III
SUDDENLY, THE WORLD CHANGED. WHEREVER I WENT, FROM the office to the town square to the bar of the White Horse, the talk was of war. In March, President Lincoln declared that secession was legally void. In April, confederates fired on Federal troops at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. The world was on the march, communities were divided, and our lives would never be the same again.
Even in Bishopstown, prosperous New England backwater far from the battle lines to the south, there were rankling divisions springing up in unlikely quarters, splitting our town in two and making the streets unsafe to walk at night. Old resentments flared up like fires long smothered but never extinguished. Mr. Windridge declared himself hot for the rights of slave owners, and started to frequent hotel bars where like-minded anti-abolitionists flaunted their views without fear of attack. In the town square, there were rallies in favor of Mr. Lincoln, in favor of abolition, in favor of joining the army right there and then to go and fight for the Union. I watched them from a distance, listened to the speeches, and feared for my future.
Mick, my longtime lover and mentor, disappeared one day from the bar of the White Horse, without a word of where he was going; I suspect he’d returned to some long-forgotten homestead with the vague impulse to defend the family who had rejected him. Only when he was gone did I truly value him, as the ache in my empty ass, and the hunger in my guts for his vigorous loving, attested. I still had other playmates around town, but as the excitement grew around the war, their tolerance for my high-handed, selfish pleasure-seeking diminished. Soon, even the junior employees, the stable hands and groundskeeper at the spa, were giving me their cocks with barely concealed contempt. More and more money was leaving my pockets and entering theirs. At the age of 21, I was paying for it, like a man twice, three times my age.
My father asked me outright what I intended to do.
“I won’t fight, if that’s what you mean.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t believe in war as a solution to a purely political problem.” I was spouting the kind of talk I’d heard in college; how inadequate it sounded now.
“And if the Rebels move north? If they attack?”
“I hardly think they’ll move on Vermont.”
“Why not, Jack?” Aaron Johnson asked, witnessing this conversation one afternoon in the office. “It’s a wealthy part of the Union. The South is poor, they feel threatened, they’ll fight to preserve what’s theirs, and they’ll take whatever they need.”
“What then, son? Will you believe in war then? When they’re riding through town looting and burning?”
“This is ridiculous,” I said. “We have state troops.”
“So did Fort Sumter,” Johnson said, leaving the room.
My father stayed, pacing up and down the office.
“We live in troubled times, Jack,” he said at last. I always knew that when my father uttered such platitudes he was building up to some major announcement.
“Yes, sir.”
“Change is coming.”
“I guess so.”
“You guess so? You better do more than guess so, Jack.” There was anger in his voice, and for a moment his eye flashed at me. Then he continued his pacing. I pretended to read some papers, and waited.
“This way of life, Jack…”
“Yes, Father?” Was he about to accuse me of something?
“It must end.”
“I don’t believe things have gotten so bad…”
“I mean this life that you’re living. Your aimless, godless wanderings. Don’t think I don’t see you, sitting here day after day like a prisoner, counting the hours until you can leave and join your…friends.”
“Father, I—”
“I hoped that my son would make me proud. That he would make his way in the world, make something of himself. Or at least be a helpmate in the business. You’re twenty-one, Jack. When are you going to begin your life?”
“I have a life, Father.”
“I know what sort of life you have. Throwing your money around those bars downtown, wasting your youth and your education with people from God knows where and getting up to God knows what.”
God knew what, indeed, and I began to believe that, as Aaron had warned me, others knew too. Including my father.
“I see I must become more serious, Father.”
“More serious!” He shouted the words, almost screamed. The door opened an inch, and Mr. Windridge’s nose appeared, then hastily withdrew. I did not hear his footsteps, and imagined his delight in eavesdropping.
“You must change your life, Jack. You must…change… your life.” He glared at me, and I glanced shiftily back, ashamed of myself, for all my bravado and bluster. When I went over the scene later in my mind, I thought of all the clever things I should have said. I should have told my father that I was not ashamed of my friends, that I would save him the trouble and expense of my keep, that I would make my way in the world, proud and independent. Instead I sat there blushing, almost weeping, as he stormed out of the room. Windridge entered immediately, pretending that he had heard and seen nothing.
“Are those figures ready, Mr. Edgerton?”
