10. Pay Dirt - The Work Camp Earth-boy

The Work Camp Earth-boy

By Earth-boy

Comments are welcome at earth-boy-2755@proton.me, and constructive criticism as well. As I’ve mentioned before, this story is complete (12 chapters in all.) But as of the date I’ve posted this, I can entertain suggestions as long as they don’t break the established plot or have a serious impact on the remaining chapters.

If you’ve enjoyed this or other stories on Nifty, please consider making a financial contribution. The service doesn’t need a huge amount of money to run, but because it’s ad-free it needs your donations to keep going. Thank you from the operators and fellow readers of the archive!

Quick disclaimers:

• This story contains descriptions of sex between teen and pre-teen males. Do not read if you’re under 18 or it is illegal where you’re living.
• Copyright by the author. Do not upload to pay-to-view sites.
• This story is fiction; references to individuals are coincidental.
• No children or teenagers were harmed in the creation of this story.

Chapter 10. Pay Dirt

Like almost every morning, I awoke to an erect penis up my rear. Today it was Savros’. I worked the muscles back there to get him to a good climax, then as usual milked the last of the semen out so he wouldn’t be dripping when we pulled apart.

Unlike most other mornings in the camp, I had something important I needed to share with Savros.

“There’s something I want to do for you before we go to make breakfast.” I told him.

“What is it?”

“First off, you probably remember I was really upset last week after being with Egan in the afternoon.”

“Of course I remember. You were like that all afternoon and into the next morning. Then by noon you were right back to normal. What happened?”

“Egan thought I needed some lessons in being a good little slave. He drove me out of the camp and beat me. And he put a hood over my face so I couldn’t see his eyes and calm him down.”

“He beat you up?” Savros exclaimed. “Did you tell Riley?”

“No. Well, at least not yet. You see, Egan also said if I told anyone about it or tried to run away, he’d send some of his friends to hurt you or Jared. Not right away, but after we’re done for the year. That scared me because I didn’t want to see you or Jared get beaten up.”

“That asshole! So what changed? Why are you telling me this now?”

“Yesterday when I was in town I called my grove and talked to one of the older earth-boys. He reminded me I could use a gift I have to see if people are telling the truth or not. I’d been so distressed about Egan’s threat I’d forgotten about it.”

“Let me guess,” said Savros. “He was bluffing.”

“Oh, yes! I asked him who he’d send after you. He made something up about friends from a college fraternity. It was a total lie. I should have known, actually. Egan seems to tell a lot of lies.”

Savros agreed. “Like misrepresenting the truck’s use on the insurance. Or putting the truck into his name instead of the company Riley and Egan’s uncle set up for this venture.”

“Right, and how I came here. Egan said I volunteered. What really happened was he and Martin grabbed me off the streets of the city and drove me here.”

“Wow! Yet you decided to stay.”

“I did, and mostly because of you. You were nice to me when Martin brought me into the kitchen that first day. I liked you right away. So I decided to stay for as long as I found the work and you guys interesting.”

“That’s amazing. You earth-boys are really something else. And I’m so glad you stayed! You’re a wonderful help in the kitchen and I really like being with you.”

I smiled at him. “I gathered that. So now there’s something I want to do for you and Jared.”

“So you said. What is it?”

“Well, even though Egan’s threat seems to be empty, he could try to carry it out. I mean, I’m not going to be as nice to him anymore now that I know the truth, but he seems to have a vengeful streak in him. So I’m still afraid for you. The earth-boy I talked to yesterday said I should introduce you to the Earth. When I do that, the Earth will start protecting you. If Egan—or anyone else for that matter—harms you, the Earth will pay him back.”

Savros thought for a few moments before responding. “That’s a lot to process. First, I think we should still treat Egan nicely. In a way you shouldn’t have told me that Egan threatened me, even if it turns out to be a lie. It’s going to worry me for a while. And what’s this about Earth paying someone back if I’m hurt? That means they have to harm me first, right?”

