Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 15:52:53 EDT
From: vichowel@aol.com
Subject: Global Entertainment-3

'lo. Here's chapter 3 of my tale. I have to forewarn you, though, that
this chapter contains no sex. The space was needed for plot and secondary
character development. Chapter 4 will have the boys all randy again,
though.

I suppose I should mention that Global Entertainment is something of a
sequel to an earlier work. So, if you want to get into all the character
and plot nuances, I'll suggest that you go dig around in Nifty's
scifi/fan archives and find my Confessions Of A Vampire from a couple of
years ago. There won't be any blood-letting in this story, but you'll
definitely have a better feel for the tangential parts of the plot if
you've read Confessions.

Enjoy and please drop me a line to let me know what you think at
Vichowel@aol.com.

Dave MacMillan

CHAPTER THREE


I woke up to someone's hand shaking my shoulder.

A perfect hand I noticed when I opened my eyes. Not just smooth, young,
unblemished, and ungnarled. Ned and I both had pretty nice looking hands,
but they couldn't compare to this one. It was almost as if there weren't
even any pores to the skin, it was so smooth. Perfect. I just stared at
it, taking it in and trying to comprehend its perfection.

"It's time that we go, Rick," Johan said above me, pulling me out of my
fascination with his hand.

"Go?" I asked, showing my confusion.

He laughed and the sound was a soft, gentle wrap-around to me.

"We are landed at Dulles but must drive into Washington still."

Right. How dumb could I be? I pushed out of the chair I was in and stood
before him. On the other side of the plane, Jody had awoken Ned, and my
brother was getting to his feet.

I looked around quickly, getting my bearings. I was definitely on a
private plane all right. The seats had all been pulled out, replaced with
several captain chairs and a table in the center and couches along the
walls. What I assumed were paintings hung on the walls. We were
surrounded by a soft, almost rosy light. There were two rooms with doors
towards the tail. I didn't see a window anywhere.

"Nice," I mumbled, feeling more than a little out of place.

"Prince Karl prefers that he and his guests are comfortable when he
flies," Johan said.

"Valentin has already taken your stuff to the car," Jody said as he
strolled over to join us, followed by Ned.

"Who's Valentin?" Ned asked.

"The Prince's chief cook and bottlewasher and everything else all rolled
into one guy," Jody told him. "Castle von Muribor would fall apart
without the man."

"He has a castle?" I demanded.

"Actually, yeah -- he does," Jody said. "In southeast Austria. He doesn't
live there, though. It was his family's estate and he bought it back from
the government here recently. The land had already been sold to the
farmers who lived there, in the fifties. The Prince turned the manor
house into a safehouse for any runaway kid in Europe."

"But he lives in Berlin?" I asked.

"We all do." Jody grinned. "You guys are going to have to visit us. It's
one nice place." He nodded towards the front of the plane. "Valentin's
restless. We'd better go."

I looked behind me and saw a guy who'd make a Russian Olympic wrestler
seem like a ballerina. He was huge. Not fat, just huge. A giant.

Johan rattled something off in German that had Ned's and my names in it
and the giant nodded our way.

"He just introduced you," Jody explained. "Let's go."

As we approached Valentin, I realized that the door opened directly to
the outside and that it was dark behind him. I glanced at my watch and
saw that it was past five o'clock.

That threw me.

Even though I couldn't remember getting on the plane, we'd been supposed
to meet it around ten that morning. It was pretty probable that we had
left around then -- even if Ned and I were zonked out. That left a whole
seven hours between leaving Atlanta and now. I'd flown into DC and New
York enough times to know that flying time from Atlanta to DC was only a
little more than an hour. That left six hours that had somehow just
gotten lost.

I was just about to pull Ned aside and tell him about those lost hours
when I realized that they simply didn't matter. Ned and I had been wiped
out after taking our finals. We'd needed to sleep. So we had. No sweat.
Everything was downright hunky dory here in Washington, DC.

It was snowing hard as we climbed down the stairs to the tarmac. A damp
cold seeped under my coat and through my jeans. My face was numb as I
barely made out the hanger in front of us. I took the steps pigeon-toed
to keep from falling on my butt. I kept walking that way once we were on
the ground.

I started to shiver once my feet were on the ground. Valentin led us
around the nose of the jet towards an ominous dark area. There was only a
thin light from the floodlight on the side of a building that was sort of
there even though I couldn't make it out good. The dark area ahead of us
became a car after we were almost on it. I was shuddering all over by the
time the giant opened the back door for us to get inside. Ned pulled me
to him as soon as we were on the jump seat and held me close. I snuggled
closer, moving to sit on his lap.