I almost knocked him down.
I found Johnson out by the boiler house, overseeing a couple of engineers who were patching up a leaky pipe.
“So, not content with running the office, you’re now the director of works as well, are you?”
“Ah, Mr. Edgerton. We’re attempting to save the business several hundred dollars a year by increasing the efficiency of the plant.”
I looked into the boiler house, where two apes in heavy cotton coveralls were attacking the boiler with wrenches and saws. One of them, a heavy-browed, dark-haired brute of, I think, Italian extraction, had shot his load in my face one wild night at the White Horse. The other was a young, fair-skinned, freckle-faced Irish lad whose job seemed to be to hold things.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” I said. “I see you have some very large tools. I hope you know what to do with them.”
They looked up, puzzled, as if awaiting orders.
“Walk with me, Jack,” Johnson said, taking my elbow. “Keep at it, Benny.”
“Sure, boss,” came a thick, hoarse voice from the boiler house.
“Boss?” I squeaked, as Johnson hustled me across the yard to the stables. “So now you’re the boss! Is that what this is all about? You turn up here like a genie out of a bottle and suddenly you’re taking over—”
He pushed me through a door and I landed on my back in a pile of straw. Thankfully, it was clean; the stables were mucked out in the morning.
“Now shut that pretty pink mouth of yours, Master Jack, and listen to me. I heard what your Daddy said to you. I know you got all riled up. Your pal Mick left town, right? And you’re as fretful as a kitten up a tree. You start shaking your little white ass around the engineers, and you know they’ll give you a taste and make no fuss because you line their pockets. Well, it’s time you learned that you don’t treat people like that.”
“Jealous, Johnson?” I said, lying back in the straw and stretching my arms behind my head. “You want my pretty pink mouth and my little white ass for yourself?”
“I should whip you for saying that.”
“Go ahead. Take that thick leather belt and tan my hide for me.” I turned over and wiggled my tail at him, wondering how far this game would go.
Crack! His belt found its mark, and it stung like hell. I was so shocked I could not even cry out. Crack! It came down again.
“Johnson, stop!”
Crack! A third strike, and even through the thick wool of my pants I could feel the bite of the leather.
I looked over my shoulder to see him breathing hard, his mighty chest working inside his shirt. I was in pain, but I was excited too. His pants, unsupported by the thick leather strap that was doubled up in his left hand, were sliding down his hips.
“Do your worst, Johnson. Fuck me if you want.”
With a growl, he jumped on me, grinding his groin into my ass, pressing the rock-hard swelling against my burning cheeks. His mouth was on my neck, my ears, kissing, licking, and biting. He was like an animal in rut. I twisted my head to take his kisses on my mouth, pressed my hips back and up to meet his thrusts. The horses, separated from us only by a low wooden bar, stamped and snorted.
“I’ll fuck you, Jack. I’ll fuck you from here to kingdom come.” His hand reached down inside my pants, found my hole, and started brutally fingering it. “You’ve wanted it ever since you first saw me, haven’t you? Waggling that ass at me like a barroom whore…”
These words, so coarse in black and white, were murmured in my ear like the tenderest endearments. I felt my guts melt, and I was ready to take whatever he could give me.
But suddenly, the thrusting stopped, the string of obscenities was hushed, and his body lay limp and heavy on top of me.
“It would be so easy, Jack. So easy.”
He stood up, brushed the straw from his clothes, held out a hand, and helped me to my feet.
“Why not? I want you so much.” I wanted him to see, to understand. I rubbed my crotch to draw attention to the swelling there.
“You make me mad, Jack. A madman.”
“So, be mad. Fuck me.”
“Jack… I can’t…” He ran out of the stable, and was across the yard and back indoors before I could say another word.
I was furious, frustrated, filthy, covered in straw, sweating like a horse, and hard. I could not go back into the office; I could not, as Johnson apparently could, turn my feelings on and off like a faucet. I brushed off the worst of the dirt and, without really thinking about what I was doing, strolled back toward the boiler house where Italian Benny and his freckle-faced assistant were still banging away.
“Need a hand?” I felt reckless.
“I think we got it covered,” Benny said, his face and hands smeared with oil.
“I can hold your tools for you.”
“Oh, yeah?”
