take notice.”

Russ laughed. “Oh, you didn’t like him, I see.”

“Not really. We made our peace at the end, I guess, but I won’t mind if I never see him again.”

“Well, I liked him. He was friendly with a lot of the fellows in my year.”

“That’s because he wasn’t well-liked in his own year.”

“That’s too bad.” Russ noticed Henry bent over beside him. “Sir? Am I in your way? I can move along if you’d like.”

Henry stood up, embarrassed to be caught eavesdropping. “No, no. I’m fine.” He turned to Jesse. “Are we done here, do you think? Do you want some ice cream or a soda or something?”

“Oh, a milkshake sounds good to me,” Jesse said. “What do you think, Russ?”

“Whatever you’d like, Sir.”

They went to the ice cream parlor and sat down with their slaves to eat.

“Is it really that unusual? I feel like I’ve seen a fair number of people do it in soda shops and ice cream parlors,” Henry said, licking chocolate sauce off his spoon. “Not so much in restaurants, though, I guess. I’m actually pretty surprised you never did it before, considering how well you two get along.”

“I honestly never thought about it until my father mentioned that your family does it. It’s nice; you can have a normal conversation without twisting around in your seat the whole time.” Jesse reached over and squeezed Russ’ arm. “We’ll do it this way from now on, I think.”

“I’d like that, Sir.” Russ gave Jesse a rather private-seeming smile that made Henry blush a little.

Martin’s knee bumped Henry’s under the little table and Henry returned the pressure, his blush deepening.

Henry finished his sundae while Martin still had nearly half his ice cream left. It was his usual, strawberry with caramel sauce and whipped cream, and Henry stole bites, laughing, while Martin made half-hearted efforts to protect his dish and laughed, too.

After they’d all finished eating, they stepped back out into the chill breeze; it seemed colder now than when they’d gone into the ice cream parlor. It was nearly half-past three and Henry felt ready for a nap, maybe sex and a nap.

“We should probably be heading home,” Henry said. “If you want to stay downtown, I can give you some money—”

“No, we’ll go home, too. We do need the fare for the omnibus, though.”

Henry handed Jesse dimes for the omnibus.

“I don’t normally need to borrow money,” Jesse said, slightly embarrassed. “Next time we see each other, I’ll pay you back.”

Henry shrugged. “If you remember, it’s fine. I don’t need it back in a hurry.” He didn’t need it back at all, of course, but if Jesse needed to pay him back, he’d take the money. Henry felt that doing anything else would seem like he was rubbing it in Jesse’s face that Henry was rich, that the Blackwells kept the Wiltons afloat. Just the fact of Henry not caring about money could be construed as an insult, he supposed.

They walked to the stop and stood shivering in the wind a few minutes before the omnibus arrived. They boarded and Henry and Jesse sat, and their slaves stood beside the seat.

“It’s nice that they get along, don’t you think?” Jesse nodded at Russ and Martin swaying in the aisle. “I suppose it helps they have Ganymede in common.”

“It is nice,” Henry agreed. “It seems genuine, enough, too.”

Jesse laughed. “Yeah, Russ will never admit to disliking anyone, even when it’s obvious he does.”

“Martin has one enemy,” Henry noted. “Or, well, someone he dislikes, anyway. ‘Enemy’ might be too strong a word for it.”

“Russ is pretty superstitious about disliking people,” Jesse remarked. “Even more so than other slaves in our household.”

Henry was immediately curious what Jesse knew about Hetaeria and talismans, but did not think that a crowded omnibus was the place to ask such questions. Martin, he knew, would be horrified and embarrassed if he did such a thing.

“Martin is, too,” was all Henry said. “But he and this Alex just hated one another at first sight, I guess. There was no getting around it.”

The omnibus neared Jesse’s stop, across the street from Hamilton & Sons.

Jesse squeezed Henry’s arm and leaned against him for a cozy moment. “It was good to see you, Henry. Let’s do it again soon, all right? You come to my house for lunch, or I’ll come to yours. I’ve never been to your house, you know.”

“Really?” Henry hadn’t actually realized this, and he was embarrassed. “Let’s try to do it at my house, then.”

The omnibus jerked to a stop and Jesse got up. “Goodbye, Henry. Thanks again. I’ll pay you back!”

“Goodbye, Jesse.”

The slaves said their goodbyes, and Jesse and Russ made their way down the aisle.

Henry looked up at Martin. “Do you want to sit?” The omnibus wasn’t crowded, and they’d been having such success all day with Martin sitting down with Henry. Other passengers might not like it, of course, but Henry doubted they’d dare say anything.

Martin looked very uneasy at this suggestion. “I can stand, Sir. It isn’t much farther.”

Henry decided not to insist. He slid across the bench to sit near the aisle and felt Martin’s knuckles against the back of his shoulder.

He turned to look up at Martin’s face. “Did you have a nice time?”

“Yes, Sir. Very nice. If it’s all right to say so, Sir, I’d like it if we saw them more often.”

“Of course it’s all right to say so. We’ll try to see them again soon.” Henry leaned back against Martin’s hand, resisting the urge to rub his cheek along Martin’s wrist. “Russ knew Richard? I overheard.”

“Yes, Sir, a little. They weren’t close, of course.”

“He knew Noah, too.”

Martin laughed. “How much did you overhear, Sir?”

“That’s all,” Henry admitted. “Why? Did I miss something good?”

Martin laughed again. “I don’t think so, Sir. It was a lot of talk about boys neither one of us will ever see again. He tells me there are quite a few Ganymede boys at Lawton, though.”

“Well, you’ve got Stuart.”

“Yes, Sir, and there’s also a twelfth-year boy at Algonquin with a Ganymede slave, but that slave is a terrible snob and won’t talk to me.”

It bothered Henry that anyone would snub Martin. “Should I say something?”

Martin shook his head vehemently. “Goodness, no, Sir! There’s no need! I don’t require his friendship.”

They rode the rest of the way home in a comfortable silence. The wind was even colder when they descended from the omnibus than it had been when they’d boarded downtown, and they hurried to the house with their collars up, shoulders hunched against the chill.

Billy let them in and took their coats. “Mr. Briggs called for you, Sir.”

“How long ago?”

“Shortly after the lunch hour, Sir.”

Henry went to the telephone alcove with Martin at his back and placed the call.

“Hello? Henry?”

“I got the message that you called. I’ve just come in.”

“Oh. Where were you?”

“I had lunch with my cousins and went to the arcade.”

“Really? Since when do you do things with your cousins?” Louis asked, incredulous.

“Since whenever I want to,” Henry told him.

“Your dad’s okay with it?”

“Apparently so.” Henry did not say that apparently all that had needed to happen was for Henry to show the slightest desire for family for his father to reverse his decisions about the Wiltons. “We had a good time,” Henry continued. He opened his mouth to say, You should meet them, but realized that he didn’t want Louis to meet Jesse, not at all. Louis would definitely look askance at Jesse’s fawning treatment of Russ, and that might make him suspicious of Henry, as well.

“Well, that’s…great,” Louis said, sounding unsure. “Maybe I can meet them sometime?”

“Sure,” Henry said, cringing inside and already scrambling for excuses. Could he ask Jesse to be less demonstrative? Could he explain how boys were different at Algonquin, how they wouldn’t tolerate a boy doting on his slave? If it weren’t for that particular aspect, Henry actually thought Jesse and Louis might like one another. They were both daring, albeit in different ways, and Louis would definitely appreciate hearing about Elizabeth.

“I called earlier because I wanted to come over, but obviously you weren’t there.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. James went off with his stupid friends right after I called, so the main person I wanted to get away from left anyway. I took Peter upstairs and we played with the little ones for awhile. It was sort of fun. I need to be a good big brother now, since James is so lousy.”

“That was kind of you. I’ve been trying to make an effort to see Cora more,” Henry told him. “She’s a good girl. She likes Martin better than she likes me, though.”

Louis laughed. “All the little ones here feel the same way about Peter, except for Alice. Alice doesn’t like either one of us all that much—but she’s still as obsessed with you as ever. She’s really determined, you know, and she is the right age…”

“Ugh. No offense, Louis, but I do not want to think about marrying your little sister. She’s just a baby.”

“We could marry each other’s sisters, though, Henry. Did you ever think about that?”

“I try not to think about getting married, period.”

“We’d be related for real. I mean, you’re like a brother to me anyway.”

“We’ve got years—”

“Seven for you, if you get engaged to Alice.” Louis chortled to himself, enjoying annoying Henry.

“—years before we need to think about getting married. I’m not thinking about it until I have to!” Henry’s voice grew pressured and fretful.

“All right, Henry, all right. Calm down.” Louis didn’t even try to hide how amused he was. “You’re going to have to get over this fear of girls eventually, though, you know.”

“I’m not afraid,” Henry insisted, and he wasn’t.

“Then come with us to a dance hall tonight,” Louis said cajolingly. “Gordon learned about one that sounds promising from one of his family’s footmen so we’re all going to give it a try.

“I can’t,” Henry said, trying to sound as if he were sorry about it. He recalled the idea that Jesse had put in his head. “I have to be careful,” he said. “Look at the trouble James is in. I don’t need some working-class chippy claiming I got her pregnant. My father put the fear of god into me about messing around with cheap girls and I’m not inclined to cross him.”

“When did this happen?”

Henry thought quickly. “After the slave party,” he said. “He warned me off slave girls, and then he warned me off regular girls. If I don’t want to be disowned, I’m to stay away from girls, period.”

“He wouldn’t disown you,” Louis scoffed.

“Maybe not,” Henry agreed, “but I don’t want to risk it.”

“Oh, Henry,” Louis sighed. “You’re such a good boy.”

Henry had expected this would be Louis’ response, had even wanted Louis to feel this way, but it still stung a little. “Sorry to disappoint you, Louis.”

“You’re getting left behind,” Louis reminded him. “I don’t want you to get left behind, Henry!”

“I don’t care,” Henry told him, wanting very much to change the subject. “We’ve talked about this already, and I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Grasping for a new topic he asked, “Say, uh, have you heard if anyone else’s slaves have the clap?”

“One of the Spanglers’ footmen, that little redheaded fellow, has it, but I don’t know about anyone else from school, if that’s what you mean.”

“Oh!” Henry was taken aback.

“I wonder where he got it?” Louis mused. “Tom got it from a girl originally, right?”

“That’s what I understand,” Henry said, still thinking of Martin’s red-haired admirer and feeling grateful that he hadn’t let Martin arrange to bring the man into their bed. Did Martin know about this? Henry suddenly wanted to get off the phone very badly.

There was an infernal howling in the background at Louis’ end of the call.

“What was that?”

“I’m not sure, but I think Edward fell down the stairs,” Louis said. “I swear, that kid still hasn’t figured out how to walk. Listen, I’d better go see if he’s all right. Maybe we can do something tomorrow?”

“Sure. Call me.”

Once he’d hung up, Henry turned to Martin, who leaned in the doorway, listening with interest.

“Who’s got it, Sir? You looked shocked.”

“Your admirer. The Spanglers’ Jimmy.”

“Oh!” Martin was just as startled as Henry had been. He lowered his voice to a loud whisper. “Well, Sir, it’s good you didn’t ask me to get him for you, isn’t it?”

“Let’s go upstairs,” Henry suggested. “We can’t talk about this here.”

Safely inside Henry’s room, Henry turned to Martin and said, “I guess it doesn’t matter how handsome some other man is, or how tempting—there’s no knowing what might be wrong with him. As long as it’s just the two of us, we’ll never have to worry about the clap or gleet or whatever other diseases people are passing around.”

“Well, certainly you’re right.”

“We’re enough for each other, aren’t we, Martin?

Martin put his arms around Henry’s neck and kissed him. “Of course you’re enough for me, Henry.”

But even as Henry returned his kisses and steered him toward the bed, he remained worried that Martin wasn’t being truthful. He believed that Martin wanted to be telling the truth, but also thought that Martin missed the sort of group scenarios he’d participated in at Ganymede, regardless of what he said. More than anything, Henry wanted Martin to be happy, but he didn’t see how he could ever contemplate bringing in other lovers for Martin. He was too jealous, and now too fearful of disease. He recalled Jesse’s renewed invitation to watch and be watched and wondered tentatively if that was a compromise that might make Martin happy, or happy enough.

They played a version of the forced cocksucking game because that’s what Martin wanted, but Henry made him stop before either of them could come, and instead put him on his back. He licked and fingered Martin’s hole until he begged for more, then fucked him hard until he came. Henry let himself be drawn down into Martin’s embrace, kissing his beautiful mouth and white throat while he moved against him, trembling on the verge.

“Henry, Henry,” Martin whispered to him, his hands knotted in Henry’s hair. “I love you so much, Henry.”

“I love you, too, Martin. I don’t even know how to tell you how much.”

“Show me, Henry. Come for me.”

Henry was so close, so ready, and Martin was so unbearably sweet, crooning in his ear and caressing his back and shoulders; Henry drove into him a few final strokes and came in an efflorescence of silver sparks, wracked with shivers.

Henry clung to Martin until his heart slowed and then reluctantly rolled off him to lay sprawled on his back beside him. He kept his hand on Martin’s ribs, feeling the rise and fall of his breath. When Martin stirred, shifting to rise, Henry clutched at him, but Martin gently yet firmly pushed his hands away.

“I just want to get us cleaned up. I’ll be right back.”

Henry sighed and flung his arm across his eyes to block out the light. After a few minutes, he felt the bed shift beneath his back, then Martin’s hands and the warm, wet cloth he used to wash Henry’s cock.

Martin set the basin aside and stretched out alongside Henry. “You can hold me now, if you want.”

Henry gathered him close and kissed the side of his head. “So you like Russ all right, then?”

Henry could feel Martin smile against the skin of his chest. “Yes, I do. He didn’t come right out and say it, but he gave me a lot of hints…I think he and your cousin are like us, don’t you?”

“Jesse didn’t come out and say anything directly, either, but I’m sure they are. I-I thought about telling him about you and me, actually.”

“You did?” Martin lifted his head from Henry’s chest to look at him, surprised.

“I think they do everything we do,” Henry said, “but I don’t think Jesse’s like me, not really. He’s in love with that Elizabeth, and he desires her. He’s not exactly a normal man, I guess, but he’s not queer like I am.”

“Why didn’t you tell him? I don’t think he would use it against you, and it might be good to have someone you can talk to while your uncle is away.”

“What if he sees that difference between us, that I don’t want women at all, and thinks less of me for it? Or what if he tells Eli, and then Lyle and my other cousins? What if it gets back to my father? Jesse wouldn’t even need to be trying to hurt me to slip up and tell someone he shouldn’t. After all, he told me about him and Eli.”

“I don’t think he would possibly think less of you, but I see your point about discretion. Perhaps you should get to know him a little better first.”

Henry nuzzled Martin’s hair, strands sticking to his lips. “He asked me again if I’d consider playing his game.”

Martin tensed with interest. “He did?”

“I turned him down, but he told me the invitation still stands. I know you wanted to do it at Reggie’s farewell party—”

“Oh, I—”

“You did,” Henry said. “It was obvious that you did, and I felt bad then for not letting you show off, but I’m just so…so possessive of you, Martin! I didn’t say it to him, but I’ll say it to you now: I’m thinking about it, all right? Because I know you’d love it, and I want you to be happy.”

