A word of caution: This story’s a little more heavy-duty than my others so far. It contains scenes of non-consensual sex and exploitative sexual situations. It also makes heavy use of the term ‘boy’ in its colloquial sense – that is, to indicate a male of younger age and lesser status than the speaker. It is not a reference to children. All characters are 18 years of age or older.
——
New York City, 1902.
Frank:
I saw the dark-haired boy first, as I was stepping out of a late appointment with my tailor. On the opposite side of the street by an alleyway, leaning, kicking a toe with a heel in the comfortable slow rhythm of one who’s done a deal of this sort of thing and expects to do more. A lot of waiting, a life lived largely outdoors, on the street, to somebody else’s schedule.
But what really caught my attention was the way he’d positioned himself at the exact corner of the building, the edges of the bricks no doubt cutting in, indenting along his spine if he’d been there any time. Was he in the alley, or not? If not, he was likely to get a unpleasant surprise sometime soon.
Any alleyway is only nominally about access or egress. Mostly they function as sheltered marketplaces for dubious transactions. This particular alley, I knew, was given over to the sort of dubious transaction that takes place between young men in need of ready cash and older, wealthier men in need of release.
Had he been down there? Was he about to go down? Was this…this hovering in the borderland him trying to steel himself, summon up the courage?
He’d notice me staring soon, and if he was whoring, it wasn’t unthinkable that he’d be bold enough to cross the street, parade his wares for closer inspection. I didn’t want that. I’d never involved myself with street urchins – I didn’t need to. I could make other less risky arrangements, and they’d worked well for me thus far.
It was widely known about the city that Frank Leyland was interested in the arts and could be counted on to sponsor the efforts of those young artists he considered promising, and so far as I could tell, it remained far less widely known that Frank accepted…encouraged, even…creative expressions of gratitude for his support.
I lit a cigarette and drew out the paper from under my arm, unfolding it to a quarter-sheet, appearing to frown down at it, cutting my eyes repeatedly across the street without moving my head, wanting for some reason to know what would happen next. After a few minutes I saw him suddenly straighten, pushing fluidly away from the wall as another boy emerged from the alley.
Ah…he was waiting for his friend.
The other boy came fully into view now, under the halo of a gas lamp, its radius widening as the day’s light failed. My breath caught in my throat – I saw stars, heard thunder, broke out in a sweat all over. Oh, sweet lord, he was beautiful! I never saw anyone so beautiful. Not in the last twenty years, anyway.
His cap was clutched in his hand and his hair was curling and golden-blond, longer than a schoolmaster would’ve permitted, coiling beguilingly around and below his ears. I couldn’t, of course, make out his eye color, but in profile his face showed a neat, regular nose, full lips, a strong jaw.
He was healthy looking, straight shoulders and lovely limbs, and it was hard to imagine him ever being short of custom down an alley… My upper body lurched forward in sheer animal instinct, but fortunately my reason maintained control of my feet, keeping them firmly planted to the sidewalk. No, Frank…
They were talking together now, the dark-haired boy watching, listening intently to whatever it was his companion had to say, head to one side like a bird, a hand resting on his mate’s forearm, as though in reassurance.
The blond boy shook his head slowly and replaced his cap, and the dark one’s palm came up to clap him on the shoulder lightly, before moving in, rubbing briefly between the shoulder-blades with the heel of his hand. He stepped back, and made some comment. The blond one’s posture relaxed, and he threw back his head and laughed.
I heard it, echoing across the street, I saw the expanse of soft exposed throat, and my long-held resolve to have nothing to do with urchins crumbled in an instant, slipping through my fingers like sand, like water.
They turned to walk away, close side-by-side, nudging one another intermittently. I watched them go for now. The dark-haired one had been down the alley too, before I arrived – I could tell from his gait. Both of them, then. In for a dime, in for a dollar…
I remained for some time after they’d retreated into the dusk, continuing my charade with the paper, keeping half an eye on the traffic in and out the alleyway opposite. There was nothing remarkable about it, or about the alley itself – nothing to suggest it was notorious.
Of course, that’s the whole point. There were probably a thousand others of precisely the same sort about the city, anonymous featureless slots, dark gashes in a sea of pale facades. And yet somehow, people knew…even people like me, who’d never ventured into one.
Never ventured into one? My conscience nudged me uncomfortably as I tucked the paper under my arm again, and set off walking in the opposite direction. Like a great many things, that was a matter of definition…interpretation. Truth was, I had many a time intruded into one vicariously.
I discovered, by innocent accident the first time, that the goings-on of an alleyway situated beside a tavern – as so many of them are – could be viewed from above, if one took a first-floor room on a night when the better, street-facing suites were all already spoken for.
Thereafter, I always selected my hotels, when travelling, for their exterior entertainment possibilities, passing myself off as tight-fisted in disclaiming the need for a front window. I would set the lamp burning very low, well inside the room, and take up position by the window, cheek at the glass, my heart thumping, an answering pulse in my awakening cock, peering down at an obtuse angle, shapes gradually emerging from the gloom as my eyes adjusted.
I like to watch. I’ve always liked to watch. But it’s a difficult past-time to indulge. People who are sharing a deep intimacy understandably desire privacy, and people committing a public indecency are…similarly leery of attracting an audience.
A lot must needs be inferred in such a situation, for if you’re to remain unseen, the angle will be awkward, and the darkness permits very little detail. Just shapes, moving masses, edges blurred and bleeding into their surroundings, lacking depth or texture – simply blunt contrast and motion. Big shapes, smaller shapes, pale flesh, dark serge, glowing cigarette-tips bobbing about.
Depending on my position, I might see the smear of a face descending to waist-height, might discern the subtle rhythmic movement following, becoming quickly shorter, more choppy, signalling an impending explosion, before the thing was done and the crouching or kneeling figure came to his feet, dragging a dark sleeve across a pale visage.
Or I might see the process interrupted mid-way, the stooped figure hauled upright, whirled swiftly around to face a wall…might, sometimes, catch a brief glimpse of suddenly exposed buttocks, near luminous in their whiteness, before the other figure stepped forward to obscure them, leaving me with nothing to go on but a pair of pale hands braced against the dark brick, a capped head lolling down.
The sagging, sinking, of the head screamed out defeat – capitulation, rather than co-operation. I’d usually turn away at that point. A boy who wants to be taken will arch spontaneously, his head reaching back in helpless, instinctive seeking of the author of his pleasure. Whereas this…was an exchange in which passion played no part. It was desperation, not desire, that drew boys down these dark corridors.