The younger one looked puzzled; why was the boss’s son offering these pointless services?
“Yeah. And I’ll do more than hold them. I’ll work ’em.” The danger of the situation was affecting me like a drug; my cock was as hard as the wrench in Benny’s hand.
“You’ll work ’em, huh?” Benny said, dropping a hand to his crotch, idly cupping it. I knew from our previous acquaintance that he had a big, uncut, veiny cock in a deep black bush of soft hair.
“Yeah.” I licked my lips. “And I’ll finish the job for you.”
“You know what we got here, Pete,” he said to his young companion, who was scratching his head just behind the ear, looking confused. “We got a queer boy that wants a taste of cock.”
“All right!” Pete said, the truth dawning on his simple, freckled face. “He wants to suck my prick?”
“Yeah. We gonna let him?”
“Maybe. Cheaper than buying us a woman.”
“Oh, yeah,” Benny said, laughing, “he’s cheap, all right. Get down on your knees, Jackie Boy, and let’s see what Pete’s got for you.”
I did as I was told, kneeling in the oily mud that surrounded the boiler.
“C’mon, Pete. Show him that thing.”
Pete grinned and unbuttoned his fly, hauling out a fat white prick that was several shades paler than the skin on his sunburned face and hands. It looked like a long hunk of uncooked dough that had been left to rise.
“What do you think of that, Jackie?”
“It’s big.”
“You want to kiss it for him?”
“Yes.”
“You want to suck it, boy? Want him to fuck your mouth?”
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, sir.”
So this was Benny’s game; a little bit of table-turning. It suited my mood perfectly.
“Ask him nicely, then. Let’s see some of them fancy manners.”
“Please, sir, may I suck your cock?”
Pete laughed. “Listen to him! Fuckin’ fairy.”
“You gonna let him put his lips around that thing, Pete?”
“Yeah. Let him suck it.” He waggled his cock at me; I moved my face closer so it slapped me on the forehead and nose. Benny grabbed me by the hair—little wonder that it was falling out, with the amount of tugging it had taken in the last couple of years—and pulled my head back. My mouth made contact with Pete’s half-hard cock, which he took great delight in rubbing and bouncing off my face.
“You better feed the faggot,” Benny said, pulling my mouth open. I liked this pretense that they were forcing me to do something against my will; I’d already learned that this particular performance enabled some men to give me a far harder fucking than a gentler, more agreeable approach would.
The head slipped between my lips, and I immediately closed my mouth around it, sucking Pete way inside me so that he touched the back of my throat.
“Jesus!” he whispered. “He’s really eating it! Look at that!”
“Yeah, he’s done it before,” Benny said. “Let’s see what he can do with two.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw a familiar thick, dark, veiny shape emerging from the front of his pants. Soon Benny’s cock was contending with Pete for possession of my mouth. I knew I couldn’t suck both of them fully at the same time—I’d tried that before at the White Horse and been frustrated at my limitations—but I knew that I could give pleasure to both, so I allowed Pete’s cock to slip out until only the head was in my mouth. That way, I could stretch my lips around two heads rather than just one. I held on to each shaft and worked them so that they rubbed and pressed together in my mouth.
“Fucking cock-hungry bitch,” Benny said, laughing as he saw my mouth stretched into a clown’s grimace. “Now you’re going to get it up the other end.”
Unwilling as I was to relinquish the dual delight in my mouth, the thought of taking these two monsters up my ass was too good to turn down.
“Hold him, Pete.”
Pete pulled me to my feet and held my arms behind me, while Benny tore at my clothes. He sensed rightly that I wouldn’t complain, however rough their treatment, and took the opportunity to wreak a bit of revenge on the ruling class. He tore off my shirt and threw it in the mud, pulling my pants down, heedless of the pain that they caused me as they dug into my legs. Thus hobbled, with my pants around my ankles and my boots still on, I felt Pete’s hard cock pressing into my bare ass. My own dick, hard as hell, swung in front of me.
Benny ignored it, although I knew from our previous encounter that he wasn’t averse to a taste of cock when there was no one else to witness it. “Okay, pretty boy, you’re going to get fucked. Pete and me are going to fuck you so hard you’ll be screaming for your mama. But you make one single noise and we know how to shut you up.” I didn’t think he meant he’d stick his cock in my mouth again. There were plenty of tools lying around the boiler house that could have silenced me quickly and effectively.