“Uh, yes. But the idea is I tell Egan that if he harms you or Jared, he’s going to get a repeat of what happened to him yesterday, and probably worse. Like, he got really sick just after supper on Saturday and had a lousy time that night and Sunday. Oh! And last night his hut was literally crawling with spiders! He had to sleep in the main hut.”

That made Savros smile. “Alright, so you tell Egan that if he sends anyone after me or Jared, he’ll get more of the same back.”

“Right. The Earth first sends warnings, like his illness and the spiders. Then it gets angry. I’m sure if Egan tries to harm me again, or you or Jared, he’ll have a really bad day one day. Like, if you end up in hospital, he’ll get it twice as bad. Perhaps even lose a limb or something like that. And I’m going to make sure he knows that!”

Savros thought a little more, then asked, “So how do you go about this introduction thing?”

“It’s easy. You just need to stand on the ground in your bare feet. I hold your hands and send eren through you back to the Earth. After only a minute or so the Earth will know you’re friends with us earth-boys and it will start to look after you. Do you want to do it?”

“Will I be able to climb trees, start fires, hide in the woods, and things like that?”

I smiled but shook my head. “No. Apparently the only thing you get is a bit of protection from the Earth. And maybe some peace of mind.”

“Okay, sure, let’s do it! Uh, do I have to be naked like you?”

“No. Just your feet need to touch the ground.”

Savros got dressed. I preferred doing personal things like this out of sight from the rest of the camp and fortunately his hut, like all of them, had its back to the forest. It was private enough. He removed his shoes and socks. With him standing before me, I took hold of his hands, and looking into his eyes started drawing eren from the Earth and sending it to him. As first I felt a little resistance, but persisted. Eventually I felt eren flowing through me and into Savros.

I didn’t have to say anything. This wasn’t a magical spell or an incantation, just a simple process of sending eren from me to Savros and back to the Earth. In under a minute I felt the flow from the Earth dry up. I let the last of it go to Savros, then waited a few seconds until I was sure it had all returned to the Earth.

I let go of his hands and smiled. “It’s done! You’ve made a very big and important friend today.”

“I felt something,” Savros said. “Just a tingle, but I could feel as it went up my arms and through my body, and down my legs and out my feet. I guess that was the eren you always talk about.”

“It was. Maybe you can draw some from the earth yourself, but I’m not sure what you can do with it. Like I said, what we just did doesn’t give you any of our gifts. It’s sort of like making you an honorary earth-boy.”

“Well, I certainly feel honoured!” he said. Then he hugged me and gave me a kiss.

✵   ✵   ✵

Egan was still resting on his makeshift bed in the main hut when we arrived to start breakfast preparations. Seeing him, I made a quick trip to his hut to look inside, and saw no sign of last night’s spider infestation. I returned to the main hut to let Egan know in case he wanted to get some extra sleep. He merely nodded once and left.

After delivering hot water to Jared and our regular morning fun, I told him about the introduction. This time I didn’t say I was doing it because of the threats Egan had made. I phrased it as something I’d learned when I asked my grove if there was a way I could thank him and Savros for being so kind to me. His expression turned to awe when I used the term “honorary earth-boy” and he accepted my offer without hesitation. His only questions were how soon could we do it, and where.

“We can do it right now,” I told him, “and here behind your hut. It takes only a minute.”

He put on a big smile, threw on a pair of pants, and dashed outside. I followed. To my surprise he was removing his pants when I came around to the back of the hut.

“You don’t have to be naked for this,” I said.

“If I’m going to be an earth-boy,” he replied, “even if it’s only an honorary one, it just doesn’t feel right to be wearing anything!”

For the second time that morning I did the introduction. Jared clearly felt the eren as it went through him. As soon as we were done he grabbed me in a big bear hug and gave me a long full-on-the-lips kiss. Letting go, he said ecstatically, “I can feel it! I can feel the eren in my feet! This is amazing! Thank you! Thank you so much! I’m an earth-boy now!”

I tried to temper his enthusiasm. “Well, you’re only an honorary earth-boy. You don’t have the same plant background we do, so you’re still very much a human. I don’t know if you’ll get any of the gifts we have.”