At moments like these, I’d feel grubby. Wouldn’t you rather, Frank, watch a young man give himself willingly? Well, yes I would. But where are you going to find such a thing?
* * *
I went back early evening two days later – told my tailor I didn’t like those buttons after all, to use the smaller ones. Then I slipped outside, lit a cigarette, and looked about me.
No-one leaning on the corner. No-one anywhere in sight just now. But humans are creatures of habit if nothing else. I hid behind my paper and settled down to wait as the twilight crept slowly in and a light mist gathered.
After about three-quarters of an hour, the dark-haired boy emerged around the corner, cap askew, hands in pockets. Instead of leaning though, he turned to his left and began to walk.
This wasn’t in my plan. “Hey! Boy!” I called out.
He stopped dead, pausing a second before turning, head only, slow and wary.
“Come over here,” I instructed, beckoning to him.
He didn’t move a muscle. “Sir?”
I knew he was poised for flight, calculating options, weighing up the risk of angering me by running against the likelihood that he’d outstrip me in fewer than two blocks. I watched and he pondered. I appeared to have no accomplices. He appeared to have none either, today.
“I mean you no harm,” I called over, quietly now that I had his attention. “Come over here, please.”
He stood glued to the spot for another several moments, then he trod lightly over to me, coming to a halt a couple of feet away.
“Sir?”
I looked at him. “What’s your name?” I asked.
“Vittorio,” he replied. “Ah…sir,” belatedly remembering his cap and sweeping it off, stuffing it in his waistband. The shades of his native accent were easily perceptible, but not such as to make him difficult to comprehend.
“How old are you?” I queried.
He blinked rapidly. “Eighteen, sir.”
I squinted at him, tugging my upper lip. It could be true. He was fairly small, but a lack of nourishing food as an infant will do that to a person, imprint on them forever. His shirt-sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, and his forearms had a certain sinewy definition to them. His shoulders weren’t especially broad, but they were wider than those of a mere child.
And his face…little to go on there…all angles and shadows. Thin lips, sharp nose, narrow jaw, dark deep-set eyes under some nicely arched brows. He wasn’t a beauty like his companion of the other day, but…those eyes were quite something, the irises so dark they were indistinguishable from the pupils in this murky light.
The overall effect was that of an animal of some sort, I mused. He stood, patient and wary under my scrutiny, a sort of feral skittishness in his expression, matching the feral grace of his movements. I frowned at him, and discerned boldness too as he returned the stare, standing his ground, the street his territory, not mine.
“Would you like a cigarette?” I asked, drawing out my case from my waistcoat, removing one and proffering it between finger and thumb.
He nodded cautiously. “Yes, sir. Thank-you sir,” reaching out to take it, settling it in the corner of his mouth in a manner which suggested long practice. He didn’t wait for me to offer a light, instead producing his own matchbook and striking one ably against the side of his boot-sole.
I took a cigarette myself and lit up in a rather more dignified manner as I remarked, “I saw you the other day, you know. Tuesday. With your friend. He was coming out of the alley.”
He met my gaze, saying nothing.
“And you had been in there earlier, hadn’t you?” I prompted.
The eyes slid away.
“I know what goes on in that alley,” I remarked.
He merely shrugged. Not going to apologize to me. And why should he, after all? One does what one needs to do.
“How long have you been doing it?” I asked.
He took a slow drag of his cigarette, looking down at the gutter. “‘Bout three months, sir.”
Three months. Not too long. He might not’ve caught anything yet… “Do you come here every evening?”
He drew in his chin. “No, sir. Two nights a week, maybe three.” He shrugged. “Not much point in the rain, nor a Sunday nor a Monday…” shrugging again, tailing off.
“And your friend?” I enquired.
He frowned in incomprehension.
“How long has he been involved in…all this?”
He shifted from foot to foot. “Ah, since Easter, sir.”
Easter? A little over a month…good…
“Are you sure you’re eighteen?” I suddenly demanded.
A sharp swerve in the conversation acts to expose any dissembling, more often than not, in the pause that follows…as they scramble to remember what it is they’ve told you. Apparently he’d been truthful so far though, based on his slight frown, his sure, swift, response.
“Yessir, coming up a year now.”
“And your friend?” I asked. “How old is he?”
He exhaled a long thin plume of smoke before answering. “He’s eighteen sir. Since Epiphany.”
So this one was the elder of the two. I wouldn’t have guessed, just looking at each of them. But replaying in my memory the slight consoling gesture Vittorio had made, rubbing his co-conspirator’s back the other day…there was something of the big brother in that exchange, yes…
“What’s his name,” I asked, “your friend?”
He let the tiny stub of the cigarette fall to the sidewalk. “Angelo, sir,” he replied.
I almost wanted to laugh. Angelo. It was too perfect.
“He’s well named,” I observed. “He resembles an angel, surely.”
Vittorio scratched at his neck and fidgeted, seemingly made uncomfortable by my observing this. I decided to swerve again.
“So how did it come about,” I prompted, “this, ah, loitering in alleyways? Did you have no work?”
He shook his head. “I have work, sir.”
I smiled. “Ah, so this is just your overtime…your insurance? Your beer-money?”
His gaze cut to me, just for a second, and I saw that despite observing the forms of respect in his address and his actions, he held me in contempt. Those eyes, they belonged to one who was not wholly an adult, but who has yet never truly been a child. What do you know? they said. What do you know of overtime, of beer-money – of work?
I stepped back a pace under the force of it. “Let’s forget I said that,” I instructed. “It was ill-phrased. The truth is, I would like to know how it came about that you find yourself here.”
He raised his chin and stared at me without replying.
Well, perhaps I should pay to hear the story, I thought. I brought my cigarette-case out again.
He nodded, as though understanding the transaction, lit up once more and began to talk.
“I have work, sir. Shifting crates and nailing lids on packing cases, at Drows. Five years now I’ve been at it. Angelo, he works there, too. We all have work, sir.” This last issued almost as a challenge.
“So what changed?” I asked. “You’ve just said you’ve only been out here three months.”
He nodded. “Well, sir, my stepfather-”
My blood ran cold. “He misused you?” I cut in, in a whisper.
There was no puzzlement in the look he gave me – he knew precisely what I was alluding to, but he shook his head stoutly.
