Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 08:51:55 -0700 (PDT) From: Lance Kyle Subject: Seaward Plantation war clouds 1 This series contains graphic but completely fictional depictions of sex among men and men, and men and underage boys and/or girls, and even nekkid women show up now and then If this offends you, if it is illegal for you to read or download this, or if you are under 18, please go away. Seaward Plantation War clouds chapter one "Papa Mark! Is anything wrong?" The ten year old boy rose from the floor where he had been building a tiny city out of wooden blocks with his friend, a dark chocolate eleven year old girl with shoulder length braids. The boy came up to the thirty-six year old man sitting in the wingback chair in the library of Seaward house, and placed his thin hand on the man's shoulder. Mark Appleby turned a troubled smile on the boy and reached out his arm to embrace the child. He was about to tell the boy it was nothing to worry about, but why lie? All the people of Seaward deserved the truth, even the young ones. "I'm afraid there's a lot of trouble in the world, Marcus," he said, roughing the boy's mane of light brown, bushy curls. He looked at Marcus's hazel eyes set in a light tan face and his heart melted, certainly not for the first time. Appleby felt a tugging on his other side. "Here's your newspaper, Papa Mark" said the girl, a shy smile making her sweet, dark chocolate face radiant. "You threw it down," she said, accusingly. "I know I did, Apple. I'm sorry I lost my temper. It's just that the news... the news is so troubling." His hand on that side gave his namesake a hug. "What a young lady you're becoming, Apple! Twelve soon!" The girl's smile grew even wider. "And I'm eleven soon, Papa Mark," said the boy. "Yes, I know," said Appleby. Nearly eleven already! How his life had changed since he came to Seaward--how Seaward itself had changed! Late February of 1861 seemed centuries past his arrival, but really it was only eleven years. Eleven years of preparation for events he had feared, had hoped would not come.... but now those hopes were blighted. It would be best to call the adults together to plan. Avid readers all, they could not have failed to have noticed the news that now came in all the papers, North and South, that were delivered to the island on the mail boat. "Where are your mothers?" he asked the two, even as he hugged them tighter... in fear? in protection? "My mama is cooking in our cabin," said Apple, "and Mama Portia," she said, looking at Marcus, "is cleaning out your whole cabin. Shouldn't you help?" "She told me to go play and watch my brother and stay out of her way," said the boy, defensively. Appleby broke in: "But, Marcus, then... where is Wat?" A look of sudden recollection crossed the boy's face. His full, rosebud lips parted in an "O." "Ah! um.... playing upstairs." "Go get him, make sure he's not in trouble," suggested Appleby. Marcus scurried out of the room, footsteps thumping on the stairs. A clang and a clatter, a muffled exclamation..... A moment passed and two pairs of steps, slower now, came down the stairs.... down the hall, and then into the room. "He didn't get into trouble.... into much trouble," said Marcus, pulling a somewhat unwilling eight year old by the hand into the room. Wat's usually beautiful features were marred by a scowl, having been torn away from whatever mischief he was up to. His almond eyes glared in angry slits at his brother, a frown creased his tan and gold skin. The boy's hair was like Marcus's bush of light curls but it was a shiny, jet black. "Wat... have you been up to no good?" asked Appleby, smiling in spite of himself. "No, Papa Mark, I was just playing" came the sullen response. Appleby cupped the boy's chin with his hand and tickled lightly, which brought a smile to the lad's face in spite of himself. "Very well.... would the two of you, would the three of you," Appleby said, turning to include Apple, "please run around and tell all the grownups that we will have a meeting here after dinner?" The children agreed to do so and went scurrying off. Appleby sat for a few minutes longer, then getting out pen and paper he began a long session of writing urgent letters to friends and connections near and far. After an hour or two of this work, Appleby's concentration was broken by a commotion coming from the lawn. He walked down the hallway and out onto the verandah. Appleby was pleasantly surprised to see, sitting in a rocker on the verandah, the strikingly handsome, dark chocolate young woman of twenty-two whom he knew so well. "Helen!" he exclaimed as she rose. "Master Mark! See what I have to put up with?" The two embraced, smiling, and remained standing side by side, arms draped loosely around each other's hips. They surveyed the scene on the lawn below. "The twins will just never grow up, will they?" Appleby asked. "No, master.... neither