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Blanton’s Coffee Shop was a dismal place, down several uneven steps from the street, with a low, smoke-darkened ceiling and an air of misty gloom. The narrow oak tables were smutty and ringed with the marks of ancient coffee-drinkers. The walls were decorated with hat-pegs and battered advertisements. It was miles from the cafés Raoul Desjardins had come to appreciate during the two years he’d spent as a junior attaché in the Paris bureau of the Ministère de l'Europe et des Affaires étrangères, the French ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, before his transfer to London.
In France, drinking coffee was an art, and each Parisian café had a unique way of presenting it, which Raoul had come to love. The coffee in London was sludgy and bitter and no matter how he wrapped his heavy, scratchy scarf around his neck, and layered shirt and undershirt beneath his thick wool jumper, it was never hot enough to keep him warm.
The food and drink at Blanton’s was even worse than the surroundings, and its sole advantage for Raoul was its proximity to his miserly single room at Bryanston Mews West. He sat glumly at a rear table and stared into the nearly empty depths of his coffee cup, hoping to find some inspiration there. He had spent the last hours poring over a German work that stubbornly refused to give up its secrets to his translation.
The apron-clad proprietor passed by, taking a cracked glass bowl of sugar to another table, and carrying with him the aroma of the slaughterhouse. Raoul kept his head down, afraid he’d be forced to order another cup of the foul-smelling brew. In addition to his problems with the German, and his dislike of the coffee shop, he felt homesick for the seascape and the rolling fields of his native Charente-Maritimes, on the southwest coast.
As a boy, he’d been groomed to leave the small town where he grew up, to make something of himself in Paris or the wider world. His father had handed over his education to the village priest, Father Maurice, who had used Raoul for his own pleasure and directed him to achieve. But was any of it what he really wanted, or was he just following another man’s dreams?
Fortunately, some joy arrived in the person of his friend Silas Warner.
“The party last night was memorable only in that I met a man with the most wonderful fireplace, right in his bedroom!” Silas said, as he landed, much like a fantastical bird, in the chair across the table. Raoul almost expected him to bury his head under one arm. Instead he called insistently for a cup of tea and a currant bun.
They lived in rooms side by side in an old house, and the coal-fired boiler in the basement was touchy at the best of times. On a bitter January morning like the one they were experiencing, sunlight glaring off the accumulated snow and ice besieging the London streets, their rooms were about as toasty as the Brighton seashore. At least Blanton’s was warm, thanks to the blazing oven in the rear, which contributed to the sooty ambiance.
It was clear to Raoul that his friend had not returned home the night before, as he still bore traces of the charcoal he brushed over his eyelids to make himself look more seductive. His outfit, flamboyant enough for a Saturday night, was out of place on a Sunday morning. The ends of his white lacy cuffs were dirty, and his red and orange waistcoat was buttoned incorrectly, as if he’d scampered quickly from someone else’s bed early that morning.
Raoul stared at his first English friend. Silas was more robust, his pale cheeks red from the cold, while Raoul was slim and of a more Mediterranean complexion. Though no one would call Silas handsome, he exuded a joie de vivre that Raoul, whose looks were better, could only admire.
They had met in the hallway of the house only a week after Raoul had arrived in London for his first overseas posting, situated at the French Embassy. Raoul had been eager to sample British cock, and Silas had been more than willing to accommodate him.
Quickly they had discovered that while Raoul was open to a variety of different positions, Silas’s equipment was on the small side and not enough to satisfy him at either end. They had become the best of friends instead.
They were of similar height, though Raoul’s hair was dark and curly while Silas’s was corn-yellow and as flat as if it had been ironed. They were the same age, though, twenty-five, and both on their own in the world.
“And what of you, my little cabbage?” Silas asked. “Did you step out last night?”
Raoul shook his head. “I have been given a German document to translate by the undersecretary. I was up late poring over my dictionary trying to make sense of it.”
The server brought Silas’s tea and the currant bun, which he dropped on the wooden table with a clatter, then stalked away. “Perhaps I can help you with that,” Silas said, before he began to devour the bun.
