Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:44:15 +0100
From: jerryfell@hushmail.com
Subject: Boy at the wedding - part 6

Alexander hurried down the stairs, past the looming portraits, and
made his way to the breakfast room which buzzed with conversation.

He was dressed in a navy twill jacket and sand pleated trousers.
His white linen shirt was open at the neck.  There was the merest
hint of a subtle and expensive aftershave.  He exuded a relaxed
power as he slipped into his seat and smiled at the waitress as she
poured him thick coffee.

"Another beautiful day."  He remarked.

"The thunder storm cleared the air overnight.  Did you hear it?"

"Yes quite dramatic.  Do you know what time it is?"  He was still
on holiday, so had deliberately left his watch in his room.

"Eight thirty.  Would you like the full English or would you prefer
the buffet?"

"Oh, I think some fruit and yoghurt for me this morning."

"I'll get that for you sir."

She slipped away and left him to look around the room, sipping on
his coffee.  There were faces he recognised from the dinner.

Mary appeared in a light cotton dress, her hair still wet from the
shower.  He beamed at her and waved her over.

"Do you want to join me?"

"The mogul hordes will be down any moment.  Perhaps we can pull
that table over?"

The waitress reappeared and rearranged the furniture.  Mary sat and
smiled as more coffee was poured.

"Well, Alexander.  It's been good hasn't it."

"Thanks for taking me under your wing.  You made it such a joy for
me.  Quite unexpected."

"We enjoyed it too.  And thanks for all the time you spent with
Sebastian."

He sipped his coffee, straining it through his teeth.

They sat quietly as she shook out her napkin and put it in her lap.

"And I enjoyed our dance."  She said, smiling sideways at him.

He looked up.  Caught her eye.  She held it just a fraction too
long, too intently, before glancing away at the sun-drenched lawns
outside the leaded windows.

"So did I."  He said, hoping he had misunderstood her.

Fresh fruit salad appeared in front of him.  Apple.  Orange.
Pineapple.  Grapes.  Cherries.  Bright red.  Two of them.  He
lifted a silver spoon to his lips.  Perhaps it was his long years
in the advertising industry, perhaps just the craziness of the
weekend that meant he saw visual metaphors everywhere.

He looked at her again.  Her eyes were smiling at him over the rim
of her coffee cup.

"Mary, it has been great to meet you.  I heard on the grape vine
that Henry was married, and I must say I wondered what sort of
woman could tame that sort of beast."

She laughed.

"But you seem well suited.  Balanced."

"Thanks.  We have our moments."  Her lipstick, the damp hair, the
dress, something about her angularity suggested the 1940s.  He half
expected a Spitfire to make a low pass over the hotel grounds.  Her
eyes flashed Sebastian green as she searched for the waitress to
place her order.

"We would love to see you in Brussels.  I would love to see you in
Brussels."

"Well, I will pop over.  Try out the new Eurostar.  It will be my
first time."

`Life is fucking complicated.' he thought as he scooped up one of
the cherries.

Mary smiled.  "And thank you SO much for taking Sebastian back to
school for us."

"It is a pleasure."

"I should warn you, he has a little ritual I'm afraid."

"Oh?  What's that?"

"He can be as pig-headed as Henry you know.  He absolutely insists
on wearing his home clothes right until the last minute.  We have
to stop at a lay-by close to the school to allow him to change into
his uniform."

"Really?"

"I have tried to get him out of the habit, but it's really not
worth the tantrum."

"He'll grow out of it."

"That's what I keep telling myself, but no sign of it.  I think it
is partly to remind us how guilty we should feel for sending him
there."

The waitress appeared.  "Could I have a little toast?  Granary if
you have it?"

"Do you?"

"Feel guilty?  Yes of course we do....  Well I do.  Henry won't
tolerate tears."

He patted her hand resting on the tablecloth.  She smiled, took his
hand and squeezed it gently before letting go.

Henry appeared in the doorway, ushering his children into the
breakfast room in front of him.  Matilda's pretty little face lit
up.  Her hair tied up in two dramatic pig-tails.  Sebastian was in
baggy jeans and a black T-shirt with the word `infamous' printed in
a cascade in white down one side.  He was self-conscious in the
busy dining room, but shot Alexander a quick wry smile.

Mary pointed at his bare feet.  "Henry!  He should have his shoes
on!" she muttered as Henry leant in to give her a big kiss.

"Some boys are just not meant for shoes my dear.  Anyway, better
bare feet than smelly trainers."

Sebastian scowled.  "I don't have smelly feet."  Matilda pinched
her nose and waggled her pony tails.

Henry took control of the dining room.

"Alex.  Breakfast?"

"Well I..." said Alexander pointing to his empty bowl.

"Full English all round!"  He barked, beaming at the pretty
waitress.  "Well Alex, end of a good weekend!"

"Very."

