Dahran

The Time Line by Gerry Taylor

This is the seventh chapter [ex twenty two] of a novel about gay sex and present-day slavery.

Keywords: authority, control, gay, loyalty, slavery, punishment, retraining, sex, submission

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The Prison Doctor and The Changed Life [the first novel of this series] are now available as full novels in Adobe Acrobat format on http://www.geocities.com/gerrytaylor_78/

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Chapter 7 -- Egotism

It is part of the human condition to fool ourselves--to fool ourselves on our strengths, wisdom, intelligence, on our feelings and emotions. We do it all the time and with the regularity worthy of an old-fashioned grandfather clock. Indeed, experience is the name everyone gives his mistakes as the wit said.

Georgie Deckam was fooling himself if he thought he could avoid his responsibilities to his family. Before leaving Dahra for London, I told him quite bluntly that I was in the process of finding him a wife. He took it quite well, going a little green around the gills, but otherwise, quite well. Frankly, I don't think he had the balls to take me on.

I think that he might have tried to fool himself that I had forgotten all about it. I most certainly had not. Unrequested favours by Charlie Deckam, my friend and Bank Chairman, I can hear without any need of words.

I was feeling reasonably sure of myself since I had got an e-mail at the branch in Dahra before departing for London from Emily Smith, the wife of my electrician partner Ryan, that she wished me to meet three possible candidates when I was next around. I told Georgie that I expected him to be present at the same time that I met them. It was not a question of choice. It was a question of being there, full stop! His was a meek reply of `Yes, Sir Jonathan.'

Even though I took the New Concorde Friday flight from Bahrain on my own, my mind was not really on any of the one-page reports which had arrived in advance of Monday's meeting. The flight was not eased by the presence of two soccer internationals on the flight returning from a holiday in the Gulf -- slim, trim, coiffed in a naturally nonchalant rough way, and both sporting serious packages in their beige slacks. I noticed that their knees touched frequently during the flight as they splayed their legs.

Maybe the heat in their young balls needed ventilation such was the spread of their legs. Or maybe they just both had big balls, but while the seats in first class are wide and separated, the two soccer stars managed to establish knee-contact on a frequent basis.

They must have been in training as they had nothing stronger than Sprite or fruit-juices for the duration of the flight, and so were quiet and softly spoken throughout. I found myself thinking that the world is full of beautiful young studs, so many in need of finding out about life and the true borders and boundaries of their own sexuality.

As soon as I was off the New Concorde at Heathrow, I tried my son Richard's mobile. I did not expect it to answer but rather again to be put through to the answering machine and had my message ready in my head, when a quiet voice said `Hello?'

`Richard, it's me. I'm in London.'

`Hello, dad.'

Those two words went to my very soul and I momentarily closed my eyes.

`I'm in London early. I thought I could meet up with you. What are the arrangements?'

I really knew the arrangements as I had had Henry, the porter at Deckams head office, fax me the section of the obituary page which had Caroline's death notice. But it was an extra line in my conversation.

`Mum had it all arranged long ago. There's to be a service at the school on Sunday and cremation afterwards, followed by a lunch at the local hotel. She wanted all her colleagues at work to come to the lunch.'

`It looks like she was indeed very organised.'

`Dad, would....would you come down to Surrey to be with me?'

I really had never heard doubt in Richard before and I realised that he was not doubting himself, but rather, he was doubting me.

`Of course, I would be delighted. Where are you now?'

`At the house, in Guildford.'

`Give me the address and I'll come down right away,' I said. If there was one thing I was going to do, it was to dispel any doubt in Richard's mind about me.

I was glad that I had ordered a car and driver from the Bank before I had left Dahra, and I spotted one of our drivers immediately as I came through customs and he immediately saw me and came to relieve me of my bag.

`I need to get to Guildford.'

`No problem, Sir Jonathan. About three quarters of an hour at this time of day.'

The limousine was nearby and as soon as I was in the back, I put up the dividing glass and closed my eyes as the car negotiated its way onto the spur of the M4 as it headed for the M25.

I had given the driver the address. I don't know how he found out where it was, but in just over thirty minutes we were exiting off the national network and taking a series of roads and streets on the outskirts of Guildford.