“No sir, he never did. But he made me turn over all my pay every week and I got to be needing some boots, and I told him, and he said I’d have to wait – well, my youngest sister was sick, so they were needing money for that, and extra coal, and then it was time for the rent, and my boots got worse and worse until one of them just came apart altogether. And the other a few days later.
“‘You’ll have to wait,’ he said. I was going about with rags tied on my feet, and that’s alright if it’s dry, but if it’s wet, y’know…” he trailed off.
I didn’t know, but I could imagine, so I nodded, and he continued, “and then, and then, all that was over and it wasn’t rent week and I came home and handed him my pay, and he went straight and spent up the spare on drink! All swallowed, no boots!”
He seemed to recollect himself about then, the eyes taking on an alarmed glint, mouth sealing shut.
I offered him another cigarette. “So you decided to earn your boots another way?”
He took it, stashing it above his ear, nodding, looking at the ground. “Thank-you sir. That’s right, yes.”
“And then?” I prompted.
He sighed, rolled his shoulders. “It only needed three outings for enough to buy some boots – good ones. And he didn’t even notice! Didn’t even notice! And my sister Lucia, her boots were near as bad as mine had been, so I thought I might as well get a pair for her.”
He winced. “He noticed that. I wouldn’t tell him how I came by them and he accused me of stealing them. Then of stealing money to pay for them. I wouldn’t say. He went to get his razor-belt to make me talk, but just as he was about to lay into me, he figured it out,” a quick one-shouldered shrug, “and he slung me onto the street instead. So.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, and I was, in addition to being bewildered, ashamed and outraged, all turning over one another like eels in a barrel. “So now you’re on your own you need to keep at it to live, in addition to your regular pay, is that it?”
He blinked at me. “I could manage in a way, on my pay alone,” he said, “but I’d have to stay in a flop-house, and those places…well, you don’t just sleep with your boots and your belt on to stop folk from making off with ’em…”
It was another nasty look into this kind of life, this measuring of distasteful options one against another. Abase oneself in an alley, or go about with frostbitten feet? Give oneself up on one’s own terms and make good use of the money received, or hold onto one’s pride, sleep in a flop-house, and potentially have what you were trying to keep taken from you anyway…
“With the extra, it makes the difference,” he was saying now. “We can afford – Angelo and me, that is – we have a space in one of those, those,” he gestured, as if I should know what he was talking about, before finishing limply, “well, there’s only six beds to a room. And partitions.”
Only six… I shook my head, to clear it.
“I’m sorry,” I said once again, “but you really shouldn’t be carrying on like this, you know.”
He gave me a long measuring stare containing some small residue of what do you know, but made no reply.
“Have you not considered,” I continued, leaning in a little, “that if you know about what goes on over there,” gesturing with my head, “and I, and your customers and no doubt most of the shopkeepers in the vicinity also – that it’s unlikely the police are unaware of it? And if you’re discovered and held over for public indecency…you won’t have work after that, will you?”
Alarm bloomed all over his face and he took an involuntary step back.
I held up a hand. “Don’t worry,” I assured him, “I’m not a policeman. I’m not a Baptist either, or a bolshevik, or a pamphleteer. In fact, I like to buy what it is you’re selling, but I don’t transact business in alleyways. I have a house.”
He nodded slowly, thoughtfully, chewing at his lower lip. His teeth – what of them I could see – looked in good order.
“I have a proposition for you and your friend Angelo to consider,” I began. “I want you both to come and visit me at my house. I want to see if we can form an arrangement that’s agreeable to all parties, that we might perhaps keep going for some time. Mmh?”
He looked dubious. I could hardly blame him. It had all the hallmarks of a set-up in a sense.
“Listen, Vittorio,” I said, “I’ve kept you here talking for some time and only lawyers earn money by talking.”
I took out two quarters and pressed them into his palm.
“There’s no obligation on you to do anything, anything at all,” I stressed, “but a house is a great deal more comfortable than an alley, and safer. I have no particularly unpleasant habits, and you may be assured I’ll pay you well for your effort.
“If you decide you’re interested, go to the corner of — and — streets, at eight on Saturday evening, and wait there. I’ll come by for you. But you must bring your friend.”
* * *
Vittorio:
I suspect some people would say I’ve been a bad influence on Angelo. Probably they’re right. I was the one who egged him on to climb out on that branch which broke, but he was the one who fell into the river and had to be rescued by a man who was very angry about the ruination of his suit.
I was the one who pointed out a few months back that he was now easily bigger than his father, and maybe he should try pushing back sometime. It was also me who suggested he leave, after his taking my advice on that front had caused things to move from bad to intolerable at home. And I was the one who told him how he might fund such a move.
I remember the way he looked at me, blinking and puzzled, his lips forming the shapes of words that died away unspoken.
Eventually he stuttered, “You…let men bugger you…for money?”
I nodded, since that was a fairly accurate summation of many of the transactions.
He screwed up his face against the idea. “How could you, Vitto?” he pleaded.
I sighed. “I wasn’t offered a choice the first time. I was just…renting out my mouth to begin with, but..there were two of them, and they…and then…and if you’ve gone of your own accord to a place where that sort of thing…happens, well…I guess there’s no use in complaining…” shrugging it off.
He frowned at me for a while, chewing his lip, digesting this, before saying abruptly, “What’s it like?”
“It hurts,” I told him. “But it’s over with quick and it pays well. A quarter’s the least I ever had for that. I got a dollar once.”
He whistled through his teeth. “A whole dollar…” I could see him attempting sums in his head.
“That’s right,” I told him, “for five minutes’ work. Or four. Or one. Mind you, it’s not something you can carry on at for hours. But you, you might do even better than me – I mean, I look like a sewer rat, whereas you…”
He brushed that off with an irritated flick of his hand, hating to be reminded of it. Angelo’s good looks were like a poison to him. They were the cause of all his troubles.
He was born beautiful, he had told me – born blond, blue-eyed, and bonny – and his swarthy, craggy, bow-legged father had hated him on sight, declaring, ‘That’s no son of mine’ – had hated his mother for playing him false, hated her more the more she denied it, marinating in a rising tide of resentment over the years, finding relief in explosions of violence toward either the slut or the cuckoo in the nest, as two more brothers and a sister arrived, all of them dark and bony and shrivelled-looking.
It was only after the fifth, and sixth, and seventh child emerged exactly resembling their eldest brother that his father recalled two of his five sisters had been tall and blond and made a kind of peace with his situation and his long-suffering wife. But not with Angelo.