Martin tried fairly unsuccessfully to hide how excited he was at this news. “Oh, that’s…that’s very interesting. Whatever you decide, I’ll be happy to go along, I really will.”

Henry felt Martin’s cock stiffen, pressing into his thigh, and laughed. “I don’t doubt you’d be happy to go along,” he said, nudging Martin’s erection with his hip. “Dirty boy.”

In the time before Martin had to go down for his dinner, Martin straddled Henry’s chest and touched his own cock while Henry watched. When he came, he got spunk in Henry’s eye and it stung, and Henry let himself be fussed over long after the pain had dwindled.

Martin went downstairs and Henry rolled over and dozed, dreaming that he licked Martin’s hole while Jesse watched and then wrote a letter to Elizabeth to tell her all about it.

On the last Monday of winter term, Henry arrived home determined to learn some Latin, to really put forth the effort, but there was a new Pals on the hall console, and he knew at once that he wasn’t going to be doing any studying.

Henry lay sprawled across his bed and let Martin remove his boots. “It just occurred to me,” he said, “that if Dooley is getting married in this issue, he’s going to be having sex, too. Unless he dies first.”

Martin snickered and bent to remove his own boots. “I’m sure it will be handled very discreetly. Unless he dies first, of course.” He got up on the bed and sat cross-legged facing Henry. “Are you ready?”

They had left the Dauntless in port, waiting on an injured crewmember. Dooley and Jeanette DeSade were to be married the next day. They had learned that Jeanette was the key to the location of DeSade’s Refuge, but the poor girl denied any knowledge of its whereabouts.

At dawn, still waiting for Kittrick to be brought back from the local surgery, crewmembers went to the town’s shops to buy provisions for Dooley’s wedding party. The musicians among the crew tuned their instruments and all prepared for a good time.

Poring over the map with George at his side and Dooley looking on, Theo decided that they would next pay a visit to an old friend, Captain Enoch Montgomery, now retired, who had taught him much when he was newly Captain of the Dauntless. Captain Montgomery’s home was a days’ sail distant, much closer than the next-nearest Order location.

Martin cleared his throat and in Theo’s voice said, “Captain Montgomery has forgotten more about the ocean and its peoples than I will ever know, Dooley. He may have some knowledge of the Order, or of this Refuge we seek.”

“Well, that would be convenient, wouldn’t it?” Henry remarked.

Martin laughed. “Do you remember this Captain Montgomery from before? Was he very important?”

“His name has never come up before in the story, I promise you,” Henry told him. “The author just invents old friends for Theo as the plot requires.”

Late in the morning, Kittrick was returned to the Dauntless in reasonably fine shape, and with all aboard, the Dauntless sailed out of the harbor into a bright, clear day.

While the crew saw to the ship, Theo and George went below decks and changed into their dress clothes, white shirts and breeches with navy coats. George left off his sling, proclaiming his arm healed.

Martin paused a moment and then laughed. “Henry, do you realize? George hasn’t worn a shirt since before I came to live with you.”

Henry thought about this a moment and laughed, too, realizing Martin was right. “Well, I suppose it’s bad manners to go bare-chested at a wedding.”

Theo took up his Bible and searched for suitable readings to commemorate a wedding, selecting Proverbs 18:22—He that hath found a good wife, hath found a good thing, and shall receive a pleasure from the Lord. The bride, who had been sequestered in her cabin, was invited to come up on deck.

While on shore, Dooley had picked roses for Jeanette and presented them to her now. The young couple seemed nervous but hopeful, holding hands before Theo, who faced them with proper solemnity and read the verse and the vows. Each readily agreed to love and cherish the other, and Theo was pleased to pronounce them man and wife.

A great cheer went up from the assembled sailors. Theo shook Dooley’s hand and kissed Jeanette’s cheek, followed by George, Boot, and Elmer and the rest of the well-wishers. Food was brought up from the galley along with the kegs of ale and the musicians began to play. Dooley danced with his wife and the rest of the men danced together or danced by themselves.

Thinking of their own upcoming lessons, Henry said, “Do you think Theo has ever danced with George?”

“Would they have had the opportunity?”

Henry thought back. “I recall Theo went to a masked ball years ago, but he just danced with women, of course.”

“George got to attend, though?”

“Yes, George was there with him.”

“I’m excited to go to a ball with you, even if I won’t be dancing.”

“You know I’d rather dance with you than any girl.”

Martin smiled in acknowledgement, then said, “You dance so beautifully, Henry. I hope I’m a good partner for you during the lessons.”

“I know you will be.” He stretched out his hand and squeezed Martin’s knee. “You’ve never disappointed me.”

“It’s kind of you to say so.” Martin looked well-pleased with himself.

Theo didn’t dance with George, unfortunately, but he did dance with Jeanette and again entreated her to remember anything, anything at all that might be of use in the apprehension of her terrible father.

The crew spent the rest of the day in feasting and merriment. The winds were favorable, their sails full. As the sun began to go down, the men began ribbing Dooley about his wedding night, causing both the groom and his bride to become flustered and bashful, and so Theo intervened, encouraging the newlyweds to go to her cabin to escape the intrusive questions and bold remarks.

“He’s had sex before, don’t you think?” Henry said. “Probably with some sailor.”

“Oh, certainly. I’ll bet lots of times. But this might be the first time that he’ll be doing the penetrating.”

As the sun went down and the sky grew darker, Theo and George went down to their cabin and once again pored over the Order’s map in search of any clue. George was undressing Theo for bed when there came an urgent knock at the cabin door.

It was Dooley, looking ashen. “Captain Drake, there’s something you need to see.”

“It’s your wedding night,” Theo reminded him. “Can’t it wait until morning, lad?”

“It’s Jeanette, Captain. I-I think you need to see.”

Jeanette’s cabin was too small for four people, and they were quite on top of each other. Jeanette sat on the bed looking somewhat disheveled, eyes downcast and hands twisted in her lap.

Dooley explained that he’d been helping his new wife to undress when he’d seen the tattoo on her back, but when he’d asked her about it, she hadn’t known what he was talking about.

Jeanette said, “I believe my father must have marked me while I was drugged. While in his care, I would often awake with new aches and pains and grew quite accustomed to such discomforts. He would never tell me what had been done to me while I was unconscious, so I gave up asking. But perhaps it’s best if I just show you, Captain.”

Jeanette stood and turned to face away from them and her dress was open, exposing her naked back from her neck to the top of her hips. Her back was described as graceful and slender, but what was most notable about it was the tattoo across her lower spine: a set of latitude and longitude coordinates and the words “Île Inconnue” in curling script.

“That’s ‘unknown island,’ isn’t it, Sir?” asked George. “Do you think that could be the Refuge, Sir?”

“By Jove, the girl did have the answer!” Theo said excitedly. “I think you’re right, George.”

George copied the coordinates into Theo’s log and they left Jeanette and Dooley alone in their cabin to enjoy the rest of their wedding night. Theo and George returned immediately to the Order map, all thoughts of sleep forgotten. Using the coordinates, they located a red-ink eye on the map, but there was no land mass associated with the location, nothing to indicate that there was anything there at all. Checking their own map showed nothing but blank ocean. Still, Theo was in high spirits.

“Captain Montgomery will know something, I’m positive! We’ll find him, George! We’ll find DeSade and he’ll pay for his crimes!”

George entreated Theo to get some rest, pointing out that their progress would not be hastened by Theo staying awake, and Theo allowed George to finish undressing him.

“They’ll have celebratory sex,” Henry decided. “That’ll put Theo to sleep.”

“Do you know what I was thinking about? About George?”

“No, tell me.”

“He’s so tan where he’s exposed to the sun, his back and chest and shins and feet, but when he’s naked, his ass and thighs and cock are all pale, aren’t they?”

Henry pictured it, the contrast, the way it would set off George’s cock and draw attention to it. Legs drawn up, dark to the knee, exposing the dusky pink of his asshole between white buttocks. All the pale parts of his body reserved for Theo’s eyes, Theo’s use. “Yes,” Henry said, clearing his throat, mouth suddenly dry. “Of course you’re right.”

Martin laughed. “You’re picturing him, aren’t you?”

Henry blushed and laughed, too. “How could I not?”

They sailed into port early in the afternoon, Theo spotting Captain Montgomery’s little boat, the Rusalka, tied at the dock. Theo and George made haste to Captain Montgomery’s house at harborside and knocked at his door. The Captain was greatly pleased to meet Theo and George again after several years and was eager to hear of their adventures in the interim.

“This isn’t just a social call, I’m afraid, Captain,” Theo told him. “We think we have a good chance at DeSade, and we want your help.”

Martin’s voice for Captain Montgomery was similar to the burred tones he used for the Dauntless sailors but with a bit of a wheeze for the sake of age. “Whatever I can do for you, Theo, I will do happily. I get bored in my retirement, you know!”

While the Captain’s parrot squawked and cracked nuts on his shoulder, Theo and George told the story of DeSade and the Order of the Red Eye, the strongholds marked on the map, the fiend’s daughter, and the tattoo on her back. Montgomery listened to it all thoughtfully.

“I know this place,” Montgomery told them. “It’s known by many names. Île Inconnue. Ilha Invisível. El Refugio. It’s a place where sailors of all stripes go to lick their wounds, to lay low, and to make or break alliances. It’s an island with no ruler and no laws, but strict codes of behavior and dire consequences for those who don’t abide. Most of those who visit the island are pirates and outlaws, but you’d be as welcomed as any. However, so would your nemesis, and it sounds as though he might be well-established there already.”

“Have you been there, Sir?” asked George.

“A lifetime ago. I was crew on a merchant ship that was damaged in a storm and the Sanctuary was the nearest port where we might seek repair. It was an old pirate who supplied the coordinates. Most of us were callow lads and didn’t understand what sort of place we were going to, but some of the men knew and were superstitious, fearing that we were aligning ourselves with devils simply by entering the harbor.”

“What sort of place is it, then?” Theo asked. “Is it a bad place?”

“It tolerates the bad,” conceded Martin in Montgomery’s croak. “It doesn’t punish the bad, not unless enough people think it needs punishing. But that was forty years ago and more. It may be a different place now, you understand, lads.”

They listened to more stories about Montgomery’s time on Verborgen Eiland. Montgomery described the ways in which men settled their scores there, the drinking games and tests of skill that were often used in lieu of violence. Men who didn’t follow local rules would more than likely end up dead at the hands of ad hoc vigilantes.

“So we might corner DeSade, but not be allowed to end him once and for all?” Theo asked. “These local rules wouldn’t permit it?”

“You’d have to tread carefully,” Montgomery advised. “Determine what sort of local support the man has. If he’s well-liked, your own lives are likely at risk. If he’s not, however, you may be able to achieve your ends. There are challenges you can make, challenges any self-respecting man will have to meet.”

“I can guarantee they won’t be involved in any gun duels,” Henry said confidently. “The island’s honor code won’t allow it or something.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” said Martin. “Shooting a gun won’t require enough of a man’s natural skill.”

“Bare-fisted fight to the death,” Henry predicted. “Except no one will die.”

“We have to go, Sir,” said George. “We have to try. If there’s even a chance to end him, Sir, then it’s a chance we should take.”

“George is up for anything,” Henry said fondly. “Theo’s lucky to have him.” When Martin didn’t respond right away, Henry quickly added, “As I’m lucky to have you.”

“I am up for anything also,” Martin pointed out.

This seemed quite true. Henry thought of Martin’s obvious desire to suck his cock in front of Jesse, Martin’s seeming willingness to have sex with groups of his fellow slaves for an audience. The needs for privacy and monogamy had been fairly well bred out of him. These thoughts were equally exciting and upsetting and Henry tried to put them out of mind as best he could. “Keep reading,” he urged.

They left Montgomery’s house having promised to return after defeating DeSade. Back on board the Dauntless, Theo gathered all the men on deck and told them what he and George had learned. Some of the men had heard rumors of such a place, or had known men who claimed to have been, but none of the Dauntless crew had any first-hand experience of the Island.

“We believe that this Island is where DeSade is hiding,” Theo told the men. “In following him there, we’ll be going against him on his own turf, and we know how cunning he can be even when he doesn’t have such an advantage. This is a dangerous mission, men, and if you’re not up for it, this is your last chance to opt out. We set sail for the Île Inconnue in an hour, wind permitting.”

Not a man among the hundred was willing to miss out on the chance to fight Dr. DeSade. A rousing cheer went up for Captain Drake, for the Dauntless, for their mission. Gratified, Theo made his way among the men, shaking hands and offering encouragements. He was on deck when the Dauntless sailed from the harbor, the salt spray in his face, but went down to his cabin shortly thereafter, George close behind. They looked at the map together.

“We’re putting a lot of faith in this girl’s tattoo, Sir,” said George.

“Do you think I’m wrong to do so?” Theo sounded surprised.

“Not at all, Sir. It’s a risk worth taking.”

“We’ll be there in a week, less if we have the winds behind us. We need to be ready for him, George. We need to be ready for anything.” Martin made Theo sound a little worried.

George wasn’t worried. “You just described us, Sir: ready for anything.” They exchanged a long look, gazing into each other’s eyes, resolute and stalwart in the service of good.

“All this gazing into each other’s eyes can’t just be about bravery and justice,” Henry remarked.

Martin snickered. “I do agree with you, Henry. Well, that’s it for this month,” he said, folding the magazine closed. “To be continued.”

“Come look into my eyes,” Henry suggested, reaching for him. Martin laughed and leaned over him. “Be brave,” Henry said, pulling him down for a kiss. “Do good.”

Martin took his glasses off and stretched to put them on the nightstand and gave Henry another, deeper kiss. “I love you, Henry.”

The words had such a profound effect on Henry every time Martin said them. He was overcome with the urge to grab hold of Martin, to draw him close and closer still, to merge their bodies. He wanted to be the sort of person who deserved Martin’s love and had the uneasy feeling that he was not, that he had somehow fooled Martin into believing him worthy.

“I love you, too,” he said. “More than anything.”

Winter term was over and Henry was anxious about his grades. He expected he’d get an A from Mr. McLachlan and Cs from the rest, but for the first time it was possible that he’d get better than a failing grade from Dr. Foster. He was afraid that if he failed again, Father would reprimand Martin for not giving him better help, and, really, Martin had helped him immensely and shouldn’t be blamed for Henry’s inability to do well on tests. Of course, he had gotten a D on the final test of the term, barely a D, admittedly, but still better than an F, and that was encouraging.

“Do any of the slaves get grades other than As?” Henry asked from the bed, watching Martin move about the room putting away Henry’s laundry. “You’re all so smart.”

Martin’s mouth twisted wryly. “Well, we’re all good at school, but you know that isn’t the only way to be smart, Henry. And, yes, some of us do better than others.”

“Who’s the stupidest slave?”

“Oh, well, I-I couldn’t really say.” Martin appeared flustered.

“Come on, Martin. Tell me. Who’s the dummy?”

