New York 1912 Chapter 22
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jet2larkin at Geemale dot kom (reinterpret)
After a hiatus of one year, I have nothing written except this chapter. This first section can serve as a re-cap. I am not sure where this story will lead us but your comments might influence the direction it takes.
New York 1912
Book II
1919 to 1923
I owe my life to Billy for helping me survive Peter's death in the Great War and recover from my opium addiction. Just as the opium filled my head with pleasant and exotic reveries, in withdrawal, they became nightmarish visions of hell. It placed me in the bomb cratered trenches of Northern France where I saw Peter choking in clouds of green chlorine gas. I experienced this horrible vision over and over again. I loved Peter so much and I had never really told enough in life and now he gone forever. It was Billy that stayed with me through the fever and sweats. The depression that followed seemed to go on for months.
My recovery was helped along when Billy introduced the filthy, hungry and desperate gutter waif into our home. If caught, he was sure to be taken off to an orphanage which could be a death sentence. Billy understood this because it mirrored his own childhood when, after his father's capture, he was being hunted by the Sisters of Charity so that he could be placed in the Catholic orphanage.
In the act of caring for this creature, we saved each others lives. After being bathed, fed and reassured he quickly turned in to the world's most beautiful boy. Large expressive brown eyes, a warm dark complexion and a little body smelling of sweet almonds. His matted hair had to be cut off, but when it grew back, it did in thick, beautiful black ringlets. He soon became my monkey boy who had boundless energy all day long. At night would crawl under the covers of my bed so that I could play with him and then he would cuddle up with me to sleep.
We didn't know where he came from or how old he was but when he finally began to speak I heard what I thought was a Sicilian dialect. From this I determined that he was Italian and not a dark Jew from Russia. Later on I imagined that he came from the Italian colony of Tripoli or Cyrenaica. Whatever it was he quickly began to speak English. Billy suggested the name Antonio and I approved because I could shortened to the familiar, Tony. He was my crazy brown monkey boy that could never sit still for more than a moment and was full of joy and laughter.
Tony would discard his clothing at the slightest provocation. The maid did her best to keep him dressed but he alluded her. I responded as the inattentive and spoiling father but what she did not know was that I was the one behind Tony's determination to be naked. Tony would come into my room all tidy and neat and then slowly discard each article of clothing. Once naked and erect, he would climb into my arms. He did it because he knew it pleased me.
School was something else entirely. I think he knew that he had found safe harbor with me and going out into the world had the potential of threatened his refuge. In spite of Tony protestations, I entered him in St. Paul's Episcopal School where I had gone and where I had put Billy. There were problems from the start. It centered around that fact that he might be a Jew.
I said, “Well, he is uncircumcised if that means anything.”
And so what if he was Jew? I suggested that he might just as easily been a Catholic.
I defended my position by saying that he was orphaned too young to receive any religious instruction and that religion is not inherited from birth.
Father Carmichael was not so open-minded. “With all due respects Edmund, I think that you are mixed up about why and where we are born. God makes all these decisions.”
I countered by saying the perhaps God positioned me to put Antonio into St. Paul's. Father Carmichael resisted that idea but accepted Tony despite his reservations.
The troubles did not end there. Tony did not want to go to school. He pleaded with me to stay home.
“Edmund, please let me stay home with you. The fathers hit me to make me behave.”
He looked innocently in to my eyes and said, “I don't want to behave. You don't make me behave? I don't like behaving.”
His English was improving in leaps and bounds but I suppose his behavior problems are all my fault.
This was followed by a bold seduction where he prompt my passion by searching my pants with his small hands.
I responded, “Tony, you must go to school. It is important for you to learn to read and write. Now I know that you are not stupid so you must do this for me.”
In time there would be more problems.
At the end of 1919, the stupid idea of prohibition began to become a reality. I was prompted to have the basement re-constructed into a large wine cellar going the length of the building. I was drinking more to resist the temptation of opium. When prohibition threatened I thought I had better prepare. I had to contacted suppliers before it was too late. Not being schooled in the world of commerce, I engaged a subcontractor to do the purchasing for me. Beyond lining his own pockets, he secured 400 bottles of wine and further purchases of Canadian whiskey, brandy and even wholesale supplies medicinal ethyl alcohol. I suppose you could say I exercised forethought.
