Date: Thu, 5 Dec 2013 16:55:42 -0500
From: Redpatience@Safe-mail.net
Subject: The Lad on the Train part 1 (set in 1924)

	Disclaimer: All the usual warnings apply; if it is illegal in your
community to read erotic literature, especially that which concerns a man
and a boy, go away.

My aim here was to write one of the best written pieces on Nifty; it should
be more than just a story for somebody to beat off to (although it should
help you do that beautifully, by the end). It's meant to be an immersive
transport to another place and time with prose as good as a literary
novel. Its elements of eroticism are hopefully matched by both its
believability and its romance.

A few recommendations: I recommend a cup of tea or a bit of brandy or a
scotch with this story. I recommend listening to Bjork's
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhHfBsbH5nA "I Remember you" as you begin
the story. In addition, for your vivid visualization, I always pictured
Andrew as looking and sounding like David Tennant; Peter is more up to you.



Amsterdam

	To his immense frustration, the woman at the ticket booth could not
understand his admittedly poor French, and it seemed that his seat
assignment had changed.
	"This says," he stammered in English, knowing full well that her
English was even poorer than his French, "this says--shared cabin--or
something `ensuite,' I paid for a single occupancy bed."
	"So sorry, sir," the woman repeated, "I cannot help."
	"Je sais, je sais. Merci de votre patience."
	"Au revoir, monsieur."
	He forced a smile, sighed and hefted his suitcases off toward the
platform. A hot cup of tea and a few minutes reading the newspaper settled
him into his characteristically Scottish stoicism; it was really nothing,
but the idea of having a mystery companion the entire way from Amsterdam to
Geneva did not make him happy. Andrew Carmichael was rather a hermit of a
man.
	An art historian and curator of the Royal Scottish Museum in
Edinburgh, most men knew him as a quiet, obsessive chap, far more likely to
spend his evenings poring over a restoration of a painting or a heap of
books than to be found in a billiard room or in the smoky warrens of a
pub. He spoke easily enough to large roups and could have a commanding,
gregarious presence when the situation called for it, but he was above all
else a loner and bachelor for decades in spite of the vigilant scheming of
his family. He had anticipated with relish the long, lulling train ride
into the alps and brought with him a volume of Tristram Shandy, and with
nearly twenty-four hours of travel ahead, he had planned on spending every
waking hour sipping tea or scotch and reading one bawdy chapter after
another.
	He cleaned his glasses after noticing a smudge of grease and, in
the laspe between having removed them (and becoming in the process, blind
as a mole in daylight) and replacing them on the bridge of his nose, his
heart leapt.
	Before him in a column of light from the great high windows of the
station had sat the most angelic boy he had seen. He had long, feathery
blonde hair, honey colored eyes, rosy cheeks, and skin golden-white as
sunlight. He wore a schoolboy's knickers and red suspenders, high green
socks and a sport coat. A mixture of boredom and forlorn sadness filled
those sparkling brown eyes, and for a moment he looked at Andrew directly,
smiled, and then looked back at his brown loafers.
	 Andrew stood abruptly, shuffling the paper back together and
taking up his cane from where it leaned against the table. He lingered a
moment, considering his hat, but it sat there on the table unseen; he was
really looking out of the corner of his eyes at the boy. His bare knees
were pale as porcelain and ran down into long, perfectly curved
calves. Andrew suppressed a sigh.
	"Alright," he whispered, "enough of that nonsense."
	He clipped away over the brick floor toward his platform.
	The train rolled in near dusk, glowing with steam and golden
light. Andrew handed his luggage to porters in the uncomfortable way that
middle class people allow others to do their work for them. He climbed up
the iron step and entered the carpeted darkness of the car.
	It took some time for him to find his cabin. At first, a Dutchman
reading his ticket sent him backward; but then, having reached the furthest
extreme of the train and seeing the tracks passing away through the glass,
finding no such compartment as d8, he asked again and found that his ticket
could only have been read by a man with dyslexia. Why in hell would it be
in lower case? Picking his way down the narrow halls once again, he felt no
impatience but only a sort of numb tranquility. The train pulled through
the brick labyrinth of Amsterdam, and by the time Andew found his cabin,
the sunset shone over the vast lowland of windmills, pastures, and
picturesque dairies.
	d8, the cabin read. Again, why the devil would it be written
lowercase? He checked the ticket one more time, and decided to knock in
case it was wrong.
	"Come in," said a high voice.
	"I'm sorry," he said through the door, "there may be some
mistake. I'm meant to be in d8, but I thought it was single occupancy. Or
anyhow it may not be--"
	"No, it's a double," said the girl on the other side.  "May I come
in? We may need to suss this out with the ticket collector."
	 He unlatched the door and slid it aside to find the angelic boy
from the cafe sitting with his ticket in hand, as if waiting for it to be
punched.
	The introductions were rather awkward, mainly because Andrew felt
as if he were a flustered schoolgirl speaking to her bonny for the first
time. Which, he thought to himself ruefully, was not so far from the
truth. Enough of that, though. He shook the lad's hand, introduced himself,
and asked where the boy was bound.
	"Geneva, sir."
	"That makes two of us. Sorry, I didn't introduce myself," Andrew
realized.
	"No need to. You're Andrew Carmichael."
	"How on earth?" Andrew puzzled. The boy gestured behind the
professor.
	"Your luggage preceeds you. I've been waiting to see who you'd
be. I'm glad you're not some snoring old man."
	"Ha! Well aren't you a clever lad," he smiled, hoping he wasn't
blushing too obviously.
	"I suppose then, your ticket says the same as mine? d8 in lower
case letters?"
	"Yes."
	"I was confused because, w-well," he looked at the boy and
stammered, kept himself from saying `I thought you were a girl', and
stopped. "Because of nothing. I'm sorry I didn't catch your name, lad."
	"I didn't say--I'm Peter. Peter Van Nuys."
	"A dutch lad? You've got perfect English!"
	"My mother is French. My father Dutch. My gran is English, and
lives in Kent. I spend summers with her."
	"I see, I see," Andrew said. Feeling a bit more comfortable, he
loosened his tie and packed his pipe. His luggage had preceeded him, and to
what effect? He sat down on his bed. There was a small table between the
two of them, and a tiny vase with a daisy in it. He sat down and took of
his shoes, cracking the window for some fresh air; he stretched out across
the bed and pretended to read for a moment, and then snuck a few glances
over at the boy, who had done the same.
	Peter couldn't have been more than thirteen or fourteen, and why he
was traveling alone could only be explained by his school uniform. He held
himself like an adult, casually but congenially, and was reading from a
book of poetry by Rimbaud, with an admittedly childish fidget, his right
foot bobbing off the edge of the bed. Andrew could not draw his eyes away
from the downy fuzz on the tense muscle just above the kneecap, nor the
strangely prominent bulge in the lad's knickers that suggested (could it
be?) he was having one of the ubiquitous erections that plague adolescents.
	"I was just about to go have tea, would you join me?" Andrew asked,
puffing his pipe to a merry orange glow.
	"Oh, no sir, I couldn't," Peter said, sitting up to address Andrew
respectfully.
	"Ah go on, son. You won't turn down a hearty supper, will you?"
	Peter shook his head. "I ate in the cafe, actually."
	"Really?" Andrew said, taking off his coat and hanging it behind
the door. When he sat down again, he had a smirk. "There, I've caught you
in a lie. I saw you in the cafe, lad. You were staring at your shoes, and
eating nothing but what I'd call the food of contemplation."
	"Really?" the boy said, "I mean, I didn't notice you. I must have
been miles away."
	"Yes. You looked it. Now enough of this nonsense. You're going to
have a good hearty high tea with me, and that's the end of it."
	The dining car was packed, full of lots of fat, rosy Swiss and
Dutch and Germans, Belgians and Bavarians, in pearls and furs and tweed
coats, white satin and black silk. The sun had set and the warm glow of the
lamps lit their evening meal: flaky bread, fresh mayonnaise, roast beef
with carrots and potatoes, sliced tomatoes, a plate of pickled herring, all
this coming out after they had nibbled on smoked gouda with crackers,