set," she replied, smiling as she shook her head. On the lawn below two identical twenty-four year old men were just crossing a finish line on their hands and knees. Scrambling for all they were worth, they were shirtless in the February cool, their caramel brown skin shining in the sun with the sweat of their efforts. On each of their slim, muscular backs sat an identical, darker brown eight year old boy, screeching with laughter, each coaxing his steed on to greater speed and effort. The instant one "horsey" and its master crossed the line, steed and rider leaped to their feet, the man swinging the boy around as he called out a taunt, "Yes, I suppose poor old Papa Bacchus is past it now- -old man!" Bacchus and his "rider" simply collapsed, rolling on the grass and laughing. Then Bacchus rose and, draping his arm over his twin's bare shoulder, the two approached the verandah as the little boys scampered around. "Did you see the race, Master Mark?" asked Pan, laughing, walking up the steps. "Pan cheated," said Bacchus, also laughing, catching his breath. Appleby smiled down at the two, shaking his head, then enfolded them into his chest, one with each arm as they reached the verandah. Their growth into manhood had not diminished the sheer beauty of Pan and Bacchus. Muscled but not bulky, trim with not an ounce of fat on them, their caramel torsos and the planes of their faces showed a slim, masculine development--while their long eyelashes and trumpet shaped lips leant a girlish quality even now to their features. Their hair, once tight peppercorn caps, now looked like explosions in a spring factory, glorious bushes of tight spirals standing two or three inches out all over their heads. They moved like gazelles on the plains of Africa. Appleby knew he would never tire of simply being in their radiant presence, and squeezed both of them in towards himself as the three stood with arms interlocking around shoulders. "Frederick, Douglass, come here at once! How did you get so filthy?" demanded their mother. The twin boys, named for a remarkable abolitionist, editor, and former slave much admired by the avid readers of Seaward, ran up to Helen for inspection. "We were just playing," said Frederick, "with Papa Bacch' and Papa Pan," said Douglass. "It's not our fault!" Their mother shook her head with a rueful smile; she knew it was true. Each boy was rail thin but not bony, thin pads of muscle beneath milk chocolate skin giving the promise of future physical development. Their hair and their trumpet lips were their father's, their coloring was between their mother and their father--whichever of Pan or Bacchus that was. As with Apple, who their father was, the result of a rare bout by the adult twins with the opposite sex (as represented by Helen), was not clear, nor did anyone care or mind in the free air of Seaward. On the island, every adult male was "Papa" to all the children. Of course, good guesses could be made about who was biologically a father to a few. Undeniably Portia's child, young Marcus's light colored skin and hair gave every sign of his being Appleby's boy. Wat's skin and hair coloring and his almond eyes were pretty clearly the result of a tryst between the Siamese castaway Bundit and the young mulatto woman, now twenty-eight. The other children..... Appleby carried the letters he needed mailed over to the cabin that Troy and Athena still shared, with Apple and her sisters now installed in the loft upstairs. He knocked on the cabin door, which was opened by a nine year old girl whose skin of light milk chocolate and hair of thick, black curls hinted at the possibility that Cassius had fathered her--until she smiled brilliantly at the white man at the door, her facial features, like those of a marble angel, leaving no doubt. She opened the door and spread out her skirts. "Hi, Papa Mark! Mama made me a new dress!" "So I see, Rain, and it is beautiful!" he said, hugging the child, "Just like you!" She giggled and grabbed at Appleby's hand, pulling him inside. "Mama!" she cried, "It's Papa Mark!" Down from the loft came Athena, still vibrant and beautiful at thirty-one. On her hip she carried a dark chocolate little girl of five, a smaller copy of Apple--odds were good that Troy had fathered her, but again, nobody fussed over such speculations. "Hello, Master Mark!" Athena said. Setting the child on the floor she added, "Moss, greet Papa Mark!" What appeared to be a tiny copy of Helen chugged over to hug Appleby's leg. Appleby squeezed back and ran his hand affectionately through her luxuriant bush of dense, nappy hair, reveling in its texture. "Where do you suppose people get ugly children back on the mainland, and how do they feel about them?" Appleby asked Athena, who smiled through her disapproving frown. "And how did we manage to get only beautiful ones at Seaward?" That truth erased the frown from Athena's face. It was Appleby's