I hired a carpenter and his young son to do much of the work. After starting work, it became apparent that the carpenter was impatient and short tempered. He probably could not afford to hire or even keep an assistant so he compelled his son into a state servitude. His son seemed just the opposite. In contrast to his father, the boy gave me the impression that he was gentle and pliable. He wore dusty overalls and was just at the beginning of his growth spurt. Gawky and awkward, he impressed me as potentially very handsome once fully grown. I noticed from the start that every time I came down to inspect, the boy's eyes fell upon me in a way that was unmistakable. I have a soft spot for young tradesmen.
After promising the man additional payment I asked to have his boy help me upstairs with just a few chores that I could not manage on my own. The boy followed me upstairs to the small studio where Robbie had slept and then after him, Billy. The boy had already been schooled because he sat expectantly at the edge of the bed waiting for me to approach him. Without any prompting he opened my pants and took my cock into his mouth. I did not feel inclined to fuck him during this first encounter but when we both were aroused beyond reason, I took the opportunity of getting my tongue up his bottom causing me to cum into his mouth. This was act was repeated several times before the Job was completed.
Tony had been in school barely 6 months when he was sent home with a note requesting me to visit with Father Carmichael.
“Edmund, it grieves me to have to have this meeting but I am afraid that Antonio is not suitable for St Paul.”
I had the look of amazement on my face. I already knew of Tony's potential for being a little demon. I imagined that he was not paying attention or that he was causing a disruption. Perhaps he was it throwing things in class, fighting or worse, playing with fire?
Father Carmichael prefaced his comments by saying, “Your family and St. Paul's have had a long relationship and I want so much for it to stay that way.”
He was alluding to my annual contributions.
“I am afraid that I must ask you to take Antonio out of St Paul's. I wish I could decide differently. If you would like, there is no need for further discussion.”
“With all respect Father Carmichael, could you be more specific about why,.. instead of leaving me in the dark?”
He seemed reluctant. “Please believe me when I say that this conversation will go no further than this room.”
From the outset, I knew this to be a bold lie because the Episcopal fathers and brothers are a bunch of wanking gossips.
“I know that Antonio is not your son. Can you tell me a little more about his origins?”
I told him that I thought that he was from Italy but I suspected that he might have come from Italian North Africa.
The Father looked down at the clutter of papers on his desk and then back at me. “Oh, North Africa, that might explain it.”
I said, “Well, what's he done?”
Father Carmichael was solemn and spoke softly. “He committed terrible sins witnessed by the Brothers and who knows how many students. This could cause irreparable damage to their purity ruining their chances to be in God's favor.”
The Father was evasive and spoke using stupid, religious euphemisms.
“Father Carmichael, I will oblige you and I will take Antonio out of St Paul's but I must ask you to put aside your religious frock for just one moment and tell me exactly what he has done?”
He moved closer to me in a soft and whispering voice said, “He was caught masturbating in class more than once. He did not even do it in a concealed manner but with his penis out of his pants in full view of the other boys who were left stunned. There were other offenses. I know all this from the Father who handles the confessional. During recess, many boys would disappear only to be found in an unguarded area, all in the act of mutual masturbation.”
I sat acting stunned but inwardly, I was incredibly proud of Tony.
“Edmund, Please believe me. I want to accommodate you but the disruption caused by Antonio is insurmountable.”
In a rare and genuine moment and as if he was aware of my own inclinations, he said, “Suppose any of the parents found out. This thing can spread like a disease. As much as I would like to pretend that it is not going on, I cant have it, for the sake of the school.”
There was a pause and then he said almost in a whisper, “If only the boy could have been a little more discrete....”
We reached an accommodation where Antonio could stay home where I would devote my time towards his education. Father Carmichael was pleased with the agreement and in an act of compromise offered to send one of the Brothers around once or twice a month to set Antonio's course of study provide books and to test his progress.
When I got home to discuss the situation with Tony I could see that his loyalties were already beginning to be torn. His failure at St Paul's was in his own eyes a success because he was meeting so many interested boys. Maybe this was for the best because I did not want to lose him and I had no intention of placing him in the public school.