"What are we doing sitting inside?  Far too glorious."  With that
he had them all on their feet, with embarrassed apologies from Mary
to the staff, and outside on the terrace.  Ordering Sebastian to
pull the tables and rattan chairs together.  The waitress hurrying
with a tablecloth and silverware.  Finally ensconced in the
freshness of the summer garden sausages and beans arrived.  Eggs
and bacon.  Fried bread and mushrooms.  And with them, happiness
and comfort arrived too.  Alexander smiled with respect for Henry's
love for his family.  He noted the extra fuss they made over their
boy.  Henry insisting on extra sausages as he tried to get the boy
excited about the next term's soccer season.  Questioning him on
what his mates would have been up to over the summer.  Mary
stroking her son's neck from time to time.  Every act of intimacy
just missing slightly, as Sebastian, like a condemned man, started
to count the minutes and seconds before he would watch his mother
and father and sister disappear from his life once more.  His
beautiful green eyes began to glaze.  His smile weakened.  His
answers grew shorter and shorter until he had stopped saying
anything at all.

With the table full of breakfast debris, Henry slipped away to
settle his bill.  Matilda suddenly got excited about the idea of
playing croquet one last time.  But Sebastian brushed her away and
moved his seat closer to his mother so he could rest his head
against her arm.

Henry reappeared.  "Ok chaps!  Time to go!"  His usual subtlety.
Mary stood.  Her boy's arms wrapped around her waist.  She kissing
his hair.  Stroking his face.  "Matilda.  Hurry up now and get in
the car."
They moved as a group into the hotel lobby then out of the front
door.  Matilda skipped into the car, wrestling to buckle herself
in, the door still wide open.  Henry fussed with arranging bags in
the boot.  Mary deposited her handbag in the passenger seat and
returned to her son.

`It will be half term before you know it."

Sebastian nodded bravely.  Holding it all back.

"And uncle Alex is going to take you out for a weekend soon."

Alexander had been hanging back but stepped forward.  "Absolutely.
Escape plan already being hatched!"

Mary smiled gratefully at him as she pulled Sebastian to her.
Perhaps the softness of his mother, perhaps her perfume, perhaps
the finality of it sent Sebastian into tears.  He was fighting
them.  Mad at himself for giving in.

"We've got to go.  Write to me.  Not just a text, now!  Write to me
properly and tell me all about your adventures."  She kissed him
lingeringly.  "Now look!  I've got lipstick all over you."  She wet
a tissue and scrubbed his cheek.  He smiled feebly at her.

"Come on Mary."  said Henry as he walked over.  "Let the little
pirate alone."  He swept the boy into his arms in a bear-hug.  Mary
made her escape to the car.

"Now listen Seb.  None of that business this term, you hear me?   I
expect a stellar report card from you at the end of term, AND I
want to be surprised by something.  Don't care what it is.  I just
want you to come home at Christmas and tell me something you did
that will make me proud.  Understood?"

Nodding.

"And sport.  Plenty of it.  Kick their ass!"

Weak smiling.

"Alexander, many thanks old chap!  See you in Brussels."

And with that, the clunk of car doors, the engine springing to
life, Sebastian's family rolled up the drive, past the lake, up the
hill and disappeared with one small boy waving until the car was
finally out of sight.

Alexander moved beside the boy and put his arm around him.  The boy
was shaking.

"Fuck off you perve!"

Alexander recoiled.  Shocked to the core.

Sebastian ran indoors.

-----

Alexander was at a complete loss.  He stood deflated on the
driveway, unable to think.  Numb.  He felt sick.  Giddy.  He forced
himself to go back inside.  Dreading seeing the boy again.  He was
nowhere in sight.  He noted the boy's trunk and overnight case was
to one side in the hallway.  Some guests were emerging from the
breakfast room.  He followed them upstairs and found his way back
to his room, closing the door behind him.

What to do?

He stumbled into the en-suite bathroom.  His reflection staring
back at him was white as a ghost.

He ran some water into the bowl and splashed it over his face.  He
gripped the bowl with both hands and rested against it head down.

Time passed.

Not a single redeeming thought occurred to him.

He went back into the bedroom.  Removed his jacket and shoes and
fell onto the bed.

There was no way for him to make this better.

He was numb.  More time passed.

What would the guests think about him abandoning the boy right
after his parents had left?  The hotel management?  Christ.  He
needed to go and find him.

What was that?

He listened intently.

There was a faint knocking.  His door?  Down the corridor?

He got up and went to the door.  He opened it.

Sebastian was outside.  His eyes red and puffy.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." he sobbed.

"Come in, come in, come in."  The boy passed under his arm and
entered his room, tiny and crumpled.

He stood sobbing in the centre of the room.

"Oh, Sebastian, Sebastian."  He had to fight an overwhelming urge
to embrace the boy.  "It's ok.  Please don't cry.  You are upset.
It's natural."

"What I said, it was horrid.  I didn't mean it."

"That's ok.  You have no need to apologise."

The boy's shoulders were heaving.  Tears rolling down his soft
cheeks.  His mother had missed a smudge of lipstick.