There was nothing sexual about me sitting in his lap. I was just frozen
through and grasping for any warmth around. I was a little kid again and
my big brother was making me all better.

The car started and the heat hit us fast. I relaxed, the cold becoming a
distant thing in my head. Again, everything was hunky dory. I sat up and
looked around to get my bearings as the car began to move.

I couldn't see anything through the windows and figured they'd been
tinted real dark. Johan and Jody sat across from us, holding hands and
watching us. I felt like I'd known them for ages and they were my best
friends after Ned.

"Do you both live with Mr. von Muribor?" Ned asked.

"Yes, we live with the Prince," Johan answered.

I figured right there and then that Ned and I were going to have to get
used to hereditary titles and stuff. It wasn't a scary thought or even
some kind of revelation, just an awareness that came over me. It just
seemed like the thing to do when we were around these people; after all,
this wasn't south Georgia any more.

"You still work for him?" I asked and felt bemused at what was obviously
such a stupid question. I didn't feel stupid, though -- just bemused. It
was a strange feeling. It did not feel like me.

"Yeah," Jody answered. "We're in the business with the Prince and his
lovers. But Hansi isn't making vids any more." He glanced at Johan and
grinned. "He's all mine now. Nobody else's."

"So, you don't party then?" Ned asked.

"No," Johan answered. Short, sweet, and final.

My heart leaped with joy at that one word. All the fears that had started
stacking up in me since I took the phone call from Emil Paulik yesterday
just sort of oozed away. Unnoticed. Things between Ned and me weren't
going to be put into question. I started to imagine that I might just
enjoy this weekend with these strangers.

"What about this Emil Paulik?" Ned asked. I knew what he was doing. He
was looking for the exact parameters to this get-together. He'd always
been just a tad more careful than I was. He wanted to have all the
specifics laid out. It was a trait that could have me climbing the walls,
but it had saved us from a heap of trouble more than once.

"Emil is beautiful," Johan said, almost dreamily. "As is Tom."

"And the Prince," Jody added, just as dreamily.

"But they are a troika only," Johan elaborated.

"Yeah," Jody agreed. "Any one of the three of them, or all of them
together, will love you but they only make love to each other. And they
don't get into autonomous sex."

"That's got to be weird," Ned said. "I mean, you guys being monogamous
and producing fuck films at the same time."

Johan shrugged and pulled Jody closer. "There are many handsome young men
in Europe who enjoy sex. They understand that sex is sex, that it does
not matter if it is with a man or a woman. Many are also willing to have
sex before a camera for pay." He turned and kissed Jody. "I was one such
youth -- until I met Jody when he visited the Prince with his mother
several years ago. Then, I fell hopelessly in love."

"Wow!" It was all I could say. It sounded like something straight out of
a Katherine Hepburn movie -- her and Spencer Tracy maybe. "That is so
cool," I added hurriedly, trying to cover up that I'd just come across
like some dumbstruck little kid.

Ned was on a maturity trip, though.

"Did you continue making vids with other guys after you two fell for each
other?" he asked.

Jody laughed. "You can do a lot of things with a camera. You can even do
a lot more things with film."

"What do you mean?" I asked, completely intrigued to the gills.

"You already know that we add other scenes -- with other guys doing it --
into your videos, don't you?" Jody asked.

Ned and I both nodded.

"It's pretty easy to make it look as if something's happening between two
people when it's not. Hansi and I could be making love in front of the
camera and the vid you'd buy made it look like he was getting porked by
another guy entirely."

"Yeah?" I was really intrigued now.

"That went on for a year after we'd gotten together. I moved into the
distribution side of the business while I finished school. We decided
that it was time for Hansi to retire. So, we went to Prince Karl with our
decision."

"That should've gone over like a lead balloon," Ned said. "Johan was
supposed to be the hottest guy in Europe then."

"He still is!" Jody said.

Johan hugged him close. Ned and I grinned.

"The Prince was very kind," Johan said. "And generous."

"Hansi was put in charge of learning how to take what was on video, put
it on computer, and produce things that had never happened."

"Huh?" I grunted.

"Have you two ever really read your contracts?" Jody asked.

We both shook our heads. Yeah, we'd read them; but legalese is a whole
new language from English. We'd both agreed we didn't really understand
the contracts and had taken it on faith that everything was okay.