“Well…Miles and Alex each got several Cs last term. Mr. Brand’s family doesn’t seem to care how Miles does, but Mr. Maxwell’s father was very upset about Alex’s grades. We’re supposed to get good grades, of course, and most of us do so because it’s a point of pride. Mr. Maxwell’s father threatened to file suit against Alex’s House for breach of contract.”

That was serious! Joshua had not said anything about Miles’ grades, but Henry was surprised he hadn’t heard anything about David’s troubles with Alex.

“Alex has been told he has to get better grades this term, Sir, but he doesn’t seem to take it seriously. He’s so strange.”

“You’ll be getting all As again, I suppose.”

Martin ducked his head, proud but embarrassed. “I hope so. I’ve done my best.”

Henry had done his best, too. When he got his report card on Monday, he was delighted to find he had received a D in Latin. He could not stop smiling, and Dr. Foster remarked that in all his years teaching he’d never known anyone to be so happy with such a poor showing, but he seemed almost kind in saying so. While it was not the C Father wanted, it was an improvement, and Father acknowledged as much, giving all the credit to Martin. He even called Martin into his office for a private conversation wherein he received praise and encouragement. Martin was greatly affected by this, behaving as if God Himself had singled him out for special notice. Martin had, of course, received all As but downplayed this achievement as being somehow less remarkable than Henry’s D.

“I know the grade is all because of your help,” Henry told him, “but I do think I understand Latin a little better on my own now. I did better on the last test, even.”

“I’m proud of you, Henry,” Martin said. “I think you understand it a little now, too.”

Additionally, Henry had received a B-minus in English, which he felt was partly due to Martin’s influence, Martin’s superior vocabulary. Martin was improving his life in every way, just as he was meant to do.

On the first Tuesday in March, the boys loitered in the arcade down the street from Gill's Dancing Academy awaiting the hour of their lesson. Spending all his pennies, Henry tested his strength, had his fortune told, and looked at peep shows with Martin lounging at his elbow. The girls were having their lesson first, and the boys planned to just happen to be outside of the dance school’s door when the girls were let out. Louis kept an eye on the clock; it was very important to him to not miss the opportunity to speak with Albert's twin sister Abigail.

The girls and their slaves spilled out from the door onto the sidewalk. They stood in giggling, chattering clumps, waiting on their drivers and pretending that they did not notice the boys, who were all doing their best to seem like hardened, indifferent men. A very pretty girl with Albert's blond-and-blue coloring came up behind Albert and tugged at his elbow. “Are these your friends, Albert?”

“Oh, Abigail,” Albert said. “I forgot you'd be here.”

“Of course, I'm here, silly. I'm being debuted, not you,” she said with an edge of sass. She tossed her flaxen ringlets and looked up at Henry with a coy smile. “Who is this, Albert? Aren't you going to introduce me?”

“Oh, sure. Haven't you met before? Abigail, this is Henry, Henry Blackwell. Henry, this is my sister, Abigail DeWitt.”

Abigail dipped a little curtsey and held out her hand, so Henry gave her a little bow and bent over her glove.

“It's so very nice to meet you, Mr. Blackwell,” Abigail said in a saucy tone. She looked at Henry as if he were delicious. It was always unnerving and unwelcome to receive such interest from a girl.

“Likewise,” Henry managed.

Louis butted in. “Hello, again, Miss DeWitt.” He bowed, sweeping off his hat.

“Oh, hello, Mr. Briggs,” Abigail said, her expression closed off, as fastidious as a cat with wet feet. “How nice to see you again.”

“The pleasure is mine,” Louis assured her, and judging from Abigail's expression, Henry thought that Louis was right.

“Well, Albert,” she said, “if you’d like, I'll wait in the carriage until you're done and we can go home together.”

“You go ahead,” he told her. “I can take the omnibus.”

“Suit yourself.” She turned and smiled at Henry. She had a dimple. “It was so nice to meet you, Mr. Blackwell.”

“The pleasure was mine,” Henry said blandly.

She walked away in a swish of skirts, her slave at her heels. Louis watched her go with obvious longing, and Henry felt sorry for him.

Martin leaned close and whispered in his ear, “That girl is very forward, Sir,” with clear disapproval, and Henry realized happily that Martin was jealous.

Henry had had lessons with Mr. Gill before, back when he was still young enough for mixed classes with girls, and remembered him as ill-tempered and sharp-eyed, putting up with no nonsense from his boisterous charges and taking dance very seriously. Mr. Gill was an old man, older than Father, but tall and elegant and imperious, with wavy silver hair flowing dramatically back from a high forehead. As the boys milled about in the coatroom, putting up their hats and changing into their dancing shoes, Mr. Gill paced the ballroom floor with an expression of profound displeasure, and so the boys congregated in the doorway, unwilling to enter the ballroom and perhaps incur his wrath.

“Come in!” Mr. Gill clapped his hands to hurry them. “You're wasting time!” Reluctantly, boys began to file into the vast room. Henry looked around and saw boys from other schools, so many unfamiliar faces. Boys waved to one another across the room until Mr. Gill shouted at them. “Stop flapping your hands! Socialize after class!”

There were two women in the room. Mr. Gill introduced them: the woman at the piano was Mrs. Gill, and she would be the accompanist; the younger woman standing alongside was Miss Gill, their adult daughter, who would be helping to demonstrate the steps. The boys collectively murmured a “How do you do?” and the women politely inclined their heads.

They would be dancing the Parisian Varieties quadrille. Perhaps, Mr. Gill suggested, they had seen it danced before, at a family party or another ball. The quadrille consisted of five figures: a waltz, a polka, yet another waltz, a mazurka, and a final waltz. It would take perhaps a quarter of an hour to dance completely once mastered.

“But we must start with the basics,” Mr. Gill said. “Let us see just how badly you waltz.”

Every boy in the room had had dancing lessons as a child until at least age 12, but that wasn't to say they'd been any good at dancing. Henry had always been a good dancer, though, and he knew that Martin had had lessons up until the week he was sold, so he was not nervous about the waltz.

Mr. Gill made them line up and sent them across the room in whirling pairs, his critiques delivered with frigid condescension and proving most mortifying to their targets. Louis was told he was clumsy and had elbows that flapped like chicken wings. Other boys were clod-footed, graceless, and shamed for being out of breath. Henry began to worry as he waited his turn, thinking that perhaps he and Martin should have at least danced a few steps together at home, but his fears were for naught. In fact, he and Martin were so well-suited as partners that he began to worry the other boys would guess what they really were to one another. Martin floated across the floor in his arms, so responsive and pliant that it felt as though their feet scarcely touched the ground. It was terribly exciting to be able to hold one another in public, and to do something so romantic, and have it all be sanctioned by society.

As they traversed the floor, Mr. Gill signaled to his wife to stop playing and turned to Henry, pointing a long finger. “You, the tall one. Mister…?”

“Blackwell, sir.”

“You and your slave,” Mr. Gill said. “Very nice.” To the room as a whole, he said, “That is how you all should be doing it.” This earned Henry many disgruntled sidelong glances, but for once he didn't care what other people thought of him. He blushed at the praise, but he was proud of himself, him and Martin both.

They proved equally adept at polka and mazurka. Henry ignored the dirty looks that the others—even Louis—gave them when they were praised yet again. It didn't matter; he was having fun. The exercise brought color to Martin's cheeks, the same kind of hectic glamour that came over his face when Henry fucked him hard, and Henry had to put his hand deep in his pocket and give his cock a cruel pinch to keep from growing erect when he came to the comparison.

After the lesson, as they all changed out of their dancing pumps and into their street shoes, the cloakroom was full of disheartened, defensive and angry boys, and the air was thick with cursing and complaints.

“You had fun, though, didn't you?” Louis asked Henry, seeming to begrudge him the experience.

Martin was crouched at Henry's feet, tying his boots, and when he was done, Henry offered a hand to pull him up. He sighed. He didn't want to seem like he was gloating about the lesson, but he really had enjoyed himself.

“I like dancing,” he said with a shrug. “I always did, you know.”

“You've got a good partner,” Louis pointed out. “Peter and I are terrible together. He claims he was a good dancer back at Endymion, but I don't see how that could be possible.”

From Henry's perspective, it seemed very possible. Louis had been a poor dancer as a child, and he was a poor dancer as a young man. Peter was surely adequate, at worst. But all Henry said was, “It's bad luck,” and shrugged again.

Philip came up behind Louis and elbowed him. “Hey. Did you two notice Adam?”

“No. What about him?” Louis offered Peter his hand and Peter got to his feet.

“He doesn’t have a companion, right?”

“Right…oh, but then who—”

“Footman,” Philip said with a snicker. “He’s dancing with one of his family’s footmen!”

They all laughed unkindly at Adam’s predicament. Henry supposed dancing with any kind of slave was better than not participating in the ball at all, but not by much.

At dinner Wednesday, Mother was in good spirits. “I had a letter from Reggie today,” she said, offering this information equally to Father and Henry, though Father did not deign to respond.

“How is he? I wrote to him about two weeks ago but haven’t heard back yet.”

“He tells me he’s sold a great deal of his furniture already and gotten a good price for it. I’m not surprised it would sell,” she said. “I’m sure he had lovely things. People like him always have such exquisite taste.”

Henry blushed at ‘people like him.’ He was one of those people, of course, though he wasn’t sure he had what anyone would describe as exquisite taste. The word Martin had used was ‘baroque.’ But the matter of taste made him suddenly aware of a change in his mother’s appearance.

“Is that a new dress, Mother? It’s very becoming.” Rather than her usual black or grey, like mourning clothes or slaves’ dresses, this gown was a rich dark blue and had a bit of frippery attached.

Mother smiled at him, grateful and gracious. “Yes, it is, darling. How kind of you to notice.” She darted a sharp glance at Father, who was seemingly paying no mind to either of them. “Your Aunt Virginia and I went shopping. I’ve an entire new wardrobe, everything very smart and modern.”

“A little color looks good on you,” Henry told her. It was true. She looked healthier, more robust. “You seem happier, too, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

Another gracious smile. “Be sure to tell Reggie when you write him next, darling. He worries about me so.” She ate a bite of her chicken, chewed and swallowed, then thoughtfully said, “I enjoyed spending the day with Virginia. I regret that we haven’t been closer to my family over the years.”

“I like Jesse,” Henry told her. “I think we’ve become real friends. We’re going to try to see each other more often.” Henry wanted to see Jesse again soon, but not too soon; Henry was quite sure that Martin had not forgotten Henry’s promise to consider playing Jesse’s voyeuristic games, and Henry still wasn’t sure what he might do.

“I can’t tell you how happy that makes me, darling. I know that Gilbert and Virginia would love to know you better, too.”

Father looked up from his papers. He was stone-faced, and Henry would have guessed that he was unhappy to hear so much talk of Wiltons, but he turned to Henry and said, “You know, Henry, you can take a carriage to visit your cousin any time you’d like. You needn’t ask permission.”

“Th-thank you, Father.” Henry blinked, surprised. “I might do that, sir. But, really, I don’t mind taking the omnibus.”

“As long as you don’t feel that you’re being kept from seeing your cousin,” Father said stiffly.

“No, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Mother was looking at Father as if seeing him anew, but Father didn’t notice, having turned back to his letters.

Later in bed, Henry spooned Martin and kissed the nape of his neck. Martin snuggled back against him and said, “It was good of you, Henry, to notice your mother’s dress.”

“She seems so much better these days.”

“Pearl has been in very good spirits recently, too. It’s been very hard on her, Sir, to have a mistress who’s been so unhappy for so very long.”

“Mother’s unhappiness certainly hasn’t been Pearl’s doing, though.”

“But she can’t help feeling responsible. If you were unrelentingly sad for a decade, Henry, I’d definitely feel that it was at least partially my fault. It’s part of the companion’s job to see a master through his moods.”

“The master has to address his moods himself first, though, doesn’t he? Mother didn’t want to feel better until Reggie came back.”

“No, she didn’t,” Martin agreed. “Thank goodness for your uncle, then.”

Henry thought about his mother’s unhappiness and her great and obvious love of her younger brother. It did bother him that she hadn’t loved either Cora or himself enough to pull herself out of the doldrums, but he was also so fond of Reggie that it made it easier to forgive Mother her preference.

He did not think his parents would ever have a happy marriage, but since Christmas Mother had steadily brightened and grown stronger, and it seemed possible that she might one day want to take her rightful place at Father’s side, with all the responsibilities and advantages that that would entail. Mrs. Murdock would surely never be gone, not with her little boy and his presumptive blood ties to the Blackwells, but perhaps her importance could be downplayed.

As for Pearl…Henry hoped that he would never put Martin in such a position, despairing and unhappy and powerless to change his situation. He had to take care of Martin. They had to take care of each other.

With the thought of taking care of Martin, he returned to his vague fantasy, the idea that there was a place where he could be completely at ease with Martin, a place of benign judgment and infinite tolerance where a man might love his companion and be applauded and admired for the purity of his feeling. Perhaps such a literal fairyland was too much to hope for, but surely there were more options for queer gentlemen than he was aware of. While he had a hazy sense of the liminal world where the likes of Reggie flitted to and fro, a place where one had freedom but was subject to disdain and condescension, he wanted something better for Martin and himself.

Henry fell into a restless sleep and dreamed of an accommodating version of the city where he and Martin made love in public and appreciative strangers remarked on their skill and good fortune.

On Thursday, Louis put pressure on Henry to get to the dancing school early enough to see the girls as they were leaving. Once again, when Abigail emerged, she came to where Albert stood with his friends and flirted with Henry, much to Louis' chagrin—and Henry's.

“What is your slave called, Mr. Blackwell?” She paused, but when Henry, who was taken aback by her question, did not answer, she continued. “My Helena thinks him very handsome.” Helena, standing just behind her mistress, blushed but did not in any way indicate this was untrue.

Henry coughed. “Uh, Martin. He's called Martin.” He looked around for Martin, who was a few yards away talking with Peter and some other slaves, and willed him to keep his distance.

“I'm so glad to know it,” Abigail said, her dimple showing. “Now if Helena writes him a love note, she'll know whom to address it to.”

Henry dearly hoped that no love notes would be forthcoming. He did not want to end up inadvertently courting Abigail DeWitt through the proxy of a manufactured romance between Martin and her Helena.

At last, Abigail retired to her carriage, taking the possibly-lovelorn Helena with her, and the boys entered the school.

At the last lesson, Mr. Gill had identified the truly bad dancers and so this time they were sequestered in a shameful corner of the ballroom for remedial work taught by his son, also Mr. Gill, who they were to call Mr. Gus for the sake of clarity. Mr. Gill split up the remaining adequate dancers into sets. Henry and Martin were in a set with Louis and Peter, Albert and Stuart, and a tall, gangly boy called Stephen Reinhardt and his slave Eddie, who were from another school.

“Salute your partners, gentlemen!” Mr. Gill's voice was stentorian and terrifying. Henry bowed; Martin made a little curtsey, which Henry found both silly and charming. They had been positioned as the #1 couple in their set, which meant they would perform all the figures first, unfortunately without the benefit of seeing any of the others do them and learning from their mistakes. Henry was rather concerned Mr. Gill was giving him too much credit for his good performance on Tuesday.