“I guess it was just a habit with him by that time, hating me,” he’d said once, shrugging it away.
I considered my own situation, acknowledging I’d been fortunate in comparison. My stepfather treated Lucia and me no differently to any of the others, which is to say, he railed at us continuously but rarely beat us – only if we’d actually done something to earn it – and luckily, he was a sleepy-happy drunk rather than the type who needs to lay about him.
However, there were limits to his forbearance and I’d overstepped them. The door he lived behind was closed forever now, and on the other side, my mother, all my brothers and sisters…and whatever he’d chosen to tell them about me.
But Angelo and I, we made a good team, We worked together, ate together, bunked together, touted together, and never grew tired of one another.
And now? Now, I was about to propose that we went, together, to the home of a wealthy older man in an unfamiliar part of town to perform according to his wishes, and possibly to be paid handsomely – or possibly to be knocked about, locked in a cupboard, and handed over to the police as housebreakers. It could go either way.
All the same, I wanted to chance it…but I had to convince Angelo first.
* * *
Frank:
I don’t know what I expected to happen. I tried not to invest too much hope, but that golden-haired boy had got into my bloodstream in a way that hadn’t occurred for a long, long while. There had been no up-and-coming sculptors or sketchers occupying my guest room anytime in the last two years, and I’d felt no particular lack most days.
I’d assumed it was the inevitability of age creeping over me, blanketing me, thickly muffling such appetites as anticipation, enthusiasm, passion, rage, so that they rippled slightly, deep in the gut, from time to time, rather than punching through the surface with the sudden shock of a huge whale breaching. But anticipation there was in plenty, in the two days that followed.
I had work to attend to which kept me until late afternoon on Saturday, but I made sure to be home before my housekeeper had left for the day to tell her I’d be wanting hot water for a bath this evening…plenty of it.
Her comment was confined to a movement of the eyebrows as she raddled up the range and began reaching down the huge pots from a rack high above.
She’d shopped, cleaned – and washed my linens – for me for long enough now that I was fairly certain she was aware of my proclivities, but so far as I could tell, my obsession with bathing multiple times each week was in her eyes my chief perversion – indicative of a sort of bacchanalian decadence that left ordinary decent people raising their eyebrows speakingly, scratching their heads in puzzlement.
“Oh, stop that,” I told her fondly. “Have we any reasonably fresh bread in the house? Any cheese? I may have a couple of fellows over for drinks later tonight.”
“I brought bread yesterday,” she replied almost accusatively. “Did you not see? There is cheese, yes. And apples, and shortbread, and-”
“Thank-you,” I replied, stanching the flow before she could really get going, “very good. If you could just bring some more coal up so I can keep that water hot until later on, then you can go.” I buttoned my jacket back up once more and went out to have an early dinner.
The spring was far enough advanced that it was light, though thinly, at eight, and I could tell from a block away that not only were there two figures loitering at the appointed corner, but that they were the two particular figures I’d hoped to see.
Once again, I was surprised at the force of what I felt – triumph and relief, interwoven tightly – the sort of thing that could easily transmute into possessiveness. Careful, Frank, I reminded myself, tread lightly.
I came upon them, hailing Vittorio, offering him my hand. He was quite discombobulated by this but shook anyway, then retreated a pace.
“Good to see you again,” I said, then, turning to Angelo, “I spoke with Vittorio the other day…but I suppose you know that. And you are Angelo, is that right?” offering my hand to him also.
“Yes sir, I’m Angelo.” He had a lovely husky voice, deep but soft, without much volume…a voice for murmured nothings at close proximity, a bed voice. I was simmering already, aching to have him. Tread lightly…
“I’m Frank,” I told them both. “Come with me, now.”
I took them in the back way, keeping in mind the neighbors, through the little gate in the wall, through my sliver of drab neglected garden, in by the rear door. No need for such considerations once inside though. There was a service staircase, but I never used it – I hated the cloistered feel, the elbow-banging proportions.
Outside, they’d been conversing quietly with one another as they followed me. Inside they fell silent, and when I turned to glance down at them as they trailed me on the main stair, they both looked profoundly unnerved.
I wondered what they were thinking. My house isn’t large, but I don’t share it with anyone. What did they make of one individual, with a dining room, a front room, a library, a study, a bathroom, and two bedrooms, all for his use alone? No doubt it seemed ridiculous, unnecessary, possibly even obscene.
I paused by the bathroom door and shepherded them through before me.
“In here, please.”
They passed on in and stood looking about themselves, wide-eyed, huddling slightly against one another, as though for reassurance.
A thought struck me suddenly, as I reached for the little packet I’d left on the wash-stand.
“Can either of you read?”
Angelo looked dubious and alarmed in equal measure, but Vittorio nodded as he said, “I can, sir. Some.”
I handed him the enema kit with its neat printed instructions. “Can you read this?”
He didn’t have the sort of skin which colored in a blush, but I detected a hint of cringe in its place as he whispered, “Yessir.”
“Good,” I said briskly. “Well, I shall leave you two alone for a short while to take care of that, and afterward you’ll both have a bath. I’m going to watch you while you bathe.”
I closed the door on them and went downstairs to pour myself a scotch. Making my way up again, I reflected that neither of them seemed perturbed by my announcement I’d watch them bathing – but if bathing was something done in a tin tub set square in the middle of the floor of the only room you had, then likely it wasn’t seen as private. Or as a potential source of erotic pleasure for a bather or an onlooker. Well, I hoped to be able to change their minds about that.
I fetched my cigarette case from my own bedroom into the guest one, turned down the covers on the bed there, and slipped off my shoes. Then I padded down the hall and knocked on the bathroom door. “How are you getting along in there?”
Vittorio’s voice floated through the panelling. “We’re in the bath, sir.”
I stepped into the room and closed the door after me, the warmth of the scotch pervading my throat and chest, a smile tickling my face. “Damn! Already?”
Immediately they were both wide-eyed and solemn, chorusing, “Sir – sorry, sir!”
“No, no, it’s quite alright,” I reassured them. “For now, just continue as though I weren’t here.”
I leaned against the wall and nursed my drink for a minute, looking on through half-closed lids, by which time it was apparent to me that ‘continuing as though I weren’t there’, wasn’t going to work.
They were both going about things in the most matter-of-fact manner, doing a sketchy job of washing, and at a sharp enough trot that I might’ve thought the water was ice-cold had I not carried all those huge steaming pots up the staircase myself.