turn to become serious; he told Athena about his request for a meeting to discuss the alarming turn of events in the outside world. She grew solemn and nodded her agreement. Athena thought that Troy might be in the kitchen building, so Appleby walked in that direction. Mama Cass and Mama Juno, wearing their sixty plus years well, greeted him in the doorway. A thin haze floated in the brick room behind them. "Master Mark, it's mighty sooty in here," rumbled the tall, thin Cass. "Yes, master, be careful, that boy is making an awful mess," agreed Juno, wagging her chins dolefully in the direction of the kitchen hearth. Peering around her ample girth, Appleby saw an upraised bottom coming out of the hearth--a bottom he recognized well, despite the dirty trousers that clothed it--and the naked torso of a man, pushing an implement up the chimney. An awful cloud of soot and cinders rolled out onto the adjacent floor, which had wisely been covered with old cloths. "There, that's got it!" said a voice from within. The man uncoiled himself from the fireplace and stood up, blackened from head to foot but smiling brightly through the soot. "Cassius--and all this time it was my understanding that your father was white. You seem to have lost his influence!" said Appleby. Cassius guffawed while the women put on frowns of fake disapproval. "Yes, Master Mark, you have a point," said Cassius, "but I am running right down to the ocean, to the pier, as soon as I clean this up" he added to the women, who were glowering at the suggestion that he might leave them with the mess, "and I shall throw myself into the water and emerge my beautiful tan self once again!" Appleby smiled at him; the remark about beauty was right on the button, although not at the moment. In the eleven years since Appleby had first bought Cassius, a frightened sixteen year old in McGillicuddy's dreadful slave market, he had matured into a stunningly handsome man. Appleby had seen drawings, reproductions of the famous statue of David in Italy, in some art books, and he had always thought there was a resemblance to Cassius in that marble figure. The resemblance had become stronger as manhood turned some of Cassius's pockets of roundness or softness into hard virility. But that beautiful face, those rosebud lips, the deeply set hazel eyes, had remained boyish underneath a glorious cap of dark, twisting curls.... even darker now that soot covered his body. Tearing his attention away from the padded, rounded muscles that flowed all around Cassius's arms and torso, he made his request for a meeting. All agreed, somber looks replacing smiles, the women wagging their heads mournfully. Cass thought that her son, Troy, was in the storage barn repairing some equipment, so Appleby headed in that direction, still in possession of the letters that needed to be mailed. Walking into the storage barn, Appleby saw two pairs of trousered legs sticking out from underneath a cart that was propped up on blocks. A white haired black man, balancing a wheel in his hands, stood nearby. He was leaning over and looking at the proceedings under the cart, offering comments from time to time. Appleby came up directly behind him and hugged him around his middle, pressing his groin into the man's high, firm butt as his hands splayed out over his muscled abdomen in front. In surprise, the man stood up straight and looked behind him. "Hello, old man!" said Appleby, resting his chin on Priam's shoulder to observe the repairs. "Old man!" grumbled Priam. "What kind of money do you want to put on a race to the big house and back?" "Don't do it, Master Mark!" came a voice from underneath the cart. "He IS an old man, but he can beat me," said another voice from below. Priam gently kicked a pair of legs, grumbling, "Then have some respect for your elders, boy!" "Alright, Papa, it's ready: Put it on," said the first voice. Priam moved forward to push the wheel over an axle post, Appleby helping. There was loud banging from below. "Put the pin in," said the second voice. Appleby saw a cotter pin on the edge of the wagon and handed it to Priam, who pounded it into a hole near the outer edge of the axle, snug against the wheel. The sixty-one year old black man then lifted the edge of the wagon up an inch, showing no sign of strain to his powerful frame in doing it, and nodded at the blocks that had been holding it up. Understanding the request, Appleby pulled the blocks out and Priam lowered the cart until it rested, good as new, on its wheel. Whoops of applause came from beneath the cart, and out came the two workmen. "Master Mark, you could've come an hour earlier and been under there with us," said Troy, with a smile. He was naked from the waist up, his dark chocolate skin shining with sweat and flecked with bits of straw. In the eleven years since Appleby first met him, Troy's muscular physique had only hardened. Muscles that were once