foie-gras, olives, and other amuses-bouche.
	"This is quite a lot," Peter said.
	"I've quite an appetite, and I'm sure we'll want a snack later, eh?
Also, I can't speak a lick of Dutch but would you please order one of those
pies? Those very crispy tarts whatever you call them, that your people
make."
	"A vlaat?"
	"That's the one," Andrew said.
	The boy spoke English with almost no accent whatever, and yet when
he switched to speak Dutch to the waiter, he did so flawlessly.
	An hour of conversation melted away like an eyeblink. Peter would
turn sixteen in a few months, though he had looked no more than thirteen at
first, Andrew realized that he did in fact have the maturity, fullness of
musculature, and faint peach-fuzz of an older lad but with the clean skin
and tiny build of a younger boy. He attended boarding school in Geneva,
though soon he would have to go to mortuary school in preparation for
taking over the family business, which his Uncles were very firm about. He
much preferred art to dead bodies, though.
	"Paintings, sculptures, architecture. I love it. I've seen the
Louvre six times and it neverg grows tiresome. I want to tour Italy but
Mother says there's no money for that. Besides she says I'll get tired of
art soon enough and start thinking about girls. And money. She's wrong," he
muttered.
	"You know what I do for a living, lad?"
	"What?"
	"I'm the Curator of the Largest art museum in Scotland. I studied
art history for a decade, and taught it for another decade. I'll never get
tired of it as long as I live."
	Peter looked as if he had just been introduced to Jesus Christ. His
lovely brown eyes, his full lips, the perfection of his chin and eyebrows
and everything about him suddenly appeared as if Andrew had never seen them
before: as if they had been veiled behind a cloth stained with
desperation. He came alive! His physique and features were enough to give
Andrew palpitations before; add this joie-de-vivre and burning animus of
curiousity and Mr. Carmichael thought he might not survive the conversation
without a cardiac arrest.
  	Peter asked him dozens of questions. What eras, what artists, what
sculptors what painters? Where? Where had he been, studied; who had he met?
Did he know any great architects? Had he ever met Oscar Wilde?
	"Haha, Wilde?" Andrew exclaimed, "I'm not that old!"
	"I'm so sorry, Mr. Carmichael," Peter said, and touched the man's
hand. A jolt of connection between them--a deep physical rapport. A flash
of longing in the boy's eyes. Or was it just him?
	"I didn't mean to ask because you're old. I just supposed--maybe
you're rather famous. Mr. Wilde was a great lover of art."
	"Oh the greatest," Andrew said emphatically, and then with a darker
tone, "in all its most esoteric forms. Now, I must ask you a few questions,
lad! It's my go, so-to-speak."
	"Oh. Well, I'm nothing so interesting as the curator of a great
museum."
	Andrew would beg to differ, but let his questions prove that
instead of saying it.
  	 Peter's had no close friends in Amsterdam, where his mother and
her brothers-in-law lived, and as he spoke of them it was clear that his
father had been long dead. The lad spent all his days either at school or,
in the summers, with his grandmother in Norfolk. When it came to her, he
spoke with infantile adoration; she was the only light in his life. Andrew
felt a tremendous wave of affection for this boy as tears welled in Peter's
eyes and he described his Grandmother's house by the North Sea.
	"Grass blows on the hillsides. We go down to the beach and pull
traps out for crabs and lobster. She paints--painted. She taught me my
first lessons in watercoloring and oils."
	 Andrew suddenly realized they had devoured everything. They
wrapped the heel of the bread in a napkin for later, and when the waiter
came to take away the service, only a few potato chunks remained in the
beef juice.
	"I'm stuffed," Andrew said, "but I'll probably have a space for
some vlaat in about--oh, say ten minutes."
	"How do you keep that figure?" Peter asked, looking keenly at
Andrew. "You're so lean and fit. You eat like this all the time?"
	"No, no. Mostly I can't be bothered to eat. Cold cuts on bread or a
bite of an apple if I'm mindful enough to even do that. I'm walking around
all day, drinking coffee and worrying over...things. You know, silly things
adults ruin their lives with."
	They packed away pie with a cup of coffee and then moaned and
groaned their way back to the cabin.
	"Thank you ever so much, sir," Peter said emphatically. "That was
grandiose."
	"My pleasure," Andrew said, "now how about a nip of brandy?"
	"Oh...that sounds nice, but I'm rather sensitive," Peter said,
hesitant.
	"Too late. I've already got the sommelier coming down to the
cabin. I much prefer a lick of brandy or scotch to wine anyway. I'll get
you a beer, instead."
	Soon the boy was glowing with food and sipping at a bottle of
lager. There was this immediate, tense urgency between them. This sort of
rapture Andrew felt, and this sort of admiration or adulation or--something
in the boy's eyes. Or was he imagining it?
	"You're a sweet lad," Andrew said.
	"I'm sorry?"
	"You're a very sweet lad."
	"Oh. Thank you," Peter said, blushing.
	"I think you're going to do very well. And you may rely on me as a
favorable reference if ever you need one. I look forward to our day
together."
	"Me too. I mean, thank you," he said. His eyes watered a little as
he looked out the window.
	"What's wrong, lad?" Andrew said softly.
	"Nothing, nothing. Nothing," the boy repeated, more forcefully each
time.
	"Out with it. No secrets among friends."
	"My gran died at the beginning of the summer, sir," Peter
said. Tears rolled from the edges of his eyes.
	"Oh, Jesus," he swore. "I'm so sorry, Peter," Andrew said, leaning
forward with his elbows on his knees. He put his hand on the lad's shoulder
and rubbed it softly.
	"No, it's--it's not that. I cried for weeks and weeks after the
funeral and then after a while I didn't feel anything. I haven't felt
anything at all until today," he said.
	"I'm sorry I brought all that up for you, lad. I Didn't mean to
dredge up the past."
	"No!" the boy said; he nearly shouted. "You don't understand!"
	"I'm sorry, lad. I'm so sorry."
	The boy buried his face in his folded arms on the table.
	"I won't mention it again,"
	Peter grabbed Andrew's hand as he drew it away.
	"No--I'm sorry, Mr. Carmichael, please listen" he said, his face a
mess.
	"Call me Andrew, lad, please."
	"I'm sorry Andrew. I oughtn't cry, much less in front of a total
stranger!" Andrew knew exactly how he felt--if he cried, he'd push people
away. He'd look a fool. His feelings would make him even lonelier. Well,
the Scotsman thought to himself, to hell with that bloody nonsense. Emotion
was no enemy to friendship. He crossed and sat next to the boy and put an
arm around his shoulders.
	"It's alright, lad. It's okay."
	Peter melted into his side and shuddered a bit.
	"I didn't want to make you feel, bad. I'm afraid I've done just
that. I wasn't crying because you made me sad. You made me feel
happy. You're the first person who's made me feel happy since my Gran
died. Realizing that--that's what made me sad.
	"I'm flattered, but, it seems rather strange. I've only known you
for three or four hours," Andrew exclaimed.
	"I know," Peter whispered. "But I think you're a wonderful person,
Mr. Carmichael."
	"Well, you deserve a greater presence of wonderful people in your
life. I'm only sorry I couldn't arrive sooner."
	The boy laughed at this, and Andrew gave him a hankerchief to blow
his nose.
	"I'm glad I met you, Peter Van Nuys. We shall be friends from now
on, by God's Foot! You ever heard that expression? No? It's a medieval
cuss. Or rather, an Oath. Something we don't much use anymore, not even
just to be rude."
	"God's Foot!" Peter smirked through his tears. "I think I should
feel embarassed, but I'm more just excited for the train ride. I thought
I'd have a lonely trip to Geneva."
	"Don't you dare feel embarassed, lad. When you're young, you feel
like you're all alone and nobody's suffered the kind of shame and misery
you have. When I was--only wee--my Mum and Dad died together coming back
from South Africa. Ship sank off the coast. I was raised by a Governess and
my Grandfather who'd a stick up his arse long enough to use for a fishing
pole."
	Peter looked at him with watery eyes.
	"You're just telling me that to make me feel better," he whispered.
	Andrew frowned. "Aye. I'm sorry lad. You caught me in a lie."
	The boy's face sunk.
	"My Grandfather was actually a great chap. No stick."
	"Oh," Peter smiled. "I thought you made up the whole story."
	"No, no. I'm an orphan. But you needn't trust me. I tell all sorts
of lies to make you feel better."
	Peter cracked a grin and laughed. "I think you would, wouldn't
you?"
	"Probably," the Scotsman said. "Goodnight, now, Peter."
	"Goodnight, Andrew."