"Have you wondered why you're paid a monthly stipend, as well as money
after every shoot?"

Ned and I looked at each other, neither one of us liking where this
seemed to be going. He held me tighter and I felt safer.

Jody laughed and leaned towards us. "Most guys fuck and suck for a couple
of hours and get paid chump change -- usually a couple of hundred. That's
it. There wasn't really anybody out there worth developing into more than
a quick fuck film with -- until we saw you two."

"What about us?" Ned asked, his voice telling me he was still on the
cautious side of being pissed off.

"When we saw your screen test, we knew you guys had something special
going for you." He grinned, his teeth gleaming in the near dark of the
back seat. "You were already in love with each other and it showed. So
did how much you really enjoyed each other, including the sex. That
really came across well. It was a good bet that you'd be hot items in
Europe. And you were."

"Okay..?" Ned drew it out, making it into a really deep question.

"To make a long story short, you've been in a lot more than just nine
vids," Jody told us. "Ned's fucked a lot of hot boys and Rick's had some
of the biggest dicks in Europe working his ass."

"No way!" I cried. I knew the only person who'd made love to me and I was
sitting on his lap. I felt violated.

I felt Ned tensing up.

"It's all done with a computer," Jody continued. "Your contracts call for
you to be paid residuals each time you appear in a video -- whether live
or simulated. That's where your monthly checks come in. Hansi's job is to
make those simulations look real."

Ned was silent. I was silent. My brain raced. For more than a year and a
half, Ned had been fucking guys other than me and I'd had guys doing me
-- and lots of people had seen it happening. It might have been virtual
reality, but it still hit me in the gut. I wondered if I ate my cum when
some other guy was supposed to be pounding my butt.

I groaned. I didn't like what I was thinking.

"Why are we here?" Ned asked flatly.

"That's really for Prince Karl to go into with you," Jody told him. "I'll
just say that he wants to discuss your career options with you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ned demanded. He wasn't angry yet, but he
was getting close.

"Well..." Jody paused a moment. "Okay, one option concerns my area of work
-- I guess I can touch on that one."

Ned and I waited. The silence really did grow pregnant.

"I told you that I was into the distribution side of the business,
right?"

The silence got heavier. Neither Ned nor I moved a muscle.

"I've managed to open up distribution in America for our porn line
that'll get us as well known as Falcon or Bel Ami. Our models, too. Your
vids would be right up there on top."

"All of them?" Ned growled. "Including those with us fucking when we
really aren't?"

Jody nodded.

"All over America?" I asked hesitantly.

He nodded again.

I didn't think I wanted every gay guy at the university seeing me with my
legs spread. It might give them ideas about me that I didn't want them
having. The same went for Atlanta. And God forbid that some redneck down
home saw me shooting off and swallowing it with a dick pounding me in the
butt.

"And if we don't want that?" Ned asked. Slowly.

"There are other options," Johan promised. But you need to wait for the
Prince to hear those." His arm tightened around Jody and he mumbled
something to him in German.

I did not feel good. I figured we were caught between a rock and a hard
place with an axe about to fall. I definitely did not feel good.

The rest of the drive into Washington was in silence. I couldn't read
Ned's mind but I knew he felt like I did -- that we were waiting for the
other shoe to drop and that it would not be pretty when it did.

I didn't feel safe, comfortable, or relaxed any more. I was wound up
tighter than a drum trying to think of a way to keep what I had with Ned
to just ourselves. And I sure as shit wasn't coming up with any ideas at
all.

* * *

Ned was holding me tight and not saying a word when we exited onto what I
guessed were residential streets. I figured he was as bummed out as I
was. I was really weirded out because I kept feeling little pinpricks of
touch right at the edges of my brain. My skin was one large expanse of
gooseflesh from my scalp to my toes.

As the car slowed down to little more than a crawl, I looked over at the
window but couldn't see anything, not even passing street lights. Not
being able to see beyond the interior of the car made me feel even
weirder. I was just about ready to start seeing Boris Karloff's mummy
reach into the car for me. I was that much on edge.

The car pulled to a stop.

"We have arrived," Johan said and I reached for the door.

"Wait!" he said and his hand was on my arm to stop me and I hadn't even
seen him move. "Valentin is opening the gate, Rick. We'll pull up to the
house before we get out."

There was steel in the fingers that gripped my arm.

