Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2006 15:33:04 +1000
From: Graham Charles <graham47@bigpond.net.au>
Subject: 'If It Be Sin', Part 1: The Ruination, chapter 1

  If It Be Sin

  A novel by Graham Charles


  PART 1 : THE RUINATION, 1992


Chapter 1: January - February

1.

Phillip wondered why, after so many defeats, he still
bothered to press his case. His argument was reasonable,
but McAllister could not be budged. `When you're on duty,
Phillip, you must be in the duty room'. And that was
that. The fact that his little flat was but ten metres
from the duty room and was far more conducive to a
tolerable four hours between dinner and `lights out' made
no impression on McAllister. And in the realm of the
boarding house, McAllister's power was absolute and,
worse still, he was incorruptible. McAllister could not
be bribed, blackmailed or bullied. It irked Phillip that
the man's scruples were in such stark contrast to his
own.


The best that could be said of the Duty Room is that it
was functional. The walls were bare, except for a cork
noticeboard, covered by `Post-Its', telephone messages
and obsolete Payne House memos. The floor was scratched
parquetry, in the middle of which stood a wood-grained
laminex coffee table with one distinctly bent metal leg.
It was guarded by four worn vinyl armchairs, while a
white formica bench, on which sat a newish electric
kettle and a microwave oven, added a domestic touch to
the d‚cor. The two telephones that sat on the humble pine
desk were hidden by disintegrating past copies of Time
and The Bulletin, dog-eared writing pads covered with the
mindless doodlings of bored duty staff, and roughly
folded pages of the Sydney Morning Herald displaying
partially completed cryptic crosswords.

Phillip pushed the paper detritus away from the
telephones and tried to imagine himself as the custodian
of two hotlines that would resolve any real or imagined
emergency. It was on his weekly duty night that he
invariably resolved that his three years as a boarding
house tutor, living in a tiny boarding house flat
surrounded by seventy adolescent boys, must come to an
end. Restaurant dining, theatre going and book buying
during the intervening six days dissipated this resolve.
He knew that he was a slave to his material pleasures and
that, until his share of his mother's rambling Blue
Mountains estate and substantial investment portfolio
were bequeathed to him, the purgatory of duty nights was
the price he had to pay.

`If only you'd marry, darling', his mother was fond of
saying, `I wouldn't leave you to fend for yourself'. The
`piranha of Blackheath' certainly knew how to tear at his
flesh as she strove to achieve the victory of her son's
love of money over his love of men. `Lust', thought
Phillip, would actually be a better word on both counts.
Love had never really come into it. His childhood had
seen to that. Dr Tim had tried his laconic best to heal
the scars, but he had failed. He may have alleviated the
pain, but its cause remained, lying dormant. And maybe
not so dormant, he mused, given his present predicament.

In a feeble attempt to divert his thoughts, Phillip
willed the `hotline' to ring and, when it refused to
obey, turned his attention to an incomplete crossword.
`Renaissance priest composer and I only partly cut poor
tabby (11)' immediately caught his eye. How could it not,
given the combination of history, music and Luke?
Vivaldi? Me? Some? Cat? Of course! . vivisection.
Phillip normally masked his inadequacy in the crossword
stakes with an open disdain of the activity as `time
wasting' and `trivial', but now he glowed in his
cleverness and regretted the absence of an audience to
appreciate it. On a mini-high, he upped the ante and
zeroed in on `What's highly desirable bachelor hairstyle?
Something hanging straight down (5,3)'. Easy . plumb bob.
On a roll. `Somehow definitely close to pirate gold,
according to thief (2,4,2,2,5)'. Mmmm. A soft tap on the
open door and a footfall on the parquetry floor
mercifully interrupted his rising irritation at the
intransigence of the clue to submit to his will.

"Excuse me, Mr Moore, could I ask you a quick question
about the homework?"
"James - it is `James', isn't it? -, you know that you
are not supposed to leave your study during Prep. But,
since you're still learning the ropes, I guess I'll
overlook it this once".
Phillip prided himself on his flexible approach to `the
rules', believing that it was incontrovertible evidence
that the students were his first priority.
"How can I help you?"
It was very early February and the first week of the new
school year, and Sydney's stifling summer heat and
humidity rendered substantive clothing an uncomfortable
burden. Phillip was at once conscious of James's minimal
attire in the form of shorts and singlet and his physical
proximity as he laid out his History folder on the desk.
The sight and musky smell of his broad shoulders and
armpits was just a little disconcerting.
"It's this passage from Petrarch, Mr Moore. You said in
class that it was important in the development of
Humanism, but I just don't get what he's on about".