“Even if I don’t, I still feel like a part of me that’s been missing all my life has finally been found! I can really feel the Earth! And it’s just not the ground under my feet; it’s, like, the Earth itself. This is so amazing!”

I was very happy for him and his joy. “Maybe you should get yourself a pair of elf-ears and dye your hair orange.”

He laughed and hugged me again. “Who knows! Maybe I’ll start running around naked like you do! But not right now. You’re right, I’m still a human, so I’ll continue acting like one.”

He put his pants on and went into his hut to get dressed, while I returned to the kitchen.

My last order of business that morning was with Egan. I asked him to come with me outside where we could talk. There I reminded him about his illness and the spiders, saying they were warnings from the Earth it was capable of doing things to him if he caused me harm. Next time the Earth might not stop there. Whatever illness he came down with could be far worse, perhaps something like a serious flu or a new COVID strain. Or his next unpleasant encounter with wildlife might be a mountain lion.

Without letting him know I was aware of his bluff, I informed him I’d introduced both Jared and Savros to the Earth that morning, and it was due to advice I’d received from my grove. As far as the Earth was concerned they were now earth-boys too. Harming them would have the same consequences as hurting me. I also said I was thinking of doing the same for Riley, Larry, and Martin.

I ended our little meeting by telling him he should take what I’d told him seriously. I, too, had a friend looking out for me: the Earth. And it was a lot bigger than him and his friends.

Egan said nothing, but the look of contempt on his face was enough to tell me he didn’t appreciate what I’d just told him.

✵   ✵   ✵

A soon as lunch was over I asked Riley if he had some time to talk with me. He replied, “Of course!” and we went outside.

I told him straight out, “I know what you’re doing here. I know about the lost gold hoard and that you’ve been a treasure hunter for many years. I even heard about that ship you found in Newfoundland.”

His eyes went wide. “Did you manage to get Egan to spill all the beans?”

“No, not at all. I asked everyone here, but no-one would tell me. Especially Egan. You know he doesn’t like me. No, I called my grove the first Sunday we were in town and asked them to see what they could find. Yesterday when we were in town I called them and they told me everything.”

“Well, it’s good to know I can trust the crew. And you’re pretty resourceful, getting the grove to look up the story for you. But why are you telling me this?”

“I think I can help. The grove sent me a text message yesterday. Fortunately I got it before we were far enough out of town to lose a signal. It said, Use your pathfinding gift all over the work site. The buried gold should interrupt eren and make the paths fuzzy or disappear completely.“

“Oh, interesting!”

“That’s what I said, too. You see, eren comes from the Earth, and it’s blocked by metal. So something that big buried in the ground would have a noticeable impact on eren. Like the grove told me, it should interfere with pathfinding, and I’d be able to see it. It will also disrupt all my other gifts if I’m standing on top of it.”

“Wow. If that works, it could cut weeks or months off the search! Are you willing to try it?”

“Of course! If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now.”

“So let’s go!” He started walking. I followed him.

The other three crew members were surprised to see me show up in the north field. I didn’t say anything, but immediately started a pathfinding. First I searched the part that had already been cleared, paying attention to where there were still markers in the ground. All I saw was one large covering of misty white like a ground fog, telling me the entire area was a usable path. Then I looked to the west, where I knew Larry and Martin had been working when Martin was injured the week before. Still nothing.

“I’m not seeing anything out of the ordinary,” I told Riley. “Where else are you thinking of searching?”

“Further to the west and north,” he replied.

“Why not east?”

“Eastward the terrain goes down a steep hill that ends in a creek. The notes made several mentions of the hills, mostly to narrow down which one is of interest. They also mentioned the creek. From what I can read of the French, we’re at the right hill based on how the creek bends and turns.”

“Well, I’ll look further west and north, then.”

Which I did. Pathfinding gives us a very good view of the paths to about a hundred metres out with strong indications of where they go over the next three kilometres or so. I walked the western and northern edges of the field, but all the paths were clear with no sign of something disrupting them.

“Maybe south? I asked. “It would be really ironic if it’s buried right under your hut!”