The car began to move slowly forward and turned. We started up a slight
incline. I couldn't get it out of my head that we were approaching a
haunted house and Ned and I were going to start hearing chains clanking
any minute.

Suddenly, I laughed. Boy, was I imagining things. I couldn't understand
how I'd managed to scare myself shitless. Under me, Ned chuckled and I
felt him start to chub. Through my jacket and shirt, he pressed his chin
against my shoulder, hard. Like he did when he was taking me from behind
and was about to shoot. I leaned back and he licked my ear with a playful
swipe of his tongue. I giggled with relief as my fears flooded out of me.
I slipped off his lap, taking his hand in mine so that we didn't lose the
contact.

Johan was the closest to the door when we stopped again. He released Jody
and reached across to unlatch it. Then, he was outside and holding it
open for us. In the dim light inside the car, it'd almost seemed that he
sort of dematerialized inside the car and then was on the outside pulling
the door open.

I knew that was impossible. I told myself that it'd just been a trick of
the light and a symptom of just how jittery I was. I figured what I
really needed was a good night's sleep to get over all this strange shit
floating around in my brain.

"Prince Karl, Emil, and Tom are probably already out," Jody told us as
Ned eased out of the jump seat and out the door. "Valentin will fix you
supper and show you to your room."

"Where are you and Johan going to be?" I asked, looking back at him and
beginning to follow Ned out of the car.

"My mother's. We haven't seen her for a year."

My foot hit the drive and I was already shifting my weight to it. It
landed on ice and shot out from under me. I was falling, watching a
leafless bush coming at me and unable to protect myself from it.

The back of my head hit the iced-over concrete of the drive as my arms
hit the bush. Pain flashed through my brain before I blacked out. I was
down for the count.


I awoke in darkness, pulled alert by a presence that could command a boy
out of the slickest wet dream. It wasn't speaking to me, though.

|The uninjured one?| the presence asked very clearly, like it was spoken
against my ear. There was a slight -- not an accent exactly, more like
the words were rearranging themselves inside my head so that I could
understand them.

Of course, I knew that was impossible.

|Hansi put Ned to sleep immediately, sir,| Jody said. |The boy probably
didn't even realize that Rick had slipped before he was chasing sheep in
Hansi's arms.|

I felt irritation bordering on disgust from the presence.

|Jody, I asked you to greet them because you're American and close to
their age...|

Something began to tickle inside my skull. Light, just barely there.
Almost like pinpricks touching my brain.

|Verdammte!| the presence growled. |You had this one frightened every
time you said anything to him.|

|I eased his memory each time, sir.| Jody answered. |He thought he was
just being silly.|

I felt fingers in my hair and pain shot out over me when they found where
I'd hit my head.

|Karli, there's a knot on the back of his head as big as a goose egg,|
another voice said. Something cool and wet touched the core of the knot
on my head and the pain just disappeared.

|Verdammte!| the presence groaned. Those pinpricks touched my brain
again, angling around inside my skull until they found the bump. Then,
they started exploring it like a doctor would do on the outside of a
bump. |There was a concussion,| the presence said a moment later.

|We'll just let him sleep it off and he'll be none the worse for the
experience, Karli,| the third voice said.

|Impossible!| the presence groaned. |This one -- both of them -- will
remember their fear from this afternoon. And the five of us would be
asleep. Valentin could protect us but would never be able to ease the
fear that would grow in them.| He sighed. |I will remain awake and greet
them properly tomorrow -- as I should have today.|

I sensed that the presence looked at Jody and I felt another wave of
irritation.

|I can remain awake, Karli ... Or, perhaps, Tom should. He's American, and
you know how strange they can be.|

|It's my responsibility, Emil,| the presence said gently and I could feel
the love he felt for Emil. |I invited them.|

The tinkling of good-natured chuckling sounded like wood chimes through
my head. |You and your honor, Karli .... Just remember where it put you
with little Jody and Hansi.|

It felt like someone licked my goose egg. I'd have jumped but I couldn't
move.

I was suddenly alone with my sleeping brother beside me. My head hurt
like hell. Either I'd had the weirdest dream of my life or I was
certifiably crazy. I was ready to freak like a son of a bitch.

Just as suddenly as I'd become alone with Ned, my head stopped hurting. I
floated along on a sea of peace and serenity. There was nothing wrong in
the universe around me.

I snuggled close to Ned, my arms going around his chest as I spooned in
behind him. Just as quickly as the pain had gone, I was asleep, awash
with memories of the happiest moments of my life.