Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2021 17:53:45 +0000 (GMT) From: Peter Brown Subject: Last of the Line - Chapter 125 Last of the Line by badboi666 =============================================================================== If sex with boys isn't your thing, go away. If, as is much more likely, you've come to this site precisely to get your rocks off reading about sex with 14-year-olds then make yourself comfortable - you're in the right place. Don't leave, however, without doing this: Donate to Nifty - these buggers may do it for love but they still have to eat. http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html NOTE to the reader: "Peter Brown" aka badboi666 is, as you might guess, not in the first flush of youth: indeed he is well into the you'll-die-if-you-get-this-fucking-thing age cohort. If he gets a nasty cough and a temperature he will post a synopsis of what is still to come. Then, if he snuffs it, you can at least have some idea of what befell Dab in the end. The good news is that he has had his first Pfizer shot. =============================================================================== Chapter 125 Zeke and Jer left with Seb and Dodo after a second night of pretty frenzied action. Perhaps we all somehow knew that the eight of us would never all be together again: indeed it was almost the last time that the 'inside' six of us would be together as the next time we saw Seb and Dodo Jack was away at college. I must focus on what's important as time is running out. ***** We all gradually became accustomed to the new life without so many of the day-to-day conveniences we had all taken for granted. By 2044, three years after the Electric War, a form of normal life had developed, at least for us in out part of England. We had become used to the absence of some foods - tropical fruits and things like that (although we did eventually manage to grow oranges, as you know) - but you can get along reasonably well without coconuts if you try. Focus, Dab! A letter came in early October 2044 inviting me ("as a recent Benefactor and Former Scholar of the College") to the Commemoration of Benefactors Feast at Fisher in November. I remembered from my undergraduate days that this was a do of some splendour as the menu was always published outside Hall so that we - who were of course not invited - could salivate. The hidden purpose, I suppose, was that some of us might remember such temptation and ourselves become benefactors. As you remember, my benefaction was for a different purpose entirely, but the invitation was tempting. I sent back a quick reply accepting, and a week later a beautifully embossed invitation arrived, together with a letter from the Steward that rooms had been reserved for me for the night before, and the night of, the Feast. "I would be glad if you would join me and a few others in Hall the night before" from Simon, in a PS, "there are things in which you might be interested." There was no hint of what these things might be, but a small part of me hoped that the Fisher Choir might not be too far from them - after all, that was what the money had been about. ***** Jack was at college, so Billy and Hamish spent time teasing me that if the Fisher trebles were likely to be served up as an accompaniment to the Feast, then they were going to make the most of having the run of the place themselves. "We'll have a Roman orgy and invite the lesbians," said Billy, "it'll be a nice change for all of us." "The two of you will be much more useful at Inverthrum. There's probably weeding to be done." Gales of laughter from Hamish greeted this. "What?" "You don't weed 22 acres under crops, Dab. It's not a bloody garden." I retired from the field duly humbled. I presented myself at the Porters' Lodge mid-afternoon. "You're in the Fellows' Guest Room on A staircase, your lordship." This was very grand - there were a small number of Fellows' Guest Rooms and they were rumoured to be rather special. A8 was my first experience of living - Cambridge living, that is - at this level. It was the first time I had both slept in a four-poster and had an original Delacroix on the wall. There was an envelope on the desk. "Combination Room 7 pm. Simon. On the other hand you may care to join us for Worship - Chapel 6 pm. Colin." Or both, I thought. Chapel hadn't crossed my mind, but the suggestion having been made the idea quickly became irresistible. Edward's balls would have put an end to his joy in being a treble a few years back, but - what was his name? - Henry might still be around. He'd be 14 now, so it would be touch and go. It was not to be. The trebles opposite whom I took my seat were unfamiliar - if, for the most part, nice - faces and those with their backs to me did not include anyone I'd remembered either. I wondered why Colin had got me all excited. The Combination Room was as I remembered it from my scholarship interview - candles in sconces and a log fire in a huge grate. A glass of champagne was put in my hand and Simon came forward to greet me. "Dab, how nice! We're informal tonight - there's just a few of us. The Fellows with wives are under strict instructions to fast today for fear of overdoing things tomorrow." I must have looked perplexed. "Feasts are well-named, Dab, though the level of gluttony fails to reach that of the fifteenth century