rolling, long hills had become chiseled iron, a strong neck was now an oaken trunk, a rippling abdomen was now plates of steel. But his face remained the same: luscious plum-like lips, a broad nose, and open honest eyes forming handsome features beneath a skullcap of tight, kinky hair. Appleby embraced Troy tightly, pressing his cheek against the black man's face, receiving the same in return. The connection between these two was nothing but stronger after more than a decade, and was only fed by the love each found with other men and women on the island. Case in point: the other shirtless, dark chocolate young man of twenty-five who had scrambled out from under the wagon. "Master Mark!" exclaimed Hector, simply enveloping the white man in his powerful arms and pressing his cheek against Appleby's. Hector's boyhood bashfulness had transformed gracefully into a character of simple openness, acceptance, and sheer love that was remarkable even by Seaward standards, even as his body had moved into bulky, hardened manhood. Appleby embraced the young man's toughened, sweaty, dark torso-then held Hector by the rounded hills of his muscular upper arms as he looked with delight into the brilliant smile splitting the honest, chocolate face. "Hector! I was thinking just this morning: do you know that you are the same age that I was when I first came to Seaward?" A look of mock surprise and horror came over Hector's face: "But master, you were such an old man then!" and then he whooped with laughter and swallowed the white man up again in his muscular arms. Laughing too, Troy rubbed Appleby on the back and squeezed his shoulder-or as much of his shoulder as he could reach through the Hector-blanket that covered the white man at the moment. Appleby's long, loving history of intimacy with Troy only increased his love for Hector, which only increased his love for Troy, and round and round it went. Appleby stood happily for a moment with an arm around each man's shoulder, enveloped in chocolate beef, while Priam smiled at the three. Then duty and danger brought him down to earth. He pulled the letters from his pocket to ask Troy to take them to the mail boat, and he gravely told them of his request for a meeting. They had already received that request from Apple, who had run by to tell them, so they were ready to agree to attend. Troy and Priam left immediately to take the Hesperus out to meet the mail boat, which was due any time. "Hector, do you know where Bundit is?" asked Appleby. "I think he's at the cemetery, master," said Hector. A small, dark cloud of worry crossed Appleby's face. "Again?" he muttered to himself. "Apple said Marcus was going up there to tell him about the meeting," continued Hector. Appleby nodded, but now an unsettled look definitely came over his face. He embraced Hector once more, the solid warmth of the dark brown body almost distracting him from his duties. Hector knew it, too, for he felt the white man's groin stiffen as they hugged, and he gently pushed his own groin back in response, as an invitation. But Appleby contented himself with a quick kiss on Hector's full, plum lips and another tight squeeze, and then he was off. Passing by Portia's cabin, he was about to knock and see if she had been told about the meeting, when she emerged onto her porch, sweeping with a broom in hand. "Oh! Master Mark!" she said, and stepped off her porch to kiss Appleby quickly on the lips. She put her tan-brown arm around his waist and hugged him briefly, laying her head of frizzy brown hair on his muscular chest. "I heard about the meeting, master. I'll be there. It will be alright," she said, looking back up at him and smiling bravely. Appleby kissed her back on her rosebud lips--so like her brother, Cassius--and then hiked off in the direction of the cemetery. Climbing up to the highest point of Seaward, the old cemetery, Appleby saw Bundit sitting on a boulder looking out to sea. Near him on the ground, his legs tucked up, was Marcus, looking in the same direction. Appleby walked up silently and sat on the boulder next to Bundit. The Siamese man smiled at Appleby, sighed deeply, and looked back out to sea. High, white clouds scudded by in the afternoon sea air. "The old urges, Bundit?" asked Appleby. "Yes, I suppose so, Master Mark. Eleven years, master. Only a few times to the mainland. I have never been in one place that long since I was a boy!" Appleby nodded and, reaching over, put his hand on Bundit's shoulder. Eleven years in one place must seem terribly stale to a sailor--although it had not added a day to Bundit's appearance. He still had the same heart-shaped face, almond-shaped deep brown eyes, and tan-and-gold skin color. There was no shrinkage at all in his bush of thick, black hair. He still looked as much like a teenager as he had eleven years ago at twenty. But over the last year or so, a sadness stole more frequently into his lovely