Invited to `pull up a chair', James's response gave
Phillip a chance, albeit brief, to assess the newcomer.
As the boy turned and stretched to retrieve the nearest
armchair, Phillip registered the flex in his forearms,
the chewed nails at the extremity of his sinewy fingers,
the faint stubble on his freckled face, the pert, almost
feminine, shape of his nose, and the cushion of closely-
cropped tangerine hair.

He wondered how Luke had assessed him on that equally hot
February day all those years ago.



2.

Dr Timothy L. Murphy, M.B.B.S., M.P.M., F.R.A.N.Z.C.P.,
Consultant Psychiatrist, was everything that Phillip had
not expected. He was not expensively dressed in a Zegna
suit and silk tie; he was not unctuous; he was not of
average height with a designer tan and coiffed grey hair;
and he was not the proud inhabitant of an oak-panelled
office with a reproduction antique desk, a brown leather
couch and `tasteful' accessories. Instead, he was tall
and angular, with a pleasant, albeit inscrutable, face,
the chief feature of which was a slightly incongruous
goatee. His room could at best be described as
personality-less. Bare beige walls, beige carpet, a plain
polished desk that supported nothing but an A4 writing
pad, a small round coffee table, and two green leather
armchairs. It revealed absolutely nothing about what
manner of man was this. His manner replicated his room.
His small talk was brief and rehearsed. He valued his
words in the same way a golfer values his strokes.

"I'd like to start this session, Phillip, with you
telling me how you met Luke?"

"The one benefit of those February days during which the
temperature exceeded 35§ Celsius was that I did not have
to suffer the humiliation of Under 13 cricket practice.
Instead, I took my book and found a shady tree well away
from human habitation. I remember that it was Lord of the
Flies, because I read it over and over again during that
first month for the simple reason that Piggy's plight
made my own misery seem minor by comparison. At some
point I must have put the book down and buried my face in
my hands, for I neither saw nor heard him approach. So
soft and gentle was the voice that at first I thought it
was a woman asking, `Why is young Moore so sad?' When I
lifted my head from my hands, I was looking into a narrow
pale face and eyes that were the colour of my pale blue
shirt. But it was the face of Luke Trebeck, resident
tutor of the Junior Boarding House.

I don't remember clearly what conversation passed between
us during the following five minutes. I do, however,
remember that shortly after the exchange I was sitting on
an old leather chair in his little school flat while he
made us cups of tea. That was my entr‚e into what became
my haven from the hell of school. Or perhaps it became my
hell from the haven of school. I guess that's what I need
to sort out.

Whatever else he may have given me the following two
years, he gave me at least one gift for which I will ever
be grateful.
`What music do you like, Phillip?' he asked me on that
first visit as he busied himself with mugs and teabags in
the alcove that passed for a kitchen.
I remember with embarrassment that the twelve year-old
boy sitting uncertainly on that tatty leather chair
replied, `None really. They don't have much music in
Blackheath'.
When he asked if I knew of Vivaldi, I didn't know if he
was referring to a person, or a rock group, or even some
type of music like pop or jazz. So I simply said no, but
I readily agreed to his invitation to `listen to some
Vivaldi'. Thereafter, all I wanted to do when I pulled
open the battered flywire door and stepped into his flat
was to listen to `the four seasons'.

`With what can I tempt Mr Moore of Blackheath today?',
was his standard greeting. After my first six or seven
visits, he supplemented his initial question with `Not
Vivaldi again, surely?'
`I'm afraid that Mr Moore of Blackheath is tempted only
by Vivaldi', I would reply until one day - it must have
been several weeks later - I asked him what else was on
offer.
`My dear Mr Moore, I have a veritable cornucopia of
classical aural delectations with which to soothe your
troubled breast'.
I had no idea what he was talking about, but this floury
manner of dialogue soon became our standard form of
communication. It certainly did wonders for my English
vocabulary.'

Although I still think of it as his `little flat', it
really wasn't much more than one large room at the back
of the two-storey red-brick Edwardian house, whose
primary function was to house the Years 7 and 8 boarders,
ostensibly providing them with protection from their
older fellow inmates. It was sparsely furnished with a
combination of institutional school furniture and ancient
relics that must have come with the house when the school
purchased it. Three of these `relics' became central to
my existence - the brown cracked leather Club armchair
which nearly swallowed me up as I drank my tea; the
monolithic old sofa, upholstered in faded and fraying
brocade, on which I would curl up to listen to music; and
the heavy old dining table with turned legs that served
as his desk and at which he would reassuringly sit while
he marked work or prepared lessons. The desk was placed
against an external wall, into which was set four narrow
adjoining leadlight windows, each with a simple
geometrical pattern in green, red and mauve. Oh, and my
tea mug. Always the same mug. It was a big round yellow
mug, perfect for curling both my hands around to warm
them up. It had a funny little handle, but I never used
it . at least, not as a handle. But I always held the cup
so that the handle would point straight ahead of me. I
don't know why, but it was important to me for some
reason.