Now that basic politeness was out of the way, the Gills attempted to teach them the first figure, a waltz. The #1 and #3 couples would perform the same maneuvers, as would the #2 and #4. Mr. Gill and his daughter demonstrated the #1 steps, first with invisible counterparts, then again with a pair of boys from the nearest set, people Henry did not know. It did not look terribly complicated, but there were murmurs of anxiety all around the ballroom.

All of the #1s from each set were meant to act as one, and this most certainly did not happen. There was chaos around the room as Mrs. Gill began to play the piano. At a little nudge from Martin, Henry hurried his step to get into the middle of the set, holding Martin's left hand high with his own right. He paraded Martin around the square and spun him back into place. So far, so good.

“Right and left, vis-a-vis,” Mr. Gill called.

Henry and Martin moved forward to meet Stephen and Eddie opposite them in the #3 spot, each master taking the other's partner briefly by the right hand and passing by to the opposite side of the square, then taking their own partner's left hand in left, spinning them into place. They repeated the crossing and returned to their original positions. Henry relaxed a little and smiled. It wasn't so hard.

There was mayhem erupting all around them. Boys stood confused in the center of their sets. Boys had the wrong partners.

“You stupid boys! You need only be able to count to four!” Mr. Gill shouted, outraged. “Surely, you can all count to four! Da, da, da, DA!”

It took several attempts for all the #1s to complete their steps in the measures allowed, and only then could Mr. Gill move on to the steps for the #2s. Albert and Stuart stood in the #2 position and, thankfully, were reasonably adept dancers. Really, in all cases, the slaves were at least passably good dancers—they had to be, to have been sold as companions—and the fault for poor performance rested solely on the shoulders of the clumsy, privileged boys who mastered them.

The #3s repeated the #1's actions, and the #4s repeated the #2's, seeming perhaps to have learned a little from watching the earlier couples. In the #4 position, Louis didn't do too badly, but became noticeably frustrated and embarrassed when he was off time. It did not help that Peter was taller than him and they made a somewhat comical picture, a fact of which Louis was certainly aware.

After every boy in the ballroom had completed his steps more or less successfully, Mr. Gill made them do it all together, all the way through, twice, before at last adding the actual waltz portion in a third run-through. As they spun around their square of floor, Henry exulted in the feeling of freedom, lightness and daring that the dance brought to him. Martin was in his arms, in front of a room full of boys always ready to jeer at any hint of queerness, yet no one saw anything untoward and he could enjoy himself without worry. If only he could kiss Martin, all would be perfect!

When they were finished for the day, Mr. Gill made them stand and wait while he called out three pairs, including Henry and Martin, as having done an especially good job, and Henry flushed with pride.

After class, Louis did not bother to temper his resentment. As they stood around the cloakroom changing their shoes, he said, “Well, you're the last person I expected to be teacher's pet,” he remarked, “considering how you do at regular school.”

Henry bristled. “Hey, now! That's uncalled-for!”

Albert chimed in with his opinion. “Oh, come on! You're just jealous, Louis, because my sister prefers—”

“Don't!” Henry held out a hand to stay Albert's words. “That's enough, Albert.”

“I don't need you sticking up for me,” Louis grumped. He looked down at the back of Peter's head, gave it a light rap with his knuckles. “Aren't you done there yet?”

“Yes, Sir.” Peter stood, brushing off his knees. “Laces tied, Sir.”

Martin stood, too, and let the back of his hand stay in contact with Henry's just a moment longer than accidental. “You're ready, too, Sir.”

They all took the omnibus home. There weren't enough seats for all the masters to sit, so Henry stood with the slaves, Martin's body swaying against his as they rolled through the corners. Louis got off with Henry at the stop half a block from the Blackwell house.

“Listen, Henry, what I said before…” Louis began. “I'm sorry I was cross with you.”

Henry shrugged, embarrassed. “It's all right.”

“Albert's right, you know. I'm mad because Abigail likes you.”

“I'm sorry,” Henry offered helplessly. “If I could, I'd make her change her mind.”

Louis gave him a sharp, critical look. “You really don't like her, even a little?”

Henry shook his head. “No. I guess I'm not really interested in girls.” He cringed a little inside; he had not meant to say it quite so bluntly.

But Louis let this pass without remark. “She's definitely the prettiest girl in that entire group, at least to my eye. And she's very modern, not at all afraid to talk to boys. If not her, which one do you like?”

Extremely uncomfortable with this line of talk, Henry squirmed a little. “Oh, I don't know. There are some pretty ones, I guess.”

They stopped in front of the Blackwell gate. “See you tomorrow, Louis.”

“G'bye, Henry.” Louis walked off with an air of defeat, his shoulders slumped. Henry watched him a moment, wishing he could make Abigail see all of his friend's good qualities.

“The dancing lesson went long, Sir,” Martin reminded him in a low voice. “Let’s hurry inside so we can have sex before my dinner.”

“Yes,” Henry said in quick agreement. “Let's go in.”

While Martin was eating his dinner, Henry lay on the bed and worried about Louis. He hated to see his friend so bereft over Abigail, who surely wasn’t worth it. He would have to think of some way to make himself less appealing to her without outright insulting her or embarrassing himself too much. Why couldn’t she just be interested in Louis, who was so interested in her? Henry was perfectly willing to be a polite, solicitous dance partner to girls, and that ought to be enough. He could only hope that his tepid responses to Abigail’s advances would temper her ardor over the coming weeks.

On Friday, Henry came home to a pleasant surprise: an invitation to Jesse’s birthday party in two weeks’ time. He had never been invited to Jesse’s party in the past, or at least he hadn’t seen any invitations, and he was excited and apprehensive about the prospect of socializing with his cousin’s circle of friends.

Martin was excited, too. “There are quite a few Ganymede boys among his friends’ slaves, or so Russ has told me. They’re not from my cohort, of course, but they’re still familiar faces.”

“It’ll be fun,” Henry said, determined that this would be the case. “I wonder if Jesse’s friends will be as, uh, uninhibited as he is?”

Martin snickered. “I thought of that, too. What if all Lawton boys are like that?”

“Ha! I’m imagining that proper Eli is the odd one out!” If Lawton was full of boys fawning over their slaves, Henry would have to bring his grades up so he could transfer.

When Henry brought the invitation up during the family hour that evening, Father merely grunted and did not look up from his newspaper.

Mother said, “I’m so pleased you’re becoming better friends with your cousin, darling. I’m sure it’ll be a lovely party. You know, when I was a girl, invitations to Wilton parties and balls were much sought after.”

“When your father was alive, Wiltons could afford to have extravagant parties,” Father pointed out. “Gilbert doesn’t have that luxury.”

“Well, give him some extra in his budget, then,” Mother said testily. “Let him give his boy a nice party. We can certainly afford it.”

Father frowned. “If Gilbert needs more, he need only ask and offer justification,” he said stiffly. “But I’m not going to start padding his allowance any time you think he might appreciate more money.”

To Henry, this sounded very reasonable, but Mother did not seem convinced. “We have more money than you can count,” Mother said, full of haughty hostility. “What’s the harm in sharing with family?”

“I think I’ve shared amply with your relatives, Louisa, and I will continue to do so as long as such help is required. However, I don’t think it necessary to concern myself with minutiae like birthday parties unless Gilbert sees fit to bring such things to my attention, and even then I would be doing him a great courtesy to hear his petition. I’d thank you not to lecture me about my obligations to your family.

“They’re your family, too, Hiram,” Mother insisted. “They’re all the family you’ve got.”

“Hmph.” Father indicated he was through with the conversation by simply not responding and turning his attention back to his papers.

This talk of family made Henry think about Father’s relationship with Mrs. Murdock and the little boy he had with her. He could never ask Father, of course, but he could ask Louis, and Louis could maybe find some things out. Where did she live? Was it a big, ostentatious house or something more fitting for a secret family? Did she have a full complement of slaves? Were they all from Ganymede and Demeter? When her boy was old enough, would he go to Algonquin? Would Henry be starting his last year at Algonquin at the same time Calvin Murdock was beginning his first? What sort of boy was he? Did Father like him more than he liked Henry? Henry did not think Calvin Murdock would have to clear a very high hurdle to be better-liked than Henry.

Henry supposed Mrs. Murdock made Father happy, and maybe father deserved to be happy, after all. Certainly Mother—even this better version of her—did not make Father happy and didn’t even try. Mother reserved all her love for Reggie and cared little for Father and only slightly more for her children. Someday, Henry himself might end up married to some woman who deserved better, but he’d be in love with his slave instead of her. Even Cora was fixated—for now—on an inappropriate person in Martin. It was difficult to stay actively angry with Father about his mistress when no one in his family loved who they ought.

After their first lesson with Mr. Gill, Henry had asked that the Blackwell ballroom be readied for his use, so the maids had dusted the chandeliers and the grand piano and waxed the floor and all was in readiness for dance practice on Saturday morning after breakfast. It was too bad the room had not seen more use over the years. It was a vast space with canary-yellow wallpaper and ornate plasterwork, glossy herringbone parquet, glittering mirrors on the walls, and grand multi-tiered chandeliers at either end of the room. Henry thought it a magical place, the prettiest room in the house. The gleaming black grand piano had last been played at the ball when Henry was 7 years old. None of the Blackwells could play. When Martin tried the keys, it proved woefully out of tune.

“We'll have it tuned for you,” Henry said. “It should be played, don't you think?”

“I would like that, Sir,” Martin admitted with a pleased smile.

“What shall we do for music?” Henry wondered. He had not thought of this until now; should they hire a pianist, as well?

“I can sing it, Sir, if you’d like,” Martin told him.

It was not complicated music. Martin sang the piece as they danced, la-di-da, frequently breathless, and laughing with happiness.

Henry delighted in Martin’s delight. He wanted Martin to be this happy always. He was taken with a sudden visceral urge to have Martin's cock in his mouth, the weight of it, the feeling of it throbbing against his tongue. He whirled to a stop mid-step and pulled Martin to him, running his hands up and down Martin's back, cupping his ass, and burying his face in his neck.

“Sir,” Martin said, low and urgent, pushing him away. “Sir, we mustn't. Not here.”

“We’re alone. No one will bother us,” Henry said with unwarranted certainty. He leaned in and kissed Martin, a hand around the back of his neck, and put his other hand flat against the front of Martin’s trousers, feeling the shape of his cock and balls.

Martin inhaled sharply but took a step back. “No, Sir. Not here. Please. Take me upstairs if you want me.”

“It’s all right, Martin—” Henry reached for Martin’s arm, his knobby wrist.

Martin jerked his arm out of Henry’s grasp and backed out of his reach. “It’s not, Sir! Please. We mustn’t get caught!”

Henry disliked Martin’s refusal. He could order Martin to do whatever he wanted, and Martin would have to comply, and for an arrogant moment he thought he would do exactly that, but just as quickly he reconsidered. He would never allow himself to be a man who would force Martin to do things he didn’t want to do.

Martin had retreated to the far side of the piano, eyeing Henry warily. The last thing Henry wanted was for Martin to be frightened of him, and he felt his skin tingle with a flush of shame.

“I’m sorry, Martin. I won’t push.” Henry held out his hand, wanting Martin to come back to him. “Please. I’ll be good, all right?”

Martin came back around the piano, though his eyes were still full of mistrust. “Take me upstairs if you want me, Sir,” he repeated.

Inside Henry’s room, the door locked, Martin kissed him willingly, deeply, but he was shaking as he did it. He gave Henry a solemn look, his face very pale. “You frighten me.”

“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” Henry said, which of course was true. He’d only wanted to express his passion.

“We can’t take chances like that, Henry. What if someone had come in? What if Billy had found us, or Randolph?”

It would have been disastrous, of course. Even if the slaves didn’t tell Father, they’d know, and surely Billy would tell Paul, at the very least, and probably his Jane, too. No doubt the information that young Mr. Blackwell was a fairy, and with his slave to boot, would be of interest to slaves and masters all up and down 5th.

“I wasn’t thinking,” Henry admitted. “You’re right, of course.” He wanted to make it up to Martin. “Here,” he said, setting to work on Martin’s trouser buttons, “let me show you what I wanted to do.”

Later at night, lolling sated in Henry's bed, Martin brought it up again. “We have to be so careful, Henry. If we're caught doing something like that, I’m sure your father would take me away from you. I might even be sold!”

Martin’s worries seemed extreme, but then again, he might be right. Martin was in fact Father's property and not Henry's, not until Henry reached the age of majority, and if Henry's behavior with Martin displeased Father, it wasn't unthinkable that Father might take Martin away.

“I’ll be more careful,” Henry said, mollifying him. “I’ll keep you safe, I promise.” He rolled over on top of Martin and held him down. Trying for levity, he said, “But you have to do your part. You have to stop looking at me like you want my mouth on your cock.”

Martin laughed, a low chuckle. “I do no such thing, Henry.” But then he looked at Henry just as he'd been accused of, and burst out laughing again, and harder, arching up beneath Henry’s weight. “I do like your mouth.”

They rolled around making a tangle of the bedding in a mock battle for dominance. Martin ended up on top, and Henry was happy to lie beneath him, thinking that this was what it would feel like to take Martin’s weight if he let Martin fuck him. The very idea gave him a thrill of terror; he pulled Martin down into a fervent kiss as he wondered, not for the first time, what that might be like, if it would hurt, if he would love it. He had never played with his own ass, and he still hadn’t let Martin touch it, so he hadn’t a clue what it might feel like to have even a finger inside his body, much less a cock. He wanted to try it, though, he did. He kept waiting for the right time, but what if the right time never came? Maybe he should just…acquiesce. The idea of doing just that made him quake with excited fear.

“Henry? Are you all right?” Martin pushed himself up to look down into Henry’s face with a concerned expression, brow furrowed.

Before he could change his mind, Henry blurted, “You can do it, if you want.” He felt his face grow hotter and hotter and could not meet Martin’s eyes. If he let Martin have this, maybe it would make up somewhat for scaring him in the ballroom.

Martin blinked, confused. “Do what, Henry?”

Oh, god. He would have to say it. “Touch my…touch me. You can touch me. My hole.”

“Oh! Really, Henry?” Martin’s delight was immediate and obvious, and he beamed down at Henry’s frightened face. He ran his hands up and down Henry’s arms in a soothing gesture. “It’ll feel good, I promise. You needn’t be nervous.”

“I can’t help it!” Henry insisted, his mood verging on irritable. “I’m not like you.” And he wasn’t. After all, there were no proscriptions on what a slave might do with his body. No matter what he did, or what was done to him, Martin would always be a slave, but it was different for Henry. He had been steadily chipping away at his gentlemanly veneer for months now, unable to stop himself from behaving counter to the dictates of society. He was barely maintaining an appearance of normality, and he felt that anything Martin did to his asshole would all but eradicate these last vestiges of his civility.

Immediately, Henry wanted to rescind the offer. “I don’t know…maybe I shouldn’t—”

“Henry?” Martin’s face fell. “Please, Henry. Just let me try. I think you’ll really like it.”

Well, that would be the problem, wouldn’t it? If Henry liked it, if he liked it anywhere near as much as Martin did, he’d become a decadent, unrepentant fairy in no time, and he’d be shunted off into exile, and Martin would probably be taken away from him. How could Martin not see these worrisome possibilities?

