In the following story, all of the characters are totally fictive. For whomever it would be illegal, immoral or forbidden for any other reason whatsoever to read a story about love between two consenting young men is kindly requested to refrain from continuing. A photo album (pdf) concerning this story is available upon request marin.giustinian@laposte.net. This being said, I hope you enjoy the tale.
LORDS OF THE WIND
Part 3 out of 3
by Marin Giustinian
Post Civil War on Portsmouth Island, North Carolina.
"This strip of sand looks like God's country for me. It smells so good!" stated Jason as they moored at the landing on the northern tip of the island.
Scrubby live oaks and wax myrtle grew in groves hither and yon between the modest houses. The church steeple shone in the springtime sun. The dunes, covered with swaying vetiver grasses, heather and wildflowers could be seen in the distance. The air had that unmistakable ocean scent coming in over the inlet.
"Welcome home, Jason. Hope you'll like living here..." quietly said Max, suddenly fearing that Jason could regret his decision.
"I didn't know where I was going nor to what I was coming to and I didn't care. All I knew was you, Max. You're my home and I'm happy to be and live here with you."
"Really?"
"Really."
As they walked up to the house, they crossed some passing neighbors.
"Welcome to Portsmouth, young man," said one.
The other mentioned to Max, "That's a fine looking buddy you brought us, Max. Now, you all go get settled in. See you fellows around!"
The tour of the house only took a minute. Coming in the front door, there was just one 'big' room with the fire, wooden tub and cooking utensils against the back wall. All the furniture was very basic, made of raw wood. The middle held a table and two chairs. Against the left wall was a long sideboard. Clothes and linens were stashed in a cedar chest at the foot of a medium-sized rope bed against the right side wall. Four large windows, two on either side of the door, adorned the front of the house. No frills, just the essentials and lots of light shining in. A smaller room jutted out behind. That's where Max mended his nets and kept his ropes, tools and things for Rebel, along with his stock of firewood. The water cistern's pump was just beside the back door.
"To shoo the mosquitos when they start swarming, I hang cheese cloth curtains in the windows and the doors. I also hang a big mosquito canopy over the bed... Other than the bugs, some church people and a rattlesnake every now and then, there's nothing else on the island that's a real nuisance. Sometimes, a wild pony can show up and that's about it. So, do you think you can live here all right?"
Jason was looking out the window onto the sound. He turned, looking at Max with smiling tears swelling in his eyes. With a slightly choked up voice, he uttered, "Max, I'm at home! Do you hear me? I'm at HOME. This is my home. Let me just thank you for revealing that I can still be 'at home' with somebody, with you, making me stop wandering like a wretched soul over there on the war-struck mainland. Max, when you took me in your arms, you brought me home. Now we know it. I'm sure it was always there, but it took us some time to see it. The only real home is love."
"Do you realize what you're saying? It's so beautiful, sort of as if there' were something or someone speaking through you."
"It's perhaps the first time I've spoken what I really feel, what I believe... for myself, by myself, Max. I'm steadfast sure of what I'm saying... just as sure as I am sure of you!"
As he spoke, Max walked up to Jason and started to unbutton his shirt.
"Let's celebrate this moment, Jason. I'm thirsty for you, man."
"Me too, Max! Me too. I'm dying of thirst!"
Once they had partaken of each other's offering, they snuggled in the nest of their rumpled bed. The evening sun was sinking slowly into the waters of the nearby sound. Their bare skin glowed in a shivering halo of burnished gold, flowing through the windows.
During the following days, Max introduced Jason to his fellow villagers. They also combed the beach, went fishing, gathered driftwood to kindle their hearth for cooking and heating bathing water. They lit a little fire at dusk to break the chill still lingering in the springtime evenings. Their humble everyday life gently settled in. Happiness, like a suave perfume, floated on the breeze.
They were invited for diner over to the Howard's. When they got there, Percy cooed, smiling at Jason as he bent down to pick him up.
"Do you like it here, Jason?" asked Emma.
"Yes I do M'am. I like it a lot."
"And do you plan to stay with us for a while?"
Jason looked at Max.
"Emma, Frank, I hope Jason'll never leave," stated Max as he put his hand on Jason's shoulder.
Jason smiled bashfully, staring at his shoes.
"Then we hope the same damn thing for you all too!" exclaimed Frank, "Let's celebrate that with a little shot of local white lightening!"