"You're not a perve..."

There was nothing to say to that.

"You just love me...."

Alexander had to steady himself against the wall.  "Yes I do.
Yes.... I love you."

The boy seemed to be subsiding a little.  The sobs were sporadic.

Alexander edged towards him along the wall.  Then moved closer.
Until he was right in front of him.  He reached out and took the
boy's right hand in his.  It was so soft.  So small in comparison
to his own.  He squeezed.  Nothing.

Sunlight was pouring into the room.

He pulled the boy into his arms.  He buried his nose in the boy's
shock of hair and smelt honey and grass.  The lad's arms wrapped
around him as his arms wrapped around the boy.  His hands felt the
lad's shoulder blades.  He rubbed along the boy's back and down his
spine over the t-shirt.  He pressed his cheek against the boy's wet
cheek and kept it there, feeling the heat.  Feeling the subsiding
sobs.  His hands dropped to the boy's waist and then up again,
under the t-shirt against the soft bare warm skin of his back.
Feeling ribs.  The boy did not pull away.  If anything he pressed
in a little more.  He pulled back slightly to look directly into
the boy's bleary, blinking eyes.  His nose was running.  His mouth
was open breathing hard.  He moved sideways.  Closer.  His nose
rubbing against the upturned button nose.  Damp, sniffling.  His
lips very close to the boy's lips.  Very close.  A fraction apart.
He opened his mouth.

The boy opened his.

He leant in, simultaneously pressing gently on the boy's back.  His
lips opened the boy's mouth and his tongue explored timidly the wet
softness.  The boy's tongue at first seemed to shrink and escape so
suddenly he sucked hard and drew the boy firmly into the kiss.  His
hand was on the back of the boy's head pushing him in.  His mouth
twisted and nudged and his lips widened the kiss.  Finally the
boy's tongue came to life in a frantic duel.  And now the boy was
sucking him in, was licking and probing and fighting.

Alexander pulled back suddenly, their lips parting with a string of
saliva.

"Seb... I..."  but the boy's mouth was still open, head cocked.  He
thrust in again past lips that had last kissed his mother, around a
tongue that had teased him on the croquet lawn, into the warm
depths of a thirteen year old lad.

Tap tap tap.

"Room service!"  A spanish accent.

They broke apart.  Sebastian was blushing furiously.  His little
cheeks bright red.

"Not now... er.. thank you."

Tap tap tap.

"Room service."

"Not..."  He opened the door a crack.  "Not now thank you."

"Check out time 12 o'clock."

"What time is it now."

"11.45."

"I see. Well please come back later."

He shut the door and turned around.  Sebastian was smiling weakly,
still blushing.

"Fucking perve!"

Alexander laughed.  "You can talk!  My god you are a complicated
boy!"

"You're a proper pedo.  You want to wank me sooooo bad."

Alex was still grinning like an imbecile.  "Yes.  Yes I do.  To be
frank."

They were facing each other like boxers who have just gone the
first round.

"Are you going to let me?"

"I'm not gay."

"You don't need to be gay.  I am not gay."

Silence.

Sebastian:  "You are such a schemer!"

"What do you mean?"

"Wanking me.  Kissing me.  Trying to turn me gay."

"Have you got an erection?"

"What?"

"Go on.  Tell me.  Have you got an erection?"

There was no way he could tell through the boy's baggy jeans.

"No."

"Bet you have."

"No way."

"Let's find out!"

The boy grinned and backed away.  "No way man!"

"Come on.  What have you got to hide?"

They circled each other.  The boy had his eye on the bathroom.
Alexander cut off his path.  Closed in.  Made a grab.

Sebastian was phenomenally strong.  His slippery young limbs
writhed and kicked as Alex lunged to feel his dick.  Alex managed
to lift the boy off his feet and throw him onto the bed in a
writhing lump.  He followed him, trying to wrestle an octopus.  He
was kneeling over the prone boy trying to secure the boy's wrists
with one hand while feeling down below with the other.  But the boy
bucked and twisted laughing and screaming in protest.

"Shhhh!  Don't scream."

"Gerroff me then!"

Alexander pinned him to the bed with the weight of his body.
Finally his fingers were inside the waist band of the boy's jeans.
His hand pushing in and down until his fingers we inside the boy's
boxers and finally around a hot rigid pole of young muscle.  Point
proved he withdrew and got off the splayed youngster.

"So what was that?"

The kid sat up and adjusted his clothes.  "We better go.  Unless
you are going to rape me again."  He was smiling.  Half-smiling?
"Rapist."

"Gay boy."

"Perve."

"Nancy boy."

"Fuck off."

"Can you wheel my case?"

"OK.  Cost you."

"How much."

"Twenty quid."

"Done."

"Really?"  The boy was genuinely shocked.

"Sure.  Come on.  Let's get out of here.  Where are your shoes?"

----

Any thoughts?  jerryfell@hushmail.com