But letting Martin do this would bring them closer together, and it would make Martin happy.

Martin was lying beside him, kissing him, stroking his body with soothing sweeps of his hand. “We don’t have to do everything,” Martin murmured, his tongue tracing the curve of Henry’s ear. “I’ll just…explore a little, all right? You’ll tell me if it’s too much and I’ll stop.”

It was already too much, and Henry had made a mistake, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it.

Henry took a deep, shaky breath and let it out. “Okay. I’ll tell you.”

Martin kissed him, a deep, searching kiss, a little bossy. “Good boy.” His hand dipped between Henry’s thighs, stirring the fine hairs. “Spread your legs for me.”

Henry’s heart thudded with dread, but he inched his legs apart.

Martin bent over Henry’s chest and licked and bit his nipples while he fondled his cock and balls. His touch was leisurely and assured; he was in no hurry to get to Henry’s hole. After Henry was hard and panting, Martin began stroking the sensitive skin behind his balls. Each movement of Martin’s fingertips sent shivers over Henry’s skin. His nipples seemed connected to his crotch, to the skin between his legs, and he felt every nip and swipe of tongue in his cock. Martin’s tongue flicked at a nipple, and the feather strokes of his fingertips slipped a little further down between Henry’s legs, just at the verge of the skin of his hole, and this secret flesh was thrillingly sensitive to Martin’s touch.

Henry groaned and shuddered with mixed fear and arousal.

Martin’s voice was low and close when he repeated, “Good boy.” He brought his fingers to his mouth to wet them then reached again between Henry’s legs. His wet fingertip was circling now, and Henry had never suspected his lowly hole capable of producing such sensations. His entire body was covered in quivering gooseflesh, sensation spreading out in overlapping ripples from this point of contact, and it was overwhelming.

It felt so good, but it was a mistake. He’d never come back from this. He’d have to stop it. Soon.

Martin slid down Henry’s body to kiss and lick the head of his cock, and Henry began to groan, sobbing gasps, while his cock jerked against Martin’s lips and Martin’s fingers massaged his twitching hole. He wanted Martin to do more, something more, but he didn’t know what.

Martin hefted his balls, then squeezed the shaft of his cock.

“Knees up.” Martin patted Henry’s hip and shifted to kneel between his legs.

Henry began to panic again. He’d resolved to let Martin touch, but he didn’t want Martin to look at his hole. “Wait, Martin, you can’t—”

“Let me see, Henry. It’s all right.”

Henry wanted to refuse, but he didn’t want to disappoint Martin. He was shaking as he slowly drew his knees up toward his chest.

Martin looked down at Henry’s exposed hole with an expression of such tenderness that Henry was able to relax a little, reminding himself that Martin loved him, after all, and wouldn’t want to hurt him. The air felt cool on his skin, and he felt as conspicuous as if there were a very bright light shining down between his buttocks. Martin reached out and petted Henry’s hole with his thumb, and Henry’s muscles clenched at the contact.

“You are such a good boy,” Martin said approvingly. “Letting me see you like this.” He put his fingers in his mouth again and rubbed his fingertips over Henry’s hole, and the slickness of his saliva added a lush dimension to the sensation of contact. Martin’s touch made all the hairs stand up on Henry’s skin, a scintillating tingle that was almost effervescent. Martin touched Henry with one hand and idly stroked his own cock with the other. “Does it feel nice?” he asked.

“Y-yes,” Henry managed. He found he was holding his breath and let it out with a shiver.

Martin leaned forward and spit on the skin just above Henry’s hole, and Henry felt it dripping down, giving Martin’s fingers more slip. Henry’s hole contracted spasmodically, like a greedy little mouth sucking after Martin’s fingertips.

“Do you know what feels even nicer?” Martin asked. He cocked his head, waiting for an answer.

“N-no.” Henry couldn’t begin to formulate a guess.

“Licking,” Martin suggested. He shifted on his knees and bent over, lowering his face toward Henry’s hole.

No. Absolutely not. He couldn’t let Martin do…do that! He wasn’t clean enough, couldn’t possibly be.

“No!” Henry brought his knees down and sat up, scooting back. “No, you can’t!” Fingers were enough, more than enough.

“Henry?” Martin looked puzzled. “What’s wrong?”

“Please,” Henry said, embarrassed by his frightened shaking. “You just can’t, all right?”

Martin rubbed Henry’s knee, ruffled the hairs on his shin. “I’m sorry, Henry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I’m not scared,” Henry lied.

“It’s just, you know how much I like it when you do it to me.”

“I’m not like you,” Henry said firmly. And he wasn’t.

Unlike Henry, Martin seemed to love himself and was comfortable in his own skin to an enviable degree. He had enormous confidence in his body, both in its functions and its value to a partner. On those rare occasions when Martin didn’t readily accept Henry’s mouth on his ass, he’d just go wash himself and then let Henry get on with it. But Henry wasn’t sure if he’d know if he was ever clean enough.

It was humiliating to shake like this. His cock was still hard, but he felt quite prepared to ignore it and pretend none of this had ever happened.

“I won’t push, Henry. I’m sorry.” Martin put his arms around him and kissed his cheek. “I can still make you feel good, can’t I?”

“It’s enough I’m letting you touch,” Henry insisted sullenly, mortified by his fearfulness. “You don’t have to lick me, too.”

“Okay, okay. Of course you’re right.” Martin stroked Henry’s hair and pulled him close. “You were good to let me do that much.”

Despite his embarrassment, Henry let Martin hold and soothe him. He wanted to be cossetted and cared for more than he wanted another orgasm, and Martin seemed content to give this to him. Now, with the perspective of even a few minutes, he felt slightly ridiculous for reacting as he had, but he just could not countenance letting Martin put his lips and tongue on his ass.

“I won’t try to lick you again, all right?” Martin asked. “But maybe it would be all right if I put a finger inside?”

Henry had been prepared to agree to this before, but the licking had utterly derailed him. “Another time.” Despite how good it had felt, he didn’t think it would be soon.

Martin sighed, but he tightened his hold around Henry’s shoulders.

After a few moments silence, Henry said, “I’m sorry. I did get scared.”

“There’s nothing to be scared of, you know. I love you. I want to make you feel good.”

“I know you do.” Henry did know. And someday he’d gather his courage, and he wouldn’t think too hard about anything, and he’d let Martin do whatever he wanted. Someday.

After another short silence, Henry said, “I really am sorry about pushing you in the ballroom.”

“Maybe it’s my fault, too, Henry. You said the way I look at you—”

Henry gave a derisive snort and a firm shake of his head. “No. It’s not up to you. I actually don’t think it matters what you do, Martin. I just always want you, to greater or lesser degree, but I need to behave myself. I forget sometimes how serious the consequences could be if we were caught.”

The idea of being separated from Martin was sobering, and Henry did take it seriously, but when he weighed the risks against the pleasures of doing just a little of what he wanted, he kept coming down on the side of pleasure. What he wanted was a life where he could kiss Martin in his family’s ballroom and all anyone would mind about if they were caught was the impropriety of a display of affection outside the bedroom, not the level of intimacy between the two of them as men, or as master and slave. Every time they got away with something, he felt a little closer to this fantasy world he so wanted to live in.

But all he said to Martin was, “I’ll be more careful,” and believed that he would be, despite all evidence to the contrary.

After breakfast on Sunday, Henry had the idea to visit Cora, and was pleased with himself for thinking of this on his own, rather than needing Martin to remind him that he was someone’s brother.

“Do you want to take her to the park, Sir, or do you want to play with her here? Is it too cold to ride, do you think?”

“Nurse will think it’s too cold for her to ride yet,” Henry said with confidence. “But we could go to the menagerie, maybe, or we could just play in the nursery. She’ll want to play with you, anyway. I’ll just end up watching.”

“I like Little Miss, Sir,” Martin said, seeming quite happy at the idea of playing with a bossy little girl. “She’s a funny little person, don’t you think?”

They went up to the nursery and Nurse was pleased to see them. Cora leapt up from her cross-legged seat on the floor.

“Martin! Henry!” She ran to them and flung herself first at Martin, then at her brother. “Did you come to play with me?”

“We thought we could go to the menagerie,” Henry suggested. “If Nurse says it’s all right, of course.”

“Please, Nurse? Can we go?”

Nurse peered at the windows, at the abundant pale light. “If it’s not too cold, Miss…let me check at the window.” She crossed to the windows and opened the nearest sash.

“Come see,” Cora said, tugging at Martin’s hand. “You, too, Henry. Come see Martin.”

She led them to her dollhouse, dancing with excitement. “See? There he is with Henry.”

The Henry doll, to which they had been previously introduced, lay in bed with his little china head on a miniature pillow. Next to him in the bed lay another boy doll, this one with reddish painted hair and a pair of wire eyeglasses sitting crookedly on his nub of a nose.

“His hair is short,” Cora pointed out, “but that’s because they don’t sell any boy dolls with long hair. Isn’t that stupid?”

“You can imagine long hair, though, can’t you, Miss?” Martin smiled and adjusted the glasses on the doll’s nose with a fingertip.

“Yes, I can,” Cora agreed. “See his violin? He can’t really play it, though. It’s just for show.”

There was a tiny violin laying on the floor beside the bed, a pretty piece of craftsmanship, and Henry’s first thought was that Dollhouse Martin would step right on it if he got up from the bed; however, he did not share this with his sister.

Henry surveyed the dollhouse rooms, curious about the other little bisque inhabitants. The father doll was in the parlor reading a miniature newspaper, his faceless slave behind his chair. The mother doll lay face down on the parlor floor in front of her wing chair as if stricken down by the hand of a god, but her slave stood quite unconcerned in her proper position. Honey the dancing bear sat in the kitchen with the lady acrobat from the wooden circus. The nameless infant remained neglected in its cradle in the nursery, watched over by a faceless nurse. He did not see the sister doll at first glance, but a second look revealed that she stood in the Henry doll’s room, peeking around the high headboard of the bed. Was Dollhouse Cora spying on Dollhouse Henry and his slave? Henry felt his face tingle with hot prickles at the very thought.

Martin was also interested in what Dollhouse Cora was up to. “Is that doll a little you, Miss?”

“Yes,” Cora said firmly. “I’m watching you sleep.”

“Oh. Well, Miss.” Martin flushed, too, and seemed quite flustered. “That’s a peculiar hobby, Miss, I must say.”

“Nurse says it isn’t nice,” Cora said blithely. “She says it’s snooping, but I think it’s just curiosity. She wants me to play something else.”

“If you did that in real life, Cora, it would be very rude,” Henry pointed out, itching with the urge to remove the sister doll from the boy doll’s room. “It would make me very angry.”

“Well, it’s only pretend, Henry,” Cora reminded him, unconcerned.

Nurse shut the window. “If Little Miss keeps her coat buttoned up, I’m sure we’ll be fine, Sir.”

Cora whirled to face Nurse, her expression delighted and eager. “We can go?”

“Yes, Miss. Do you want to wear your green coat or your red cape?”

Cora thought about it a moment. “Green coat, please.”

While Nurse got Cora into her coat, Henry and Martin stood before the dollhouse, looking at their little china effigies.

“I really want to get that sister doll out of there,” Henry murmured. “Do you think I could just—?” He reached for the china girl, but Martin stayed his hand.

“You’d best not,” Martin whispered. “It will only upset her, Sir. She doesn’t mean anything by it, after all. It’s just an innocent game.”

“I don’t like it,” Henry grumped. “It’s not that innocent.” While Cora might not know exactly what she was playing at, he thought her instincts were accurate: at some point, perhaps a few years in the future, she’d love to watch Martin in bed.

“We’re ready, Sir,” Nurse called, and Henry turned reluctantly away from the dollhouse, leaving Dollhouse Cora in her voyeuristic position.

They walked to the park playing the lift-and-swing game, and Henry made himself play a little longer than he cared to do for Cora’s sake, though he still called an end to it long before she was ready to quit.

“Doesn’t it make your shoulders hurt?” he asked, wanting to convince her that she was better off being through with the game.

“It doesn’t matter,” she insisted. “It’s so much fun that I don’t care.”

This sounded like Martin’s arguments in favor of any number of things that were surely painful, and just that thought made him blush, but then that thought in relation to his little sister was utterly shameful, and he turned a mortified red, nearly purple.

“Are you all right, Sir?” Nurse put her hand on Henry’s arm and peered into his beet-colored face with a worried expression. “You suddenly got so very red.”

“I’m fine,” Henry insisted, shaking his head, willing everyone to look elsewhere. Martin grinned at him over the top of Cora’s head.

They made their leisurely way around the menagerie, spending extra time with the bears, as usual. Henry bought everyone pretzels and peanuts and bottles of ginger ale as they strolled along the path. They steered clear of the shit-flinging chimpanzees, which no one much liked, and spent some time with various of the big cats, which were Nurse’s favorites.

They finished their circuit of the menagerie and headed back home. Cora contrived to take hold of Martin’s hand and skipped ahead, leaving Henry and Nurse to walk behind.

Randolph let them in at home and took their coats, and Henry bid his sister farewell in the hall before the elevator.

“Why won’t you come play with me?” she asked, hanging from his arm.

“It’s time for our lunch,” Henry told her, “and we just spent the whole morning with you.”

“But we didn’t play,” Cora insisted, digging her fingers into his forearm. “We didn’t play with my dolls or my circus.”

The elevator bumped to a halt in front of them.

“Say goodbye to Martin,” Henry told her, prying her fingers back.

Martin crouched down. “Goodbye, Miss. I enjoyed spending the morning with you.”

Cora flung herself into Martin’s arms with a little sob. “When will you and Henry visit me again?” she asked, her voice muffled against Martin’s neck.

“We’ll visit when your brother has time, Miss.”

“Why is Henry so busy?” Cora asked, quite despairing.

Henry, who was busy by no one’s estimation, bit his lip against guilty laughter.

Martin unwound Cora’s arms from around his neck and stood. He pulled back the elevator grille for Nurse and Cora to step inside.

Nurse reached for Cora’s hand. “Come along, Miss. Let the boys get on with their day.”

Cora called out mournful goodbyes as the car rose and both Henry and Martin had to work to keep from bursting out laughing at her distress. As the car disappeared from view, they headed for the breakfast room.

Henry said, “I shouldn’t laugh, I guess, but she’s so dramatic!”

“She is indeed, Sir. If it weren’t an entirely unsuitable profession for a gentleman’s daughter, I’d say she’d excel on the stage.”

“Don’t tell her that, or she’ll want to do it,” Henry cautioned. “We don’t need my father getting mad because you talked my sister into becoming an actress.”

Martin pulled out Henry’s chair, then prepared a plate for him with sandwiches and Saratoga potatoes. There was cake on the sideboard, as well.

“What sort of cake is that?” Henry asked, craning his neck from his seat at the table.

“Coconut, I think, Sir. Do you want a glass of milk?”

“Yes, please.”

Martin brought Henry his food, then prepared his own plate.

When Martin sat down, Henry leaned toward him and said, “I’m trying to help teach her manners, of course, so I’m going to tell her that other people’s opinions count just as much as her own…but I don’t really feel that way. You are the best one, Martin, no question.”