Anyway, from my accustomed position on the sofa, I would
look past the back of Luke's head, with its shaggy fair
hair hanging loosely over the collar of his shirt, and
through the clear glass diamonds of the windows into the
foliage of a majestic old oak tree. Every element of this
view gave me comfort and security, devoid of the threats
and cruelty of all that lay beyond it. This was my womb.
I did not want to leave it.

It wasn't only security that he gave me - he gave me
love. Love of music, love of history, love of literature,
love of art, and love of him. It was my first - and only
- taste of love. For the first time in my life I was
noticed, heard, valued, prized. Until then, it had really
been a case of `out of sight, out of mind'. My father's
life was `Moore & Associates, Public Accountants' and the
Blackheath Golf Club; my mother's was the Moore Pharmacy
and my older sister Eva. Being despatched to boarding
school in Sydney at the age of twelve was all the
evidence I needed of my parents' disinterest.

Mind you, there were situations in which he treated me
with as much disinterest as my parents, most notably in
class. I saw him every day in class. In fact, in two
classes - English and History. In these, he went to great
lengths to ensure that I was given no special treatment.
Indeed, in my view, he went too far, for I would sit in
class with my hand almost permanently raised in my
eagerness to answer his questions. Only rarely, however,
was I invited to do so. I told myself that here was yet
another example of his care and consideration - he was
protecting me from charges of being his `pet'. Only later
did I realise that he was really protecting himself. But
even then I didn't hold it against him.

Out of school hours, however, all was different. He
seemed to be every bit as pleased to hear the squeak of
his flywire door as I was to cause it. A welcoming cup of
milky tea `with two' became a ritual. Then I would lie on
his sofa listening to music while he marked work, or read
poetry to me, or told me stories about the heroes of
history. He told me about the boy genius Mozart, mad King
Ludwig of Bavaria, the sea-green incorruptible
Robespierre, the wily Cosimo de Medici and his
magnificent grandson Lorenzo, the eccentric George IV of
England, and the Emperor Napoleon. These were the people
who inhabited my dreams, both waking and sleeping. To me
they had far more to offer a twelve year-old boy than any
living and breathing human that I knew . except for one.
It was Luke who set my life's course. He was my model and
I wanted to be his clone."


3.

"What do you think about Mike Tyson's rape conviction, Mr
Moore?"
It was one of those pointless, vacuous adolescent
questions shot like an arrow into an atmosphere of
awkward silence in an attempt to alleviate the density of
discomfort, but with the pre-ordained result of merely
thickening it.
Phillip wanted to reply that such a cretinous thug as
Mike Tyson should have his block and tackle cut off
whether he was guilty or not; that the victim was
probably just a common scrubber on a gold-digging
mission; that Scott Atkins, known to his friends as Spud,
should focus his very meagre brain on more useful issues;
and that, if they all just focused on polishing off the
food and then buggered off to bed, everyone would be a
lot happier.
"Well, Scott, if I knew who Mike Tyson was, we could
possibly debate the matter. Given my ignorance of the
matter, however, why don't you just have another piece of
cake."
Blissfully oblivious to Phillip's rebuff, Scott did as he
was bidden.

The four boys were sprawled in the green armchairs around
the duty room coffee table, the misshapen leg of which
seemed about to give way under the weight of a white
plastic platter of strips of raw carrot, celery segments
and red capsicum pieces; a bowl of rice crackers; another
bowl full of chick pea dip, neatly decorated with
sprinkled paprika powder and drizzled olive oil; and a
cake smeared roughly and thickly with cream-coloured
icing decorated with mandarin segments.

It was `after-prep supper', the nightly ritual in which
the Master-on-Duty invited four or five students to
devour a selection of delicacies prepared by the resident
matron and to engage in sparkling conversation. Phillip
normally relished the occasion. For one, it signalled the
imminent end of duty purgatory; for another, it gave him
a chance to cast his acerbic witty pearls before a cast
of five hand-picked adoring swine.