eyes. "Bundit... you heard about the meeting tonight?" Marcus piped up: "I told him, Papa Mark." Bundit smiled at the boy and nodded at Appleby. "It is to discuss the very disturbing developments that I think we can all agree are on the horizon. Bundit... it is a very dangerous time to be thinking of leaving the island," said Appleby, carefully choosing his words. "I know, I know.... but maybe it is a dangerous time to be on the island, master. Maybe we should all leave and go someplace safe." Appleby only shook his head. Then he tried again. "Bundit, you know what I have heard people say in Charleston. You know there are some who would be perfectly willing to enslave you." "Oh, there are some wicked people everywhere, Master Mark. I wouldn't need to stay in Charleston. Things might be better elsewhere." Appleby could only sigh and squeeze Bundit's shoulder. He had heard all this before. It was clear that Bundit, not born on Seaward, was becoming restless. But then his heart froze, for he heard something else that he had also heard before. Marcus spoke up: "Can I go, too, Papa Mark? Can I go with Bundit?" The world tumbled over several times as Appleby considered what else he could say that had not been said before. "You're still too young, Marcus" is what came out, but it was inadequate, merely repeating old admonitions. What really could be said was layers deep. All the young people of Seaward knew about slavery, knew what their own special circumstances were. But there is a difference between knowing what a thing is from books and stories and experiencing it first hand. The latter they had never done. The adults of Seaward were even hesitant to let them go to Charleston, and so trips there were extremely rare for the children. How can you tell a child how vulnerable they are to an evil they have never known? And then there was the personal layer of what might be said. The adults of Seaward were very careful, even eager, to share parenthood every bit as much as they shared the physical joys that led to it. All adults were "Papa" or "Mama" and were treated as such. Yet even the children had a sense of who was, or might be, their biological father, and there was never any question as to who their mothers were. The adults all felt a true parental attachment to all of the children, and yet.... could they help but have a little extra, or at least different, feeling for their own flesh and blood? Appleby would have sacrificed himself for the wellbeing of any child (or adult) on Seaward, but Marcus.... Marcus was his own and only offspring. And if the Siamese Bundit risked trouble and enslavement on the mainland, then so much more did his own son who was one quarter African. All these complications Appleby held in his heart, turning them over not for the first time. He asked Marcus to return to the house to wash up for dinner, and the boy obeyed, running off down the hill. Appleby sat for a moment more with Bundit, then spoke. "Bundit.... I want to see you happy. When you first came, I said you could go ashore with my blessing. It really isn't my permission to give, as you know. But I really think it would be a mistake to leave Seaward now. And Bundit," and here he scooped the man into him, turning to kiss his forehead and nuzzle in the black, bushy wings of his hair, "I would miss you very much if you left." "I know, master, I know" said Bundit, and snuggled up into the side of the white man. They sat like that for a moment longer, then rose and, hand in hand, walked down the cemetery hill toward the house. Dinners were being set out for different groupings here and there, in cabins, in the kitchen, in the main house. People often ate where the nearest table was at Seaward, and everyone found a welcome in every dwelling. As the dinner hour passed, the grownups gathered in the library of Seaward. The children were there as well, some lying on the floor, some sitting in the doorways. The youngest, Douglass, Frederick, Moss, and Wat, were of course the least attentive to the proceedings, although even they stopped their play to give their attention from time to time. Appleby rose to begin the meeting. "My friends, you read the newspapers. You know that Mr. Lincoln is to be inaugurated as president next month, indeed, in a little more than a week. You know that several states, including South Carolina, have vowed to secede from the Union if that happens--and that many leaders in Northern states vow that it would mean war if they did secede." The company nodded; skilled readers all, they had kept up with the newspapers that came in on the mail boat, although they were usually days if not weeks old. Appleby continued. "I have feared this event for eleven long years. We have prepared for it, but have we prepared enough? We may have very little time, now. I have some suggestions as to what to do, as no doubt many of you do." He began to lay out a plan to completely