My thoughts had been almost entirely on Richard for the duration of the journey. Caroline had flashed in and out of them. But it was Richard, Richard, Richard...time and time again. Having found him, I was not about to lose him for love or money.

The intercom beeped once.

`Sir Jonathan, we are arriving now. Number 12, I think you said,' as the limousine glided to a halt at the kerb of a detached house on a quiet road.

`Wait for me here a moment. If I need you tomorrow Saturday or Sunday, are you on duty?'

Of course, Sir Jonathan. If you know the time now, I will arrange to be here, otherwise just ring me,' and he handed me a Deckam's card with Anthony Biggars' on it and a mobile number under the name. `It will take me about an hour to get here whenever you need me, Sir Jonathan.'

`Just wait a moment.'

Richard must have seen the car pull up, because he met me at the door.

`Do want to go anywhere today or can I let the car go?' I said.

No, dad,' and he shook his head. You can let it go.'

The driver retrieved my bag from the boot of the car and carried it to the door of the house where I took it.

Richard let me pass through, and I put my bag down at the foot of the stairs; he motioned with his arm, to go through a door into what was large kitchen opening up into a conservatory overlooking a lawn and a garden.

I turned to look at him and he was just standing in the middle of the kitchen, looking lost in his own home, and then we both took a step and he was in my arms, sobbing his heart out.

That evening, we sat in the conservatory and drank two bottles of wine before we were finally done. I found my son was not a great one for small talk with me, a person he really did not know at all, and it was really only after about his third glass of wine, that he mellowed. I noticed that on three occasions, he had reached out to hold my hand or to touch my wrist as if to confirm that I was really there.

I had said to him `Tell me about the Caroline that I never knew' and he wandered in and out of family history for over two hours. Caroline had two sisters, one married, one not. He had two young cousins -- a boy and a girl - which I supposed made me an uncle by my blood relationship through my son.

He returned to the funeral arrangements as if that were on his mind more than other things.

`Mum had left it all planned. Even down to the hymns and the menu for the meal. She had it all paid for two months ago.'

That was before she had renewed her acquaintanceship with me. At some point in her life, Caroline had stopped being the utterly carefree spirit who had milked a son out of my loins while I was semi-comatose on pink champagne and had become a respectable teacher and deputy head.

At some point, she had channelled her life early on into nourishing a child inside her body and rearing it then in the security of a house and home.

`And you, dad?', my son said to me, the dried tears streaking his face and half-hid in the descending dusk and I remembered the Dahran proverb that tears are a weapon to be feared and a gift to be treasured.

Me? Boring banking on the Gulf' as my sister Elizabeth says. You have only one aunt, Elizabeth, on my side of the family who is married to Jock Tuttle, a Scotsman, and you have a cousin Jack, their only son. I also do some farming in Dahra. There's a lot more, but that's essentially it.'

`You know, I lodged your cheque at the Bank,' he said.

I didn't. I rarely check the few transactions on that account at head- office.

`You should have seen the teller's eyes the way they opened up and two days later the manager rang me to ask if I wanted the money on deposit. I didn't know what to tell her. So I said I would issue her with instructions in due course,' and he giggled at the memory.

I smiled because he was pleased. And if he was pleased, I was pleased. His was the reaction of a person well used to talking about other people's money, but never having money of his own to handle.

I was feeling the effects of the wine on what had been essentially an empty stomach. I mentioned something about eating and did he want to eat out?

Richard shook his head as if not wanting to break the spell that had settled over the kitchen-cum-conservatory. It was warm but at the same time airy and cool.

`There's a roast chicken in the fridge and a couple of dishes of pâté. I can work up a salad.'

`Let me help' and I followed him over to some presses and a counter where there were tomatoes with green and red peppers in a bowl.

The fridge also produced an old crumbly traditional Wensleydale and half a round of smelly Stilton. Richard pointed to a box which produced some water-biscuits.

I looked at him, self-assured and confident, in preparing the food. As if reading my mind, he said `whenever I was at home, even in the last two years at school, we took turns at the dinner. I was always Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. There's cutlery in that drawer and there are some plates above.'

I dutifully obliged in their retrieval and a cold buffet of patés and roast chicken pieces balanced by a salad was soon laid out before us.