"You all got a still over here?" suddenly intrigued Jason. "My folks distilled perfumes... and dealt a little in spirits too... on a very private basis. That is, before the yankees wiped us out. I'm from Charleston, by the way."
"I'm terribly sorry about that, Son... Yes, they say Charleston was a beautiful city before the yankees burnt it to the ground... But to answer your question, no, the still's over on Ocracoke. We don't brag about it a lot... Don't want to wake up the sleeping Revenue dogs, if you see what I mean..."
Emma piped up, "Now, you menfolks, don't you all go and get drunk! I'm gonna take care of Percy before frying a mess of fish and I want you all to be able to appreciate it! Don't misbehave now!"
Life flowed like the years, with periods of prosperity and others of a little hardship. They faced a few bad hurricanes and got through them. Jason learnt to mend nets as well as Max. They doubled their business by sailing over to Ocracoke to take in their damaged nets for mending too. They made a vegetable garden, fished and were always available for an occasional charter. Both were perfectly at ease manning Rebel.
Sure, a good third of the village frowned upon those two bachelors living together in dreadful sin, on the outskirts of the village and making good money at that. They were mostly the high and mighty, righteous Bible-beating, gun-toting Christians who didn't even give them the time of day. They were even more riled up because of Max being a preacher's son. This being said, they were glad to have their nets mended or get a swift passage to the mainland aboard Rebel. With the others, the old island families that's been there forever, like the Howard's for instance, nobody took umbrage over them. Their deep islander background made them wiser somehow. They knew they had to get along together in all circumstances and respect each other as he or she is, free to be themselves as long as they were gentle, polite and honest.
Percy was going on seven. He came to call on Jason and Max often. Jason helped him with his first homework assignments, much to the joy of Emma and Frank who had forgotten the little they knew of reading and writing.
Jason's interest in scents became a real passion. He could spend hours exploring the island alone, sniffing and making mental notes of all the scents he discovered. He became quite precise in identifying odors. The scents of cedar, myrtle, gardenia, midget magnolia, heather, vetiver grasses of all kinds, the algae, fish and shell decay, musk, drift woods of camphor, heart pine, cade, sea foam and even the loving odors of his lover, Max, were becoming clearer in his head. He even started imagining combinations.
One evening he said, "You know, Max, there are so many good smelling things around here, I think I'm going to order a little table-top copper still, an alembic to seize them. I want to get the essence out of the plants and stuff like my daddy did, extract their oils. I think I remember enough to not waste too much of my time. I know it takes years to be a good 'bouilleur' like we said, a good distiller, but I've got time."
"Do it, Jason..."
'Thanks Max! You're wonderful!"
"But you've got to earn it. You've got to teach me about that skill. Now I want to hear more about it, about you. Please talk to me some more about scents. You know how I love the lavender cologne they give you at the Turkish Bath. Do you think you can make cologne, soap and stuff?"
"Sure... but for me, Max, it's a bit more than just making good smelling things."
"How's that?"
"Max, you're a lord of the winds. You know it's so! You know that the wind is much more than just air moving around. It's energy, weather, storms and breezes. When you seize the wind, sailing with its force, you and the wind are one. It's your passion and your skill. You were born to sail. For me, I think I was born to smell. Scents are for me messages floating on your winds. You know what I'm talking about. You can smell a distant fire before seeing the smoke and flames. You can scent the rain before it drenches you. You can smell death on a battlefield before seeing the corpses. Be it perfume or stench, a scent has meaning. Good perfumes are invisible pictures of a landscape... of a person... or of both. Fragrances can give you feelings that you don't even understand, but your heart, your skin and flesh understand. Even your cock understands. Seizing a scent is seizing its energy. Certain scents are like angels you can't see, carrying messages of love, light and lust. Think about the jasmine, frankincense, myrtle and cade sap, amber... There's the fragrance, but above all there's it energy! I could go on for ages, Max!"
"I could listen to you for ages when you're so worked up about what you feel! I understand... As you said, sailing makes me feel the same way... I say I understand... Let's say it's more like I feel what you're saying. And me, do I smell good, man?" asked Max, jesting as he sniffed his pit.
"You don't smell neither good nor bad, you smell. You smell like love to me. I don't sniff you, Max. I inhale you! I take your scent deep in me as often as I can. Like when I take your juice, Max! That's what so intimate with fragrances. They get inside me... like love."