Riley smirked. “It would be, but from what I could see on the map it’s just too far south. But try it. I’m getting a little worried you haven’t seen anything yet. I’m sure it’s here somewhere!”

I looked south. No surprise, as soon as my pathfinding met the camp with all its metal huts, the solar array, and especially the truck, the misty paths disappeared completely, only to pick up again once beyond the camp. The path to the camp and the rough trail up to it from the road were clearly visible. But there was nothing I couldn’t account for.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I thought as I turned to the east to seek out paths down to the creek and beyond.

It stood out even more than the truck. Three quarters of the way down the hill to the creek, to the east and a little bit south, a misty path was suddenly interrupted for a couple of metres before carrying on, much stronger, to the creek itself, where it stopped.

I pointed. “It’s there!” I said, excitedly. “I can see the path he used to carry it from the creek to where he buried it!”

“He buried it that close to the creek?” asked Riley, astonished. “He didn’t say anything about that in his notes.”

“Perhaps they were intended not only to remind him but also to misdirect others. Remember, the real map was in his house, which was lost.”

“If you’re right, boy, you’re going to get a million dollars!” He raised his voice. “Larry! Martin! Grab a metal detector and follow the boy! He’s found something!”

Both of them came running, each carrying a metal detector. I found a usable path to the cache and walked, the pair behind me struggling with the steep terrain and the bulky detectors. When we got there I could feel a noticeable drop-off in eren. I tried ploughing but couldn’t disrupt the earth.

“Check here, where my feet are,” I said.

Both Martin and Larry ran their metal detectors over the spot. “There’s something here!” cried Martin. “A really strong signal!”

Both dropped their detectors to mark the spot and we headed back up the hill. In moments everyone had grabbed various tools: axes, hatchets, pick-axes, spades, shovels. I led them down a more human friendly route, Larry and Martin hacking away at the bushes to clear a path. Half an hour later we arrived at the metal detectors.

To make their digging easier, I walked the perimeter of the cache area where I could get enough eren to disrupt the earth down to a couple of feet. The cache itself was surprisingly small, less than five feet in diameter. The four humans swiftly dug out my disrupted soil, then attacked the much more dense interior.

They didn’t have to go very deep. Less than two feet below the surface they hit something. More frenzied digging quickly revealed a small metal box with a tight fitting cover. Riley grabbed it.

“Damn, it’s heavy!” he exclaimed.

He tried opening it, but after more than a hundred and thirty years buried in the soil it didn’t give up easily. He looked at me expectantly. “Do you have anything that could help with this?”

Shaking my head, I said, “No. Metal blocks eren, so I can’t do anything to it.”

“There are more of them here!” Martin exclaimed.

“Dig out as many as you can!” Riley ordered. “We’ll try to open this one here, but we may have to take them all back to the main hut. Use the metal detectors to make sure you don’t miss anything!”

The boxes were small. In fact, they looked like rectangular tin cans: a bit over six inches tall, four inches wide and about two and a half inches deep. Can after can came out of the ground where they dug. As each one appeared, Riley gave it a quick look and tried to open it

Finally a lid came loose. Riley and I looked inside and saw a small yellow brick the same size as the can itself. Riley turned it over and emptied its contents onto the ground. We counted eight bricks.

“Look at this!” Riley cried. “My God, we found it! We actually found it!”

“Is that gold?” asked Jared, astonished.

“Damned right it is!” said Riley. “Look at these! How many cans so far?”

“At least ten,” said Larry, “and we’re finding more all the time!”

Everyone stopped digging for a moment to pick up one of the ingots. Each was about the same size as one of Martin’s cigarette packages: four inches tall by two and a half wide, and three quarters of an inch thick. Most of the surfaces were well formed; the edges were rounded and what was obviously the top was irregular.

“They’re heavy!” Jared exclaimed.

“That they are,” Larry replied. “Gold’s twice as heavy as lead. So it really looks like we’ve found gold, and a lot of it!”

“Hey!” said Martin. “Look at the top. There’s a number on stamped on it. This one says 83.”

“And mine’s 79,” said Larry.

Each of the eight ingots bore a different number; this can looked like it had numbers 79 through 86 in it.