	The train stopped twice in the small hours of the night. Peter
awoke when it would start moving again, the momentum and chug-chug of the
machinery jolting him to awareness. He would startle, breathe deep and then
wonder "where am I?"
	As soon as he asked it, he knew, and would peer out of the corners
of his eyes. At him. At the man, Andrew. Tall, gallant, somber
Andrew. Peter had noticed him in the Cafe, in fact. He was too shy to admit
it. He had noticed the man with his aquiline nose and regal eyebrows, his
chestnut hair swept over to one side but spiked in places from the
worryings of an absent-minded professor.  Immediately he thought to
himself, "Oh!" And that was it. A wide-eyed, heart-pausing Oh. For he was
the most handsome and sad looking man he thought he had ever seen. That Oh!
continued in his chest and leapt down into his belly and then sank even
deeper, until that Oh became an "Ohh," an "ohhh!" that swirled between his
legs and made him swallow anxiously and bite his tongue until the feeling
went away.

	In the same way that Peter would awaken when the train started
again, Andrew found himself awake whenever the train stopped. He stared at
the margin of light that crept through the curtain from the electric lamps
of the stations. It was then that he would remember, and look over across
the cabin to the boy wrapped in his dark comforter. He could hear him
breathing, slow and soft.
	This kind of wicked desire and heartsickness had always been with
him. From his school days, he had realized the sex play and mischief of the
lads in the bunk beds was different for him; for he wanted it to become
more than play. He adored his mates at school, who thought he was just
powerfully sentimental, and he would cry for days when he had to leave them
behind. It didn't stop there, either. What they dubbed "sentimentality" in
his schoolboy days became something prurient and unwelcome at University.
	At Cambridge, he fell into a deep mania about his friend
Lionel. Nobody could ever read all the pages he had written about his dark
and impossible feelings; he would burn them as soon as they were
written. During the war, amid all the other God-awful horrors, he had two
awkward encounters with working class lads in the trenches, both of which
ended up with furious embarassment.  He gave up. He let that part of his
life, his heart and his feelings dry up and die. Indeed, he had often
thought that if he could have died there in the Ardennes, like most of the
boys, how much simpler would it have been? He would never, though, never
take a wife. That much decency he had, and honesty; he knew he could love
no woman, and no woman deserved his problems.
	His thoughts raced in these well-worn circles this until soft blue
light came through the windows. He pushed back the curtains and sat up, his
nightclothes damp with a cold sweat. Was that sleep, just now? A nightmare
or a fever dream? He lay back down, his palm cradling the side of his
face. Staring across, under the little table, he could see Peter's delicate
eyelashes. They fluttered, and he looked across.
	"Goedemorgen," Peter whispered.
	"Good morning lad," Andrew whispered back.
	The boy stretched and one of his feet, a divine instrument sculpted
of ivory, extended into the air. He could not see Andrew very well, because
the light only illuminated the boy's half of the room. Perhaps that is why
Peter stared. He stared at Andrew for what felt like an aeon. Evenly, with
a tiny smile.
	"What are you looking at?" Andrew asked suddenly, grinning.
	The boy blushed and said nothing, hiding his face under the covers.
	"Up and at `em," Andrew said, "wash up and I'll be back in a
moment. Do you drink tea or coffee?"
	"Oh. A little tea, if you please. You needn't buy me food, you
know!" "I'll do as I like," Andrew said firmly.
	They spent the rest of the day together, talking about Greece and
Rome, modernist painters, Dadaism, their favorite books. Andrew discovered
the lad was astoundingly well-read.
	"I don't have much to do sometimes," the boy explained.
	 It was all too quickly that they noticed the lakes and pines and
chalets of Switzerland.
	"We're in the alps," Andrew said. "We'll be in Geneva before
nightfall."
	At this, the boy was visibly deflated.
	"What happens then?" Andrew asked.
	The boy explained that he would have a mile or so to walk to the
school. His trunks would be delivered the next day.
	"What then?"
	"School doesn't start for another three weeks. I've been sent early
because my mother said she can't have me sulking around the house all day."
	"Who's to care for you at the school?"
	"Frau Ruschen. She's one of the cooks, normally, but maintains the
school during the summer. Also the Chaplain lives there year-round. There
is a library, so I thought I would just read and take walks. I like Geneva,
it's pretty."
	"Do you know why I'm going to Geneva?"
	"No...I never asked," Peter realized aloud.
	"This is my second year returning to the Musee D'art et
Histoire. I'm helping them with a sort of annual exchange. Every year we
circulate pieces--you know, to bring exhibitions of different works back
and forth."
	"How long will you be in Geneva?" Peter asked. There was an
unmistakable hopefulness in his voice.
	"Well, lad. That's mainly up to how quickly I do my job." he
grinned.
	"A week?"
	"Easily."
	"A month?" Peter asked. His face was still plaintive.
	Andrew smiled. "Unlikely. But who knows."

