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To make sure the boy did not slip away, John returned to the street across from the wine shop at ten minutes to seven. Through the leaded-glass window he saw the boy moving crates of wine, then the owner locking the door.
Blast, he thought. There must be a back door. He hurried to one side and spotted the boy stepping out into the alley. He watched as the boy bid good night to the owner, who walked in the opposite direction.
John waited until the boy had reached the end of the alley to step into view. “Cor blimey, you scared me,” the boy said. “I was coming to meet you, you know. Takes a lot to scare me off a proper meal.”
John reached out his hand. “I’m John. What do they call you?”
The boy laughed harshly. “I could tell you evil words, but me parents named me Sid.”
“Well, Sid, let’s get a meal into you.”
They walked to the pub, where John allowed Sid to order whatever he wanted. He choose an eel pie and a jar of whelks, while John ordered the fish and chips—and gave Sid more than half his chips.
He took out a small notebook and a pencil and began making notes as Sid spoke. In between mouthfuls, he described his working conditions. Long hours of labor, irregular mealtimes, no half-holiday or any time that might be spent bettering himself.
“Did you ever go to school?” John asked.
“Just as a boy. I started to work when I was ten.”
“You look hardly older than that now,” John said. Indeed, the boy was scrawny and short, though he already had a workingman’s muscular arms.
“I’m thir’een now,” Sid proclaimed. “Almost a man.”
“Indeed. And what are your working conditions like?”
Sid frowned. “The backroom has a low ceiling and always smells of gas,” he said. “There’s no washroom, either. Old Enoch, what owns this pub, allows me to use the facilities here but only when I buy summat.”
John cocked his head. “What do you do when...”
“A public lav if there’s one available. Otherwise I find a corner out of sight,” he said.
No wonder the streets smelled so foul, if working boys were forced to piss and shit in hiding. That was an important point he could mention in his broadside. Surely even the richest could not complain about better-smelling streets.
He discovered, as Sid talked, that the boy worked close to eighty hours a week, more at the holidays as people entertained and ordered more wine. John shuddered to think of the parties he’d attended where the wine had flowed like water, and some poor boy like Sid had worked overtime to deliver it.
“How much do you get paid?” John asked, as Sid downed the last of the chips. Both their plates were as clean as if a scullery maid had scrubbed them.
“Supposed to be twenty shillings a week, but often me pay is cut for broken bottles or late deliveries.”
“Would you take a different job if you could get one?” John asked.
Sid shrugged. “Ain’t none to be got. Lucky to have the one I got.”
John wrote house boy with several question marks after it. He knew that such jobs were often grueling work, though they usually came with food and roof over his head. He only employed Beller and a maid who came in by the day, taking Sunday as the Lord’s day, but he knew many with bigger houses, such as his father’s, who kept boys and young men.
At Shorecliff, they had employed stable boys who grew up to be grooms and house boys who carried coal and waited on the other servants. They become footmen and perhaps even butlers. He knew where to find Sid if an opportunity arose to help the boy to a better life.
He pulled a card from his pocket. “This is my calling card,” he said. “If you find yourself on a cold night without a place to sleep, present this to my valet and he will give you a coin.”
As Sid took the card, John noted how grubby the boy’s fingers were. His life could not be a healthy one, perhaps even worse than the ones lived by factory workers. Well, there was something he could begin to do about that.
The next morning he was energized to begin drafting his next broadside. He poured out his indignation on the page as he spelled out the lives of boys living right under his own nose and those of his family, friends and neighbors. It was important that they not be forgotten whenever Parliament got around to drafting a bill.
He worked all day, then relaxed in a bath before dressing for dinner with Raoul. He was unaccountably nervous, though, as he left home that evening. The chophouse was only a few streets away from Russell Square, patronized by many of the Bohemians who lived in the area. He worried that Raoul might not be comfortable there. It was one thing to consort with artists and the more flamboyant members of society behind closed doors, and another to be seen amongst them in public. Raoul had an image to protect, as an embassy employee. He represented his country in everything he did.