fill their stores on Seaward, to cram every nook and cranny of every barn, cellar, and armory with as many supplies as they could acquire to survive whatever isolation or privation that war might bring. "But building up our supplies is dependent on keeping Seaward our own. How long can we keep troops off of our island? How much longer before the South Carolina Militia makes active use of the island?" Heads shook all around the room. It was a grim picture. Bundit sat quietly, but did not comment. "I have a suggestion," said Appleby. "If the danger is that the South Carolina Militia, their infantry or their navy, would move into Seaward--I propose we invite them to do just that. As you know, I am a lieutenant in that august body." Nods and puzzled looks went around the room. "And as they say, 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.' I have a plan...." which he proceeded to explain to them. When he was done, they looked thoughtful. "I say, try it, master," said Priam. "We can't be worse off than we would be otherwise." The company discussed the matter for a while, and agreed with Priam and Appleby. It was decided to put the plan into action at the next meeting of the militia which was to be in two days' time. Others made more good suggestions that were considered by all. By the end of the meeting, nearly everyone at least felt that they had something to do that would keep Seaward as far out of war and turmoil as possible. Everyone understood the utterly bleak implications of being overrun by troops or police from the mainland if their island were to be seized for its strategic value, near the entrance to Charleston Harbor. As the meeting broke up, everybody embraced in twos and threes. Emotions were running high, but so was hope. Seaward had many resources: financial, social, and spiritual, and they believed they could weather the storm. Appleby wrote out some orders for goods and supplies, asking Troy to take the orders out to the mail boat the next day for transport into Charleston. Appleby went out to sit in the cool of the February evening on the verandah as people filed out singly or in groups, bidding him good night. Appleby rocked quietly, in deep thought. The last to step out onto the verandah was Priam. He looked down at Appleby who looked back at him. They nodded at each other, a deep understanding of the troubles ahead passing between them. Appleby patted the arm of the rocker next to him, and Priam sat down in it. "We can't lose Seaward, Priam. I.... I think I would kill myself, indeed I am sure of it" said Appleby. Priam nodded. "Yes, master. Me, too. It's all I've known for, oh, fifty years now. I've been on every square inch of this island, put my mark on most everything, Master Mark. If Seaward goes, I go." Appleby nodded agreement, then reached out to squeeze Priam's hand, and the two rocked in silence for a while. Then a thought occurred to Appleby. "Priam.... you have been over the whole island. I don't think I have seen you go upstairs in this house more than, oh, maybe a couple of times in eleven years, though." Priam chuckled. "Well, I guess that's true, master. I used to go a lot more," he said, a big grin appeared on his face. "Oh, no doubt... back when Richardson Huddle was still alive, eh?" "Well, yes, master, then.... but since then, too." Priam got a far-away look in his eye as he looked back into the past. "When.... when Aunt Lucy lived here alone?" asked Appleby. Priam nodded. "Were you... were you a house servant then?" he asked. Priam chuckled, a deep rumble, and shook his head. "Oh, yes and no, master." Appleby looked at Priam's private smile and now grinned at him also. "Alright, something's afoot here... or was. Tell me, Priam." "No, master, you don't want to know!" "Priam! Do you and I have secrets from each other? After what we have done.... have enjoyed with each other?" Priam laughed out loud, looked at Appleby, and shrugged--the past was the past, and it was true, he had little to hide from the white man, nor Appleby from him, so.... "Well, let's just say.... early on you know, not in her later years.... Miss Lucy got lonely sometimes, master." Appleby stared, open-mouthed in astonishment. An image of the powerful young body of Priam lying atop a younger Aunt Lucy flashed through his head, and his penis gave a twitch. Then he whooped with laughter and stamped his foot so hard the verandah shook. Priam broke out into open laughter again. "You.... you aren't offended because it was your Aunt Lucy, are you master?" Appleby reached over and cupped Priam's neck, feeling the scratchy texture of his dense, kinky white hair. "No, Priam. I am glad that Aunt Lucy found some joy. But you... was it good for you as well? You must have been just a boy, and she an older woman." "It was good as a boy... it was good later on, master. Remember what we say, at Seaward we give each other what we need. She needed me