Martin laughed. “I’m glad you feel that way, Sir. It would be terribly sad for me if you preferred another.”

Henry chewed a bite of egg salad sandwich and thought on this a moment. “I asked you before, a long time ago, but I don’t think you really answered. Do masters ever prefer another’s slave?”

Martin swallowed and drank some milk before answering. “Oh, certainly, Sir, but I don’t think they prefer another passionately. Do you remember at New Year’s, Sir, what Mr. Ross said about—” and here he lowered his voice “—preferring Stuart’s mouth over Simon’s?”

Henry didn’t like to think of New Year’s, but he did remember. “Yes, of course.”

Still speaking scarcely above a whisper, Martin said, “Well, it’s not as if Mr. Ross is pining away for Stuart, Sir. He just has a preference for him at swaps, and Stuart doesn’t mind at all because Mr. Ross is quite considerate.”

“But Charles isn’t in love with him.” Henry felt quite confident of this.

“No, Sir, of course not, no more than he’s in love with Simon.”

Henry was less sure of this. “You’re certain he isn’t? From what you’ve told me…”

“Mr. Ross enjoys his luxuries, Sir,” Martin explained primly. “He is very fond of Simon, Sir, but I believe his affection falls short of the mark for romantic love.”

“So, about New Year’s,” Henry began. “I have some questions, actually…”

Martin frowned. “Are they suitable for the breakfast room, Sir? Or should you ask me upstairs?”

Oh, they were definitely not breakfast room questions. “I’ll ask when we’re through eating,” Henry decided.

After they’d eaten all the sandwiches they could stomach, as well as large squares of cake, they retired to Henry’s room. Martin removed Henry’s boots and then his own, and they sprawled together on the bed.

“All right, Henry. What are your questions?”

“Well, I was thinking,” Henry began slowly. “With all the group situations and all the show-off sex, the slaves are fucking each other quite often, aren’t they?”

“Some more than others. It depends on what the masters want to see.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, until his troubles, the masters always wanted Tom at the center of things, whether he was fucking or being fucked, because he’s so pretty and he has a nice cock. Tom also usually enjoyed himself, and that’s more fun for the masters to watch. But Julian, even though he’s so beautiful, is almost never asked to do anything because he’s terrible at it. He’s unenthusiastic and half-hearted in putting on a show and uses poor technique when he’s asked to do anything for a master.”

“Do you think he’s being terrible on purpose?”

“Oh, certainly, but it’s still no fun for anyone.”

“Who else is enthusiastic, then?”

“I understand Allen is especially good at doing the fucking. All of the others are very complimentary and they like taking a turn with him. Some of my friends even joke that Allen should give lessons to the masters—though you must never repeat that, please, Henry!” Martin took hold of Henry’s arm and clung a little desperately. “Please, Sir.”

“Of course I won’t,” Henry assured him. He pictured lanky Allen with his long auburn hair, imagined him without his clothes, and had a moment’s fantasy of letting him fuck Martin so that Martin might compare their technique. “Who else?”

“Will loves to be fucked. As I’ve mentioned before, Will’s like me.”

Will could not compare to Martin in Henry’s opinion, of course, but he did accept that they shared a preference for men.

Martin continued. “Simon’s the same, and neither of them likes to do the fucking.”

“What about Peter?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is he especially good at anything?”

Martin considered a moment, clearly thinking over a lot of past conversations. “Hmm…I don’t really recall hearing anything one way or the other. Not everyone can be a standout, after all.”

“Who’s especially terrible? Besides Julian, I mean.”

“Julian is definitely the worst. Let’s see…Dick is apparently pretty awful at sucking a cock. He gags very easily.”

“That’s unlucky,” Henry remarked, feeling a little sorry for Dick’s master Robert.

“A boy like Dick wouldn’t have been made a companion at Ganymede,” Martin said with confidence. “Any boy who couldn’t take a cock would have ended up a butler or a footman.”

“Which house is Dick from again?”

“Perseus, Sir. It’s a newer house, of course.”

Martin’s snobbery made Henry laugh, and he pulled Martin into a close embrace and kissed his neck. “Ganymede is definitely the best House.”

“Well, it is,” Martin said, slightly affronted. “I got very lucky when you chose me, but when you chose Ganymede you were guaranteed good sex.”

Henry didn’t believe he could have been truly satisfied with any other slave, Ganymede or otherwise. “I doubt I would have been as happy with Stuart, or Charlie, or whoever else, though, Martin. I wouldn’t have gotten from them what I get from you.”

“Well, no,” Martin conceded. “But I’m especially good with you.”

“That’s because you love me.” Henry kissed his neck again, and Martin tilted his head to the side to expose more of his throat for Henry’s mouth.

“Perhaps it’s the other way around.”

“Hmm?” Henry eased Martin down onto his back and got on top of him.

“Maybe I love you because I’m so much better with you than with anyone else, and it’s been that way from the beginning. It was natural to fall in love with you, Henry. It was obvious that I would.”

Were these things different? Henry wasn’t sure what Martin was telling him. Ultimately, though, Martin loved him—he was definitely hearing that. They kissed and groped one another, Martin writhing beneath him and whimpering. They shed their clothing in fits and starts, frequently halting their efforts to give attention to the body parts most recently bared. Martin was breathless and trembling, high color in his cheeks, as he shucked off his trousers and drawers. Henry kissed him and stroked his pretty cock like it was a little animal he wanted to tame. Martin gasped against his mouth and shuddered in his arms.

Martin’s breath was hot in Henry’s ear as he said, “Fuck me, Henry. Please fuck me.”

Henry got the oil out of the drawer and stuffed a pillow beneath Martin’s ass and fucked him, and they were so good together, so amazingly good. He believed that Martin was telling the truth when he said he was better with Henry than with anyone else. Whoever else Martin might have been with, he was with Henry now, and it was Henry’s cock filling him, and it was Henry making him come.

“Oh, god, Henry, Henry!”

Henry was so familiar with how Martin came, how he looked and how he sounded and the way his body reacted, but he never tired of experiencing it. Feeling Martin go still just before he’d begin to spurt was like being given permission to come himself, and he felt such gratitude as he let himself go and let the pleasure wash over him as his cock jerked in Martin’s ass.

He lay on top of Martin a little longer than usual, if only to keep Martin with him and prevent him from getting up and running to the bathroom to fetch his basin. Henry’s entire skin was numb and buzzing, and he wanted to be in contact with Martin as long as possible.

“Henry, I can’t breathe,” Martin said, pushing gently but insistently at Henry’s chest. “Get off me, please.”

Sighing, Henry relented and rolled to the side. Martin sat up, then leaned over and kissed him before sliding from the bed and padding into the bathroom. Henry lay with his forearm over his eyes to block out the light and listened to Martin splashing around as he washed up and then filled his basin. Martin came to sit on the side of the bed and Henry moved his arm so he could open one eye and look at him.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself.” Martin smiled at him, seeming pleased, his cheeks pink. He washed all the parts of Henry that might conceivably need washing and then set his basin on the nightstand before crawling into Henry’s arms.

“Do you want to sleep a little, Henry? I could nap, unless there’s something you want to do.”

“Let’s sleep.”

Henry slept and dreamed that he was fucking Martin again, and it felt wonderful, as it always did, and he was coming in blissful pulses, the pleasure drawn out…and looked up to meet the intent gaze of his little sister, peering out at them from behind the high headboard. He woke with a horrified shout, his heart pounding against his ribs. He startled Martin awake with his commotion and was unwilling to even try to go back to sleep, staying alert and jumpy until Martin arose to go down for his dinner.

Henry had heard complaints aplenty but no substantial news of James since Christmas, but now Louis informed him that James was indeed getting married to his barmaid. It was going to be a quiet affair, just family, and Louis made Henry promise not to tell anyone at school.

The girl James was marrying, a Janie Babcock, was very pretty now, though Louis felt she would easily go to fat if she wasn’t careful. She was noticeably in the family way, which was part of the reason for the secrecy around the wedding. Neither the bride nor the groom was terribly enthusiastic about their pending union. While Miss Babcock had clearly once found James very compelling, his machinations in the service of remaining a bachelor had no doubt made him seem much less attractive to her, and she was marrying him under duress at the behest of her parents, who understandably preferred to see her married to a rich man’s son instead of raising a child out of wedlock on her own.

Miss Babcock’s main appeal for James had been her pretty face and physical attributes, including the virginity that he had summarily despoiled. She had wanted him to marry her after the loss of her maidenhead and he had refused, but they had still continued to see each other because they were handsome young animals and couldn’t seem to help themselves. James, who was averse to using prophylactics, should not have been surprised when Janie got in the family way.

Although Miss Babcock was a tavern-keeper’s daughter, her family was well-established in the town where James had been enrolled in college, and her father was a childhood friend of the chancellor of the school. There was no chance that James would be allowed to shirk his responsibility.

Mr. Briggs had decided James should marry in hopes of settling him, and also with the hope that a marriage would alleviate some of James’ other troubles. It was thought that the college and the disgruntled slave owners he’d left behind there might be more likely to settle their differences out of court if they saw James being responsible for something. Besides, even if Miss Babcock’s family had been willing to be bought off, there was always the danger that she or the child would come back later to cause trouble, and it seemed wiser to control the situation from the outset.

“He should have stuck to prostitutes,” Louis said irritably. “If a prostitute gets pregnant, she takes care of it herself. She doesn’t expect the man to marry her.”

The date chosen was an innocuous Wednesday, conveniently slotted between Louis’ dancing lessons. They’d be married by a judge in his chambers, simple and legal, without a church ceremony. Louis wasn’t even sure if the bride would have a bouquet. He apologized to Henry for not inviting him.

“It’s not like I want to go, either,” Louis told him. “Everyone’s going to be sad and embarrassed. It’ll be the worst wedding ever.”

“I’m sorry,” Henry said, since he was, though he was mostly sorry for Miss Babcock and her unborn baby. James would be a lousy husband and a lousy father. Suddenly, it occurred to him:

“Louis? Does she even have a slave?”

Louis snorted. “Of course not! My father is trying to find some suitable girl in a hurry, but I doubt he’ll be able to get one before the wedding. She’ll have to have one of the chambermaids serve her. Ugh!” He sighed, disgusted. “I can’t believe I ever wanted to be like him,” he lamented. “He’s absolutely the worst. First he ruined Christmas, and now he’s ruining everything else.”

“At least you have the ball to look forward to,” Henry pointed out. “He can’t ruin that, can he?”

“I guess not.” Louis thought a moment. “I will dance with Abigail, no matter what,” Louis said, determined. “That will make up for stupid James and his stupid shotgun wedding.”

Henry patted Louis on the back a little stiffly, trying to be supportive, and Louis slumped into his touch.

Louis left school at lunchtime on Wednesday, and Henry claimed ignorance when the other boys asked if he knew where Louis had gone. Wednesday evening, he called the Briggs house, but Patrick informed him that the family were not taking calls unless there was some emergency, and Henry didn’t believe his curiosity was an emergency, so just left the message that he had called.

On Thursday, there was neither time nor opportunity to talk to Louis during the school day, but they dawdled behind the rest of the group on the way to dance class and Louis was able to inform him in a furtive whisper that the wedding had been a disaster.

“James was drunk,” Louis said in disgust. “He was practically falling down and he kept laughing. It was so embarrassing!”

“But he’s married now?”

“Oh, yes. And he and the new Mrs. Briggs are living with us until Dad gets James a place at another school…and she might be living with us forever, actually, because Dad doesn’t trust James to take care of her, and I don’t blame him.”

“Do you like her all right?”

Louis scrunched up his face in a way that implied his feelings were complicated. “She’s very nice, not too bright—obviously—and keeps wanting to do things that we have slaves for. Like, she wants to bring people tea and clean up after herself, but hopefully she’ll get out of the habit. I think I told you she’s pretty, right? Well, she does have that going for her. I think Mama is looking forward to dressing her up, even if it’s just maternity clothes.”

“You’re going to have a niece or nephew,” Henry pointed out. “That’ll be all right, won’t it?”

Louis frowned. “It’ll be a baby,” he reminded Henry. “With screaming and crying and diapers. Remember when Edward was born?”

Henry did remember and winced.

“Babies are no fun,” Louis said grimly. “No fun at all.”

They hadn’t ridden much over the winter because it had been so cold and wet, unpleasant for both riders and horses, but the weather had been improving such that by mid-March riding conditions were excellent. Henry told Martin to call the stables to have the horses readied.

They crossed 5th to the park, Henry letting Martin ride a little ahead, as he always did, so he could admire his ass moving over the saddle. It was a bright, overcast day, the sky a uniform white, and the trees were gauzy with bright green buds and new leaves. The air smelled fresh and clean and vegetal. There were a fair number of riders on the bridle path, but it was far from crowded. They rode west, then north. Martin turned his face up to the pale sun, smiling, eyes closed, then looked at Henry with such frank desire that Henry felt his astonished heart skip a beat.

Martin tilted sideways towards him. “Sir,” he said in a conspiratorial tone, “Sir, isn’t this just a perfect day?”

Henry blushed, but grinned at him. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, it is.” For a moment, he dared to ride near enough to Martin’s side that their knees touched, but, as always, the horses didn’t like being in such close proximity, snorting and tossing their heads until Henry moved Marigold away.

Henry still held onto his earlier idea of finding a secluded place in the park where he might share some intimacy with Martin, just something small. He had not discussed this much with Martin, as he knew Martin would be reluctant to do anything that might expose Henry to public condemnation, but he thought he could get Martin to cooperate if he were presented with such a situation suddenly, without time to talk Henry out of it. With this in mind, Henry scanned the trees to either side of the path for likely places, hidden pockets of privacy. Of course, the sort of place he was looking for was the kind that wouldn’t be visible from the trail; they’d have to go into the woods to find it.

“Let’s try one of these side trails,” Henry suggested, reining Marigold to a halt by an indistinct path leading off into the trees.

Martin wheeled Partita around and came back to Henry’s side. “I don’t think we’re supposed to ride on that, Sir. I don’t think it’s even a real trail.”

“Oh, come on,” Henry said, wheedling. “If it doesn’t lead anywhere interesting, we can always come back.”

Martin hesitated. He really did mostly like to follow rules. “Well…”

“Please, Martin? It’ll be fun.”

“Very well, Sir. Let’s see where it goes.” He let Henry ride ahead and followed him off the bridle path with a worried glance around.

It quickly became difficult to stay on horseback. Bushes encroached upon the trail and the lower branches of the trees smacked them in their faces. Henry could no longer hear the sounds of the bridle path traffic; nothing but birdsong and the sounds they themselves made moving through the forest. Henry slid from Marigold’s back and led her through the trees, and Martin did the same.

“Sir? I don’t want to get lost, Sir…”

“We won’t get lost,” Henry assured him. “We can follow this same trail right back out.” Martin seemed appeased and followed Henry without further complaint.

After perhaps ten minutes without seeing another soul in the forest, Henry found exactly what he wanted. The faint trail dissolved into a bright little clearing full of waving long grasses. He turned and grinned at Martin.

“I told you we could find a private place in the park, do you remember?” He reached for Martin’s hand and pulled him into the meadow—their meadow, secluded and perfect.