“There’s plenty of time,” I reminded them, “and plenty of soap. Don’t try and conserve it, for goodness’ sake. Make sure to wash your hair as well,” – there are few thing in this world less erotic than head-lice – “and when you’re done with that, wash each others’ backs, please.”
I saw a quizzical look pass between them, before Vittorio, with one of his odd flashes of boldness, ventured, “Sir, what is all this for?”
I smiled. “Well, why not? A bath is good thing to have, is it not? And for me, it’s a wonderful thing to watch. And clean skin looks nice and feels nice and smells nice – and tastes nice.”
Another look passed between them, consternation and dawning comprehension, an ‘ohhh’ moment. With a little coaching they managed to make a better job of washing, but still they weren’t lingering, they weren’t enjoying it.
Angelo especially was highly resistant to putting his head under the water to rinse his hair, but he submitted after a period of patient cajoling by his friend, who clearly had much more of the fish in his make-up.
The sight of him coming back up, panting hard through his mouth, eyes squeezed tight shut, his blond hair matted to his scalp, water cascading down his neck and shoulders, had me at full-mast in a matter of seconds. I wanted – needed – to see him in his entirety immediately.
“Alright, you can be done now,” I instructed, gesturing at him to stand. “You can get out.”
He did so, and I, most reluctantly, indicated the presence of the towel. But it can be good to have things revealed to you teasingly, in little sharp flashes, in slow progression. He turned away to dry his back, trying no doubt to preserve his modesty. I didn’t mind. I was glorying in the play of his shoulder-blades as the towel dragged to and fro and drifted ever lower to the small of his back.
His body was as beautiful as his visage…stunning, utterly stunning. He wasn’t much taller than Vittorio, maybe two or three inches more, possibly also stunted a little from lack of nourishment early on, but he was in essence a larger man, and with, I thought, some growing yet to do – some broadening, thickening, some building on the foundations so gloriously displayed before me.
He had the musculature of a piece of classical statuary just now, but I surmised that the years of labor ahead would see him grow Anglo-Saxon in his proportions, developing the bucolic beefiness of one of Dürer’s subjects, at which point I wouldn’t be interested in anything much from him except a sketch to put on my wall, but for now…
“Turn around,” I instructed, and he complied, the towel now clutched in one hand.
I took him in at a sweep, from the cool blue-grey eyes, firm jaw, the deep hollow at the base of his throat, the light dusting of curly hair on his flat-paned chest and forearms, a perfectly respectable cock, well muscled thighs, shapely calves – even his feet were lovely!
“Lord, you’re beautiful!” I exclaimed, tipping the last of the scotch down my throat, leaning over to place the glass on the wash-stand, returning to ogling him unreservedly.
He allowed it, standing docilely on display as my eyes wandered all over, but his cock hung limply in its natural state. My undisguised interest apparently didn’t inflame him in the slightest. It was a pity, but it wasn’t really a surprise. This was business, not pleasure, for him…for both of them.
I turned to Vittorio, still largely submerged. “You too – out you come.”
He rose gracefully to his feet and stepped, on tip-toe, out of the bath. Angelo, resigning himself to the fact of his nudity, handed him the towel.
Vittorio buried himself in it, drying his hair and face vigorously, viciously even, and as he emerged he peeked over at me, up through his lashes and out from between several ropy clumps of damp dark hair, fallen forward. I smiled at him, and to my surprise, he smiled back – a completely genuine smile.
His grin was transformative, entirely erasing the slightly rodentine cast to his face, and his dark eyes glinted for a moment. In the plentiful light of this room I could see they were brown rather than black, but a lustrous, rich brown, with a glowing depth to them, like a piece of beautifully polished teak.
On the whole, he was less my type, and of course he could never show to advantage ranged alongside Angelo, but I felt a flicker of interest all the same, mingling with an odd twinge of something that might almost have been affection.
He dried himself more rapidly and deftly than Angelo had, and watching him I thought, as I had when first speaking with him, that his beauty was more in the lithe grace of his movements than in his actual physical attributes.
Small and sinewy and probably a lot stronger than he looked…the sort they send up chimneys, down mine-shafts. I supposed nailing lids on packing cases was heaven compared to that. Prostituting oneself? Was that preferable too? Possibly – but what would I know?
He was olive-skinned to accompany his dark eyes, and lacking any hair on his torso. Lacking any fat anywhere, giving surprising definition to his wiry frame, glimpses of sharp bone here and there, at hip and wrist, and…I was staring at the jutting bone of his wrist when he turned it outward to pass the towel back to Angelo, and I took in the veins tracking up his inner arm.
Oh, lovely, lovely…the heat of the bath had brought the blood to the surface…I could see veins at his neck, on his thighs, on his stomach. I came back to the wrist, fancying I could detect the pulse, the lifestream coursing by.
In another time, when I was a younger man, I might have traced that meandering path with my tongue, unhurriedly following it wending ever upward, and tried to bury myself where it dived at the intimate junction of arm and shoulder, to pursue it into the depths, back to the beating heart, and I salivated thinking of it now. But that sort of thing is for a lover, not a…whatever this was.
“Come through to the bedroom,” I said, turning away, beckoning them on after me.
Once inside, I seated myself in the brocade covered arm-chair in the corner of the room. They remained standing, watching, waiting for instruction, shrinking in slightly toward one another.
Lighting a cigarette, I announced, “I want you to touch one another.”
There was a brief pause, and I felt confusion massing in the air around them, before they turned to face one another, and each reached out a hand, and placed it on the other’s forearm.
“Not like that,” I explained patiently. “I want you to explore one another.”
Four eyes turned to me, reflecting back total blankness.
“Imagine you’re blind,” I suggested, “and you have to feel your way about. You need to get to know the person in front of you, to build a picture of them, by shape, by size, and texture.”
Of course they both instantly closed their eyes.
“I said imagine you’re blind,” I clarified, “not pretend you’re blind. I want you to feel your way about as though you were sightless, but I want you to be watching while you’re doing it.”
This time there were nods of understanding, and I looked on as Vittorio, frowning in concentration, traced with his palm down the midline of Angelo’s torso from the base of his throat, halting at his navel, circling it with a finger, trifling with the sparse hair sprouting there, coaxing it toward the hollow.
I was beginning to be very pleased when he suddenly seemed to recollect himself and jerked back his hand, glancing up at Angelo, over at me.
