The Michael Arram stories are now beginning to appear together at: http://www.iomfats.org/storyshelf/hosted/arram
This story contains graphic depictions of sex between young males. If the reading or possessing of such material as this is illegal in your place of residence please leave this site immediately and do not proceed further. If you are under the legal age to read this, please do not do so.
XIV
The next morning David insisted that Ed and Henry come with him to meet Anton. He was very nervous. After yesterday's excitement, they decided on a quiet cup of tea in the Botanic Gardens by the river. Anton turned up looking very nice in summer casuals. David did the Rothenian handshake thing, and went to kiss him on the cheek. But the Rothenian boy shied away, looking at Ed and Henry.
It's OK, Anton,' Henry said, in Rothenian, we're there too.'
Anton looked at Henry and gave a very shy little grin, the boy was quite a turn on. So this is unique,' he said, an Anglo-Saxon who talks Rothenian.'
Excuse the directness,' said Henry, pushing the boat out a bit and sticking to Anton's native language, but David's worried about the unprotected sex you had last night.'
Anton looked startled and then nodded, `He needn't be. I'm clean and I knew he was a virgin.'
Henry frowned, Well make sure you tell him, but take your time ... he deserves to sweat over that piece of recklessness.' He turned to David, I was just saying that me and Ed need to get along and leave you and Anton to get to know each other. Maybe see you for dinner.' He added a little maliciously, `Play safe now.'
As they wandered off, Ed said, `Pretty couple they make. It's a pity they've only got a couple of days together.'
`Maybe ... but it's the summer romance thing isn't it. Days of stolen passion, all the sweeter for being so few. How about that for Henry wisdom?'
`Superlative, little babe ... if trite.'
David went missing that afternoon. He failed to turn up for dinner and didn't check back into his bedroom at the hotel. Friday morning Terry was getting frantic. `That little sod's gonna get me into deep shit. If I don't deliver him back in good nick to school on Sunday, there're going to be some serious and difficult questions asked of Henry's dad. What is the kid playing at?'
`It's love Terry, it does weird things to us all. You know that.' Henry said, but he too was worried. They had no contact number for Anton, and David had turned off his mobile.
On Friday evening Terry patrolled the Wejg and Rodolferplaz restlessly. He relentlessly questioned regulars at Club Liberation. Several knew Anton, but not where he lived or much else about him except that he was hot and available to the right sort of young guy. Justin joined him and started chatting to the more dubious residents of the Wejg, the rent boys who clustered in doorways two blocks down from the club. They weren't much use although one claimed to have been paid by Anton for a blowjob. Justin didn't believe him, but shrugged and chatted with the prostitutes anyway. He grinned when he got propositioned by a big German bloke. `Not enough to take a cock like yours mate, I'm sure me colleague here will be happy to assist.'
Unusually, it was Nathan who picked up David's track. He had decided to try out the waiters in the gay cafes near Liberation with a picture of David he had on his mobile, and he struck gold with one. `Yes. He was in here with a pretty blond boy this evening. They held hands. It was quite sweet. They walked off to the National Opera, I think they were going to the Stravinsky concert.'
So Nathan, Justin and Terry lurked in the portico of the Strelzen Opera House at ten thirty as the doors opened and the crowd flooded out. Anton and David came out together, and Anton was startled to find himself surrounded and blocked by three determined and fit young men.
So David,' said Terry, maybe you can tell me when you were thinking of turning up? We go back tomorrow.'
David looked defiant. `I'm staying on.'
`You told your parents?'
`I will do. I'm staying with Anton. What we've got going is just too good to let go. I may never have another chance like this in all my life.'
`And you will live how?'
`Anton's got a little apartment. I'll get a job. We'll survive.'
`And your A Levels, university, friends?'
`I'll pick up with all that later. But I've found the love of my life.'
David,' said Terry, you are seventeen, and you have found a lover. You have not found the love of your life.'
David gave him a hard look, `And how old was Ramon when he met you?'
`That's not comparable. I at least knew all about sex. This is just your dick in shock. Mr Atwood will get in terrible trouble if you don't turn up in school on Sunday. Would you want to be responsible for that sort of shit? How about you, Anton? Want a live-in lover in your little apartment do you?'
Anton looked harassed. `David and I have something going. It's true. But hey ... I don't want any trouble, I mean ... him to get in any trouble. David, you've got to think of your friends and parents.'
Terry gave a tight little grin. Anton had been having fun with what he believed was a rich western kid. He was not up for consequences. Now it was David's turn to look harrassed. `This is all bollocks. I'm old enough to do what I want,' he said.
And not old enough to do what is right,' returned Terry coolly. Here, Anton. You seem a nice kid. Be fair. Do you need a lodger?'
Anton took David's hand, `To be honest, David. It really would not be convenient, much though I like you.'
David looked deeply shocked and then distraught, `You ... don't want me with you?'
Anton wasn't a bad man and he saw the fragile heart in front of him cracking, `You're a lovely person David, and quite something in bed, but it wouldn't be right for either of us.'
It was too much for David, his eyes flooded and he blushed scarlet. He looked round wildly, his mouth open, and then with an unbearable look that made even Terry ashamed, he stalked off. Terry sighed, `Follow him you two, and don't let him get near the river.'