Geneva

	They reached the station and exited the train with a feeling of
sadness; at least, though, they were still together a while. Andrew
insisted on hiring a cab to take Peter to the school. In the back of the
cab, they found words difficult and kept looking at one another's knees,
every so often turning toward each other at the same moment to look
expectantly into the other's eyes but have nothing to say, only inhalations
that never found words.
	They found Frau Ruschen knitting in the parlor of her apartment at
the front of the school. His German was fair, but the boy spoke it much
more rapidly than he could follow, and he believed he had been stammeringly
introduced as Peter's second cousin. The woman smiled and said nothing
more, but fetched the key for the boy and told him there was a cold supper
waiting in the kitchens under a plate.
	The two of them hauled the boy's two heavy trunks up the stairs of
the dormitory. At last, they entered Peter's room; a narrow one with two
bunks and a skylight. A print of Van Gogh's sunflowers was tacked above the
bed, and Andrew immediately noticed a large leather case for carrying
canvases or lithographs. While the boy dragged the trunks inside, Andrew
heaved the thing out from behind the bed, unclasped it, and removed the
parchments from within.
	"N-No!" Peter stuttered, and clapped his hands on Andrew's forearm.
	"What's wrong? I just want to have a look."
	"Nobody can look at those!" Peter said. There was a desperate
fright in his eyes.
	"Every young artist is embarassed of his work. But you'll never get
better if you don't let those with experience make comment on it!" He
twisted out of the boy's grasp and swiftly removed a drawing.
	In charcoal, the boy had made a cracking-good rendering of Rodin's
Le Penser. The musculature, proportions, and values would have been fair
for a serious student of the arts, much less a boy his age.
	"This is quite good!" the Scotsman exclaimed. Peter looked
defeated, blushing more powerfully than ever before.
	"Please let me put them away. I can't bear it."
	"Aww, lad. Don't be so shy. I'm quite an admirer, already. I think
you've got a rare eye for light. Did you draw this from memory?"
	"No. There's a miniature of it in the library."
	"Aha. Very good. Never work from memory, if you mean to build a
serious skill. May I see another?"
	"Only if I choose it," Peter said.
	The boy sorted through the leaves of parchment and removed what
Andrew could tell from an instant had been a piece that was overworked,
pushed, erased, and tweaked far beyond what it deserved. It was a charcoal
of Michelangelo's David holding up the head of Goliath. Again, the
proportions, musculature and every technical aspect were excellent.
	"Boy, this is the quality of a first or second year academy
painter. Where did you learn to do this?"
	"I had lessons from a student at the University."
	"As part of your schooling here?"
	"No, I paid for them."
	At this, Andrew's eyebrow raised. He could hardly believe the boy's
mother or uncles would fund such a frivolous adventure.
	"You paid for them? How?" Andrew queried.
	At this the boy rested his head on one hand. There was a long
pause. "I had to model for him. Louis had lots of models!" he
assured. "Most of were girls from the bordellos and places like that. I was
the only boy, I guess."
	The ancient tradition survives, thought Andrew.
	"And that's what these are that you didn't want me to see? Drawings
of you?" Andrew asked, gesturing to the other papers.
	"No."
	"Then what?"
 	Peter hesitated. Then with a sigh, he explained. "They're my
drawings of him. I begged him to because--because, well I-I couldn't afford
to hire anyone. He's gone now, back to Paris."
	Andrew smiled, and then removed one. The boy's attention to detail
was marvelous. The dark forest of the man's pubic hair, the pert angles of
his buttocks, the slant of his shoulders. There were at least six studies
of the man in charcoal, and all of them showed the same devoted
attention. In one, the best one, Louis was looking directly at Peter while
he drew. He had a sort of sad, clear-eyed expression that seemed piteous,
estranged, distant.
	"I've looked at a hundred thousand works in this medium. Portraits,
especially. So many of them are transparent; they betray the relationship
between the model and the artist. But I can tell from these...that you
adored him, didn't you?" Andrew asked.
	Peter looked at him in shock.
	"What do you mean?"
	"I mean you wanted him, body and soul."
	The boy gaped as if he'd been struck on the mouth.  "What the hell
does that mean?" he asked. "You think you can say something like that to
me, just because I drew a nude? I'm an artist! I'm n-not a pervert!"
	Andrew sighed, but met Peter's wrathful gaze with an even, kindly
one. Peter glared with tears blinding him, fists clenched. He tore the
drawing out of Andrew's hands and balled it up.
	"I'm not a pervert!" he hissed.
	"I never said you were, Peter."
	The boy collapsed onto the bed with his head held in his hands.
	"You should leave," Peter croaked.
	"I'll do whatever you say, but please just answer one question,"
Andrew said.
	"What?"
	"Honest answer, mind. No games. Agreed?"
	"Maybe," Peter whispered.
	"Was I right?"
	The boy could only answer him with silence. He looked angry, but
Andrew knew exactly the kind of anger he was experiencing. Peter didn't
answer, but glared at the floor until Andrew went out. In the doorway, the
man paused.
	"I know how you feel, Peter. Because I think we're the same. I
think I would have wanted him, too."

	The next day was warm and sunny. Birds woke Andrew early on, and he
lay staring at the high cieling of his room in the Hotel D'Avant. A pitcher
at his bedside table was filled with purple tulips, and they were an
instant delight because they reminded him of Peter.
	The boy occupied every space in his imagination. He could not see
clear of leaving Geneva until he had no choice but to leave; to be a ghost
hovering at the boy's shoulder would be better than to return to Edinburgh
and the dreary emptiness of his days there.
	He ate on the patio of the Hotel, eggs Benedict. There was a canal
running right next to the hotel and the light reflected from the water
danced across the walls of the houses and shops. Hydrangeas were thick in
pots all around him and he felt so tranquil he might melt.
	The concierge was a pencil-moustached man with a gigantic nose. He
looked a bit like a Parrot in his red overcoat and he brought Andrew his
tea and a letter on a silver tray.
	"Monsieur, it arrived this morning very early. Not by post. I'm
afraid it was only just brought to my attention."
	"How odd," he said. "Who delivered it?"
	"A young man in school clothes."
	"Ah, I know the one. My cousin," he said as an afterthought. No
harm being too cautious.
	"Very good monsieur," the man said, and bowed out. Andrew tore the
letter open. It was written in clean, sweetly flowing cursive.

Dear Mr. Carmichael,

I cannot see you again. Even if what you told me is true, I cannot say
goodbye again like I already have too many times. I'm afraid may make no
sense to you, but I can't explain. I'm through with all the nonsense (Louis
and all that) and I'm not going to let those impulses (like you said you
have) get the best of me anymore.

Goodbye,

P.V.N.

P.S. I'm so terribly sorry. Thank you for all your kindness. No one has
been better.

Andrew struggled not to cry in the morning sunlight. The note was soon
crushed into a wad in his red-knuckled fist, and he hardly noticed storming
out of the Hotel and onto the boulevard and marching at a fiendish pace to
the boy's school.
	He walked in and went straight to Frau Ruschen.
	"Have you seen Peter this morning?"
	"He just left a moment ago," she said startled. "Is something the
matter?"
	"No. Well. Maybe. Did you see where he went?"
	"Oh, down Rue Chambord," she said cursorily.
	Andrew Ran.