“You’re doing well,” I reassured him, as Angelo now reached out, taking a different tack, swiping up Vittorio’s arm, across his shoulder, on up his neck, the side of his jaw – now combing a few of those stray dark strands into place behind his ear, then tracing the ear itself, looking intently, a frown gathering on his brow.
I heard him whisper, “Your ears are different to mine,” and I thought to myself, yes! now explore more deeply…go on, bend forward and taste it…He didn’t, of course. In fact, they both drew back a little, regarding each other quizzically, seemingly lost once more.
“Kiss one other,” I urged.
Keeping the space between their bodies, they leaned forward and obediently made a brief graze of the lips, before separating once more.
Babies. Utter babies. You people, did you not grow up god-only-knows-how-many of you crammed in a single loathsome tenement room? How can you not have observed humans coupling before?
But of course there would be nothing much to see in that circumstance, no signifiers beyond a few sounds of effort, a brief horizontal jousting perhaps barely detectable in a darkened room – furtive utilitarian rutting, no sensuality, no joy, merely a straight-line sprint toward the finish and the relief which floods the body with drugged contentment, or for the other party, the relief of all that being done with for another day. And nothing much of the erotic can be gleaned in an alleyway either…
I dropped my cigarette in the ashtray and stood. “Come over here,” I instructed, beckoning to Angelo.
He padded across the carpet to stand before me, displaying not the slightest sign of arousal. None was visible on Vittorio either. I had briefly wondered if they were lovers, but it seemed not.
Another thought occurred to me. “Have either of you ever had a woman?”
Both shook their heads then silently studied their fingernails, as if admitting to a misdeed.
“Don’t look so shamefaced!” I chided. “I’m the last person on earth to think any the less of you for that! Now, this is how you kiss a lover,” grasping Angelo gently by the biceps, simmering at this chance for a first taste.
He submitted to my probings without drawing away or shrinking in on himself, following along, unresistant but…unenthused.
I released him and crooked a finger at Vittorio. “Now you,” as I subjected him to the same treatment.
His response was similar. I was beginning to think it might be a hard road communicating to a couple of individuals for whom everything had always been driven by matter-of-fact need the luxury of sensuality, of plenty. Plenty of time, plenty of space, plenty of light to see by, plenty of energy, of life in reserve…
“Try again now,” I directed, and they complied, attempting to put my little demonstrations into practice.
They were somewhat stiff and fumbling, but after a few seconds Vittorio’s arms came up to drape over his friend’s shoulders, hands linking behind his neck. Progress, I thought, definite progress.
But still neither of them were aroused. Well, you can’t manufacture these things…oh, yes you can, my lesser self retorted, in an eighteen-year-old, you most definitely can…and then who’s to tell what direction things might take?
I wrestled briefly and gave in to the temptation.
As they separated, I caught Angelo’s eye. “I want you to go down on him,” I said, gesturing with my brow toward Vittorio.
The expression on his face was not so much distaste as disbelief, but after a pause, he folded his lips, squared his shoulders, and dropped one knee to the carpet.
“Don’t bring him off now, will you,” I clarified. “I don’t want that, not yet – and you,” eyeing Vittorio, “don’t let him, get yourself away before it’s too late.”
There were a couple of whispered ‘Yessir’s, before Angelo clenched his eyes tight shut and bent to his task.
I’d known I wanted to watch him doing this the minute I laid eyes on him, though at that time I’d imagined him kneeling in front of me, but this was very nearly as good, an excellent appetizer.
A quick convulsive flicker, a contraction of Vittorio’s abdominal muscles, brought my eyes to his face just in time to see the astonishment there – a kind of hybrid of horror-wonder, as his eyes sprang wide, pupils dilated, huge, deep, dark and entirely unshuttered for a moment, before he too dropped the lids and held them squeezed closed, an almost wincing expression taking over his face. Ah, yes…the agony and the ecstasy…
I fell to watching Angelo’s lovely mouth at work once more, though I only had the pleasure for about another half-minute before he was abruptly dislodged, the heel of Vittorio’s hand shoving him away as he stepped back two paces to stand, lids still sealed shut, breath almost hissing, fists clenched to whiteness at his sides, his cock painfully at attention.
I heard him muttering something which sounded like ‘murder, murder,’ confusing me, until I parsed it as ‘merda’ – shit. Poor lad. It’s steep and fast as you careen toward the edge, at that age.
I was still watching him when he finally opened his eyes. He looked disoriented. I suspected everything was happening at several removes for him just this minute.
“Now your turn,” I said, gesturing to the floor in front of Angelo.
He merely nodded, and moved into position. I wondered if having to service his friend would dampen things down for him. I thought not. He probably wouldn’t be able to lose his erection if he tried, at present.
Angelo was able to stand up to the treatment meted out to him for longer, which surprised me. Possibly he was too nervous to become hard initially, because it certainly didn’t look as if his friend wanted for technique. Once again, it seemed that what he lacked in beauty, he made up for in elegance, ease. He wasn’t relaxed, I could discern that much, but there was grace to be seen in his movements nonetheless.
Angelo didn’t observe the action, however – he’d retreated behind the shelter of his eyelids. At the outset he was clenching and unclenching his fists, but as Vittorio continued they gradually became wholly closed.
After a couple of minutes had elapsed, he suddenly blurted out a single, chopped-sounding word, repeating it a few seconds later more forcefully, emphasising it by bringing the underside of his fist down on Vittorio’s shoulder, at which he detached and scrambled to his feet.
They looked at one another, at what they’d done to one another, standing wide-eyed and wary like two toms, sidling, circling, keeping a buffer of space between them.
I had them lie down on the bed and return to the foreplay. I’d reasoned that by creating the arousal, I might unleash a desire to pursue, to satisfy it, but any such hope was quickly dashed. If anything they were more fumbling than before.
I supposed they were unnerved, embarrassed to be found in such a state with each other, and self-conscious about the proximity I was urging on them. There was no point in pushing it any further today.
I walked over to them, lying side-by-side, and ran my hand down Angelo’s back, over his buttocks.
“Alright, now,” I began, “come over here.”
I had him shuffle to the edge of the mattress and assume a pose on his hands and knees. He complied without need for coaching – It seemed that this at least was familiar to him.
Then I beckoned to Vittorio. “Get up and come around here by me.” He did so, and I told him, “Now you’re going to fuck him.”