"Well, for me you always smell good. You keep yourself healthy, no rot, no shit lingering on your ass, nor stench under the foreskin. We enjoy rubbing our teeth with a sassafras twigs and keeping cooties out of our hair. I guess you smell good to me because there's only you making yourself smell. You smell just like love does for me, man, and that's real good. Now that you mention it, I can smell the island too."
Max hesitated an instant, rose and walked over behind Jason sitting at the table. He put his hands on Jason's shoulders and looking out of the window, said, "Jason, you've got to put the island and love in a flask! Make a perfume of the island and love. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think you can do that?"
"You're not crazy... it'll take time, but if you believe I can, then I'll do it!"
"I know you can. Take all the time you need, but just do it! That's the way I love you, Jason! Doing what you have to do, because you do it with love!"
Life followed its course. The alembic that Jason had ordered finally arrived. He spent time learning how to extract oil out of algae and purifying it so it would be odorless, suave and transparent. This would be what he called his base. He could whip it into a kind of neutral cold cream or just leave it as a fluid substance, sort of like precum. He distilled all kind of plants. There were many little blunders at the beginning, but as the months fled by, he became quite good at stealing the essence of things.
He also distilled alcohol. He marinated plants, leaves and wood chips with its sticky sap in oil and in alcohol. He had already involved Max in seizing his body scents with his cream, coating his pits and crotch and letting it absorb the odors as they aroused each other in the most tender of ways. He even experimented soap but found it was too much work when he could buy a bar of it for a nickel at the general store.
They lived well, barely spending a penny, except for the boat or going on a spree every now and then when they were in town. They had, in fact, saved and stashed a nice little sum of available cash, never feeling deprived of anything, living and loving as they pleased, naturally.
In the spring of 1881, after fourteen years of loyal service with Max and twenty-six years in the water, Rebel began needing a serious overhaul. She needed a complete change of sails and sheets. Her caulking needed to be entirely redone, etc. Also, steamboats were threatening more and more their trade, navigating whatever be the wind and the currents around in the sound.
When they estimated all of what had to be done and how much it was going to cost, Jason persuaded Max to give up chartering only in the sound.
"Max, we should have 'Rebel' dismantled for the chandlery and wood and get a seagoing schooner built in Harkers Island. Their boats we see coming through here are really the best. We've got enough money to finance it and live through the time it takes. There's still a good local trade in mending nets. What we need to do is get into coastal parcel dispatching and charter. In the ocean, we can be swift as a steamboat and don't have to pay for the coal!
Max had to admit that Jason was right. It made him sick to separate himself from Rebel but that's what they had to do... And so that's what they did.
They sailed down to Harkers Island. Luck or the angels had it that there was already a half-finished and half-paid-for schooner sitting there in the boatyard in perfect condition. Finishings consisted in the woodwork inside, the chandlery, sails, riggings and paint. It was the perfect vessel for them. The man who had commissioned the boatyard to build it had run out of money and then out of the county as well. Max and Jason traded in 'Rebel', settled the price of completing the 36 foot, rakishly beautiful pilot schooner which soon would be theirs. They were assured it would be ready to sail by late September. Max and Jason finalized the paper work, finances and said they'd be back after receiving notification in September. They booked passage on the mailboat and came home. Jason went to work even more on the concoction of his fragrances and Max canned vegetables and fish stew enough to keep them fed all winter long, hopefully at sea!
Percy, now a dapper teenager of fourteen, took on to Jason's experiments on distilling essences out of the island's plants and algae. He had become lithe and graceful as a prancing colt and for Jason, he reeked the joys of solitary satisfaction, like all boys of his age.
One evening, after Percy's visit, Jason commented, "Have you noticed Percy's scent now, Max?"
"How could I miss it? He's right in the midst of that season of life where all his blossoms release all the smells they can! For you, with your sniffer on alert all the time, do you find he stinks?"
"Stink is a very changeable thing, Max. Things don't stink or smell good, they smell, that's all. It's our upbringing and often our environment that makes us say things stink or smell good. I come across a lot of stinky things, but that's in my nose and not in the thing that's 'stinking'. Percy doesn't stink, he smells like what he is now, a creature craving to spew his brand new spunk! Don't you remember when you were just like that too?"
"What do you mean, 'Remember'? It' still on my mind with you all the time!"
"Stop joking! Do you get my point?"
Jason was a bit riled. He had something on his mind about Percy's smell.
"Calm down, lover boy! You want to seize his scent? Well, let's do it. It only lasts a year or two before he's completely mature. I know he craves to discover himself with us anyway. Didn't you ever notice the way he's still playing up to us for cuddles and such, as if he were still eight years old? I'm sure he's sniffing us as much as we smell him!"