	Cliche as it seemed, Andrew found his fears confirmed: the lad was
standing in the middle of the Pont de Mont Blanc, the largest bridge in
Geneva spanning the Rhone. It was, however, too low to really kill a man
from the jump. Regardless, he snuck up behind the boy and only when he was
in arms' reach set his elbows on the stone railing.
	"How did you find me?" Peter asked sullenly.
	"Does it really matter? You're about to kill yourself anyway."
	"Where would you get an idea like that?"
	"I've tried it myself a few times. Never on a bridge in broad
daylight, leaving a letter behind first. But you know. I have tried."
	"I suppose I thought about it," the boy said, bowing his head. He
began to shake and shudder.
	"Oh, come on now," Andrew said, and put a hand on the back of
Peter's neck.
	"I don't want to do this alone anymore," the boy whimpered, and
tears spilled down his face.
	"What am I, chopped liver?" Andrew asked.
	Peter turned and buried his face in Andrew's chest. He wrapped the
boy in his arms and Peter sobbed. They swayed back and forth.
	"There, there, lad." he whispered.
	They stood there a long time. Wagons and cars and buses passed and
heads turned, but no one would have guessed what was truly the cause of the
boy's grief.
	Andrew sighed. "God may not have any great love for me, but he
clearly had a hand in putting us in a train car together."
	"You think so?" Peter asked.
	"No. But it seems damned convenient, doesn't it?"
	"I suppose."
	"You want to be happy, don't you?"
	"Of course!" the boy exclaimed.
	"Well you won't do it by shutting out the only person in the world
who'd like to help."
	They went to the Hotel, and Peter tried to hide his puffy eyes from
the staff and concierge.
	"Go ahead of me. Up two flights of stairs, room 21." he said, and
gave the boy the key. He asked for room service to send up tea, and then
scaled the two flights of steps.
	He entered the room to find the windows open and Peter sitting on
the bed. He sat down next to the boy, tousled his hair.
	"Is it alright, that I touch you like that?" he asked. He felt sad
and strange about the whole thing, anymore. For all he knew, he might just
be preening this boy, manipulating him like putty.
	"Yes," Peter whispered.
	"I'm afraid to touch you, lad. I'm afraid you don't want me to, but
can't say no."
	"Oh no!" Peter said emphatically. "I do. I mean, I do want you to!
I want you to hold me, and touch me, and--yes. But it hurts. It makes my
heart sting. I'm not used to it."
	"I think I understand," Andrew said. "Doesn't your mum hug you?"
	"No. No, I suppose not. She was always very distant and sad after
Father died. Only gran would show affection toward me."
	"Poor lad," Andrew sighed.
	"Aren't you curious about people like us?"
	"No, I suppose not," the boy said. "I never thought there were
others. I mean, I thought I was a pervert."
	"You never thought there might be other perverts?" the man grinned.
	"Well. I always thought they'd be. Monsters, I suppose. Old men
with dead bodies in the cellar."
	"Well. I guess there are a few of those in the world. Mainly men
like us are sad, intellectual types. If they're educated. Otherwise, I
guess working lads who don't talk much about it, or can't afford to, or
don't know how."
	"How many are there?" Peter asked suddenly. As if there were a
number.
	"I dunno, lad. Hundreds in big cities, at least. I know there are
seedier places, in London or Berlin, where men meet every night of the week
to...well, you know."
	"Yes," Peter said bashfully.
	"Who knows. There may even be thousands of us. How could we ever
find out?"
	"Are they all very handsome?" the boy asked.
	The Scotsman erupted in laughter. "What do you mean?"
	"I mean, I've only ever known you. And Louis, even though I think
Louis liked girls more than boys."
	"Are you saying you think I'm handsome?"
	Peter looked at his shoes, flushed. "Yes."
	There was a knock at the door. A maid brought in the tea tray, lay
it on the bedside. She smiled and ducked out.
	"I don't think you are handsome, lad," Andrew said as he poured the
tea. The boy sunk his head. He looked crestfallen.
	"I think you're sublime."
	"What? What's that word?"
	"Peter, you are so beautiful to me that words don't suffice."
	The boy frowned, and furrowed his brow, and then looked up with his
honey colored eyes. His lips parted ever so-slightly, his shoulders rising
in an anxious breath.
	"Can I kiss you?" he gasped. More tears.
	Andrew didn't respond with words. He brushed at the boy's cheeks
with one knuckle, and Peter laughed.
	"Not just yet, lad," Andrew whispered, and held the boy's hand
between his own.
	"But soon you'll be gone," the boy sighed.
	"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may?" Andrew mused. "Listen,
lad. You've plenty of time. Plenty of chances. You've got your whole life
ahead. You can do anything you want. If you don't want to be a bloody
undertaker, you don't have to. And at the very least, I'm going to continue
to pay for you to have lessons, if you so desire."
	Peter looked up at him with the most abject expression of gratitude
he had ever seen.
	"Ach, you're a mess," Andrew laughed, dabbing at the boy's eyes
with his hankerchief. "Come're." he said, and wrapped his arms around him,
kissed him on the top of the head. Peter sighed, a long deep contented
sigh.