when this particular tradition was introduced. Mind you, it was a lot worse in Tudor times. They got through 11 courses in 1533." "And tomorrow? I remember seeing Feast menus as an undergraduate." "A mere 5. Plenty of wine though. We might have some of yours one day." I smiled. "I hoped you might say that - I've brought you a few bottles to sample." He grinned. "The Commemoration of Benefactors brings out the best in out alumni." We sipped out champagne in a companionable silence, then he turned to me. "I want you to meet two of my colleagues - not Fellows here - but I think you'll find them interesting. Come and meet them." A group of four were standing across the room. "Peter, can I drag these two away. Dab, I'd like you to meet Grace and Terry." We shook hands. "After we've done with Hall I'd like the three of you to come to my rooms. Grace and Terry know who you are, Dab, and we collaborate in their specialist field." I would have asked more, not least quite what their field was, but the gong went and we processed into Hall. Colin was Senior Fellow that night, and had appeared in the Combination Room only a minute before the gong was sounded. He grabbed my elbow. "On my right, Dab," and in we went. I had not expected to be guest of honour. Grace was on Colin's other side and Terry on my tight. Simon, Peter and another Fellow I didn't know completed the party. Evidently none was married (or if so, had decided to ignore wifely wisdom). After Colin had commanded my attention while we made short work of the pâté he turned to Terry. That was when I discovered that Grace was a climate scientist. "We both are," she said, "but we have different areas in which we specialise." I wanted to know more, but she said that Simon had asked them not to start to tell their story until the four of us were in his rooms. "It all sounds very cloak and dagger," I said. She laughed. "No, it's certainly not that, but once Terry and I get going on our subject we find it hard to stop. And the Senior Fellow is going to turn to you again in about three minutes." He did, and what he said was most interesting. "You didn't recognise him then? There's a strong family resemblance, I think." I said he had the better of me. "My lead treble - Mark Goodenough. Gordon's brother. He had his back to you, which probably explains it." I smiled. "And he follows in his brother's footsteps, I take it." Colin nodded. "Keenly. He was, I believe, well trained by the delightful Gordon. But you know that, of course." Once the Cunliffe blush would have risen, but no longer - not in that company on that topic. "The only time Mark was discussed led me to conclude that Gordon found it necessary to be the pure older brother," I said. Colin gave a great hoot. "Then things must have changed since that conversation." I waited for him to say more, but his duck occupied him for a minute or two. Then, slyly, "you're interested, aren't you, Dab?" "Of course, Colin, but what matters is whether I am to become involved." He looked at me. "Do you wish to be?" I nodded. "Does he?" I said softly. "Put it this way," he said, "Gordon has held what happened chez vous that Christmas before Mark in a manner mischievously aimed at making the poor boy more jealous than Othello. When I let slip that the famous Dab was to come among us he - let's put it crudely as we are friends - could hardly stop wetting himself. So if you were in your rooms tomorrow afternoon and a visitor were to arrive ..." "I should be delighted, Colin. I infer this has your blessing." "Indeed it has. Benefactors are commemorated in a multitude of ways in Fisher." And with that he turned to Terry and it was Grace time again. She and I were deep in a conversation about Delacroix - A8 is widely spoken of when guests are at High Table - when Colin put his hand on my arm. "Two, Dab." "A8," I replied. "I know - I had you put there." Was 'two' when Mark would arrive, or how long he would stay, or whether he would have company? After the ritual 20 minutes with the port and fruit in the Combination Room Simon got to his feet and gathered Grace and Terry. "Come along, Dab, we have much to discuss." Colin waved us away and the other diners grouped themselves round the fire. As I expected, there was a bottle of claret with dishes of salted almonds awaiting us in Simon's room. "I can't offer a log fire," he said, rubbing his hands (it was cold outside), "but this is almost as cosy." Four armchairs each with a small table greeted us. "What's up, Simon?" I said, "this looks awfully like a delegation." Simon grinned, "not quite, Dab, more of a presentation." When we were all provided with a full glass and the nuts had been placed conveniently Simon settled into his chair. "A few years ago I provided you with a report into various matters affecting your land-holdings in East Anglia, and you sold them, buying land on the south coast if I remember." "Yes, in Sussex. 