He looked at me aghast – as indeed did Angelo – before stuttering, “Sir…but – I – thought-”
“I know, I know,” I interrupted him, “you thought it’d be me doing that. And it will be later, but not just now, and,” addressing myself to Angelo, “you needn’t worry, he’s going to be very careful and gentle with you, both because I’ll be here to make sure of it, and because he’ll want to be, seeing as you’re going to take a turn at him after.”
They both exhaled with a shudder, averting their heads so that they couldn’t catch sight of one another, but I was gratified to see that neither of them had as yet flagged noticeably. Ah, youth…
“It’s just a little quirk of mine,” I explained. “I enjoy observing these types of goings-on. And you can think of it as doing each other a favor – I’m fairly large, so to have had a practice run beforehand will prove no bad thing.”
Glancing at Vittorio, who was needing to be the active partner at this point, I saw that he was beginning to reduce some by now.
“Go around the front and feed that to him until it’s back in proper shape,” I directed.
He muttered some saint’s name, in invective I thought, rather than appeal, as he clambered onto the bed to carry out my instructions, also hissing something to Angelo who of course could make no reply.
I assumed they’d both need a lot of coaching to see the coming act as anything other than nasty, brutish and short, given their histories, and kept up a commentary of instruction and explanation throughout. It did mean that I wasn’t able to wholly give myself over to the glory of taking it all in, but I told myself it was early days, that there would, hopefully, be further opportunity, further development.
Despite my dogged insistence on slowness, my repeated reminders to pause and wait out the tension if they felt themselves cresting, I reckoned neither of them made it past the minute mark – each, despite his instinctive distaste, being simply caught up in the riptide of sensation and carried along on its current.
Vittorio’s thrust and retreat was accompanied by a single whispered word or phrase, repeated over and over. I couldn’t catch it properly – spicate?, spicaci? – something like that. I wondered if he was reiterating to himself my own ongoing chant of ‘slowly, slowly’, but who was to tell?
When it was his turn, Angelo, in contrast, was silent and remote, internal, unreachable, but a picture of physical perfection, muscle groups bunching and slackening under his skin in a sinuous subterranean dance that nearly made my head spin.
Well, I told myself afterward, alone for a moment, having sent them to wash once more, it may indeed have been short, but at least it wasn’t nasty or brutish. Neither became so lost to himself as to take his pleasure roughly, heedless of its effect on his fellow. Of course, such lack of consideration will only rise to the surface in those moments, if it’s there in the first place, and these two evidently liked each other, trusted one another – worked well together.
By the time they returned, I had unbuttoned my flies, and was absently fondling myself. I smiled at them as they entered. This time I didn’t receive any answering grins.
“Come back over here,” I said, nodding at Vittorio, patting the mattress where he’d been positioned a very few minutes before.
He might, I suppose, have felt himself entitled to a rest, but he needed to go first as two climaxes in an evening were becoming unlikely for me by now, and I wanted above all things to finish in Angelo, he being so obviously the pinnacle of delight.
Vittorio took in the sight of my cock as he passed, standing proud in hot anticipation, and invoked the same saint again – this time I thought it might have been an appeal.
It really isn’t a blessing, to be blessed with a larger than usual organ. To be sure, some lads have a fetish for that sort of thing, but in my experience most don’t, and I never liked the idea of inculcating dread into my partners.
“It’ll be alright,” I assured him, stroking one of his flanks consolingly, “it’ll be alright, you’ll see. I promise you I won’t injure you. I know how to do this properly – trust me.”
He made no answer, no movement, and barely a sound as I broached him, just a tiny high-pitched whine, hastily swallowed. I held still and he did the same. After a few seconds it occurred to me that he was too still, like the glassy surface of a pond. He was holding his breath.
“You need to breathe,” I told him. “You won’t get through on one lungful today, my boy – I’m going to be at this for a while. Breathe now, get those bellows working again. I’ll wait…I’ll wait just like this until you’re ready.”
He exhaled in a rush, took another gulping lungful, and held.
“Come on,” I encouraged him, “you know how to do this. Breathe. In – and out, in – and out. Try and relax. Don’t fight it, that makes it worse. Stop thinking, concentrate on now, on breathing.”
Once I had got him back to a non-labored rhythm, I caressed his lower back, his buttocks, the undersides of his thighs in long strokes, just the very tips of my fingers, petting and coaxing and soothing as I slowly inched my way into him.
Once fully buried I halted again. “Good boy…well done, well done,” reaching forward, running my hands all the way up his spine.
It was ram-rod straight – still he was holding himself primed against an imagined onslaught.
“Dip down just here,” I instructed, focusing my stroking now on the small of his back, adding pressure, insistence, “let it drop, come on, like an ol’ swayback horse. That’s it, you’ve got it, well done. There see, that’s better isn’t it? That makes it easier, yes?”
A vague nod, in answer.
I looked down at the two of us, so viscerally linked, as I resumed lightly combing him with my fingers, and marvelled at the loveliness of his skin. Poets always praise pale skin, and indeed I myself had frequently gloried in it – the whiteness and softness of those areas always obscured by clothing, the vulnerability they communicated, the intimacy implied in viewing them – but at this moment, I saw beauty in the very uniformity of this dusky pelt, unvarying according to exposure or usage, not a mole, not a blemish anywhere to interrupt the simple streamlined sameness from ankle to neck.
“Lord, you have beautiful skin,” I breathed, still tracing it, “exquisite, so lovely.” I wanted to rut now…badly. “Are you accommodating me sufficiently, do you think?”
Another nod, a subtle grunt of assent.
I took hold of his hips either side, the pads of my fingers curling down, coming to rest on the jut of his pelvic bones, and allowed my own hips into motion, a slow gyrating nudge and retreat.
I felt him give in some inscrutable way when he finally accepted I wasn’t going to damage him. I commended him, increasing my pace a little, and beckoned Angelo, who’d been trying very hard to disappear into himself, to my side and closer again, near to my face.
Then I whispered to him, “I want you to get underneath and service him with your mouth.”
He looked at me in utter incomprehension, hissing, “But…how?…”
“You’ll see,” I told him, stilling my thrusting, bringing one of my hands down to stroke at the insides of Vittorio’s thighs.
“Broaden your stance now,” I instructed, “put your knees apart further – further, that’s it.”
He obeyed fluidly, unhesitatingly, without need for explanation, and I widened my own stance in concert, remaining linked, so that we sank down some few inches together. Now that the panic had drained out of him, he was seemingly very pliable. I supposed it had become automatic for him to unquestioningly humor the whims of others in such a context.