	Andrew stood with his spectacles poised on the tip of his nose, not
looking through the lenses but rather over them at the mural-sized
Rembrandt in question. Color, line, texture: everything dissolved when his
lenses no longer mediated sight. It retarded every ability he had to judge
a large work by its detail and forced him to see only the vast and general
play of light and color.
	"Non," he mused aloud. "C'est impossible de faire une place."
	"Oui, monsieur. Allons-y," the curator said, and they continued.
	The tour would continue all day, until they had hand picked around
thirty or fifty pieces that would be likely candidates for exchange. In
week to come, they would have to narrow that down to a dozen iconic pieces
of art and then arrange for the loan, shipment and exhibition of them.
	They had come into a large gallery lit by gloriously large
skylights; of course, this hall housed statuary. Sculptures from the
ancient world, mainly; there were pieces by Praxiteles found nowhere else
in continental Europe here, as well as replicas of some of the greatest
Greek art known to humanity.
	Antinous. Andrew paused in front of the supple and lithe nude of
Hadrian's beloved. He had admired it for many many years; indeed, for as
long as he had known about it. Poring over obscure references from
puritanical Christian commentators, it had taken him years to piece
together what Hadrian and Antinous truly were.
	"We've never brought sculpture this size to Edinburgh," he said
aloud, forgetting his guide spoke very little English.
	"Pardon?" queried the directeur.
	"Ce qu'il est possible de faire avec ces grosses pièces?"
	"Mmm," the director murmured, "Hier, il n'y a pas beaucoup. Mais
aujourdhui, Nous avons expédié une duplicat de le David de
Donatello à Paris."
   "The same size?"
   "Plus ou moins,"
   "Could we bring this to Edinburgh with the others?"
   "Peut-etre, monsieur. Le prix de transport c'est grande!"
   "Say--money was no object?"
   "Bien sur...mm...je dois en parler avec les membres du conseil
d'administration."
   "I see. I suppose I could stay in Geneva for a few more days."  There
was a cool in the air and the crickets chirped as he left; it was already
late in the day and he hadn't eaten since noon. Peter was waiting for him
in a shadow near the street.
	"Is it quite safe for you to hang around here on your own in the
dark?" Andrew asked. They began walking together and the boy tried to grasp
his hand. Andrew gently put it back in the boy's own trouser's pocket.
	"You know we can't, lad. Not even in the dark, not even when
nobody's around."
	"I know," he sighed.
	"So quit trying," the man scolded, and tousled the boy's hair.
	They had eaten together most nights since a week ago, when they
first had what they had hitherto dubbed as "the big talk" in which Andrew
explained all of the many rules, precautions, dangers, and hesitations he
had accumulated for himself since he was the boy's age.
	"It seems so terrible," Peter had whispered, stuffing an overlarge
piece of chicken into his mouth.
	"Well, it is," the Scotsman admitted. "But at least we have each
other eh?"
	They walked down the boulevard in the sickly yellow glow of
streetlamps, and Andrew thought to himself, as he had so many times since
it began, that he would not let this become some sort of predatory
situation. At best, he would be a mentor and a guide for this lad. At
worst, they would be equals bumbling along through the wicked dangers of
this life.
	"I had this idea," Peter said, and removed a well-worn note from
his pocket.  "Read it."
	In very Dutch-sounding German, the boy's mother had written that
Peter would have to be excused for the next week as he was going on a tour
of the lakes and mountains with his cousin, Andrew. If he were not back in
time for the first schooldays, Frau Ruschen was to scold Andrew very
thoroughly.
	"This is brilliant forgery," Andrew said.
	"What do you think?" Peter asked. "I know lots of places we can go!
Switzerland is so beautiful."
	"I have to stay and negotiate this deal over the statue,
lad. That's why I get to stay an extra week anyhow."
	The boy looked sullen, and they passed into a shadow between two
lights. It was quiet and they were in a lush neighborhood with a park to
their left. Andrew clasped the boy's hand.
	"I can get away for day or two, though."
	They left town by train, although it was only an hour ride to the
chalet they would stay in. They carried rucksacks up to a charming three
story wattle-and-daub tavern built at least four centuries ago. The streets
had wagonruts a foot deep and the proprietor wore Lederheusen and a gray
beard that reached to his navel.
	They hiked up into the hills around eleven, bringing a basket full
of victuals and a blanket in the rucksack. Peter wore his kickers and his
legs shone brilliant in the sunlight mottled by the pines. At first he had
taken the lead, but then allowed the boy to go ahead, and to both his joy
and chagrin, realized what that meant. He could not help but lick his lips,
or sigh, or feel a lurch in his groin as the boy's buttocks worked and
turned and shifted right in front of him.
	 The two of them spoke little, sighing deep draughts of mountain
air and every so often mooning at one another when they took a
breather. Clouds threatened, but nothing could dampen their mood. It was
the best outing he had ever had, Andrew thought, in the Highlands or the
Alps.
	Far off the beaten track, through tall grass and across a stream,
they found a high, round knoll with a few spruces and lingonberry bushes
encircling a flat spot. They had an ample view of the village and the farms
that surrounded it. From here, they could see anyone coming or going on the
trail and they could not be seen from above or below.
	They spread the blanket and sat, and the first thing Peter did was
pop open the bottle of Lager. It was a pint-bottle, and he poured it into
the two glasses they had brought.
	"Prost!" Andrew said.
	"Prost!" Peter cheered, and they drank a good gulp of the
beer. Then they dug out fresh Camembert, crusty sourdough bread, the tiny
white grapes from the village, and sausage flavored with carroway and
fennel.
	"Damn, Peter," Andrew sighed. "My favorite picnic of all my life."
	The boy lay on one side and rested his face on his hand, chewing a
hard heel of the bread. "What do you want to do after this?"
	"I dunno," he said. "I suppose we could stay here all afternoon."
	The boy giggled, and then kept giggling.
	"What?" Andrew demanded.
	"Nothing," Peter said coyly, his eyelashes fluttering as he
shielded his face from the sun.
	 The last of the lager was gone. They had a flask of scotch, as
well, but that was only for Andrew. Well. Mostly. They sipped from it and
lay together on their backs, looking at the sky. Clouds bloomed into great
fountains of vapor and the bluebird hue behind them was slowly obscured.
       "Looks like rain," the man said.
       "Aye," said Peter.
       "Where d'ye start saying 'aye'? That's my line!" Andrew laughed, and
faced Peter. The boy was grinning devilishly, and Andrew dug a tickling
hand into his side. Peter howled and they rough-housed a moment before
landing with the boy propped up on locked elbows over Andrew, who lay on
his back. Peter looked down at him, his lips full and parted, his eyes full
of yearning. His hair hung around his ears and cheeks and over one eye in
perfect disorder.
       "I still want to kiss you, Andrew."
       "I know ye do, lad," the man said huskily.
       "Why can't I?"
       "You're too young."
       "Louis let me kiss him."
       "Louis was only seven years older than you. I just turned
thirty-six. That makes me...oh a full twenty years older than you."
	 "Why does it matter?"
       "Because. Because you're not old enough to decide to commit yourself
to a life of debauchery and perversion."
       "And you're too old to commit yourself to a life of debauchery and
perversion."
       "Precisely."
       "So if we were both twenty-three, it would be alright?"
       "No."
       "So when?"
       "Never, I suppose," Andrew said with a grimace.
       The boy looked dejected, his face still flushed. Clouds had sealed
together above them, and darker ones were gelling. Warmth from the two of
them seemed to be trapped between the heavens and the earth. All this time,
Andrew's heart had been like a beehive, singing with tension. His member
had been rigid from the moment he and the boy had wrestled around; not only
rigid but near-painfully stiff and sensitive. Peter still looked down at
him, like Narcissus into the stillness of the pool. It was then the first
thunder rolled in the distance, Andrew combed his fingers through Peter's
hair, wrapped them around the back of the boy's head, and pulled him down.
	Their mouths locked, and Andrew sucked gently on the boy's upper
lip. Peter moaned, and brought one of his hands to Andrew's ears. The boy
felt his rod growing stiff as a poker, and in an instant, streaming clear
slippery fluid. They broke the embrace, and gazed into one another's eyes
as rain began to pierce their clothes.
	"Better run," Andrew said. "We'd best get back to the hotel before
we're soaked through. It's quite chill! We're liable to get pneumonia or
catch cold, at the least!"
	Peter looked like a young Gaul ready to rush into a battle against
the Romans or spear a Lion. His face was red, his eyes wild, with a light
Andrew had never seen before, blond hair whipping around his face as he
stuffed the remains of their luncheon into the picnic basket.
	"Right," he said. In truth, Back to the Hotel was the only thing
that he had just heard.
	They raced down the track as the rain went from a drizzle to a
downpour. Lightning struck nearby peaks and thunder shook them to the bone.