more than I needed her, but yes, master, it was all good. And, of course, she lost interest in later years." Appleby nodded, continuing to caress the strong, black neck. Then he was seized with an inspiration. "But you have not been upstairs very much in recent years, right?" Priam shook his head. "Come, show me which room she had," said Appleby. Priam looked at him in surprise, then considered the request for a moment, nodded agreement, and rose. The two trooped upstairs. The second floor was not yet over-crowded, but was certainly becoming socially "full" since Appleby's arrival. Hector had moved out of Troy and Athena's cabin to make room in their loft for the children. He now occupied one room. The twins had a room of their own, as did Bundit and Cassius. With Appleby keeping a bedroom, that filled five of the six rooms on second floor. Priam walked down the hallway, some doors open and some closed, people talking in some of the rooms and either soft sounds or quiet coming from others. Providentially, the very room he sought was the one still unoccupied, perhaps because its decorations were the most feminine of any of the six. As Appleby followed Priam down the hallway, noting who was in which room and who was not, he smiled to himself in thinking about the open, easy arrangement on the second floor--an arrangement that, indeed, extended to the cabins. It was a rare night that all five rooms were occupied. The men and women of Seaward shared a perfect freedom to walk into rooms or cabins, to seek or offer physical intimacy. A "no" was never taken as a rejection, and a "yes" was never exclusive. Many a couple, surprised by the unannounced arrival of a third person, invited the newcomer to join them in their frolic. People slept alone because they wanted to, or tangled in a nest of multi-colored limbs if that was what they sought. Tonight the second floor was typical: Bundit could be glimpsed sitting side by side with Cassius on his bed, the two talking quietly, and Appleby had no doubt where that conversation would lead. Hector was not in his room but the door to Pan and Bacchus's room was closed; from behind it could be heard soft laughter and the squeaking of bedsprings. Priam entered the last, unoccupied room, Appleby following him. He breathed deeply, inhaling scents and memories from long ago. "Here it was, master," he said, "this very bed. Starting out, I was just a boy, really. She had me sneak out of my cabin at night, come up here. No other people in the house, so we wouldn't be disturbed. Oh, those were the days, master," he said, looking at the bed but yet, not looking at the bed. Appleby came up beside him and draped an arm around his shoulder, kneading the big, rounded muscle that cascaded off his shoulder and down into his arm. Priam, smiling, shaking his head slightly, kept looking at the bed, softly muttering "uh, uh, uh" to himself. Looking from the bed to Priam, Appleby noticed the front of the black man's trousers: there was a definite bulge there as his memories called forth an involuntary reaction. Suddenly, Appleby was very much aware of the sheer masculinity and strength of Priam's body. In his early sixties but with a body at least fifteen years younger, he exuded an animal vitality. Appleby's own groin began to grow in response. Turning in toward Priam, keeping one hand on the black man's shoulder, Appleby reached his other arm across the thick chest to clasp the same shoulder. He leaned forward and nuzzled Priam's chocolate ear and neck with his lips. Startled from his revery, Priam looked quickly at Appleby, muttering "Huh?!" He looked a moment longer--he was no stranger to physical intimacy with Appleby, or with others on the island, but not to the extent that the younger people were. But caught up in memories of his pleasant intimacies with Lucy Huddle, the family resemblance in Appleby combined with the love and attraction he felt toward the white man on his own terms. Priam pivoted toward Appleby, wrapping his own arms around his master's lower back. The two looked at each other directly in the eyes for a long, serious moment. Then simultaneous smiles cracked the hesitancy between them, and they merged together in a passionate embrace. Appleby slipped to one side to close the door, then stepped back to Priam, tearing off his shirt and unbuckling his trousers as he went. He slammed back into Priam, then began unbuttoning the man's shirt to bare the big lobes of muscle under the shiny dark hairless skin of his chest. Priam stood like an ebony statue, accepting the services of the white man. With both men shirtless, Appleby wrapped his arms around Priam's muscled back as Priam grasped both of Appleby's shoulders in his strong brown hands. Their penises, pushed straight down between them, batted and slid against each other. The two embraced tightly and then kissed. Priam's lips were, like his sons', full and plum- like. Appleby