`I think your self-sufficiency and your self-confidence comes from Caroline.'

`In a way, yes, she was the only role model I ever knew. She was more like a big sister to me at times than a mum. But, I think it strange, dad, that her greatest gift ever to me is you.'

He looked me in the eyes and held my hand and then looked away as his fingers wrapped around mine, and more tears were shed.

The food helped absorb some of the wine and delayed the full alcoholic content getting into the blood-stream too quickly. It didn't help when we started on the cheese that Richard produced half a bottle of Croft's port. Various glasses later the happy buzz of light intoxication saw us sitting at a table now almost in darkness. We had not even bothered to turn on a light.

I cannot really remember what we talked about, but all I heard from Richard was new to me, and like so many new things, they would have to be repeated to me in time to gel properly in the structure of his life I was creating in my mind.

At about nine, I could not stifle a yawn. I put it down to the wine and the port. But my internal body clock already said that it was midnight in Dahra and I had been up with the Dahran sunrise at five fifteen, to say nothing of a dehydrating flight at a speed of Mach 2.

Richard carried my bag upstairs and put me in the guest bedroom, pointing out the en-suite bathroom and turning down the duvet.

`Good night, dad. Thank you for being here. I'll call you in the morning,' and with a final hug was out of the bedroom.

I don't actually remember getting into bed, but I slowly opened my eyes and it was a new day. My watch said eight o'clock which meant it was just five in the UK. I listened to the sounds of woods and distant traffic as the suburb of Guildford roused itself for the first day of the weekend.

Two hours later I heard Richard up, so I got up as well. I felt strange that I knew my son so little after half a day with him yesterday, but the more that I knew, the more I felt I had to know.

We met at the top of the stairs and I let Richard go down ahead of me. A pile of Saturday post lay on the porch mat, the sign of a civilised society that still remembered to allow to keep in written contact six days a week. It looked a lot of post for a Saturday and as Richard picked up the twenty or so envelopes, I realised that most of them would be sympathy cards on Caroline's death. People have their own brand of kindness for such occasions.

I asked Richard if he needed a car to do anything that day, that I could order mine back. He shook his head.

`Everything is organised for tomorrow. It's only a question of turning up at eleven for the service at the school chapel, and then at one at the hotel for lunch.'

After breakfast, I put in some phone calls to Emily Smith and to my hotel on The Strand. Emily was ready for me. The hotel said it would be waiting for us. Biggars, my driver, confirmed his availability for that evening and on the morrow.

Later in the morning, we walked through Guildford and Richard showed me his old primary school and pointed in the direction of the public school where he had received his pre-university education and where we would go the following morning for the funeral service.

Two people stopped him in the street to offer their condolences and give a nod to me. He did not introduce me other than as `Jonathan Martin'.

Richard was comfortable in his milieu, his local surroundings, and looking at the interaction of people with him, even under tragic circumstances, people were comfortable with him and he was patient and comfortable with them.

We lunched cheaply at an Italian restaurant on a bowl of minestrone and some peasant bread, and shared a plate of tagliatelle which Richard said were too much for him. Even coffee was too much to order, so we strolled back to the house.

`Would you mind, if I did some business up in London. I promise I'll be back in the evening.'

`No problem, dad.'

He put his hand in his pocket and brought out a key.

`To the house, just in case, I am out. I don't know why I should be. But just in case...when you get back.'

My driver was actually waiting outside the house as we arrived. I just washed my hands inside, embraced Richard and promised a speedy return.

The drive up to London was not as quick as I thought as there was clearly a population out doing Saturday shopping. However, we arrived at the hotel with a couple of minutes to spare before three.

`I'll see you back here at six, to return to Guildford.'

`Yes, Sir Jonathan. No problem.'

`Did you have lunch?'

`Thank you for asking, sir. I had a sandwich on the run.'

I put my hand in my pocket, produced a note and gave it to him.

`Get something more solid. You won't be back in London until seven at the earliest.'

`Thank you, sir,' he said with a grin as he saw the fifty.

Emily Smith was true to her word. She was in the lobby of the hotel sitting to the right. Also in the lobby was Georgie Deckham, sitting to the left. They had no reason to know each other and as far as the other was concerned, each was waiting for guests in the hotel.