“Dumolin was a methodical man,” said Riley. “I wouldn’t be surprised if every one of these has its own number and they’re all in sequence. It will make it easy to determine if we’ve found them all.”

We repacked the ingots into the can Riley had opened and closed it again. So many cans came out of the ground that Riley and I had to clear a small section of bush to hold them all.

“How will we get all these up the hill?” I asked.

“We’ll have to carry them,” Riley said. “And probably one at a time. There are seven of us, but it will still take a few trips. We’ll continue digging these out this afternoon. We’ll need to come up with a way to label and number these cans to make sure none of them disappears on us. Each one alone is worth a small fortune. I want to make sure everything’s accounted for and not a single ingot goes missing. Why don’t you go to the main hut and announce the good news? No need to keep it a secret any more.”

I ran back to the main hut. Both Savros and Egan were there.

“They found it!” I cried. “They found the gold!”

“No way!” said Egan. “I was sure this was another one of Riley’s wild goose chases. Oh, my uncle will be happy for sure!”

“Gold?” asked Savros. “You’ve been looking for gold?”

“And a lot of it,” Egan replied. “A prospector got a big hit back in the 1800s and hid most of it here in the hills. It’s worth millions!”

Savros first smiled, and then frowned. “I’m guessing I won’t get any of it. I’m just the cook.”

I tried to assure him. “There’s so much there I think Riley might be willing to share it with the crew. We’ll have to see.”

“Can we go see it?” Savros asked.

I answered, “I’m not sure. I mean, the only reason I know about it was I found a way I could help them. When I told Riley, he said I could go with him to the north field. But I don’t know if he’s given me permission to go back there, or for you to go. I’m sure Egan has permission, though.”

“Damned right I do!” said Egan. “I’m going there now!”

“Oh, Egan—” I started, but he was already gone.

I started laughing. “He’s going to be confused when he gets to the north field,” I told Savros. “The gold’s not there. It’s further away, down a steep hill. I’m sure he’ll figure it out eventually, though.”

“So what’s the story here?” Savros asked. “In all the time I’ve been here I’ve never heard anyone hint they were looking for gold.”

“I’m guessing only Riley and Egan really knew what they were looking for. I’m sure the others suspected it once they started clearing away bushes and using metal detectors. As for the gold …”

I spent the next few minutes telling him the tale of Germain Dumolin.

✵   ✵   ✵

A long afternoon’s work later, the crew returned to the main hut. Riley reported they had unearthed fifty-three cans, after which their metal detectors found nothing. One of the cans they brought back with them to the camp; the remainder were just as safe down near the creek as they had been when they were buried.

We weighed an ingot on Savros’ kitchen scale: five pounds.

“How much is that in ounces?” asked Jared.

“Sixteen times five,” Savros replied. “That’s …”

“No,” said Riley. “As a cook you use sixteen ounces to a pound, but gold is weighed in troy ounces, which has a different weight, and twelve ounces in a troy pound. Wait, I have a book with all the details in my hut.”

He ran to get it, arriving back in under a minute. “All right, it says here an avoirdupois pound is sixteen ounces or 14.583 troy ounces. Larry, look through your newspapers to see how much gold is worth right now. So we have five pounds to an ingot and forty pounds in a can. 53 cans makes for …”

Egan had his cell phone out with a calculator app open. “2,120 pounds, provided all the cans are full. What’s the conversion to ounces again?”

Riley told him. There was an anxious wait while Larry looked through his newspapers. “Got it!” he said. “The Thursday gold close was 1,732.37. That’s US dollars. Today’s exchange rate is 76 point 91 cents.”

Now Larry had his calculator out. “So that’s a dollar and thirty cents Canadian. That makes an ounce worth 2,252 dollars. How many ounces, Egan?”

“30,916,” Egan replied.

“Total 69 million, 637 thousand, 174 dollars. Congratulations, Riley!” said Larry. “You’re now a very rich man.”

“And Egan’s uncle is, too.” Riley said. “He’s getting twenty percent.”