The trip back to the UK was nowhere near as pleasant -- nor as dangerous -- as the trip out to Rothenia had been. David looked like he was in dream of his own as they loaded the Medwardine minibus. He ignored everyone, even Henry. He slumped in a corner and watched the landscape pass by with no interest whatsoever. They stopped for lunch at Leipzig, and he sat in the van, `Not hungry,' he said with perfect politeness and total indifference.
They all looked at Terry in the service station carvery. `Don't look at me. If I knew a cure for a broken heart it'd be a different bloke sitting here, babes. Get some sarnies in the shop, he might feel hungry later.' David was asleep when they got back in the van, and slept on all afternoon. Henry said he thought he'd not slept the night before, when Justin and Nathan had brought him back. They talked quietly together about their week in Rothenia.
Nathan and Justin were a lot happier together now. There had been decisions made and a lot of talking between them. Terry was going back into the security business. `It woke me up little babes. Without Ramon I ain't gonna make it on the stage. So I'm taking on contract work for PeacherCorp. I'm buying a flat in the East End, and taking offices near Canary Wharf. Andy's already getting his people to find me a place. Iss time to do the big thing and commit to the future. O'Brien Security Associates is going into business. And me first associate is Justin Peacher-White.'
`What!!' said Ed and Henry, though they kept the volume down with David flat out on the back seat.
Nathan said, with some regret, `My chavvy babe's good at it, unfortunately. I won't stand in his way. He'll still live with me at Haddesley Hall, and he'll work in the garden centre between contracts, but he has his gifts and his own career. It'll be hard, but I love him too much to argue against it.'
Justin cuddled into Nathan, `You're a good man, lover. It'll make for plenty to talk about when I'm home wiv you in our cottage. Sides, the prices Terry charges, I'm gonna make meself a mint.'
They reached Rotterdam with plenty of time for the overnight ferry to Harwich. David woke up bleary-eyed and accompanied them up to the cafeteria and sipped listlessly at a coffee and nibbled some biscuits. Then he slipped away. Henry found him later sitting out under the stars on the deck. He snuggled up to David, took his hand and kissed it.
It's awful seeing you like this, Davey.' David grunted. It won't seem so bad in a few weeks.'
`I'll never forgive him,' David said with cold decision.
`Anton wasn't that bad a bloke, David. Just out for a good time with a handsome guy ... the handsome guy is you, incidentally.'
`I wasn't talking about Anton. It's that fucking Terry O'fucking Brien! He's ruined my life the cunt. OK. He may have lost all his own happiness with Ramon gone, but he's fucking making sure no one else is happy either.'
`Now hold on ...'
`It's no point you defending him, Henry. Oh yeah, it was the sensible thing. Back to the UK and back to school, and then university and then a job in some fucking boring fucking bank, but in the meantime, I've lost the chance -- don't care how feeble -- of real happiness with a super bloke with a super body in the most amazing city in the world.'
`It didn't look that promising a relationship at first sight ... though Anton was a bit gorgeous,' Henry admitted
`Not the point, Henry. It's back to hopeless Medwardine, where I'll never meet anyone near as sexy as Anton; a year of celibacy, and then on to some grey university, where the most romantic bloody thing likely to happen will be consciousness-raising seminars in some poxy and earnest Gaysoc. It's not life Henry, not the way we've lived it for the past week, it's a treadmill.'
Henry had to admit that David had a point of sorts. What David was forgetting was that he was only seventeen, and a lot of life stretched ahead of him. Even Henry realised he just couldn't see past the pain at the moment. It looked like time would have to be the healer here.
Nobody got much sleep that night. David didn't come down off the deck and his bed in Terry's cabin was not needed. He looked like shit in the morning, but then he didn't seem to give a shit either. Terry drove them to Paddington and Ed and Henry got a loving hug from him. Henry winced when Terry reached out to David. He was sharply and coldly rebuffed.
Look I'm sorry, right?' Terry said, Davey, you couldn't just give up your future in a gamble on a doomed relationship.'
David just looked levelly at him and said, `Fuck you. If I see you again it won't be for want of trying to avoid you.'
Terry looked deeply shocked. Nathan said, `Mate, that was too strong. You had no call to speak to Terry like that.'
`Fuck you too, fuck the whole lot of you.' He stormed off towards the concourse. They looked at each other.
Henry said regretfully, `Don't take it too much to heart, Terry. He'll come round in the end.'
`Yeah ... yeah, I suppose.' Terry looked as though something had deflated inside him. But he rallied, hugged Ed and Henry again, and said he looked forward to seeing them over the summer some time. Then Justin and Nathan said their goodbyes, and Terry took them off to Liverpool Street to catch their own train. The van would be taken back to Medwardine next week by a contract driver.
The train delivered them on time at Shrewsbury, which was unusual for a Sunday. Henry's dad was waiting and was full of curiosity about the historic events they had witnessed in Strelzen. He didn't notice that only two out of the three boys in his car were being communicative. He dropped Ed and David off at the school before taking Henry home. He dropped the bags in the hall of the rectory with a certain relief. He hugged his waiting mother and, after some tea and exchange of news, took himself off to his bedroom where he had a gratefully early night. There really was no place like home.