“Yes, sir.”
Benny stepped out of his coveralls; underneath he wore only a rough cotton shirt. The loose garment slipped over his boots. His legs were thick, the muscles knotted, the hair black and dense on his thighs. He pulled the shirt over his head; naked, apart from his work boots, he looked like a painting of the Minotaur in my book of Greek legends, minus the bull’s head (although there was something bovine in his countenance), plus a big hard dick. He lay down on a dry piece of stone flooring, spread his legs, and held his cock perpendicular.
“You better sit on it, boy.”
I needed no second bidding, but I knew that if I was to survive the kind of rough treatment Benny and Pete had in store for me I’d need something to make the ride a little smoother, otherwise I’d be yelling the house down, no matter how hard I tried to keep quiet. I saw a grease gun lying among their tools, and picked it up.
“That’s it, Jackie. Make yourself nice and slippery for me. Hey, Pete, give him a hand.”
Pete, still grinning from ear to ear—he seemed to regard this kind of adventure as everyday fun and games—took the grease gun, inserted the nozzle in my ass and pumped a couple of hefty globs inside me. He then smeared them around with a thick, work-toughened finger.
“He ready?”
“He’ll do.”
“So sit on it.”
I could tell by the stiffness of Benny’s cock that he was enjoying this as much as I was, for all his hostile bluster. The moment his exposed head made contact with my greasy ass ring, I saw a look on his face—an expression of longing, or delight—that betrayed his lust for male contact. It was time for me to take back some of the control of the situation. Opening my ass muscles, I allowed him to glide into me at a rate of two inches a second, so that very soon I was sitting right down on his thighs. His prick filled me, set me on fire—and I clamped my ring around the base as hard as I could.
“Wooh! Fuck, boy, what you doing?”
“Shut up and fuck me.”
And he did. He bucked his hips, tossing me up in the air, landing me back down, burying himself inside me. My own cock, still as hard as could be, slapped against my belly and oozed over his.
“I never knew it could be done,” Pete said, mopping his brow on a rag. “He took that big old thing right up his ass. Fuck, don’t it hurt, Jack?”
“No, man,” I said, “it’s the best…uh!…feeling…uh!…in the world.”
“Oh, shut him up for me, Pete. I’m sick of hearing his voice.”
Pete planted a foot on either side of Benny’s waist and brought my head down on his cock.
“Now we got you nice and full,” he said.
We might have stayed like that quite happily, but Benny had other ideas. I suspect that the pleasure of rubbing his dick against Pete’s in my mouth had given him a taste for cock that he could only satisfy with difficulty.
“Join me up here, Pete. Come on. There’s plenty of room, ain’t there, Jack?”
In answer I relinquished Pete’s cock from my mouth and leaned forward till I was almost resting on Benny’s chest.
“There you go,” Benny said. “Reckon you can find a way in?” Benny lifted his hips off the ground, and me with them; Pete was quick to slide his knees underneath and aim his dick against the target. It was not the most comfortable position, nor particularly effective, but it did allow both their dicks to fill my ass, at least for a few thrusts.
“Damn it, Jack, we keep falling out of you,” Benny said, after the third or fourth mishap.
“So, do something about it.”
We disengaged.
“Down on your knees in the mud.”
This way they could take turns fucking me from behind, and I noticed that Benny took every opportunity to guide Pete’s prick into me. They were becoming less guarded in their handling of me, of each other.
Benny came first, slamming into me with great hammering thrusts, spewing his load deep into my guts. Then he pulled out and Pete took his place—fucking me more gently at first, but building in pace and vigor as his orgasm approached. When I sensed that he’d reached the point of no return, I was astonished to feel a hand slipping around my waist and seeking out my own cock. He grasped it and stroked it, and rested his hot forehead against my sweating back as he came, shuddering and sighing as he did so.
“You really like that?” he said, squeezing my still hard cock. “I mean, you really like it?”
“Sure he does. He’s like a woman.”
“He ain’t like no woman I ever went with,” Pete said, still holding on to my cock.