"You're right... and he's already interested in my distilling. I'm just gonna ask him if he wants to help me out in a special way..."
"You're going to make a happy boy there, man! Real happy!"
Jason's creations were potent combination of scents revealing the essence of the island. You could see the seascapes, feel the different temperatures, revel in the odors of its nature under a white hot sun. After a first impression of floral and wooded fragrances, the undertones of sea foam and ocean breeze emerge after a moment or two and the manly background of Max's scent enhanced it all.
"The only thing missing now," wrote Jason in his notes, "is that special hint of green, exuberant youth, the exciting and fleeting grace of the no-longer-boy-not-yet man... the beauty of a promise becoming flesh. In just one word, Percy."
Two days later, after working with Percy on his assignments, Jason leaned over and spoke to him on a very confidential tone, "Max and I've would like to ask something of you. Listen carefully..."
Max sitting by the fire understood where Jason was leading and came over. Jason was explaining why he needed Percy's scents under certain intimate circumstances and how he needed to gather them. Max added on how he felt when Jason took his scents and fluids and how they changed when they were distilled. The lad listened with impatient attention. It was obvious that he was already aroused. His loose cotton trousers tented just in the right place.
"When do we start?"
"Ask Jason."
"Tomorrow, the weather should be really hot! We could wade over to Evergreen Island, go into the dunes and do our job under the high, midday sun. That way, you'll sweat a lot and the scents will be stronger. Since school's out at one, run on over. We'll give you something to eat and we should be there in the heat of the day. Is it a deal?"
"It's a deal! But it's our secret too. I don't think my folks would understand. In fact I don't think anybody would understand but you two -- and now me!"
"Of course, Percy... You're damn right! See you tomorrow, buddy!"
The lad danced out of the house and ran down the path, whistling. Max turned to Jason and asked, "Would you prefer to work alone with him or do you want me to come?"
"You HAVE to come, Max! We have to work together. Emotions make the scents of our flesh. The lad loves us both. With both of us paying loving attention to him, he'll give forth his strongest, deepest scents."
"Do you love him, Jason? Otherwise, you'd just be using him. You know that's cheating and that ain't fair!"
Jason thought a moment, looked up at Max and answered, "I love him through you, Max. Love is contagious and yours for him is so strong that I, being in love with you, am in love with him too.
Max leaned down and kissed Jason with infinite tenderness. Jason kissed him back the same way. Percy cleared his throat in the door.
"Sorry to bother you guys, but I forgot my notebook..." mumbled the lad, looking aside, then at his feet.
All three broke out laughing!
As they waded across the inlet, Percy begged to take a dip.
"Not yet," ordered Jason, "don't wash your skin. Let it sweat."
When they arrived to a nice hollow on the top of the dunes, out of anyone's view, Jason made a stop, unrolled the tarp he had taken, turned and said, "Let's undress and go to work! Percy, I'm going to work the cream into your skin as you sweat and scrape rake it off with this stringil, a kind of curved wooden sickle. I'll wipe the cream and sweat off the blade and close it up in a jar. I'll do that several times over and over again as we massage you. Max's going to massage your face and hair and do your chest and pits. It's going to feel real good. I'm going to do your thighs and crotch... That'll feel very good too. Don't worry about what comes up... or comes out! It's normal and I need that too!"
"I know what's gonna happen, Jason! I do it to myself some."
"We all do, Percy. Now just lay back and relax and let us give you a lot of loving care!"
Max took place sitting at Percy's head, splaying his legs on either side of his body, nesting his cock and balls in the lad's platinum hair spread out on the cover. Leaning forward, he began massaging the boy's face, his neck, around his ears and lips with Jason's cream. Then he pulled up his arms and creamed his pits.
Meanwhile, Jason had straddled Percy's long slender legs, kneeling, hovering over the boy's crotch, gently slathering his very erect cock, delicately fondling his balls. Percy squirmed a bit, moaning, "That's so good! Rub me harder!".