But tonight, his first `duty' of the new school year,
he'd forgotten the routine and had failed to issue
invitations. So, when Matron had interrupted his tutorial
with James with delivery of the food and the enquiry as
to who would be its lucky consumers, he had to admit to
his oversight. It was sheer laziness that brought about
his acquiescence with her suggestion that it would be
`nice for the new boy' if James could invite his three
room-mates to supper `so he can earn a few brownie
points'. Matron blithely assumed, not without
justification it must be said, that in Payne House an
invitation to sample her `cuisine' was akin to an
invitation to a royal garden party.

Phillip's agreement turned instantly to apprehension, and
then to unmitigated horror as, twenty minutes later, the
four Year 11 boys trailed into the duty room. Scott
Atkins was the son of a red-necked pear grower from `down
south' near Batlow, and his cerebral deficits were only
compounded by a body, the shape of which looked as if it
had been picked from one of his father's trees. Travis
Lamb was the witless offspring of a pretentious dairy
farmer and chairman of the Tweed River branch of the
National Party. What made him so odious to Phillip was
his incessantly mindless regurgitation of his father's
bigoted views on the moral decline of `Orstralia' under
`that foul-mouthed Keating'. James, by way of minor
compensation, meandered in third, and was followed by
Peter O'Callahan, aka Callo, the son of a small-town
solicitor. He was reputed to be both clever and athletic,
but the army of pimples that covered his face and his
tendency to be critical of anything and everything had
not endeared him to Phillip.

The boys seemed to be quite unfazed by the virtual veto
on conversation that Phillip had imposed, and they
happily filled in the silence by inexorably devouring the
food and picking through the pile of discarded and
dismembered editions of The Sydney Morning Herald that
Matron had disdainfully pushed to one end of the coffee
table to make way for her delectables. It was Callo who
broke the silence. From behind the newspaper in which he
had for some minutes been engrossed, he said, `Shit, the
Prime Minister of France reckons that 25% of men in
England, Germany and the US are homosexual'.
`That's bullshit, it's at least 70%'.
The softly modulated voice came from over Phillip's
shoulder, and he turned sharply towards the door to
identify its owner. He froze.
`Hi, Mr Moore. Is supper all booked up, or is there room
for one more? I've just got in from Surfers and I'm
famished.'

**

James had sat in mute embarrassment throughout the supper
ordeal. An hour earlier he had come to the duty room with
a simple question, but had found himself trapped. Now he
found himself transfixed by the face of the new arrival.
Its central features were generous lips and widely spaced
brown-black eyes crowned by perfectly proportioned
elegant black eyebrows. Its skin was unblemished and
smooth, and almost pure white with a subtle sheen that
made it appear diaphanous, like the surface of a pearl.
The nose was straight with a distinct narrow bridge and a
steep slope, and the nostrils were slightly, but
suggestively, flared. The chin was round and prominently
dimpled; the jaw was wide; and the forehead was high and
crowned by an abundance of straight silky jet black hair
which, parted in the middle, swept down over both sides
of the face. Its angelic beauty, however, was in sharp
contrast to the veiled menace that permeated the arrival
of its owner. His voice was too controlled and velvety,
his greeting oozed impertinence, and his very presence
was a barely-concealed challenge to Phillip's authority.

Without waiting for Phillip to assent, the newcomer
deftly appropriated the last slice of cake and
effortlessly pirouetted himself onto the formica bench
and into the narrow space next to the microwave. His
nonchalant occupation of this elevated position only
enhanced his intimidating presence, though, in truth, it
was only Phillip and James who seemed to submit to his
spell. James noticed that the other three boys seemed to
react to his intrusion with silent, but clearly
discernible, disdain.

"Sorry I'm back a few days late, but mummy just couldn't
tear herself away from the fleshpots of Surfers. Did you
miss me?"

In the face of the boy's insouciance and exaggerated
bonhomie, Phillip had both visibly reddened and lost his
air of urbane self-assurance. It seemed to James that he
was immobilised between the choice of acknowledging the
affront to his dignity by delivering the boy a stinging
reproach or demonstrating his own sang froid by playing
him at his own game. He opted for an ineffectual
compromise.
"I trust that you have informed Mr McAllister that you
have finally deigned to re-join us. Oh, and by the way,
you won't have met our new arrival".
Gesturing at James, he completed the formal introduction:
"James Silverwood . David Mulholland".
James's mumbled `hello' was met with not even an
acknowledging glance.

When, however, two minutes later, James rose to escape to
bed, he was conscious of two dark eyes following him to
the door.



4.

Escaping the Edwardian time-warp of his mother's rambling
old house and attitudes in leafy Blackheath after a
Christmas and New Year of unendurable boredom, Phillip
had headed for Sydney at the earliest opportunity with a
pent-up cargo of lust.
He wasn't required to return to Payne House until the
start of February, and he had somewhat surprisingly been
invited to spend three lazy weeks with Nick and Simone
Gibbs at Palm Beach. But, before heading off to the
northern beaches, he had three free days in which to
satisfy his urgent desires and to enjoy the fleshpots of
Oxford Street.