Raoul looked curiously at his friend. “But you don’t speak German at all.”
Silas nodded. “But last night I heard about a man who is a tutor and translator in foreign languages. I am told his German is excellent. You could go to him for help.”
“I don’t know,” Raoul said. “The undersecretary expects me to be able to translate even the most complicated documents.”
“I am sure that Mr. Marsh can help you with the utmost discretion,” Silas said. “The rumor is that he is some kind of diplomat himself, of course on the QT.”
“What does that mean, ‘on the QT’?”
“It’s a new phrase I heard recently. In confidence, or just between us.”
“On the QT,” Raoul repeated, though his French accent was much different from the broad vowels of Silas’s northern dialect.
“Mr. Marsh and his lover, a titled gentleman if you please, host an occasional soirée at their home in Ormond Yard.” Silas leaned forward confidentially. “And I have it on the best of authority that Richard Pemberton is a regular guest there.”
Pemberton was a barrister at Gray’s Inn, one of the four Inns of Court and a mainstay of the British legal profession. He was also the subject of Silas’s current obsession. Raoul had heard many descriptions of the finery of his haberdashery, of the elegance of his robes, and how handsome he was in his white wig. “You know, some of the elder barristers look like they have chickens perched on their heads when they head off to court. But not Richard Pemberton! He is the very embodiment of British jurisprudence.”
“And you wish to fuck him,” Raoul said.
“Have you not listened to me, you silly bird?” Silas demanded. “I only want him to employ me as his clerk. He is too fine a cloak for me to wear. I prefer to be able to look at it regularly.” He smiled. “Plus, he pays the best wages of any at Gray’s Inn, or so I have been told. And I have heard that his chief clerk is leaving for a position in the halls of Parliament, which means each of his staff will move up.”
“How does your employment issue relate to my translation problem?”
“You must seek out Mr. Marsh for help with your German,” Silas said. “And while you are there, use your boyish charms to gain an invitation to this Saturday evening’s soirée.”
He looked satisfied, but Raoul was still baffled, so Silas continued.
“And of course you must bring your very best friend in the world, whom you will assure Mr. Marsh will provide the appropriate adornment for his salon. There I will encounter Richard Pemberton, and use my boyish charm to gain an interview for the position in his office.”
“And what if instead he offers you a position in his bed?” Raoul asked with a smile.
“Then I am sure he will have a fireplace in his rooms!”
Raoul returned to his bedroom, but after spending several more hours with his German Wörterbuch, there were still several passages that had him baffled. He knocked on Silas’s door late that evening. When Silas answered, he was shirtless and his feet were bare. He wore only a patch of purple and yellow Indian silk tied across his midsection like a sarong, a style he had adopted after bedding a Hindu sailor passing through London.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Raoul said, even as he tried to peer around Silas to see if there was a man in his bed.
“No interruption. Just airing out the goods,” Silas said, and he flapped the sarong in the air a few times. Raoul felt a stiffening in his loins even as he knew it was not a good idea to pursue it.
“I wanted the name of that translator you mentioned, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“Of course not.” He backed into his sitting room, decorated with similar fabrics hung on the walls along with a few naughty photographs of male athletes, in and out of their sporting costumes. Raoul wondered if he would ever be open enough about his desires to display such images publicly.
Silas bent over to write the name and address out for Raoul, and the sarong slipped aside to reveal the deliciously round globes of his ass. It would only take a moment, Raoul thought, to drop his trousers, grab the jar of ointment from beside Silas’s bed, and plunge his stake into his friend’s ass.
But some relationships were better to remain chaste, he reminded himself. Silas turned around and the sarong replaced itself as he handed the paper to Raoul. “Remember, don’t leave without an invitation for the both of us for next Saturday evening’s soirée.”
Raoul was not sure it would be so easy. He had to admit to his boss that some of the German he’d been asked to translate was beyond his comprehension. And that could result in anger, and perhaps penalties or a demotion at his job. If he couldn’t handle what he was directed to do, did he even belong at the embassy?