`Emily, it is good to see you again,' I said giving her a peck on the cheek.

Georgie had got up as well and had been heading towards me when he stopped as he saw me greeting Emily.

`Georgie, may I introduce Emily Smith. She has set up a number of interviews for us today. Emily, Georgie Deckam, the young man, I spoke of.'

Georgie reddened in his blush. Emily smiled and said, `I am very happy to meet you,' and they both shook hands.

`Who is looking after the baby today?' I enquired of Emily.

It's Saturday,' she said with a smile. Ryan, of course. When they're on their own, I don't who is the bigger child, him or Chris' and in a more serious tone, she took the lead in saying, `shall we go in? I took the liberty of checking the interview room before you arrived, and it's fine. The first person is not due to arrive until quarter past.'

I smiled to myself at the hotel's small boardroom with its fine leathers being described as `fine'. Indicating the way to Georgie, I led the way in.

`How do you want to conduct this, Jonathan?' Emily said.

`Just let us make sure that each girl knows what is being asked of her, and let us find out precisely what her financial and security expectations are. Okay, Georgie?'

Georgie had really said nothing since my arrival at the hotel.

`Do feel free to ask any questions you want to ask, Georgie.'

I thought for a moment that he looked a bit sickly. In his situation, I might well be myself, but there was no way, not even by getting sick, that Georgie Deckam was getting out of this.

There was a knock on the door and the girl from reception put her head in, `Sir Jonathan, a Miss Hind to see you.'

`Send her in, please.'

The first of our prospective brides had arrived.

A rather nervous looking young woman of about twenty two or twenty three, Mary Hind, was shown in and I made the introductions, and indicated to her to sit down, which she did. She was of medium build, slender with a nice face and a soft mouth.

`My friend is waiting for me outside.'

I looked at her, not understanding.

`Sorry?'

`I came with a friend. She is waiting for me outside. This is not Candid Camera or some joke like that?'

I looked at Emily and at Georgie, and then at Emily again, before looking at the young woman.

`Miss Hind, this is not a joke. There is no camera here. I understand that you were in contact with Mrs. Smith here about our proposition.'

`Yes, I saw the ad and I spoke with a woman twice.'

Yes, that was me,' Emily said, and this is a serious proposition. A young man is looking for a wife who will bear him two sons.'

`Not daughters or one of each?'

`With artificial insemination, it is quite easy to ensure the sex of the child,' Emily patiently replied.

`Why doesn't he just go and marry someone?'

`He is very shy. He has never met the right person he wants to marry.'

That was the first economy with the truth that I had heard. I was going to say something, but the young woman seemed to be happy with that response.

`What would you say to marrying someone, Miss Hind, who would never love you, but would be kind to you, look after you financially, and so on?'

`How do you know that he and I would not fall in love?'

`We don't know that. I am just painting the bleakest picture,' I replied.

After some seconds silence. I continued by asking, `Why are you offering to be a wife and a mother to this person's child?'

`The money, I suppose. I work in a travel agency. I am an assistant to the manageress. The pay is not great. That's why that's all. Is that why I had to take the medical?'

She had lost me. I looked at Emily.

`I asked each applicant to visit a gynaecologist, paid for by us, to be absolute sure of the ability to bear a child,' Emily replied.

`I would want some money in an account of my own and when the child is to be born a private room at a hospital,' the young lady said firmly.

She had given the matter some thought, but not a lot. Short-term thinking, yes! Long-term planning, most definitely not!'

I looked at a sheet that Emily at passed over to me.

I opined that it was the shortest CV in the history of CVs: name and home address. I knew the area but had never heard of the street; mobile phone number; school to the age of fifteen; a father who had disappeared soon after she was born and mother who was now dead. No family, other than her mother's sister with whom she had stayed until moving in with a friend in the friend's flat.

What caught my eye was that she neither drank nor smoked. Alcohol made her sick, and smoking she simply disliked.

I looked at her much as I might have looked at an Eliza Doolittle and tried to envisage her with the benefit of education and money, and I liked what I saw.

I looked at Georgie out of the corner of my eye and he was looking at Mary Hind, much as a rabbit looks at a fox, with a sense of distinct hopelessness. I really, really had to take Georgie in hand and keep him securely on a tether!