	Peter's face was red, his eyes clear and keen; his hair wet and
clinging to the perfect lines of his sweet, straight jaw. Spry and nimble
as a young deer, he clambered down the rocks and root-broken steps of the
trail with his muscular buttocks clenched or shaking as he leapt; he had
never been more beautiful. Andrew had never been less convinced that this
boy-deity, this angel who descended into a traincar was the single most
important person who had ever graced his life.
	They burst into the Chalet with clothing soaked through. A party of
porky Austrians were the only other guests in the Hostel, and they sat
around the hearth with steins of beer, a victrola playing Bach. They looked
just about as smitten with Peter as Andrew was.
	"Herr Jolvar! Herr Jolvar!" Andrew called. The manager was not at
the front desk.
	"Your boy will catch cold!" one of the Germans said in English.
	"What?" Andrew asked, with a sudden panic. Then he realized, of
course, that most people probably assumed they were father and son. No
reason to disabuse them of that falsehood.
	"Your boy, he's shivering!" the man said, pointing.
	"Oh yes," Andrew said, and then added with a perverse delight, "But
we'll warm him up soon enough!"
	The old manager came hobbling out from his study with exclamations
in the dialect that even Peter did not understand.
	"Some hot water for washing up, please," Peter said in his perfect
Genovese German.
	The old man explained that he expected they were caught in the rain
and had already turned on his sole luxury: the electric boiler.
	"Marvelous! I'll help bring up the water when it's hot," Andrew
said. "Also, do you have any Eau-de-vie?" he asked.
	"Oh, ja, ja," the old man said, pulling a dusty bottle from under
the counter, "1921" he said.
	They rushed up to the room and locked the door. At once, the boys
hands were groping his buttocks as the man leaned down to plant his lips on
Peter's. They kissed long and fiercely, and Andrew felt the boy's tongue
probing the inside of his lower lip.
	"Quickly, lad, out of those wet clothes."
	They both stripped down and, for the first time, beheld each other
nude. There was little time, however, for longing gazes. It was chilly at
this altitude and the rain was still beating on the windows. Peter shivered
as Andrew briskly toweled him off. There was a knock at the door.
	"Wrap up!" Andrew said, handing the boy the towel. He put on his
bathrobe and opened the door.
	The old man did everything himself, still; he held two steaming
buckets of water, and explained that there was a half-bathtub in the hall
closet, and that he would be back with two more buckets once they emptied
these. Peter went to fetch the tub, an old wooden barrel, the kind of which
had largely gone out of use in Britain in favour of porcelain.
	He rolled the thing into the room, they poured the first two
buckets in and Andrew made the boy stand in the three inches they had.
	"On second thought, light the fire again, will ye?" Andrew said,
and rushed to go help the old man carry the rest of the water. In just a
few minutes the wooden tub was full of a foot of steaming hot water, and
the fire was growing in the hearth.
	"What will you do?" Peter asked, standing there still in his towel
as Andrew locked the door.
	"Admire you," Andrew said, "and drink Aqvavit. I'll wash after
you. Go ahead," he said.
	Suddenly bashful, Peter untied the towel and let it fall to the
floor. He sank into the tub just slowly enough for Andrew to appraise him
for the first time unhurried.
	His body was a long ribbon of perfection. Though he had the narrow
shoulders and hips of a boy and the waifish trimness of slender arms and
legs, his buttocks were big, pert globes that betrayed his French
ancestry. The bottom of the peachlike cleft of his arse was visible between
his muscular thighs, beneath the big silken pouch of his balls. That cleft,
that meeting of five curves: balls, thighs, buttocks, all smooth and pale
and perfectly tantalizing. Peter's calves curved out almost as much as his
coltish thighs, and atop the silken pouch of his testicles rested a
surprisingly fat, uncircumcised penis.
	He sank into the scalding water with some discomfort, his jaw
clenched. Andrew moved a chair to sit to his side, and offered the boy a
sip of the alcohol.
	"No more for me," the boy whispered.
	"Would you like some tea? Or water?"
	"Yes, please."
	Andrew poured a glass from a pitcher and the boy drank it in one
gulp, then hung his arms in the water, slouching down into the steamy tub.
	"He didn't leave any soap, did he?"
	"I think there's some in the desk drawer," Peter said.
	Andrew removed a golden lozenge of soap that smelled of beeswax and
lilac, and dipped it into the water. Peter looked up over his narrow white
shoulder, his honey colored eyes sparkling in the firelight.
	"Can I wash you?" Andrew asked.
	"I'd like that," Peter whispered.
	"Can I have that glass?"
	Andrew dipped the tumbler into the water and used it to ladle water
over Peter's thin shoulders and the wings of his shoulderblades. It was
still warm enough that steam rose from the boy's skin. He made sure the boy
was good and warm, and then put the soap into the water and began rubbing
it over Peter's back in small circles. Peter sighed and arched his spine,
and then slouched forward again. Andrew set the soap on the edge of the tub
and began to lather it up with his whole right hand, rubbing and massaging
Peter's shoulders, arms, and chest.
	The boy's eyes were closed and he looked almost comatose, but his
penis was alert; an excess of six inches of curved, thick meat stood
straight up and peeked just above the surface of the water.
	Andrew said nothing, but poured glass after glass of water over
Peter's shoulders to rinse away the soap. He washed the boy's armpits,
which made Peter wake up very quickly, giggling and struggling to escape
the inevitable.
	"Close your eyes," Andrew said. He doused the boy's head, gave his
hair a light wash and rinsed away the soap.
	"Now stand up, lad."
	At first he wobbled a bit, still tipsy from the beer at lunch and
overcome by the hot water. He put a hand on Andrew's shoulder as the Scot
lathered up his knees, massaged his calves, and began to work a soapy
lather up in the nether crescents of the boys buttocks.
	Peter moaned nasally, began breathing heavily, and put both hands
on Andrew's shoulders. If he looked straight ahead, the man would see the
bobbing rosy helmet of the lad's cock with its single eye looking right
into his. He turned the boy around, and rinsed out his perfectly globular
arsecheeks. Unable to resist, he kissed one of them and gave it a soft
bite.
	"Oh!" Peter exclaimed.
	"Sorry, lad," Andrew said hoarsely, and then turned Peter around
again. The boy looked down at him with anticipatory hope in his eyes, and
Andrew looked up as he lathered soap over Peter's lean, hairless abdomen
and pubic mound. The boy shuddered and thrust his hips forward, and Andrew
grasped the ample pouch of his balls, tugging them downward in a tight ring
he made of his index finger and thumb.
	"Please!" the boy whimpered.
	"Patience, lad," Andrew said grinning.
	He soaped up Peter's cock, six and a half inches of
disproportionate glory, and dug two fingers into the boy's pereneum, which
made him gasp in abject arousal. He peeled the foreskin back and swept it
clean without soap, washing it as gently as he could before pulling the
foreskin back over the knob. Silvery fluid was running copious from the
boy's knob, and Andrew could barely resist the urge to lick it clean. He
rinsed, toweled, and wrapped the boy up in the down comforter from one of
the two beds in the room.
	As the boy watched, Andrew removed his robe and sank into the
bathwater, still hot but not scalding. Peter looked longingly as the man
scrubbed his armpits, groin, and arse with a much less tender vigor than
that with which he bathed the boy.
	He was a lean, weather-beaten man, sinewy and tall. Plenty of dark
hair covered his forearms, chest, shoulders, and basically everywhere else
but his sides and the soles of his feet. From youth he had the
distinguishing features of a hooked aristocratic nose, a strong jawline,
high cheekbones, and thick brown hair. He kept clean-shaven and
well-groomed, but nevertheless retained the sort of savage coarseness he
imagined belonged to his his kilt-wearing forebears, the kind who slept in
frosty tangles of heather and spent their days bayonetting the English and
raping innkeepers daughters, or some ghastly other pasttimes like
that. More likely raping sheep, if the stories from his home county were to
be believed, but that was neither here nor there. He had long tapering
fingers and thin lips and the sparkling eyes of a poet; in his youth no
woman ever failed to call him handsome. Now approaching middle age, he had
been the subject of all too many doomed plots for marriage.
	It was all of these things the boy noticed or guessed,
perspicatious as he was. He watched enthralled and full of longing as
Andrew emerged from the steaming water, drank the last of the Eau-de-Vie,
and toweled off by the fire. His rude figure made Peter ache with an
unfathomable urge.
	Andrew came into the bed, then, and wrapped up with the down quilt
and tangled his limbs together with the lad's so they lay there, their hair
wet, the firelight dim and the rain still pouring outside.
	There had been so many words and problems, and questions between
them. Now all of that was set aside. Andrew felt the hot, slick root of
Peter's body pressed against his thigh and he rubbed one thumb against the
point of it. The boy gasped and buried his face in Andrew's chest, and
kissed it, and inhaled the mixed scent of his manly smell and the soap, and