Jason took out the strigil started raking the cream off the lad's skin and scraping it into a glass jar. Then he took another glob of cream and started all over again, insisting even more as Percy sweated, precum leaking out of the slit of his glans, glistening in the sun. By this time, Max was massaging, squeezing, tormenting the boy's tits, kneading his shoulders, rubbing behind his ears, pulling on his arms and working his spread open pits, yawning at the sun. Their four hands, working together, covered all of Percy's body from head to crotch. Suddenly the boy tensed, Jason grabbed another small glass jar in one hand and began stroking Percy's cock as Max insisted with one hand tantalizing the lad's tits and offering his fingers to be sucked with the other. Jason pushed and pulled deeper and deeper, spiraling stronger and stronger and when the climactic eruption occurred, the jar was there to catch the precious fluid he milked out of the lad. A sharp musky, ammonia scent filled the air. Percy spasmed once or twice, panting deeply, gasping to catch his breath. All of his body reeked the unmistakable fragrance of pubescent lust. Jason scraped the cream off his crotch and pubes as Percy seemed to relax, his cock still twitching, never softening.
Then by surpise, the lad turned on his side and grabbed Max's cock. He began sucking on it with a certain urgency, his own cock still dribbling. Jason covered the boy's buttocks with cream and began massaging his sweating hole. He stuck his finger into Percy, rubbing the inside, making his cock drool even more. Jason scraped, massaged, gathered the fluids seeping out of the boy's penis, anus, even the slobber oozing from his cum-craved mouth, sucking as if he were going out of his mind. Then, with natural ease he deep throated Max's almost angry cock.
Max was pouring sweat, his scent filled the air, joining Percy's. Oblivious to Jason, the lad sucked and bucked his head as Max coaxed him, grabbing his sweat-matted hair. Jason was anointing Max with the last of his creams, scraping away the scent-laden substances, enclosing them in a separate jar.
Then, Max jolted, threw his head back and spewed for all he was worth down Percy's throat. The lad swallowed over and over. Then, licking his lips, beaming a radiant smile, he looked up at Max. Jason came and presented the jar to Percy's lips. The boy sheepishly whispered, "He gave himself to me, Jason. He's in me now... sorry..."
Max slowly gathered his wits, caressing with love, the lad laying in his lap. Percy's nose was in deeply nested in Max's pubes.
In a flash, Percy sat up, grabbing his two men's arms, pulling them to their feet and in a big, sticky hug, kissing them both, back and forth, he exclaimed, "Whenever you need me again, I'm ready! Now can I take a dip? Come with me! Let's have some more fun in the surf together!"
Max seemed to still be a bit starry-eyed. The gracile lad ran off, tumbling and rolling down the dune onto the beach. Max put his arm around Jason, holding him tight and whispered in his ear, "Tonight, it's your turn to be swallowed!"
"Let me correct that, my love. Tonight, it's OUR turn!"
Jason worked on his fragrances all the next day. When the evening fell, he was nervous, tired and a bit upset.
Percy's pubescent semen, mixed with Max's, more mature, as well as the other substances created powerful perfume. It expressed both youth itself, fresh, innocent and joyous, even a bit spicy, almost arrogant and the promise of manhood. The concoction was explosive, comparable to nothing that they had smelled before. It was pure, fluid emotion. There was the jubilation of youth and manhood in a luminous world of purity, sun and wild, rollicking winds.
"Max, something's missing and I can't figure out what," nervously stuttered Jason.
Max smelled the elixir, then Jason, and calmly said, "You."
"You what?"
"You, Jason. Your scent is missing. The mixture has to combine you in it to make the perfect fragrance we seek. How can you create art if you don't involve yourself completely in your creation? Like I said a long time ago, you must put the island and love in a flask. That's a work of art, not simple chemistry. The island is there. Love is too, but not all the love needed to be complete. The substance of your love, Jason, is missing."
"But I can't seize my own scents."
"Who said you should seize them yourself. Percy and I can take care of that! We'll do the gathering of your essence. You'll do the distilling and the blending with the rest. We'll arrange all that tomorrow, when Percy comes over. Now rest some. You'll need all your strength to give us your best!"
Jason gave of himself, helped by Max and Percy. It nearly blew his mind, blew it clear, dispelling all confusion. You have to give all in order to grasp all. The combination of the island's gift of fragrance revealing the trio's intimate offerings, little by little a miraculously mysterious scent was created. It was a very powerful, male appealing perfume that could arouse even a dead man. Jason's work of art was accomplished!
To produce a quantity enough for the perfume, it must be said that Percy was quite generous in providing Jason all the sweat, saliva and semen he could. In fact all three were often on the job, gathering their scents and substances, enjoying a job very well done together!