I indicated the gap we’d created to Angelo, and he duly clamped his arms to his sides, wormed his way through, and set about the task I’d assigned him.
I heard a sort of quavering whimper from Vittorio as he began, and a few seconds later, witnessed him drop onto his forearms, threading his fingers in amongst his hair. I remained motionless until I could tell he was fully hard, then I took a good grip on his hips once more, keeping him anchored in consideration for his friend, and stood there rocking myself gently back and forth in my own personal nirvana.
Vittorio held on much longer this time, due no doubt to a combination of having already erupted once and to the intimidating novelty of what he was being put through, but after a while I could discern the signs. Though silent, he was tugging at the hair he had clutched in his fists, grinding his forehead into the bed-sheet, subtly writhing, and he desperately wanted to move his hips – I was needing to clasp him increasingly forcefully to keep him immobile.
“You don’t need to hold back,” I breathed, “not this time. Just let it go, let it go – let it go.” And he did. It was quiet, but in no way understated – powerful and prolonged, eye-wateringly intense.
I knew I could maintain myself through this and much more, but for a reckless instant I didn’t want to.
I overcame it, though there were still tinges of regret spearing me as the last rippling convulsions died away, and I stepped back, releasing my grip, exiting him and patting a slim cheek gently. “Well done.”
He extricated himself from Angelo, collapsing down on his side in a fetal position, bringing his hands up to cover his face. I let him have his moment while I maneuvered Angelo up into position to take his place. He wouldn’t meet my eye either.
Vittorio, perceiving from the disturbance to the bed’s surface the changes taking place, came out of hiding and began speaking quietly, urgently to Angelo in Italian.
It irritated me faintly that they should have this code between them, opaque to me, until I remembered that I had on many an occasion segued into French when addressing a friend or colleague, with the precise intention of rendering our speech incomprehensible to servants or bystanders.
I listened, trying to detect the broad intent, as I surveyed Angelo’s glorious physique. It seemed from the cadence to be reassurance and encouragement – the sort of soothing repetitious nothings I had myself employed only a few minutes hence.
I ran my hands up his back, either side of his spine, introducing him to my touch, using my whole palms this time rather than fingertips, wanting to experience not so much the velvety surface as to acquaint myself with the sub-soil, the gentle undulations, the glide and flex of muscle over muscle.
Neither glide nor flex was discernible now though. He felt almost as much like an alabaster figurine as he looked. Perhaps it was unwise to be hovering here like this…better to be doing the thing so he could discover for himself that his dread was largely misplaced.
Once again, when I was finally fully sheathed in him I paused, still breathing platitudes, hands roaming down and under, exploring his chest and stomach as well, drinking in his delightful proportions.
I waited and waited, hoping the talk and the touch would take on a hypnotic effect, but there was no dispelling the hum of resistance that pervaded his flesh. I gazed along the groove of his lovely spine, lying well bedded between two fillets of muscle, imagining it forming a deeper valley still, if he were to arch his neck up, back, toward me.
I wouldn’t be seeing that today. His golden head was down, enduring, simply enduring. Patience, Frank, patience. The main thing is to see to it that he comes back.
I caught Vittorio’s eye, and raised one brow at him, and that was all the prompt he needed, shimmying lithely in under his friend.
Once receiving these ministrations, I was able to detect some slight change in Angelo’s bearing – he didn’t exactly relax, so much as become distracted by the additional stimulation, unbending enough to begin bucking, minutely at first, then more obviously, in search of those pleasurable sensations, so I let him pursue them, following rather than leading in this instance, assuming Vittorio would cope.
My arousal was stoked as his movement increased, not just from the physical stimulus he was providing me, but from the realisation that clearly I wasn’t causing him any overwhelming discomfort, or he’d be proceeding more gingerly.
He’ll come back, I told myself jubilantly, reaching a forearm under to wrap across his pelvis, bring him in tight, impose stillness on him, have the finish my way, holding myself at the cusp until I felt the expulsive shuddering overtake him, and let myself go as well.
I sent them to clean up once more and dress, and fetched a plate of cold food up to the bedroom for them to eat while I detailed my proposal.
I was pleased to see that each had apparently recovered his equilibrium enough to make considerable inroads into it. Or possibly they were just very hungry. I gave them a cigarette as well, took one myself, and laid my cards on the table.
“Now, you’ll remember,” nodding at Vittorio, “that I mentioned the possibility of an ongoing arrangement with you and your friend. I’m going to tell you what my terms would be, and you can decide between yourselves whether they’re acceptable.
“Firstly, I will pay you five dollars each for coming here tonight, and I’m prepared to do the same each week, for an evening such as this – though usually it would be Sunday, as I frequently have other engagements on Saturday evenings – however, that’s detail.
“What you need to understand is that you would earn five dollars a week each, for one evening’s work, but you must cease all other work of this nature for the duration of our agreement.
“I’ve survived fifty years on this earth without so much as a dose of the clap, and that’s down to a little luck, and a great deal of caution. I see no reason to whistle all that away just now. So, if you decide to enter into this arrangement – and it needs to be both of you, then there must be no other dipping of wicks by either of you, and I include women and girls in this – they’re not any less likely to be carrying a disease.
“If you wish between times to amuse yourselves with one another, I have no objection to that, because it doesn’t break the triangle we’ve established here. Understand, I’m not binding either of you. There would be no set time for this arrangement to run, and any one of us may exit it at any time by no more than an expressed wish to do so. Do you have any questions?”
Angelo merely blinked at me, still processing, I thought, but Vittorio hastily swallowed his mouthful of bread-and-jam, and replied;
“Sir – yes. Is it necessary for us to decide tonight?”
“Not at all,” I assured him. “You have a week – or a little more, actually. I’ll come to the corner again at eight on Sunday next week. If you’re there, good. If not, I’ll know what you’ve decided.”
I smiled and stood, reaching for my pocketbook. They scrambled reflexively to their feet in response, each taking his recompense with foot-shufflings and head-duckings that suggested to me they were eager to be gone from here, so I gave them another couple of cigarettes and led them downstairs, across the now pitch-black garden, and released them through the back gate.
I stood outside in the still air for a little, within the wall, listening for sounds of life. There was nothing close by – no night birds, crickets, crunching footsteps – just the insistent barking of a single dog, muffled and distorted by distance.
I flicked away the end of my cigarette and and made for the house, wondering how it was possible to find oneself alone in a city so thronging with people.