He made straight for Kingsteam with no other thought in
his head than opening his safety valve and releasing as
much of his sexual energy as quickly as possible. As
Sydney's oldest gay sauna, Kingsteam lacked the renovated
modernity and clinical sterility of the others. It was,
in fact, rather run-down, its shabbiness masked by
minimal lighting and black recesses. But that was exactly
why Phillip was a regular patron. What he wanted was
basic, dangerous, heavy and hard-core. He never had to
cruise for very long in a sauna - his relative youth at
27, his strong but lean build, his self-assured
indifference, and his mastery of cruising technique
ensured his desirability. The average proportions of his
genitals had never been a hindrance.

Today, he was especially aggressive and amenable in
pursuing and cornering his prey, and it wasn't long
before he was involved in a convoluted five-man
entanglement in the dimly-lit dungeon. It was the kind of
encounter that Phillip relished, and the variety of body
types, sights, tastes, smells and tactile sensations
stimulated him to heights of satisfaction. Of the other
four men engaged in this sexual wrestle, one was heavy,
bearded and matted with coarse black body hair and wore a
studded leather harness; a second was `Mr Average' -
average height, average body hair, average age, average
penis; the third was a skinny, smooth youth, wearing a
black leather hood zipped up from throat to mouth; and
the fourth, well built with ginger hair on his powerful
chest, also wore a hood as well as a harness, and
carried a flat black leather spanker. The noises of
hunger and pleasure combined with the sharp
reverberations of the spanker to attract a crowd of
enthusiastic onlookers, all draped only in the cheap thin
white towels provided by the sauna.

Sexual entanglements involving more than two people are
always fraught with the danger that at least one of the
participants may find himself in the position of
providing more pleasure than he receives. Phillip knew
that, in order to avoid this unenviable outcome, he had
to be proactive, assertive and creative. As a result, the
effort required to satisfy his needs not only involved a
variety of contortions that produced a stream of sweat,
but also stimulated his thirst. Having finally, but
explosively, expended his accumulated juices, he headed
towards the stairs to take him up to the bar in the
reception. As he made to begin his climb, a sotto voce
voice came out of the gloom to his right.
"Nice one, Mr Moore. Some great moves."
"Who the hell is that?" Phillip blurted out, seized by a
mixture of panic and terror and peering into the
darkness.
"Oh, just one of your Payne House admirers", purred
David, pulling the hood off his head and stepping into
the semi-light to stand at Phillip's side.
"Aren't you going to offer me a New Year's greeting and
drink? I guess I've already had the greeting, so I'll
just settle for the drink."
"What on earth are you doing here?"
"Same as you, of course . only not half so well", David
replied.
"I thought you'd be overseas somewhere", Phillip
conjectured, hoping against hope that his very suggestion
might magically become reality.
"Oh, you know, Ibiza and Mykonos are just hell in
January, and Mummy finds Asia intolerable", David said
with barely-disguised disdain. "Besides, her broker
insisted she jet in to sign a few papers. Right now she's
tossing up between slumming it in Surfers or Noosa for
the next three weeks, and I guess I'll tag along for the
ride. Certainly better than flitting between the
geriatric charm of my grandparents' house and the
emptiness of my mother's apartment in Elizabeth Bay .
Speaking of which, I've got a proposition for you. And
how about that drink?"
In the face of the cool nonchalance of the boy, Phillip
felt increasingly like a condemned man. He would have
preferred to tell the impudent little shit to bugger off,
but what might be the consequences of that? He felt he
had little choice other than to accede to David's
suggestion.

Seated in a cheap aluminium chair, whose ribbed seat
produced a not unpleasant sensation on the back of his
thighs, Phillip sipped his mineral water through a black
straw. Overcome by a feeling that he was about to be
asked to sign his own death warrant, he tried the deep-
voiced authoritative approach in the hope that it might
deter his companion.
"So, what's this proposition then?"
Deter, however, he did not.
"Well, seeing as you appear to like young arse and I
certainly like my trade older, and seeing as I have
access to an empty apartment for most of the year, and
seeing as you're in no position to deny any reasonable
request I might make for fear of what I might say, I just
thought that I could entertain you at Elizabeth Bay from
time to time for a bit of stress-relieving amusement. All
compliments of the Mulholland millions, of course."
"Are you serious?"
 Phillip was dumbstruck.
"Never been more serious in my life, Mr Moore", replied
David sweetly.