✵   ✵   ✵

Dinner was an upbeat affair. Riley of course was overjoyed at his lucky find and new found wealth. Egan seemed happy, too; perhaps he would be getting a portion of his uncle’s share. The others were happy that Riley’s work had succeeded, but I’m sure they were apprehensive about seeing any part of the fortune.

The conversation turned to practical matters, past and present.

“Why did Dumolin bury the gold in the first place?” asked Martin.

“He probably didn’t trust the bank to keep it safe,” said Riley. “By all accounts he was methodical and rather quiet. There may have been a bit of paranoia in there, too, especially with such a large amount of gold.”

Martin followed up with, “So why not just cash the whole lot in? Then it becomes the bank’s problem to keep track of it.”

“Maybe he just didn’t trust banks. Sure, he trusted them far enough to have them hold a part of his fortune, but not all of it. And maybe he was speculating as well, holding on to the gold in the hope it would increase in value. Remember, back then gold was real currency. If the bank failed or there was any sort of financial crisis his dollars might disappear, but the gold would always be there.”

“What about the will?” Larry asked. “It said how much gold there was. Surely a careful man like Dumolin would have designated beneficiaries. Are any of their descendants still alive? If so, they have a claim.”

Riley had a ready answer. “The will set up the Dumolin Benefit Trust, with all the gold going to it. The Trust was to undertake worthy projects for the town as a whole, either physical projects like parks or others like education funds. It was left mostly to the Trust. But because they couldn’t find the gold, the Trust’s hands were tied. They carried on until the last of the original trustees died in 1947. After that the Trust dissolved itself, having done practically nothing for over forty years and having long given up hope of finding the gold.”

“Does that give you rights to it, though? Who owns the land?”

“It’s public land. The Trust managed to raise enough money to buy several square miles around where they thought the gold was, including the bit we’re on now. When it dissolved itself, it returned the land to the public in perpetuity, with the additional stipulation that if the gold was there anyone who found it could keep it. The Trust didn’t want absentee speculators buying up all the land, waiting for someone else to find the gold, then robbing the guy who had done all the hard work simply because they owned the land. The Trust’s comment was anyone who had the skill, patience, and luck to find the gold should be entitled to keep it.”

Martin asked, “Does the government have a say in this?”

“From what I can see, no. Over in Britain there’s a law that says all found treasure belongs to the government, although the finder gets to keep a share. There’s no such law here, either federally or in BC. So I believe we’re safe there.”

“We?” asked Jared. “Aren’t we just hired guys?”

Riley nodded. “In theory, all you’re entitled to is your wages in the contract you signed. In fact, it was worded in such a way that you relinquished any claim to items of significant value found while you were employed with my company.”

“Like sixty-plus million in gold,” Jared said.

Riley looked at us all individually, “I’m not going to make any promises right now. You’ll certainly get what’s owed you. And sorry for being a hard-ass on this, but I don’t want to be on the receiving end of a lawsuit claiming I promised someone at this table anything more than your wages.”

Jared looked downcast. Larry said, “Riley, I understand your position. If you’re generous, I won’t complain. If all you do is pay what I signed for, I still won’t complain. But then I’ll move to Montreal.”

“Why Montreal?” asked Riley.

Larry grinned. “Because there I can complain!”

Everyone laughed, even Egan. Riley added, “Not that complaining in Quebec would help you any better than here!”

✵   ✵   ✵

The board game and poker were skipped that evening while they discussed what to do with their incredible find. They decided Egan and Larry would drive to town that evening, or to a small city further away, and stay overnight. First thing in the morning they would purchase a pressure washer for cleaning the tins, masking tape and a marker for labelling them, a gun safe to hold them, and a tent to keep the safe out of the elements. Locking the cans in the safe would secure them sufficiently to prevent pilfering and simply running off with the treasure in the truck. Hauling away the safe and contents was out of the question: the collection weighed over a ton.

“We’re lucky we’re out of cell phone range,” Riley told us. “It will prevent news from getting out before we have a chance to secure everything. Larry and Egan, you can take one phone with you, but it’s to be used for emergencies only! Keep it turned off. I’ll be checking it when you return to see if it was ever powered on. Egan, you may make one call from your hotel to your uncle. Tell him, Venture 79 offers you 69 million for the development rights.” He’ll understand.”