I required from him a complete total confession. He told me that he was in demand by many boys for sucking cock especially the older boys. I asked him to describe each encounter. He could see that my parental concern was a ruse to disguise my approval. I suggested that he might invite one or two over and try to seduce them in my company. The big surprise was Father John. The stern disciplinarian of the school who use of fear of punishment to get boys alone in his office. Once there, if they were his type, the boys considered it a reprieve to get their cock sucked instead of being canned. Tony had several visits with him. I could see where many of the brothers would wanted Tony enough to provoke a revolution.
I was proud if Billy. He had received degree in English literature at Columbia where he met Richard Hastings. They became constant boyfriends in the very traditional sense. Almost too formal for me but I suppose it was his reaction to his childhood chaos. When Richard came to dinner he and Billy behaved very much like a marriage couple. Billy never let on about our relationship only that I was accepting to their relationship.
In the Spring, Richard needed to go home to England and Billy had secured a position doing graduate work was to go as well. They continued to conceal their ongoing relationship from Richard's family although I don't know how. They were monogamous but very active. Maybe his family did know and were just being polite. My Billy had grown up.
In the Fall, Billy and Richard invited Tony and myself to England for a visit. Richard's family would be on holiday in Asia.
I presented the idea to Tony. “How would you like to go on a ocean voyage with me?”
The boy gave me a suspicious look, then shrugged his shoulders and casually said, “No, not really.”
It was strange to hear a boy turning down the excitement of travel and exploration.
He said again in unconcerned voice. “No, I like it here with you.”
He picked up an empty tea cup and began peeing in it almost filling it then put in on my night table.
“Well Tony, I must go. Wouldn't you like to visit Billy. He wrote me and told me he misses you very much.”
He crawled naked into my lap but continued to be petulant.
He was shaking his no. “No, no,no,no!”
In a full body stretch he lay the length of his body on me.
“Tony give me one good reason why not?”
Now in the midst of a prolonged yawn he said, “Because you'll take me somewhere far away and leave me there like they did when I was a baby.”
I hugged him and whispered in his ear. “Tony, I could never do that because I love you so much.”
He turned over laying the front of himself on me and hanging his skinny arms around my neck.
Dismissively he said, “Yeah, I know that.”
“Please Tony, please go on an exciting trip with me. If you won't go, I can't because I love you so much.”
I gently pet his scrotum.
Looking at his the pee filled tea cup as if it was an art work, he said again, “no.”
Who was doing the actual act of seduction will always be a mystery to me but it flowered into a all sorts of couplings ending with a deep penetration up his behind resolving in a flood of juice.
When he finished masturbating himself, I asked him again.
This time he said, “Oh okay.”
I can only guess at his age at the time as maybe, 9 or 10 but no one will ever know for sure.
Just about the same time as I was making arrangements for our voyage I received a letter from Myles.
My dear Edmund,
Please come visit me in Berlin. It would be so good to see you. I have been married for a year and Alixa and I have a new daughter, Alida. She comes from a noble family of pure Prussian stock. We have a beautiful home but I also I have a very large apartment near the Kurfurstemdam. Please feel free to bring Peter and Billy. They were both charming and I am sure have grown into fine men.
Fond regards, Myles
The note from Myles was certainly coincidental. I wrote him back and included him in our arrangements. I also told him of Peter death in the North of France. Myles wrote back immediately with his condolences.
Tony got all new clothes and a handmade leather suit case just his size. Before departing I had my Lawyer make-up and secure some travel documents for Tony so no one would challenge his association with me.
It is hard to believe but the high part of the holiday was the ocean voyage with Tony. The trip would take a little more that 5 days on the steamship, Cunard, Lancastria. I requested a single room with a cot for Tony.. as it turned out we would never use it.
Here was a respectable New Yorker and a little brown boy traveling together in a cabin with an unslept in cot. There was one cabin steward who caught on to us and it was Tony who quickly disarmed him. He was Irish and coming from a large family, he was no stranger to all manner sexual activity. He played one role for me and another role for Tony. Usually he took to Tony's cock and I took the young steward's bottom. His on going fear was not the sex but being detected and losing his job. This preoccupation raised the tension and excitement of our lewd and nefarious encounters.