the steam.
	Andrew's fingers took the boy's chin and led him out of that dark
nest of hair and pulled him up into that first proper kiss. The the older
man pressed his tongue between the boy's lips, to suck and probe and sweep
across the roof of Peter's mouth, and fill him with shudders of desire. The
boy's hands, indelicate but full of passion, gripped Andrew's thighs, or
his armpits, or anywhere in this new reeling world of sensation.
	"All right, lad. Take a deep breath, but more imporantly--don't
forget to exhale." Andrew said softly. He kissed the boy once again on the
throat and then made a trail of kisses down to one nipple, tight and no
larger than a thumbnail. He sucked and nibbled and even bit down on it, and
Peter gasped and ran his hands through Andrew's hair, pushing him
inexorably downward.
	The man grasped the boy's bollocks, tugging them and making him
shudder and shake.
	"Not so hard!" the boy pleaded.
	Andrew softly rolled them in his hand as descended to take the
boy's prodigious member in his mouth. He slid his tongue between the
foreskin and the shaft and licked all around before peeling it back and
sucking the boy thoroughly, bobbing his head back and forth and making
Peter give up a squeal which he suppressed admirably into a pillow.
	The boy's hips bucked and Andrew suckled him all the harder, afraid
at times that he was causing the boy pain, but continuing with one finger
creeping between the lad's legs, seeking that dark crevice so sweetly
seductively untouchably visible when the youth stood from the bath. At
last, his middle finger broached that hot moist spot, the veritable root of
the lad's whole body, and dug in about an inch into the tight hole. With
his other hand milking the lad's cock, Peter gave up a muffled yelp and
Andrew could guess what was about to happen. Watery, sweet come filled his
mouth and he sucked and sucked and slurped and pressed one knuckle into the
meaty underbelly of the boy's cock to tighten the painful joy of the
orgasm. Peter gave out a series of protracted moans, oh, oh, ohhh! into the
pillow and then lay supine: motionless as a bag of sand, save the slow
heaving of his breast.
	Andrew stroked the boy's cheek and then washed his hands in the tub
and poured himself another glass of eau-de-vie. The strong, fruity spirits
cleaned his mouth and left him glowing nearly as much as Peter, who had
removed the pillow from his face and now lay supine with his legs sprawling
and his hands flat on his chest. An impossible radiance haloed his face,
and he looked at Andrew with abject adoration.
	"You are beautiful," Andrew said, and lay down beside him. Peter
rolled over and put one of his hands into the fold of Andrew's bathrobe to
feel his densely covered chest.
	"Am I supposed to do that to you, now?" Peter asked, grinning.
	Andrew chuckled. "Well you're not `supposed' to, no. There's no
rules. You can do whatever you like."
	"I dunno what I like."
	"You liked that," Andrew said.
	"Well, ja," the boy admitted.
	"You've done things like this with mates at school, haven't ye?"
	"Yes. But not like that. Mostly just mucking about, sometimes we
wanked off together. But they're not real men. You made me feel like my
whole body...I don't know how to explain it."
	He leaned up and kissed Andrew. Their tongues twisted, and the felt
the boy's hand seeking downward, his fingers brushing through the hairs
below Andrew's navel.  Peter tugged at the bathrobe's sash and
then--glorious. The lad's hand wrapped around the base of Andrew's bollocks
and his cock. The man thought he might orgasm; every muscle from his
sphincter to his navel tensed and he shivered into the boy's rough grip.
	"What do you want me to do?" Peter asked.
	"Just massage my bollocks, lad," the older man whispered. He had to
restrain a loud moan as the boy followed his instructions. It continued
like this: Peter, the novice, would do what Andrew advised, only very
infrequently making his own delightful advances into the exploration of
this body he so desired.
	He started by kneading Andrew's balls and then tonguing through the
dense chest hair to suck on one brown nipple. Peter then moved to kiss the
man's throat and nibble, suck and breathe into Andrew's ear while gripping
the man's cock and wanking it slowly.
	"Alright," Andrew said, "c'mere."
	The boy and man kissed. Peter put both his hands over Andrew's
jaws, fingertips touching the ears, and peeled away to look at the casement
windows.
	"It stopped raining," he noted.
	"Aye," Andrew said, rising to a sitting position.  Peter wrapped
his arms around the man from behind and rested his nose on Andrew's
shoulder. "Are you going somewhere?" he asked.
	The man answered by turning into the lad's face and kissing him
long and slow and deep. Andrew helped the boy down from the bed without
breaking the kiss, and situated him between his legs.
	"Now," he whispered, "on your knees."
	Peter sank down with a shudder of anticipatory delight, but Andrew
stopped him.
	"Wait, lad," he said softly. The man tossed a pillow to the floor
and kicked it between his feet so the boy would not kneel on the hard wood.
	Peter sank into posture, his hands already wrapped around the shaft
and bollocks.
	"What do I do?" he asked.
	"It's not so complex as you'd think," Andrew whispered, leaning
down. "You suck and lick around the helmet mainly, and avoid touching your
teeth at all costs. Very best, you keep those lovely red lips pressing me
shaft and try to swallow as much as you can when I come."
	"That seems like a lot," Peter whispered.
	"Actually, don't worry about swallowing. Just let me keep my cock
in yer mouth when I come. And keep sucking, for the love of God, don't
reject me in the moment of truth."
	"I don't know what you mean," Peter said.
	Andrew leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. "Don't worry,
lad. Just do your best. Like everything else, it comes with practise."
	Peter kissed Andrew in the center of his chest, and then the navel,
and then dug his nose into the thick grove of his pubic hair just for to
breathe a deep draught of his scent. The man shuddered, overwhelmed. His
fingers raked through the Peter's dense hair as the lad licked at the base
of his cock, tongued his bollocks, and finally took one of the great eggs
into his mouth with a rough tug that sent him hissing with a mixture of
pain and unfathomable pleasure.
	Andrew had always been a desperate and addictive character, and the
taste of his own masturbation had grown more and more severe over the
years. To compensate for his loneliness, his growing age, and his
unfulfilled desires, he wondered if he had become obdurate or perverse in
the forcefulness with which he had to pleasure himself; the boy was proving
that, for better or worse, he enjoyed a rough hand.
	At last, after tonguing his whole member stem to tip over and over,
the boy closed his voluptuous lips over Andrew's head. He rolled his tongue
around, and the man groaned, keeping his eyes on those rosy lips sliding up
and down his engorged shaft.
	"That's perfect, lad, now tighten one hand around it right against
your lips. Make a sort of tunnel."
	The boy squeezed his shaft with the head disappearing again and
again into his red lipped mouth. Andrew exhaled heavily and grabbed both
sides of the boy's head, trying to remain gentle but unable to restrain
himself from pumping his cock into the boy's mouth in small but rapid
thrusts.
	Peter was moaning in a stacatto rhythm. The silky warmth of his
mouth, his rough tongue rolling around Andrew's cock made the older man
groan. The boy slurped, sucked, slurped and sucked and moaned as if that
great rod of flesh was the best thing he'd ever tasted. Peter dug his nose
into Andrew's pubic hair with the older man's cock plunging deep down the
depths of the lad's throat, and then withdrew with a gag.
	"Careful, now," Andrew whispered. The boy swallowed a few times,
and then cleared his throat and began to try in earnest to make Andrew
climax. He concentrated fully on the man's head, swirling his tongue
around, sucking and slurping, squeezing his hand up and down the length of
the shaft, keeping his mouth all the while working dutifully on pleasuring
the man's cockhead.
	The sight of Peter's blushed face, full red lips, dark long lashes
and damp head of hair bobbing back and forth with one white-knuckled fist
around his cock and the other tugging his balls soon made Andrew give up a
mighty groan.
	"I'm going to come, lad. I'm coming!"
	He couldn't help himself; he grabbed the boy's ears and the back of
his neck and thrust his cock in and out of the lad's mouth while hot white
jism spurted all over Peter's tongue and down the back of his throat. The
boy continued to moan in his high, girlish pitch as Andrew pistoned his
cock a few final times down the lad's throat before removing himself. A
string of semen hung from Peter's mouth a moment before breaking. The boy
swallowed with a mixed expression.
	"What's that like?" Andrew asked.
	"It's not good," Peter admitted, "but I could acquire the taste."
	He gave the lad a sip of Eau-de-vie, which made him look a bit sick
for a moment, but then he burped and a look of contentedness relaxed his
features.
	They cleaned up a bit, and lay down together, kissing lazily a
while before the rain resumed drizzling against the casement windows.
	"Our hiking holiday is ruined," Peter whispered.
	"For joy!" Andrew grinned.


((this concludes the first half of the story of Peter and Andrew. I'm quite
busy at the moment, and I really can't be bothered to write the second half
unless I get an outrageous response from the readers. Regardless I'd love
to hear your comments and feedback. Redpatience@safe-mail.net ))