Martin hesitated, pulling back on his hand. “What are we doing here, Sir?”

“I just want to be with you somewhere that isn’t my bedroom,” Henry explained, a bit of pleading in his tone. “We don’t have to do much, all right? I just want a little closeness.”

Martin frowned and shook his head. “No. We’re in public, Sir.”

“Not really,” Henry insisted. He took in the little meadow with a sweep of his arm. “This is our private place. Just you and me.” He imagined it was a refuge, a secret island just for them, a place outside of rules and expectations.

Martin looked around the clearing, arms crossed over his chest, unconvinced, but he wasn’t arguing.

“We haven’t seen or heard anyone since we left the bridle path,” Henry pointed out. “It’s such a big park, Martin. No one will find us here.”

Martin’s frown deepened. “Sir, I don’t think we should risk it.”

Henry felt a little desperate. He wanted so badly to kiss Martin here, the breeze stirring their hair, the loamy smells of the forest mixed with Martin’s vetiver. “Please,” he begged. “Please, Martin.” He put his hands on Martin’s shoulders. “It would mean so much to me.” If he could make Martin understand how much it meant, he knew Martin would agree to whatever he wanted. “Just a little closeness. Please.”

Martin’s brow furrowed and he seemed conflicted. “Sir...” he began haltingly.

Henry put his hand around the back of Martin’s neck, ruffled the hairs at his nape with the side of his thumb. “Use my name while we’re here,” he suggested. “Do that at least. It’ll make me so happy.”

Martin met his eyes and gazed at him a long moment, and then his face relaxed as he seemed to come to some sort of decision. He gave Henry a fond, tender smile, a smile that made it clear he could deny Henry nothing. “All right, Henry. I do want to make you happy. It really does seem private enough, doesn’t it? Besides, the horses will enjoy grazing.”

They turned the horses loose and Henry sat down in the grass. It wasn’t really warm, but Henry shrugged out of his jacket and waistcoat and bade Martin help him with the rest until he was bare to the waist. At Henry’s request, Martin did the same, his reluctance slowly eroding, and they sat side by side in the filtered sun, bare-chested, nipples tight in the chill, braces tangled at their hips.

“There’s enough sun I might freckle,” Martin remarked, brushing ineffectually at his shoulders.

“I like freckles,” Henry told him. He lay back upon his shed clothing and tugged at Martin’s elbow. “Lie down with me.”

With a glance around, still concerned they might be observed, Martin lay back at his side, shoulder to shoulder.

Henry looked up at the sky, so pale that blue was only a suggestion, and it wasn’t so different from the color of his ceiling at home, but it was different in every other dimension, open and vast and endless, and he thrilled at the feeling of limitless freedom that coursed through him as they lay half-dressed in the tall grass.

Martin might have been feeling this sense of possibility, too; he reached for Henry’s hand and held it tightly, and Henry loved that Martin had done this, that it had been Martin’s impulse.

Henry rolled up onto his side and leaned over Martin, his breath warming Martin’s lips a moment before they tilted their heads and kissed, their first public kiss. At the touch of Martin’s lips, Henry felt like a switch had been flicked and he was now buzzing on, on, on. The bare skin of his torso was sensitized to the movements of the air and his cock sent him increasingly-urgent messages, his body craving touch.

Martin moaned and arced up against Henry’s weight, his arms tight around Henry’s back, and Henry felt flush with joy, so happy that Martin had come around to seeing things his way.

They rolled over and over in the grass, taking turns holding each other down. Martin straddled Henry’s hips and leaned forward to pin his wrists to the ground. Henry made a show of struggling, lifting his hips against Martin's weight and squirming to free his hands, but gave up all pretense of wanting to get away when at last Martin bent and kissed him. Henry pulled against Martin's grip and this time Martin let go his hands, which Henry ran over his shoulders and back with fond possessiveness. He loved the way Martin's shoulder blades fit beneath his palms, the long channel of his spine, the silky whorl of hair at the nape of his neck. Martin moved over him, rubbing his crotch along the length of Henry’s hard prick while they kissed.

“You could fuck my mouth,” Henry suggested.

Martin groaned and said, “Sir...”

“Henry,” Henry corrected.

“Henry. I don’t think we should—”

“No, Martin, it will be all right.” Henry went to work on Martin’s buttons, feeling and shaping the hard cock beneath the breeches as he did so, and Martin let out a nervous whine but did nothing to stop his hands.

“I want to do it someplace besides my room,” Henry told him, drawing his cock out of the vee of his drawers. “I want to do what normal people do.”

Martin scoffed. “Normal people don’t do this, Henry!”

Henry noted that while Martin was clearly uneasy, he wasn’t stopping Henry touching his cock and he wasn’t buttoning his breeches.

“I just—” Henry didn’t know how to explain it. If he wasn’t going to be allowed to walk down the street arm-in-arm with Martin and have his feelings acknowledged and respected by all of society, then he deserved to be free with him somewhere. It was only fair. “I just want to suck your cock. I know you like it, Martin.” He squeezed Martin’s cock and ran his thumb over the wet slit.

Martin shuddered and sighed. “Oh, Henry. You know I love it. You know it’s not that.”

“We’re all alone here,” Henry insisted. “We’re already half-naked. Just come up here and let me suck you, all right? Just a little bit.”

Martin looked around the clearing, brow furrowed. He was very hard, and Henry knew he wanted to let Henry do it.

“Come on, Martin. It’ll make me so happy.”

With a last worried glance around, Martin said, “All right, Henry, but do it fast.”

“That’s sort of up to you,” Henry pointed out. “Get up here.”

Martin moaned as he fed Henry his cock. Henry shuddered, overwhelmed. The green smell of grass mingled with the intimate smells of Martin’s body, Martin’s prick. The bitter-salt flavor of him spread throughout Henry’s mouth. The globes of Martin’s ass flexed in Henry’s hands as Henry tried to cram Martin’s prick further, deeper into his throat. Martin’s hand cupped the back of Henry’s head, fingers digging into his scalp as he thrust into Henry’s mouth. It was so satisfying to do it, to have Martin’s cock in his mouth here in the open air, that he thought he could come from just sucking him without needing to be touched at all.

Martin’s breathing sped up, intensified. He said, “Henry!” in a low voice, over and over, and his prick swelled just a little fatter before he stilled and jerked in Henry’s mouth. Henry swallowed down his spunk and sucked on his softening cock until Martin took it away, wincing. “That’s enough.” He flopped down on the grass at Henry’s side, chortling with pleasure as he buttoned himself up. Henry bent over him, and Martin kissed him passionately.

“Now, what would you like from me?” He seemed in a very good mood, his tone playful, an eyebrow arched.

“You could return the favor,” Henry suggested. He shifted, making room for his hard prick in his tight breeches. “I came so close just from sucking you that it won’t be much work for you, I don’t think.”

“But you know I don’t mind work,” Martin said mischievously. He rolled on top of Henry and kissed him, reaching between their bodies with his left hand to unbutton Henry’s breeches and drawers. Henry sighed as his prick sprang free into Martin’s waiting hand. Martin bent to kiss his neck and Henry arched beneath him. Martin began to kiss his way down Henry’s chest and Henry pulled the tie from Martin’s hair and took it in handfuls, smelled it, rubbed it against his skin. Martin kissed his nipples, little licks and bites that sent jolts of sizzling intensity to his cock, and Henry ground his hips up against Martin’s weight.

“Kiss me again,” Henry said in a hushed, urgent voice. “Kiss my mouth, Martin, please.” His lips felt swollen, sensitized, and they opened eagerly for Martin’s tongue. Martin’s clever fingers teased his nipples, twisting them as they grew harder and harder still. Henry cried out, his breath coming in harsh pants. The fact of Martin touching him like this outside of his bedroom was so arousing he couldn’t be still. He reached down and squeezed Martin’s fingers tight around his prick, tight enough to hurt, and humped up against Martin’s fist.

“…could have said she didn’t like boating, for chrissakes, and I would’ve understood and planned something else. Oh! Look, someone’s horses!” A male voice, sounds of twigs cracking under boots.

Martin froze on top of Henry, a look of shocked horror in his eyes.

A different male voice. “Horses? Here?”

“See? Horses.”

“Where are the people?”

“Our shirts!” Henry rasped in a loud whisper. “Martin, our shirts!”

Martin rolled off of him and dove after their clothes.

The first voice again, laughing. “There they are!”

Henry dared to look. Two men in hiking costume, perhaps in their mid-twenties, stood staring at him and Martin as they scrambled in the grass. Martin shoved Henry’s shirt into his hands and Henry struggled to pull it on over his head.

“Oh, my god,” said the second man. “I didn’t realize…that’s two men!” He began to laugh.

“If you can call them men,” said the first. “It’s just some rich fairy and his slave.” His amusement seemed to have graded quickly into cheerful disgust. He leaned forward, peering at them more closely. “Wait a minute…” He took a step forward. “Say, you there! You’re Hiram Blackwell’s son, aren’t you?”

“What? No!” Henry jerked his shirt into place and snatched his waistcoat from Martin’s hand. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.” Henry’s heart was a trip-hammer pounding frantically as he struggled back into his clothes. For once, he wasn’t blushing; instead, he was bloodless and cold with fear.

“No, you’re definitely him.” The man nodded, confident.

“Who’s Hiram Blackwell?” asked his friend.

“You know, the industrialist? This is his kid, I’m sure of it. He was with his father at the opening of the Blackwell office building in the spring. Lots of fanfare, and this guy—” he jerked a thumb toward Henry “—was moping while his dad gave a speech.” He turned to Henry and explained, “I’m a reporter, see, and I never forget a face.”

Oh god. Oh god, oh god, oh god. This was the absolute worst thing that could ever possibly happen. It would be in the paper: Prominent Industrialist’s Son Proven to be Fairy.

Henry tugged and yanked at his clothes, frantically putting himself into rumpled order. Martin, already dressed, reached to help him, but Henry panicked and batted Martin’s hands away, not wanting these strangers to see them touch.

The friend had lost all interest in the scene and stood with his arms crossed, bored. “Well, what do you propose to do about it?” he asked. “I say just let them get on with it, so long as I don’t have to see it.”

“Well, seeing it—that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Again he turned to Henry. “It’s stupid to have sex in the park, you know. It’s crawling with people. Of course you got caught.”

“I-I’m sorry,” Henry managed. He got to his feet unsteadily. He was much taller than either of the men, but he felt tentative and puny. “It was stupid. I won’t do it again, I promise!”

Martin got to his feet, too, standing close to Henry, and Henry was ashamed of himself for doing so, but he sidestepped to put distance between them.

“Your dad will want to keep this out of the papers,” the reporter said, again very confident in his conclusions.

“Please don’t tell him!” Henry blurted, wringing his hands. He looked around the clearing, eyes darting, searching foolishly for a solution. He had a moment’s gruesome imagining of himself and Martin overpowering these fellows and choking the life out of them, but he doubted Martin would cooperate and do his part, and in any case he didn’t want to be a murderer on top of the problems he’d already made for himself.

The reporter was studying them both, looking between his face and Martin’s. He seemed quite jolly, disdainful yet amused.

His friend was becoming annoyed, sighing and rolling his eyes. “Are we done here?”

“Sure, sure.” He gave Henry a smile that was ruthless but not unfriendly. “I’ll be contacting your dad as soon as possible, so you might want to get your story in order.”

“Please…” Henry said rather hopelessly.

“See ya, kid.” The reporter walked off with a jaunty bounce in his step. To his friend, he said, “That’ll be a nice paycheck!”

“Ugh, there are inverts everywhere these days!” the friend complained. “But finish your story.”

The reporter was happy to comply. “Anyway, as I was saying, she didn’t bother to mention that she gets seasick…” The men disappeared into the trees, continuing down the trail.

Henry and Martin stood side by side, but not looking at one another, and they said nothing; there was nothing to say.

They’d been caught, and his father would know what they’d done. Henry tried to tell himself it could have been worse. The men might have been more affronted and caused a scene. It could have been worse, but it was bad enough: they’d called him a fairy, an invert, and they’d done it with such casual contempt. The shame he felt was overwhelming, and it made things even worse that Martin had heard the strangers’ disparaging words.

They led their horses back they way they’d come in silence. Where the trees thinned out nearer the bridle path, Henry got on Marigold’s back and Martin mounted Partita. They rode at a trot back to the park gate, quickly crossed 5th , and made their way back to the stables, still without words.

At the stables, Jerry said, “Are you all right, Sir? You look pale.”

“I’m fine,” Henry snapped at him, immediately feeling bad for punishing Jerry for something not his fault. If it was anyone’s fault, it was obviously Henry’s—Martin wasn’t the one pushing to have sex in public. “Sorry,” Henry said to Jerry, mustering some fairness. “Thank you for taking care of our horses, by the way. I appreciate everything you do for them.”

Jerry smiled with surprised pleasure. “You’re quite welcome, Sir.”

They walked home in silence. Henry didn’t know what to say. He was humiliated. Martin had to think him a fool. Martin had thought it was a bad idea, but he’d insisted, and he’d been wrong. He’d been stupid.

“Sir?”

Henry waved him off angrily. “Not yet, Martin.” He’d have to talk to Martin eventually, but he hoped to put it off as long as possible, hoping that he’d come up with something to say that would make it all better.

At home, Randolph let them in.

“D-do you want your lunch, Sir?” Martin asked tentatively. “I can go tell Cook.”

They were back early; no one would be expecting them for another hour, at least.

“I’m not hungry,” Henry said, which was a first. “If you want to eat, we can.”

Martin shook his head. “No, Sir. We can eat later.”

They went upstairs to Henry’s room. “I need to take a shower.” His impulse was to wash the experience away. Martin helped him to undress in a tense silence, and Henry gritted his teeth and shuddered at Martin’s touch. What if he couldn’t ever be close to Martin again without being reminded of this humiliation?

He had Martin run the water scalding hot and let it rush over him, streaming from his hair and over the planes of his body. He could see Martin out of the corner of his eye, standing by the door with a towel, his face very white, eyes wide and frightened. As he watched, Martin put the towel down and started to undress.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m getting in with you, Sir.”

“No, Martin, I don’t—”

“Please, Sir. I need you. I’ve had a bad scare and I need you.”

Henry felt ashamed anew. He needed to take better care of Martin, to consider what he might be going through. He’d done this to Martin, after all. “Come in, then.” He opened his arms and Martin stepped into them, holding him tight. Martin’s body was both familiar and miraculous, sleek and tender and sensitive, his back feeling just as good here under Henry’s hands as it had in the meadow at the park. Martin bent his head and pressed his face against Henry’s wet neck.

“They don’t know the first thing about you, Henry,” Martin said angrily. “Belittling what we have…they just don’t know.”

Until today, of course, no one had known, and Henry understood this was safest, but how he wanted to live in a world where his feelings could be shared openly! How he wanted what he had with Martin to be acknowledged and respected! But, “I shouldn’t have taken the risk,” he admitted. He smoothed Martin’s wet hair back from his face and looked into his olivine eyes.

“I shouldn’t have let you, Henry. I should have—”

Henry kissed him to quiet him. “No, Martin. It was my fault. I wouldn’t listen to you.”