sucked first one lip and then the other into his mouth, chewing it with his own lips, thrusting his tongue into the man's mouth. Priam was like a huge machine of muscle that, once started, was difficult to stop. He was now fairly started. As he surrendered his lips to Appleby, he moved his hands to the white man's trousers and simply ripped them and the undergarments beneath to the floor in one motion. As Appleby kicked them and his shoes aside, Priam did the same to his own pants and shoes. Now naked, the two powerful men locked together with arms and mouths, grinding, strong leg muscles pushing groins into groins. The two were like two mighty elk in a forest, locking horns in struggle, but it was a struggle that would lead to mutual ecstasy. Appleby broke the impasse by stepping to the bedside stand and opening a pot of lubricant (one could be found in nearly every room on Seaward!). He threw himself on his back on the bed, head against the pillows, legs up in the air. Taking two fingers of goo from the pot, he quickly began greasing up his own anus, inserting both fingers to help relax the sphincter. Priam stood at the end of the bed, slowly masturbating his huge, erect penis, head cocked to one side, lips parted. When Appleby was ready he beckoned, and the powerful black man crawled onto the bed, his penis a potent missile pointed toward Appleby's gut. The white man took another dollop of lubricant and oiled the huge, purple black organ, gently encircling the large, lighter brown head of the penis, which made Priam groan with pleasure. It took a while for Priam to insert himself into Appleby. First just the head, making Appleby gasp, then another inch, then another. Slowly the giant, purple black cock disappeared into the tan and pink bottom of the white man, pushed by Priam's powerful groin as the black man sat on his haunches. Finally, deeply inserted, he paused. Then, at a nod from Appleby, he began sliding in and out, first slowly then with more speed. Priam shifted from his haunches to stretch his legs straight back and to arch out straight over Appleby's torso. The white man pushed up on the hanging, muscular lobes of Priam's chest, tanned white palms and fingers spread out over the dark-skinned chest, and held Priam up as the black man began pumping with furious energy. Back and forth moved his muscular butt, the muscles clenching upward with every repetition. Priam's mouth was open and he gasped for breath as he looked down, now at the sight of his slick black cock moving in and out of the white bottom, now at Appleby's muscled chest and torso, now down into the white man's face. From deep inside him, from the wells of memory, from the plains of Africa far away, came the rolling thunder of Priam's ecstasy. When it came he bellowed, eyes shut and head back, slamming his groin forward twice and then holding it tight against Appleby's bottom. The tight clenching of his muscles gave way to quivering and shaking. Appleby slipped his arms around the man's strong black shoulders and pulled him down onto his own chest. Priam lay there gasping, clutching the sheets, whispering "Oh master, oh master" over and over. A moment passed and he heaved a great sigh. Then he pushed himself down the length of Appleby's torso, the head of his rigid cock pulling out of the white man's anus with a plop and trailing a string of semen. Priam stopped when he came to Appleby's rigid pink and red penis. First he gently sucked the white man's ballsack, stimulating the sperm he would soon have inside of him. Licking up the bottom side of the stiff shaft, he made Appleby groan and writhe in ecstasy. Then he took the whole shaft into his mouth and began moving his head up and down, teeth retracted behind tightly closed lips. Appleby grasped Priam's head with both hands, fingers scratching his tight, white skullcap of kinky hair. The white man moved his hips up and down to complement the rhythm of Priam's head. When he came it was sudden, a tidal wave of pleasure engulfing him as his torso curled up off the bed and he cried out, Priam's head between his hands as the black man greedily drank shot after shot of the white man's semen. The two lay like that as Appleby gasped for breath. Then Priam moved up alongside his master to envelop him once more in his large, powerful arms. Appleby rolled in the black man's direction, his arms around his shoulders. The two lay side by side, wordlessly communing. Appleby swam in the eyes of the man whose loins had fathered his lovers Troy, Hector, and Helen. Priam looked deep into the eyes of a man who had once owned him but was now as dear as his own children. Slowly, both eyes drifted shut. Just before sleep overtook them, Appleby whispered, "Cass... will she miss you?" Chuckling softly, Priam replied, "She'll figure I'm somewhere, with someone... might enjoy the rest." Both laughed at that, then sank under a wave of sleep.