400-odd acres on which I grow grapes, as you well know." Grace leaned forward. "Are the vines producing well, Dab? Do you have yield figures from the previous grower?" "Yes to both," I said, "and we're getting about 15% heavier crops." Grace and Terry exchanged a look. She went on, "you have land in Scotland too, Simon told me. Are you growing anything there?" I described Inverthrum, and how Jack and Hamish had turned what had been moorland into a field of cabbages and some fruit trees. "I bought an adjoining 20 acres a few years ago and we've sown clover and ploughed it in. It's got cabbages right now, but my gardener is persuading me to get something more useful in. Why do you ask?" Terry explained that he and Grace were studying the effect of the climate emergency on food supply. "We're pretty sure that the land you sold in East Anglia, which is still highly productive, will be unusable one of these days. Once the sea gets in the salt makes the soil useless for agriculture - that's why you sold. What we're interested in is how we replace the lost acres, not necessarily with the same crops, but at least with crops having similar nutritional value. On top of that the climate is changing in ways we don't fully understand. Your vines are 15% more productive than they were only a few years ago - that's down to two things: more rain at the right time, and more sun at the right time for that - they're not the same time. You're lucky in having a crop that the present, and as far as we know, the likely future climate in the south of England will suit. We're lucky, Grace and I, that Simon had introduced us to a landowner with acreages in the south of England and several hundred miles further north." I was fascinated. "Go on. I think I can see where this is going." Grace explained that my 20 acres were ideal to test how food might be grown over much larger areas of Britain if things went on getting hotter and wetter. "The seasons will go on getting more extreme, Dab. Summers will be hotter and drier and winters milder but wetter. On top of that there will be more extreme events - vast thunderstorms which will dump half a meter of rain destroying a crop completely, prolonged droughts. That means our engineering chums will have to build a lot more dams and irrigation systems - not something we've had to bother about in these islands. Soon we think we will be growing the kind of things we've been used to growing in Mediterranean countries - things like olives and oranges." My mind went immediately to Jack and his love of fruit trees. "Trees, then, rather than stuff which grows on the ground?" "Or rice," said Grace. As cereals go it's very nutritious and requires little maintenance. As my agricultural colleagues say, 'bung it in, sit down for a few months and harvest it. Repeat ad nauseam.'." Simon turned to Terry. "Tell him your suggestion." Terry gave me a folder. "In there are two copies of a proposal we'd like to put to you. We'd like you to allow a small team from the University, led by Grace and me, to take over your 20 acres in Sutherland and use it as an experimental station. Initially it would be a 5-year project, with the option - if you and we think it's worthwhile - to extend for a further 5 years." I looked at the Summary page where it was set out. Simon refilled our glasses while I did so. "Yes," I said, "in principle I like the idea. I won't make a decision now though. I will consult my Steward and see what he feels, but you'll remember, Simon, that he didn't take much persuasion about your last recommendation. I will also consult one of my gardeners - Jack - who got his qualification from college in Worcestershire a year back." Grace named the college, and I agreed. "If he got his degree there then he's as well trained as it's possible to be," she said. "And fruit trees are his abiding passion," I added, thinking to myself that his other abiding passion might like the idea of going back to Sutherland to live permanently. "If I agree I will want Jack to be a major part of what goes on," I said, "decision-making and everything that flows from it." "I can't see any objection to that," said Terry," the more the Estate is involved, the better. I assume you have no wish to have detailed involvement yourself?" I shook my head. "Experts are to be given their heads." A silence developed while I took in what was being suggested. "A question," I said, "what happens in 10 years' time, assuming you learn useful things from the experiment?" Terry chuckled. "That rather depends on what we learn, Dab. My guess is that things will continue to get more extreme over the next 50 years, maybe longer. It would be nice to plan how we will all cope on 100 years' time, but mercifully that won't be our problem, though we have all contributed to making our great-grandchildren's lives pretty hellish. Not a nice thought. All we can do is do out damnedest to show how things might be a little less hellish." Grace leaned forward. "The most important thing is that we all know there is a problem, and that we all have to do our part in finding a solution." Tell that to President Leigh, I thought. "Feeding ourselves is going to take most of our energy and ingenuity. You can forget anything else." It was a sobering thought: since the Middle East and the Electric War there had been so many immediate difficulties to cope with in everyday life that most of us hadn't been able to spend much time worrying about the larger crisis hanging over us. I finished my glass. "I will give you an answer within a week," I said, "there's nothing else I should be worrying about, I hope?" Grace hesitated. "There is one thing that worries some of our colleagues, but it's not something any of us can do anything about." I hadn't thought there was much we could do at this