“You never been with another fellow before, Pete?” Benny said, picking up my torn shirt from the floor and cleaning himself up with it. It was soon covered in mud, sweat, oil, and sperm.
“Never. Never knew of such things.”
“Well now you know. You see, Jack here, he likes it so much it don’t even hurt him when you stick it up his ass.”
I was still kneeling as Pete pulled out of me. My ass felt raw and bruised, and I was desperate to come. I staggered to my feet, my legs cramping and spasming beneath me, and almost fell. Pete grabbed my arm.
“That was good,” Pete said. “A good fuck.”
“Yes…” I said.
“You going to…you know? Play with it?”
“Want to watch, Pete?” This was Benny, sneering again now that it was over.
“Sure, why not?”
“You ain’t turning queer on me are you?”
However interesting this conversation was becoming, I was intent only on getting off, getting out, and getting cleaned up before anybody saw the state I was in. I leaned into Pete’s arms and started to jack off. He held me tight; his arms were strong.
“Look at that, man,” Pete said. “He’s gonna shoot.”
Benny was staring at us, frowning, undecided. I noticed his dick, still enlarged, was stirring again.
“Oh, what the hell,” he said, and joined us, one arm around Pete’s shoulders, the other caressing my leg. When I came, much of it went over Benny’s hairy forearm and wrist.
 
I slipped through the back entrance to the baths, bundled up my clothes behind a cupboard where I could retrieve them later, and headed straight for the showers. Fortunately for me, there were no customers around, and I managed to wash myself clean of mud, oil, and sperm without attracting too much attention. I persuaded one of the attendants to lend me a clean shirt (some far-fetched story about a pen leaking in my pocket) and then, with a little careful dabbing with a wet cloth, removed the worst of the filth from my pants and jacket. They wouldn’t pass close inspection, but at least I didn’t look to all the world as if I’d just been double-fucked on the boiler house floor.
Aaron Johnson was waiting for me in the office, going through some figures with Mr. Windridge. He looked up at me with pain in his eyes—perhaps he’d guessed where I had gone after our last conversation, and what I had done. I tossed my head, avoided his gaze, and composed myself to do a pretense of work.
Eventually, my attention was drawn by the tenor of their conversation.
“Mr. Edgerton has been very generous,” Windridge was saying, “and has agreed to hold your post open for you.”
“So I understand, but—”
“In which case, Mr. Johnson, I can hardly give you more than a month’s salary in hand.”
“In which case, Mr. Windridge, that will have to be sufficient for my needs.”
“I will draw a check for that amount.”
“I would prefer cash.”
“Of that I have no doubt.”
Johnson walked out of the room, leaving the door open; I could tell that he was fighting an inclination to slam it.
“Is Mr. Johnson leaving us?” I inquired.
“Yes. And so soon after he arrived.”
“That will be a great loss.”
“To me, Mr. Edgerton? Or to you?”
“To the establishment, I meant.”
“Ah,” Windridge said, pressing the tips of his pale, bony fingers together. “Undoubtedly he will be greatly missed.”
“And why is he leaving all of a sudden?”
“He feels he must look after his family.”
“His family? But—” I remembered, just in time, that Johnson had recounted his personal history to our intimate circle, and it was not for public consumption. “Well, that’s very admirable,” I concluded.
“Indeed,” Windridge said, his voice laden with insinuation. “But what a sudden announcement! Why, only this morning he was speaking of his plans for the winter, his economies in the heating department. He was very busy down at the boiler house, I believe.”
“I saw something of the kind.” Why was Windridge smiling? How much did he know?
“And then, not half an hour ago, he asks your father if he can take an indefinite leave of absence. Just like that. I wonder if he’d had some bad news,” Windridge said, rolling his eyes.
“Perhaps,” I said. “I will go and ask him.”
“You won’t find him here. He’s gone back to his rooms to pack up.”
“Then I shall find him there. Good afternoon, Mr. Windridge.”
He didn’t even bother to maintain a facade of polite-ness, but laughed openly at me as I walked out the door, my cheeks flaming. Had it come to this? Mocked by my father’s employees, fucked and doubtless despised by the engineers, the laughingstock of all, a fool, a freak whom even his own father disowned. Perhaps the time had come for me, too, to leave town, and I had a sudden vision of Aaron and me on the road together, heading west, perhaps, living in log cabins, comrades and lovers with no one to judge us but God and nature.