“I should have tried harder—”

Henry shook his head. “I wasn’t in a mood to listen, Martin. I wanted it too much.”

“You’re willful,” Martin agreed. “You’re romantic.” He sounded disapproving.

“Is romantic so bad?”

“No, but it’s not always practical. It’s not realistic.” He shifted position, turning his face out of the spray, his body pressed up against Henry’s. “I’m crowding you, aren’t I?” There wasn’t really room enough for the both of them in the shower.

“Yes,” Henry admitted, but he held Martin tighter. “It was your idea, though. See it through.”

He kissed Martin while the water rained down. They necked beneath the spray until the water started to cool and left the bathroom without drying off, dripping across the carpet and onto the bed. Martin clung, trembling, his fingers digging into Henry’s back. The coverlet absorbed a spreading damp spot beneath their wet bodies. Henry held tightly to Martin, desperately needing closeness. He’d imagined they’d make love when they got to the bed, but now that they were there, his cock was soft and he was cringing and fearful and just wanted comfort.

“Do you think maybe he won’t contact Father?” Henry asked hopefully.

Martin looked as though he regretted having to say, “No, I don’t think that at all, Henry. I think he wants to be paid off.”

“Father won’t take you away from me,” Henry said, feeling less confident than he would have liked.

“He might not,” Martin agreed in a small voice.

“What did that reporter even see, really? What can he tell Father, after all?”

“We were half-naked in a public place,” Martin pointed out. “He definitely saw that much, and that’s scandalous enough.” He thought a moment more. “But they weren’t nearby when you were sucking me. They can’t actually accuse you of anything more than being a slave owner and taking advantage of my services. You’re well within bounds to have me service you, after all. You just shouldn’t have done it in a public park.”

“That’s what I should tell Father,” Henry decided.

“If he tells your father we were kissing, you can deny it,” Martin said. “The grass was very tall, and he couldn’t have known what he was seeing.”

“I wish you could talk for me,” Henry said with a sigh. “I’m worried I’ll tell it wrong.”

“You won’t,” Martin said firmly. He gripped Henry’s arm and gave him a little shake. “It’s a simple story and you’ll tell it perfectly.”

“I will?”

“Yes, you will.” Martin kissed him hard and stroked his cheek. “You’ll do it for me.”

Henry thought he could do that. The idea of doing something for Martin, to protect Martin, had a calming effect and gave him resolve.

They dressed and lay quietly on the bed in each other’s arms, well out of the enormous damp spot, waiting for a summons. They went down for a quiet lunch with still no word from Father, and returned to Henry’s room once again to wait. Henry surprised himself by actually dozing a little, exhausted by stress.

Paul came and knocked at the door just after two o’clock. “Sorry, Martin. Mr. Blackwell’s father would like to see him in his office right away.”

“We’ll go down directly,” Martin told him. “Thank you, Paul.” He shut the door and leaned against it with a sigh. “Henry? Are you ready?”

Henry was not, but it wasn’t as though he had a choice. He let Martin tug his suit back in order and they shared a perfunctory kiss, both distracted by imminent events.

They descended the stairs in silence and walked down the south corridor to Father’s study with their boots very loud against the marble floor. They stood a moment before the door; Henry realized he was holding his breath and let loose a shuddering exhale, trying forcibly to relax.

“Shall I knock, Sir?” Martin didn’t wait for a response, but reached past Henry and rapped on the door.

Timothy opened the door. He stood looking between their faces, disapproval writ across his mild features. Henry hated having disappointed Timothy almost more than disappointing his father and felt his face grow miserably hot.

Timothy stood aside and ushered them in with a sweep of his arm. “Sir, Martin. Please come in.”

Father’s office was fogged with bluish strata of cigar smoke. Father sat in the chair behind the desk, which creaked beneath his bulk.

“Henry,” he said, gesturing with the cigar at the empty chair before the desk. He tilted back, glowering, and the chair squealed at the strain. “Timothy? Where is that drink, old man?” Father’s already-florid face was an angry red and he looked as if he might burst.

“I’ll just get it for you, Sir.” Timothy went to the sideboard and busied himself with a decanter and glass.

Henry went gingerly to the chair, almost on tiptoe, as if he might avoid angering his father further if he were very quiet and unobtrusive. He sat up very straight, hands wringing in his lap. He was aware that Martin stood behind the chair, close behind, but was afraid to turn to look at him. He was hesitant to look anywhere for fear of incurring his father’s wrath, and stared unseeing at his own lap.

Father said, “Look at me, son.”

Henry tentatively raised his gaze to meet his father’s. He didn’t know how to read his father’s mood. He’d expected yelling and blaming, but Father was contained and exasperated, and, despite his size, he gave the impression of being some powerful animal set to spring, in supreme control. Father made a sound, half-growl, half-sigh, and shook his head as he knocked ash from his cigar into a heavy crystal ashtray. He accepted his drink from Timothy with a nod of acknowledgement.

“You’ll know what this is about,” Father said, quite certain.

“Yes, sir.” Henry wanted to curl in on himself, to hide his red face and protect his soft parts.

And even though they did both know what this was about, Father saw fit to lay it out anyway: “A reporter managed to hunt me down today to let me know he’d found you carrying on indecently with your slave in the park. In public. Is that accurate?”

Henry swallowed hard. “Well, yes, but w-we were a great distance off the path,” he offered as mitigation. “Deep in the trees.”

“So you imagined it would be all right.” Father’s tone was full of condescension

“I didn’t think anyone would find us,” Henry admitted in a near-whisper.

“I’m having a hard time understanding what must have been going through your head, son. Were you overcome with some irresistible urge?”

“Er…” How should he explain it? “I wasn’t really thinking?” he tried, his tone tentative.

Father abruptly turned his attention to Martin. “So, Martin. What was your opinion of this plan?”

“S-sir?” Martin’s voice came out high and unsteady.

“You heard me. Did you think this was a good idea?”

“Oh, Sir, I-I don’t know…” Martin was floundering, and Henry hated that he’d put him in such a position.

“No,” Henry answered for him. “No, he didn’t, sir. He thought it was a bad idea and told me we shouldn’t.”

“But you didn’t listen to him.”

“I should have,” Henry admitted.

Father’s heavy silence reinforced that Father shared this opinion.

“I understand you were half-dressed, the both of you,” Father continued, “but the reporter didn’t see much of anything, and his recounting was short on salacious details. I might easily sue him for libel should he report anything beyond bare chests and foolishness.”

“We were in tall grass,” Henry offered tentatively. “He couldn’t have seen much.” And then, boldly, remembering all he’d discussed with Martin, he said, “He didn’t see anything, anyway, because there wasn’t anything to see.” He felt his face go hot with the lie.

Father gave him a long, considering look. “That’s the line to take, Henry.” He puffed on his cigar and sat pensive for a moment, sipping his scotch.

Henry stared at his hands in his lap, twitching and nervous.

When Father spoke again at last he said, “You’re a gentleman, Henry. A young gentleman, with all the rights and responsibilities that go along with that status. The services of a companion are one of the perquisites of your position, but I expect you to use those services appropriately. Gentlemen don’t exact favors from their slaves in public, certainly not when the slave is advising against it.”

“No, sir,” Henry agreed.

“Should you require a change of venue,” Father pointed out, his tone somewhat caustic, “this house has a great many unused rooms.”

Oh, this was mortifying! “Th-that won’t be necessary, sir.”

“You’re lacking in common sense,” Father remarked, shaking his head and knocking the ash from his cigar. “You’re impulsive to a worrisome degree.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“One expects young men to be…spirited, but this was just extravagantly foolhardy!”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m at a something of loss as to how to punish the two of you,” Father said. “If I take Martin away from you, it makes more work for the others.”

Henry froze, blood running cold. He gritted his teeth against a wail of protest.

“Timothy thinks the embarrassment of being caught at your tomfoolery is punishment enough, but he’s always been soft-hearted when it comes to you.”

“I-I appreciate that Timothy cares for me, sir.”

“Yes, well. You’re to be restricted to the house for the next week. School and home again, no dilly-dallying and no socializing. Certainly no riding or walks in the park.”

Shocked, Henry blinked and went still. Was that it? Would that be the entirety of his punishment?

“Timothy will have some extra work downstairs for Martin during the week, as well. A little time apart will give you perspective, I think.”

“That seems fair, sir,” Henry said tentatively, hiding his eagerness. Anything was fair, so long as Martin wasn’t being taken away.

“As the son of a rich man,” Father pointed out, “your mistakes are all bound to be costly ones.” Again, he stopped speaking to sip his scotch and puff on his cigar. “I can easily afford to cover for your indiscretions, Henry, but surely you can see it’s better for you to not make mistakes in the first place.”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”

“This reporter tried to claim that you were carrying on like a fairy, but it was plain he’d seen nothing to support that assertion. Still, you can see how easily someone might draw such a conclusion. If you’re caught in a compromising position, it’s possible for anyone to extrapolate circumstances that are even more dire.”

“I-I’m not a fairy!” Henry bleated, sounding less convincing than he’d hoped.

“Of course you aren’t,” Father said firmly, his tone brooking no argument. “The reporter admitted his observations were inconclusive.” Father paused again to sip his drink. He sighed, deflating a little. “You’re a bit of a fool, son, but you’re a young fool, and young people can easily change. If you don’t intend to be labeled a fairy, don’t engage in suspect behavior. Simple as that. Keep your pants on and stay out of the woods.”

“Yes, sir. I can do that, sir.”

“You know I’m made of rough stuff, Henry. I didn’t grow up with your advantages.”

“Yes, sir. I do know, sir.”

“Your mother’s people are eccentric, to say the least, and a passel of fools, but they’re acknowledged as quality, and thus you are, too. Your life can be a very easy thing, Henry, all open doors and accommodation. Don’t cause problems for yourself.”

“I wasn’t doing anything anyway,” Henry said, feeling more comfortable with the untruth this time around, though he wasn’t able to meet Father’s eyes as he said it.

“Yes,” Father agreed. “As you said.”

Henry was not sure what Father actually believed had happened, but the position Father intended to take was clear: Henry was not a fairy because he was a gentleman of good family–it was axiomatic.

“I’ve taken care of this reporter,” Father continued. “He won’t cause problems in the future.” Henry flashed back to his terrible fantasy of strangling the reporter in the park and wondered how far his father might go to protect Henry’s reputation. “But there will be plenty more where he came from. You’ll need to be careful, Henry. You’re now of an age where the things you do might easily result in scandal.”

“I’ll be careful, sir. I’m really sorry.”

“Your friend,” Father said, making an impatient gesture with his hand. “The short fellow, the Briggs boy.”

“Louis?”

“I know you used to look up to his older brother. Worshipped him like a god. Joseph, is it?”

“No, sir. It’s James. Joseph’s his slave.”

“You’re aware of what a hash he’s made of his life, I think.”

“Uh, yes, sir. He had to get married.”

“To a barmaid,” Father said. “Nothing wrong with that, it’s honest work, but I won’t see you married to a barmaid all the same. His father let him run wild, but I won’t do that with you. You need to have a spotless reputation, Henry. No dalliances, no scandals, no questions about your suitability as a husband. I’ve set a course for you and I expect you to follow it. Let this be your last indiscretion.”

“Y-yes, sir.”

“Do you have any questions?”

“No, sir. You’ve been, uh, very clear.”

Father exchanged a glance with Timothy. “Why don’t you go on ahead, Henry? We’ll just have a word with Martin.”

“Sir?”

“Go on. He’ll be right up.”

Henry stumbled from the room in a daze, heart full of trepidation. He had not wanted to leave Martin behind, but he didn’t see what else he could have done.

In his room, he sat on the edge of the bed, hands dangling between his knees. If Martin was receiving some extra punishment, he’d have to protest. It was unfair; none of this was Martin’s fault.

With time on his hands, Henry considered his punishment. It was much lighter than he’d expected, scarcely a punishment at all, and this should have made him feel better, but he worried this meant that all the blame for their wrongdoing was being placed on Martin’s shoulders instead.

When Martin knocked and let himself inside a long twenty minutes later, he was very pale, but did not seem unduly distressed.

Henry kissed and kissed him. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, really,” Martin insisted, putting his hands flat against Henry’s chest and making space between them. “Mr. Tim just had a few words for me about my responsibilities.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve said before, Henry, I’m supposed to try to keep you from making mistakes.”

“You do try.”

“Not hard enough,” Martin pointed out. “If you’re making mistakes, I’m not trying hard enough.”

Henry did not think this was fair. He wanted what he wanted, and he didn’t think things through, and this certainly wasn’t Martin’s fault. Above all, Martin wanted him to be happy, and so ended up doing things Henry wanted done because Henry was stubborn and wouldn’t relent. It was all his fault.

Martin lay on the bed with him and let him huddle and cling, but he was worrisomely distant, and Henry felt sure his father had said something else, something that would turn Martin away from him.

When it was time for him to go down for his dinner, Martin put up with some desperate affection from Henry, gave him a distracted kiss, and got up from the bed.

“I don’t think the others will know that I’m in disgrace,” he said, admitting his concern. “I don’t think Mr. Tim will have told anyone, but I can’t be sure.”

Henry got up, too, and took hold of his shoulders. “They can’t treat you badly!” Henry insisted. “I won’t allow it!”

Martin shook his head. “You don’t have any say in this arena, Henry.” He sighed and let his forehead drop to rest on Henry’s shoulder. “I’m not a good slave, and Mr. Tim knows it. I’m terribly ashamed.”

“That’s not true. You’re the best slave.” All Henry could think to do was pet and kiss him, and it made him feel better to do it, but he wasn’t sure it did anything for Martin.

Henry understood that Timothy’s good opinion was important to Martin, so of course he wanted Martin to have it; however, he didn’t have a similar expectation regarding his own father. He did not think anything he might do would ever give Father a positive opinion of him; all he hoped was that he might escape Father’s scrutiny and, more importantly, his wrath. He felt that today he had gotten off very easily, and he wished that Martin might have some feeling of relief, as well.

Martin came back from his dinner in a slightly better mood.

“Mr. Tim was very kind and encouraging,” Martin admitted, crouching to help Henry on with his trousers. “I’m very fortunate. It’s more than I deserve.”

“You deserve the best,” Henry insisted. “I’m sorry I put you in that position. It really was all my fault, Martin.”

Martin shook his head. “We’ll just have to agree to disagree.”

As Henry was dressed, he worried about the dinner hour, and the family hour to follow. Would Mother have heard of his misadventure? Would she recognize that he was like Reggie and say as much to Father? He was quite terrified that Father would have had time to reconsider his leniency and would now be planning to take Martin away entirely.

He looked pale in the mirror, face tight with apprehension. He wanted desperately to be away from other people’s expectations, other people’s plans. Despite—or perhaps because of—the events of the morning, he still wished for someplace in the city where he could behave as he wished with Martin. He wanted some version of a pirate island of their own, some lawless refuge. Surely such a thing was possible; smart people said that truth was stranger than fiction, after all. He held out hope that Reggie would find out about such a place for him when he returned in the summer, but he really didn’t know if he could wait that long.

TO BE CONTINUED

Ganymede Quartet Book 4 out in June 2015