Finally the letter from the boatyard arrived. Their new schooner was ready! They were requested to come and pick up the boat as soon as possible. Frank Howard sailed them down to Harkers Island. Percy was enlisted for the maiden trip home. The lad knew all the ropes of sailing, having often sailed on Rebel with his 'uncles'. When they left to scuttle Rebel he wept, but now he was all giggles and smiles, thrilled at the idea of sailing on the ocean side of the island with his men friends.
The decked schooner, with its long keel and lead ballast, wouldn't be as nimble and free as Rebel in the shallows, but she could sail the high seas, whatever be the weather. To the aft, there was a small cockpit for the tiller-man, giving onto a cabin behind the main mast. Inside, there was a wide berth on port side alongside of which was a drop leaf table and on starboard, there was a galley with its mobile, charcoal bracero and water pump. A small door connected the cabin to the forward hold that went all the way to the bow. There was space galore for cargo and supplies and a little workbench for distilling and packaging their scents. She should be easy to handle by two... a dream with a crew of three. The sea was theirs to sail!
The boat needed a name. Percy suggested one, Archangel. The name was perfect! Archangel she became!
When all the last minute preparations were over with, Archangel was finally ready. Everyone knew his job. Percy went up front to set the jib while Jason handled the stay sail. Then they both came to raise the main sail and in the bat of an eye, they were under way. All three worked together in perfect harmony. They had been able to tune themselves quite well in many other ways before! They trimmed the sheets with such skill that Archangel heeled a little and split the waves, picking up speed. Off they sailed into the ocean swell with Percy straddling naked the bowsprit, hair dancing in the wind.
Night had fallen when they dropped anchor near the village. They retired to the cabin to duly celebrate their maiden voyage together. Jason took a corked tubular flask out of this sack along with a bottle of rum.
"I propose we raise a toast to the most powerful and elegant gentleman's perfume ever made!"
They lifted their glasses filled with the golden, amber spirits and drank to their creation. Jason then uncorked the flask and passed it around.
The effect was immediate! Each one dabbed their neck, pits and pubes with the fabulous, oily fragrance. Percy nearly swooned. They ripped their clothes off and Max, grabbing Jason and Percy, fell on the berth. Jason moaned and hummed as his seeping cock was licked, sucked and swallowed by whomever got there first. They laughed to tears and driven by the magic perfume radiating in the cabin, their pleasure seemed endless, an overflowing tide of male ecstasy. Archangel rocked slowly, cradling them as they reveled with glee, climaxing, spraying, baptizing, feeding each other and their cabin home with the promise of a very joyous and prosperous future.
"Jason, your fragrance would make even the angels go wild!" exclaimed Percy.
Max suddenly perked up, "What did you say there, Percy? Angels going wild?"
"Well something like that..."
"That's it! That's the name of our perfume, Jason! Wild Angels. How do you say that in French?"
Jason was humming as Percy played with his cock. He looked over at Max and said,, "In French you'd say, Anges Sauvages..."
Then it him him. He pulled Percy up and kissed him, then rolling over on Max, he shouted, "Yeah man! Anges Sauvages, wild angels... Damnit! That's us! Wild angels... riding the wind of love together! God bless us all! Praise be our lord!"
Epilogue
Once back home, Jason and Max went about distilling a stock of tubular flasks, some with the essence of perfume, others with a less expensive kind of cologne and after-shave diluted in alcohol.
When they had distilled enough to be sold, they took Percy along on their long cruise to present Ange Sauvage to the country. They had some very elegant black riding coats, trousers and white shirts tailored for them to look at ease in the world of luxury they were out to conquer. They sailed from city to city along the coast. Their stock sold faster than they could refill it. With their diminishing stock of essential oils and in spite of the abundance of their fresh, personal contributions, they needed to return to Portsmouth. The price of the perfume climbed. Ange Sauvage became a rarity in the more daring luxury boutiques. New York, London and Paris heard about it. Their cash box was overflowing but not their stock. So reluctantly they finally set their course for Portsmouth... and home.
Percy was persuaded that it was best for him to accept Max's and Jason's offer to go study in a fine boarding school for young men in Virginia. They managed to exchange some beautiful letters. Percy had found a tender friend of his age and was happy as a bee in honeysuckle.
After the hurricane season was over, Max and Jason set sail for the West Indies. The tropics and their splendid, young Cuban cabin boy were most inspiring for other adventures, other creations, other fragrances to embellish the wind and stir the hearts of many lucky men...
A photo album (pdf) concerning this story is available upon request marin.giustinian@laposte.net.