Egan nodded. “Just as we agreed to earlier.”

Martin asked, “Did you have a code phrase if it went the other way?”

“Yes,” said Egan. “Venture 79 regrets it is unable to raise the funds.”

“What’s Venture 79?” asked Jared.

Riley answered, “79’s the atomic number for gold.”

Egan and Larry headed out.

There was still some time left in the evening, so the five of us found a board game and played through it. Before retiring for the night, Riley told us, “Just to be clear, the area where we left all the cans is strictly off limits unless I’m with you. Until they’re all in the safe, anyone leaving this area of the camp without my permission or knowledge will be fired and put on the next truck to town. Again, I actually don’t like laying down the law like this, but even one of those ingots is worth a lot of money.”

“Are we still employed?” Jared asked. “You found what you’re looking for. Do you still need us?”

“For a few days at least, if for nothing else than to help move the gold from the creek to where ever we decide to store it long term. Probably a bank vault in the city. Even though the work ended early, as long as all of you bide by the terms of your contracts, you’ll get paid up to the end date. For you, Jared, that’s the end of August; for the others the end of September.”

“And the earth-boy?” I asked.

“I’m generous,” Riley said. “I think I have a few pennies kicking around somewhere.”

Savros filled me in. “That’s a joke. Pennies haven’t been minted in Canada for years.”

“In that case,” I replied, “you’d better double what you offered me or I’m out of here!”

Riley put on a show of thinking about it. “I think I can afford an extra ten percent. You okay with that?”

I put my hands on my hips. “Fifteen percent!”

Riley raised his hands in surrender. “You drive a hard bargain, boy! Twelve percent and not a dime more!”

Savros was smiling but Larry looked somewhat confused. Jared appeared to be annoyed, possibly because he had a fixed contract while it looked like I was able to negotiate my pay. So I smiled at them and said, “In case you’re wondering, Riley and I haven’t agreed to anything. Egan basically grabbed me off the streets and drove me here. I’ve stayed because I like all you guys and it’s been a fun time. But we’ve never talked about how much he’s going to pay me.”

“He’s right,” Riley added. “An extra twelve percent on nothing is still nothing.”

“So you’re a—slave?” Jared asked in astonishment.

“Good question,” I answered. “Riley doesn’t own me or my services, and I’m free to go any time. So, no, I don’t think that makes me a slave.”

“More like an unpaid intern,” said Larry.

Jared asked, “Does that mean what it sounds like?”

“Yes,” Larry replied. “It’s something businesses have been doing for a few years now. Bring in some university kid to work for free over the summer or even a whole year on the pretext of giving them ‘job experience’ while dangling the promise of paid employment. Of course, at the end of it they just let the intern go. The business gets free labour while the student goes deeper into debt.”

“That’s legal?” asked Jared.

“Apparently so. Welcome to the twenty-first century, Jared.”

Now Jared looked even more annoyed.

I made an announcement. “Hey, guys, to celebrate our good fortune—well, Riley’s at least—tonight I’ll be visiting all your huts! Riley first, of course, then Martin, next Jared, and finally Savros. And don’t worry about mixing your fluids with each other; I’ll do a cleanout before I go to the next hut. How does that sound?”

“Sure!” said Riley.

“Works for me,” Martin added.

Jared said, “You could just come by in the morning.”

“Actually, no,” I replied. “I want to spend some time with you this evening before going to sleep with Savros. Is that okay, Savros?”

He nodded. “Waking up with you is a great way to start my day.”

Which is what I did. I made sure to give Riley a really good time, to top off what was probably the best day of his life. I wasn’t quite so energetic with Martin, but he certainly appreciated what I did for him by giving me a little kiss on my cheek and a hug.

Then to Jared’s. We had a really good round of sex, and like all other times, after we were done he spooned me naked from behind and we both went to sleep. I woke in the night to him having sex with me again, and this time I deliberately brought him to orgasm. After making sure his penis had been cleared out, I left his hut to sleep with Savros.