Oh! This idea was seductive. By the time I was out the gates I was whistling a merry walking song, imagining the pack on my back, the clank of a coffee pot and the thud of a water bottle, the sting of cold spring water as we bathed together after a night under the stars, the heat of his kisses as we sprawled in sunlit meadows…
“Where do you think you’re going?”
My father’s voice.
“I’m going to remonstrate with Mr. Johnson. He has some crazy idea of leaving us.”
“You will do no such thing. You may be my son, but you are also my employee. You will return to your post and try, at least, to justify the money I give you.”
“But Father, surely you don’t want Mr. Johnson to leave us?”
“Whatever Mr. Johnson’s reasons, I’m sure they are honorable and right.”
“That’s ridiculous—”
“Get back in there before I horsewhip you!”
 
At five o’clock, as soon as the spa was closing, I dropped my pen, grabbed my jacket (the mud was dry and flaking off), and ran out the door. Johnson’s lodgings were in the center of town, a 15-minute walk away; I made it in five. I arrived, out of breath and uncomfortably hot, and hammered at the door.
The landlady opened up. “Young Mr. Edgerton!”
I sometimes forgot that, as the son of one of Bishopstown’s leading citizens, I was well known to complete strangers. Perhaps Aaron was right; perhaps my every move was watched and noted. Perhaps I was in danger.
“Ah, good evening, Missus…”
“You’ll be looking for your friend.”
I accepted without surprise the fact that she knew who I was, what I wanted, and the relationship in which I stood to her lodger.
“Johnson. Is he here?”
“Bless you, Master Edgerton, he’s been gone two hours. His poor mother, sick on her bed of pain she is, and he rushes to her side like the dutiful son he is. What a comfort to a mother to have a son like that.”
“Yes…” Considering that Johnson had told us, at some length, of the distressing aftermath of his mother’s death some years ago, I thought this haste to be at her sickbed had come a little late.
“When you hear something like that, from a nice fellow like Mr. Johnson, you can really believe what the abolitionists say, that they’ve got souls just the same as us, praise the Lord.”
“Indeed.” I stepped inside the house. “So he’s left.”
“Like I told you, sir.” She stood aside.
“Has he left anything behind?”
“A trunk, sir, that I’ll store in the cellar.”
“Nothing besides?”
“Well, sir, he did say something about the eventuality of you calling.”
The wheedling tone of her voice told me what to do. I withdrew my wallet and counted off a substantial sum. “I see.”
She rummaged in her pinafore and drew out a letter.
“I’ll take that. Good day.” I practically threw the money at her and ran downtown to the White Horse. There, at least, I could read my letter in peace.
The front door was boarded shut. One of the boards was crudely daubed with the words CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE in white paint. The shutters were locked, the signs advertising imported wines, Kentucky sour mash, and clean rooms hastily concealed by burlap sacks.
The world was changing faster than I liked.
I continued out of town, to where the Connecticut River divided us from New Hampshire, spanned by what townspeople still called the “new” bridge. The last time I’d crossed it had been with Mick, on one of our adventures in the hills and forests…
He too was gone now.
I stood midway across the bridge and opened Aaron’s letter.
Dear Jack, it began. I thanked God it was not going to be one of his formal, “Mr. Edgerton” announcements. I read on.
You will know by now that I think it best for me to leave Bishopstown. Perhaps I will return one day, when times are better. At present, it is neither wise nor safe to remain. The situation between you and me makes it impossible for me to continue in your father’s employment. I have covered my retreat like a coward with lies and deception; I have neither the time, nor the moral strength, to prepare a more suitable exit.
Jack, you must repair the wreck that you—that I—have made of your life. I know that your appetites are strong. Mine were too at your age, and remain so, but I have made myself their master. For the sake of your family and your future, I beg you to do likewise. The risks you take are too great.
I have told you all that I wish to tell you, face to face, and will not compromise you by reiterating it in writing. Trust nobody, say nothing, and pray for better times.
Do not look for me.
Your friend,
Aaron Johnson
I held the letter out over the wide rushing river, my eyes blind with tears. The wind caught it, tore it from my grasp, and blew it away to God knows where.