`Mary, we have to see two other persons today. Would you be free to come back here tomorrow say about six o'clock, if we called you to a second interview?'

I saw hesitation but could not put my finger on the reason.

`Of course, we wish to pay you for any time you have spent here today and the trouble that you may have getting back here tomorrow.'

I took out my wallet and said `Would two hundred cover your expenses?'

`Oh, yes, sir, it would.'

Whatever about Mary Hind being financially minded, she was a pleasant young woman who might just fit the bill and being poor, not just her body but her entire future life could be bought.

I cannot say that the rest of that Saturday afternoon was a success. The second woman to arrive after the first courtesies of introduction turned out to be so coarse and vulgar that Georgie Deckam slid me a note with two words - `No Way' - on it. I sympathised with his summary and taking out my wallet again, I passed over two hundred in notes with the comment that we would be in touch.

The third woman was in her mid-twenties and while presentable in many ways admitted she was already married but her husband had put her up to answering the ad to see `what the money was like'. They were agreed in having a baby and giving it away immediately. This time the two hundred passed over the table without need of any comment about future contact.

For one who had barely spoken in three hours, and that merely to give his name with his handshake, Georgie Deckam looked as if he had been put through the ringer. He looked totally washed out.

`Georgie, it's going to be number one. Miss Mary Hind. Emily and I will see her tomorrow and arrange the details. On Monday, you will visit a specialist in Harley Street and leave some sperm with him. The specialist will start inseminating your future wife right away. In May or June, whenever we are both back at the next board meeting, you will marry Mary Hind, and then you don't have to see her again.'

`You mean, you mean, I don't have to...?

`What, have sex with her?'

His nod confirmed that he and I were on the same street of thought.

`No, the doctor will take care of all that.'

`Oh, thank God! Thank you God!'

For whatever reasons, and I was not about to waste time in trying to fathom them, Georgie had a total phobia about having sex with women.

`All you are going to have to do is pay for a nice apartment, all bills, a further say thirty thousand sterling per year in the Bank for your future wife. There will be a pre-nuptial contract. Then we will tell your dad, and then all you have to do is to turn up for your wedding in a registry office. How about that?'

`Thank you, Jonathan. Thank you.'

`For getting you a wife, or for ensuring that you don't have to have sex with a woman to father your own son?'

He didn't answer. Georgie Deckam was a bit of a puzzle alright. Of that, there was no doubt.

If Georgie Deckham ever left Dahra, there might be the possibility of him finding true love with a male partner, and with the changed laws on same-sex marriage, he would then have to divorced his still future wife. These things however were best left in the lap of the Gods. For me, at least, I had satisfied my short-term goals, and I was about to please an old and dear friend in Charlie Deckham.

On the dot of six, Anthony Biggars was outside the hotel with the car.

`Did you eat, Biggars?'

`Yes, sir, thank you. A pizza and a soft drink. Do you require the receipt, sir.'

`No, not at all. Do you have Country and Western on the radio as we go?'

Yes, sir, that we have!' he replied with enthusiasm. I'll find you a good station.'

He reminded me of Jess Tollmann, even down to the tight slacks and black polo-neck in the casual wear of a Saturday driver. Were I to have had more time, avenues might have been explored.

As the M25 flashed by, I thought just how simple life can be with purpose and a little money. Within the hour, we were pulling up outside Richard's house and I booked the car for the following morning to take us to the service just in case.

It had been a full day, but a day well spent on the future of the Deckam family and on the solution of a problem of a dear friend and fellow partner at the Bank, Charlie Deckam.

I looked at the house and there were lights on. Again, I looked forward to meeting my son, at home.

End of Chapter 7

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Contact:

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The Dahran series -- a fictional adventure story about the life and times of Sir Jonathan Martin -- comprises the following novels to date:

1. The Changed Life

2. The Reluctant Retrainer

3. The Market Offer

4. The Special Memories

5. The Dahran Way

6. The Dahran Rebuttals

7. The Seventh Desert

8. The Dahran Sands

9. The Time Line

These novels are all serialised on Nifty (Gay -- Authoritarian) and on YahooGroups http://groups.yahoo.com/group/erotic_gay_stories