late stage about the climate emergency, but I kept my mouth shut. "The oceanographers are monitoring the Gulf Stream, and it's been weakening for 150 years. Switch that off and you might as well be living and trying to grow oranges in Greenland." "You're not serious?" "Oh, but I am, Dab, though there's no likelihood of anything soon. It's about 40% less powerful that it was when they started measuring it at the beginning of the 20th Century. It's reversed before - not in historical times of course - but the plant records indicate much colder conditions in this part of the world tens of thousands of years back. Don't forget the Ice Age. No-one knows whether the next reversal will take 500 years or 50 years or a week. It's a bit like a gigantic tap - it may turn off very fast indeed." "And if it does then I've got icebergs up the west coast?" "No, Dab," said Terry, "you've got icebergs when it turns off." "And that will put paid to the oranges." "That," said Terry with a serious look, "will be the least of your worries." "How will we know if it happens?" "You'll see an iceberg floating past." Simon, who had said nothing while all this had been going on, clapped his hands and got to his feet. "More coffee, I think," and he went out to his little kitchen from which a cheerful aroma wafted. It was a little after 10.30. I remembered that I should be dining like a trencherman the following night, and would have (I hoped) severely depleted energies by then. Still, there was always room for another coffee. Simon came back, a pot in one hand and a dish in the other. "I hope I can tempt you to some more almonds, Dab." The temptations by which I was seduced in Fisher were many. ***** I resolved to have a light lunch the next day, one free from alcohol. As there seemed little likelihood that Mark's and my enjoyment of each other's company would be diminished by the lack of beer the decision wasn't a hard one. By half past one I was fussing around like a mother hen. As I had not expected to be entertaining I had brought none of the accoutrements of a mis-spent afternoon with me, so had gone out shopping for necessities. It was quite like old times. Mark made me wait several minutes once 2 o'clock had struck (only 40 feet from my head) and the mother hen duly went into overdrive. At last a knock: a single knock, just as Edward and Gordon had knocked. I opened the door and a miniature version of Gordon slipped in. "Hello, Dab," he said. "Hello, Mark." "This is a first for me," he said, plonking himself down in one of the armchairs. "In what way?" I'd rather imagined from what Colin had said that Mark was experienced in the matters at hand - this was alarming. Was I to deal with Mark's cherry? Surely not. He grinned at me. "My first fuck in a four-poster." "Mine too," I said, "so you must be gentle with me." Hoots of laughter from Mark. "Gordy says you can do fierce or gentle better than anyone he's had up his arse." "What about you? Which do you prefer, Mark?" "Both, Dab. I'm here until just before 5 when Colin needs me." I must have looked alarmed. "No, not for that, Dab. He knows I'm here, and he knows that we'll be busy, but I need to look virginal again so that God doesn't find out at 6. Colin makes sure the trebles are all sweet again in good time." "All the trebles? In your brother's day there were only two of them at it." "Pooh! There may have been only two who shared your bed, but just about all of them had someone up there half the time." I smiled. Mark wasn't here to discuss the habits of trebles, merely to enjoy what I could bring to this one - and he to me. "OK. What do you like, Mark? If we have the best part of three hours we ought to get on with whatever it is that turns you on." He looked at me and said softly, "what turns me on, Dab, is you. Gordy's never stopped telling me how good you are at it. Now that I'm sitting here in your room with your bed inches from me I know that it was worth the wait - worth being teased endlessly about how I might get to meet the magic Dab and his magic cock." He stood up. "It's time. What I want is you, Dab." He was in my arms. I stroked his hair, blond like his brother's. He was as taut as a spring. "Come on," I whispered, "let's make that bed useful." Ordinarily I'd have knelt and pulled down his zip, reaching into the furnace that I expected to find within. this was no ordinary moment, however. Each of us flung off our clothes into a heap by the bed. Each of us stood drinking in what was standing in front of us. I saw a replica of Gordon, blond hair, blue eyes, a sexy little nose, a slim boy's body, the first tentative steps of a treasure trail - and what a treasure! All the exercise Gordon (and countless others) had subjected Mark's cock to had made it a fine specimen - over 6 inches and raring to go. His eyes sparkled. What did he see? I can only report what he murmured. "Fuck me, Dab, that's gorgeous. Gordy wasn't wrong. He said that you had the gingerest hair he'd ever seen and the hottest cock he'd ever had in him. The ginger bit's true ... can we ...?" =============================================================================== The fun continues in Chapter 126 as we do. Drop me a line at badboi666@btinternet.com - that is after you've dropped nifty a few quid. ===============================================================================