And if he admitted to himself, he was worried that the connection that had flourished between him and Raoul at the party, and in bed afterward, might have dissipated. What if Raoul didn’t show up? Or if he had some awful excuse about why he had to leave early and wasn’t willing to accompany John back to his flat?
By the time he reached the chophouse he was a bundle of nerves, but his anxiety quieted when he saw Raoul approaching along Woburn Place. It was already evening, but in the light of a streetlamp John could see that Raoul wore a broad smile.
John held out his hand, but Raoul said, “May I greet you in the French manner?”
John withdrew his hand and thrust forward his face, and Raoul kissed first his left cheek, then his right. His lips were cold against John’s cold cheek, but warmth rose inside his chest.
“It is so good to see you again,” John said. “I did worry that perhaps we had burned our candle out on Saturday night...”
“But it flames again,” Raoul finished for him. He rubbed his gloved hands together. “This restaurant, it is good?”
“I am happy to show you,” John said.
One of the reasons the Woburn Arms was so favored by the local populace was the dimness of the interior. John and Raoul were shown to a table along a side wall, lit only by a lamp hung from the ceiling. From their vantage point they could see only the outlines of individuals—a long dress here, a scarf over the shoulder there.
“I like this place,” Raoul said, as they settled. “I feel quite incognito here.”
“I believe that is the idea. One can be more of what one is here, without fear of censure.”
Raoul picked up the menu, and John said, “I can recommend the porterhouse steak, or the filet of sole. I have had both, depending on my appetite, and both are prepared well. I would stay away from the sausage, though. Its origins are dubious.”
“I expect to have sausage later,” Raoul said with a grin. “That is, if I am not too bold in my assumptions.”
John laughed. “No, you are not too bold. I too hope to have some sausage later.”
The proprietor came by to take their orders, and both decided on the filet of sole with a side of haricots vert, and John ordered a flagon of white wine for them to share.
“I had a talk with my valet on Sunday morning,” John said, between sips of the dry wine. “He was quite concerned when I did not return home Saturday night. Afraid I’d been caught in a raid somewhere, or that some villain had lured me into an alley and knocked me out.”
Raoul looked at him. “He said that?”
“Not in so many words. But I took that chance to take him into my confidence. There is no hiding from one’s valet, after all.”
“I wouldn’t know. I have never been in a position to hire a servant.”
“Yes, well, you’re traveling in the upper berth now,” John said. “Best get accustomed to it. I made sure Beller would not object on any moral grounds if I were to bring you home of an evening.”
“You gave him the option?”
“Well, I sounded him out. And he was a bit diffident, but agreeable. He is young, and I treat him well, and he has good prospects if I inherit my father’s title and property. He can marry, rise in station to that of a butler, and supervise a whole household. That is a great deal for him to aspire to.”
He drank some wine. “And I am certainly not the first man of the upper classes to seek comfort outside of marriage, either of the male or female persuasion.”
“I imagine you are correct,” Raoul said. A seafood chowder was delivered as an appetizer, and Raoul dipped his spoon and brought it to his mouth, a movement John found unaccountably erotic.
“Quite good,” Raoul said.
“How have you fared these past two days?” John asked.
“I work,” Raoul said. “My day is filled with correspondence, contracts, and the occasional translation. The undersecretary has taken an unusual interest in the prospect of commerce in Africa, and he has many closed-door meetings, some of which result in more documents than I can manage at once. I was lucky to be able to get out of the office on time this evening.”
John was uncertain about whether he should reveal his own occupation, but he dove in. “I write the occasional essay which is published as a broadside,” he said. “My last went to the printer on Saturday, and I was at sixes and sevens as to how to follow it up.”
“Sorry, I do not understand that phrase. At sixes and sevens?”
“Confused, uncertain,” John said.