It is exciting to visit far away places but compared to New York, London was a little boring The English, unlike the Irish, are so polite that it becomes tedious. Billy and Richard were excellent hosts but in taking us on tours of London they avoided the unsafe areas of the city where I suspect the real people live and breathe.
After a week and promising to return before going back to the states, Tony and I took the Ferry from Harwich to the Hook of Holland and from there, booked a train to Berlin. It was 2 days of confinement and Tony grew very cranky. Thankfully, Myles met us Central Station.
Myles was the perfect host considering the circumstances. He was living in comparative luxury in a city that was in a state of economic collapse. There was a climate of danger in the air, a high crime rate and there were shooting wars between political parties. Even the government was threatening to fall. All of this seemed to no effect on Myles. The threatening chaos was the main reason his wife and child were staying with her family in East Prussia.
Freddie had suddenly come down sick and I worried that it might be the Spanish flu. By the next day he was a little better but I had him stay in bed while Myles took me on a night crawl through Berlin's post imperial underground. Things were hopping with the sounds of black American Jazz, young toughs and prostitutes.
Myles said, “You can get anything you want here. I know how much you like opium.” I politely declined.
Without the monarchy, Berlin was in a crisis of freedom. The inflation was rampant. I was advised to keep my money in dollars because the German mark was worse than worthless. I watched Myles buy a beer for 100 billion marks. It also seemed like we and the other foreigners were the only ones who had money. Myles had it because his father had put the families money in American banks. He and his family were well-off before but now they were genuinely wealthy.
It was immediately apparent to me that sex was all around us and they didn't care what your sex or apatite was just as long as you had money. We visited several homosexual clubs each one unique in its clientele. The power that Myles possessed by having sheathes of paper money made him a king and I'm afraid it also made him a tyrant. In one seedy dark club boys were falling all over themselves trying to get his attention. He was dismissive and cruel to them, pushing one away and pulling another one forward and then seating him on his knees between his legs. In the dark recesses of the club I saw him humiliated and degrade one boy after another. I would say that many might have been heterosexual but they were desperate for money and would do just about anything. Myles was exploiting them in an cruel and ugly manner. Not everyone was like that but Myles fueled his ego by making himself into a despotic spectacle. The boys approached me but I was hesitant in this strange and uncertain environment.
“Edmund, that boy wants you, come on do it and then give him 25 American cents”. Myles laughed out loud.
I was fixated by the mixture of chaos, course sexuality and desperation.
“Edmond, I want you to come with into the toilette so you can watch me fuck this boy. He told me he had never been fucked before. I think he is a damn liar.”
Myles held a young boy by his shoulder and forcefully led him into the loo. After being briefly sucked, He turned him around and pushed his huge German cock up the boy's ass. The boy cried out but Myles, untroubled, only stepped up his assault.
I can appreciate almost anything except cruelty, The experience left shaken.
After he had satisfied himself we headed towards Alexanderplatz to pick up a cab.
I asked him, “Myles do you bring any of these boys home?”
He had a smirk that seemed to be full of contempt and superiority.
Looking at me he said, “Edmund, they are peasant rubbish. To use the American term, trash.”
He said many of them are mixed blood drawn to the only truly civilized city in central Europe.
“If I wanted to fuck one all night long, I would go to a hotel. By morning the whore would be crawling home on his hands and knees.”
This was not the Myles I was attracted to when we were boys together. Just when I was silently reconsidering the quality of our friendship, he prodded me.
“Edmund I have meaning to say something to you. I thought your first two boys were more suitable but do you think that you have made a good choice?”
“What are you talking about, my relationship with Tony?.. I don't understand.”
“Edmund, are you going to force me to spell it out to you?”
I stared intently at Myles. He was looking at me as if I was a child.
“Edmund, ...He's a nigger!”
He tilted his head giving me the impression that perhaps I should really know better.
A chill fell over me.
“I can understand you wanting to fuck him but bringing him into your home doesn't seem to me to be a wise choice.”
Myles does not know Tony and he does not know me.
Inwardly, I was already making plans for our departure.