Raoul nodded. “And what did you decide?”
In a rush, John told him about meeting Sid and giving him a coin, then tracking the boy down and interviewing him about his working conditions.
Raoul smiled. “You have such passion,” he said. “I am pleased to see that you can extend that emotion outside the bedroom.” He tilted his head. “You and this boy, you only talked?”
“Of course. I would never... oh, no. I am interested in men, not boys.”
Raoul said nothing as the fish course arrived, but quickly shifted talk to his childhood, and John discovered that they had both grown up near the sea, both were avid swimmers, and both loved the romance of the open ocean and what it could mean.
By the end of the meal, John was sure that the affection that had sprung up between them was still there. John insisted on paying the bill, and then he led Raoul the few blocks to his flat. “You’re sure it’s all right that I come up?” Raoul asked.
“Quite sure.” John took Raoul’s right hand in his, and with his left opened a middle button on his greatcoat. He brought Raoul’s hand inside the cloth to feel the hardness beneath his slacks.
In the lamplight, Raoul’s eyes were merry. “Well, then, lead on.”
John opened the door to the flat, grateful that Beller was not there to greet him. The man had a good deal of discretion, which was pleasant to know.
He hung his own coat and Raoul’s on pegs by the door, and left both their hats on the table. Then he quickly led Raoul into his bedchamber, locking the door behind him.
Raoul took him by the shoulders and leaned in for a deep kiss. Their lips and noses were still cold from the January air, but they warmed up the longer they remained in the embrace. “I have been wanting to do that since I saw you on the street,” Raoul said at last.
“And I have been wanting to do this,” John said, dropping to his knees on the plush carpet. He undid the flies of Raoul’s pants and popped out his lover’s meaty cock, which he swallowed with great aplomb.
“Oh, my,” Raoul said, as John licked and sucked his way along the shaft, pushing aside the fabric to get greater access to Raoul’s balls, which he grasped and stroked. “Imagine if we had been able to do this at the restaurant. We would never have eaten.”
John pulled off Raoul’s cock for a moment. “I could make a meal of this,” he said, and went back to sucking.
As he felt Raoul grow close to spending, he pulled his lover’s buttocks close and buried his head in Raoul’s pubic hair, feeling the tickle along his forehead. Raoul moaned and bucked and then almost without warning spent himself in John’s mouth.
John stayed in place long enough to swallow everything, then pulled back, licking his lips and smiling broadly. “That was quite delightful,” he said, as he stood up.
Then he began to strip. “I should like to feel that excellent tongue of yours at work,” he said. “I bet you can lick my hole in several languages.”
Quickly they were both naked, their clothes tossed willy-nilly on the floor, and John was on all fours on the bed, pushing out his hole for Raoul to attack. Raoul was quite willing, beginning with long swipes of his tongue up and down. “This is my impression of an Englishman’s speech,” he said, between lashings. “All tongue and no sense.”
John laughed, even as the sensations rose in him. Raoul sucked in the flesh and blew around the hole. It made farting sounds which made John laugh. “Now I am the German,” Raoul said, in the accent of that country.
Then he began poking his tongue into John’s hole, in and out, licking his way around. “And this is the way a Frenchman makes love to a man’s back bottom.”
By then John was engulfed in heat, sweat rising on his brow. He grabbed his own cock and jerked it as Raoul penetrated him with his tongue, and very quickly he found himself spending, the white viscous fluid flowing over his hand and dropping down to the coverlet below.
“I knew I could make you spend that way,” Raoul said, laughing, as they rolled onto the bed together.
“With your command of languages,” John said, joining in the glee.
They spent another hour together, cuddled on the bed, sharing confidences, until Raoul stood up. “I must go, my love. I have work tomorrow.”
John sat up on the bed and watched him dress. “When will I see you again?”
“Friday? You might tell your man you are going out of town for the weekend and spend it in my bed.”
“I can think of no better lie to tell,” John said.
