Now Am I In Arden
A story by Ivor Sukwell and Kyle McKenzie. A story about a boy and a man with all that such entails. The setting is modern and based around the theatre, Not your thing? Sorry about that, we're sure you'll find something that is. Whatever your choice, please remember Nifty needs your donations.
Now Am I In Arden
Chapter six
"London's Globe Theatre has a vital role to play in our understanding of the manner in which the works of England's greatest poet were staged in his own lifetime. Rarely do productions there merit more than a "Good Try" from even the most uncritical reviewers. The Globe was not meant to show great art and great theatre, it was meant to show a place where great art and theatre had once been shown.
To engage Richard Williams to direct a crew of journeymen actors and a young teenage boy in an all male production of As You Like It was, on the part of the directors of the Globe, a stroke of genius, a desperate gamble, or sheer madness.
Mr Williams is not known for his kindness of spirit towards even the best of actors, and to subject mere journeymen and a boy to his vitriolic, unforgiving and unrelenting direction may have been seen by many in the business as, at best, an act of unwarranted cruelty.
But it was not to be. Bullied, badgered but never condoled, this crew of journeymen and a boy did produce, if not great then very close to it, theatre,
Jacob Wills, fresh from his much acclaimed, athletic, overt and openly sexual rendition of Puck, was modesty itself in a part that presented him with far greater opportunities for cheap eroticism than Puck ever did, and each and everyone of those opportunities was noted, studied and ignored, by a boy/girl/boy actor who was both boy and girl and never, ever, either boy or girl.
That Mr Williams must be given much of the credit for this achievement goes without saying, but huge credit must go to a boy of fourteen who not only survived Mr Williams's unrelenting demand for perfection, but took also huge strides towards achieving it.
Jacob Wills has a real future on the stage and theatre aficionados must pray nightly that he is not seduced by the mammon of film and television."
Extract from a review of As You Like It in the theatre newspaper The Stage.
Very kind of you, Henry, I thought as I read The Stage's review. The Stage is not a widely read publication, a weekly designed and intended for the profession, but a publication well known to pull no punches. Shit gets called shit by that paper.
I wondered how Jacob Brat would take this, glowing but not ecstatic review of his performance, and also what his fairy queen and ice maiden mother would make of it as well. Didn't exactly mirror their ambitions for the boy's future, I smiled, sipping my morning coffee.
Time passed, as time must pass and I heard nothing from the boy I had, against all common sense and conventionality, lost my heart to, I never expected to hear from him, that sort of thing only happens in cheap, fictional romance. The boy was fourteen, he'd had an experience of sorts that, beyond all doubt, meant nothing real to him. And why should it?
My last contact with him had been at the end of show 'Thank You' I gave to the cast, who had, each and every one of them, worked their balls off for me.
`With its all star cast and city sized set Richard Davis' interpretation of Homer's Iliad seemed destined to be the next great TV event.
A passion project for its producer and director, `The Siege Of Troy' was billed as a return to the splendour and grandeur of the historical epics of Hollywood's golden age, but after three months the only mention of the word `epic' in relation to this production now is when it is followed by the word `disaster'.
While Davis cannot be blamed for the rain storm which washed away the supposedly unbreachable walls of Troy in a single night he must surely carry responsibility for a series of casting decisions which can be best described as brave. Any producer or director should have foreseen that hiring a set of Hollywood faces, all with ongoing commitments, would bring with it a myriad of ego and scheduling problems, but for all his experience Davis seems to have been seduced by the power of a name.
While it feels unfair to single out someone so young, a case in point is Jacob Wills. Flavour of the week following a series of well received stage performances, his casting as Patroclus must have seemed a good idea at a time when fashion labels were falling over themselves to have him as the face of their winter collection.
Unfortunately Wills experience, such as it was, seems wholly inadequate for such a large budget production and the rumour from set is that Davis grows more frustrated with his teenage star by the day.'
(Extract from the Hollywood Mega-gossip website.)
"Don't worry mate, deep breaths." Kasper Gundarson gave me his winning smile and despite myself I shyly smiled back. Kasper, one of the biggest names in Hollywood, is playing Achilles and we had spent a lot of time together in the three months since filming began.
Well filming didn't exactly begin three months ago. First they had to rebuild most of the set, but at the time that seemed ok. We started filming other stuff on the undamaged parts, until Richard Davis decided he wasn't happy with the light, and then we all stopped until the set was finished. But that seemed ok, it gave us time to rehearse and learn the fight scenes and do the long shots and the background shots until Richard Davis decided he wanted to rewrite the middle of the season and we had to scrap everything we had worked on.
Things were definitely not ok now. You could feel the tension every time you came on set and Davis had gone from a non-smoker to puffing his way through about 40 fags a day. He was constantly on the phone, shouting at the studio or one of the cast who had fucked off to do some other filming or being shouted at by the production company for how much money was being spent.
He was pacing up and down behind the main camera bank now, his phone pressed to his ear which was a bad sign. He would be in a furious mood after yelling at someone, but after he had been bollocked he was always terrifying. I stole a glance at him and tried to look away when I caught his eye.
"Seriously if that boy looks at the fucking camera one more fucking time!" The phone was thrown against a wall which I guessed meant the call was over and everyone got ready for action.
"Why the fuck is he standing there?" I knew he was talking about me and put my head down trying to keep out of the line of fire.
"Get over on your mark, for fuck's sake!" I shuffled over and action was called for a second time. This was supposed to be a quick scene, no more than a day's filming with me helping Achilles put on his armour.
Problem was, however I did it Davis wasn't happy. In my mind Patroclus and Achilles were more than friends, but that's not what the script said and everything I tried was derided as lifeless by the director.
"Don't seem as if it's a happy place," Sis said to me as we sat in her Maida Vale flat, her on gin and me on malt. "Never mind, Rich," she leered over her glass, "Davis will have him in some super short mini-kilt so all his lovely legs are on show. Something for you to look at if nothing else."
"What the fuck, Sis." I wasn't annoyed or anything, I'd known Sis for far too long to ever get annoyed with her unrelenting bluntness.
"Can't fool me, Rich, should know that by now."
"Nothing to fool you about," I shrugged.
"Fucking bollocks," Sis shrugged back. "Knew from the very first you'd grown a bone for that boy. First bone you ever grew for anyone in your life."
"Don't be ridiculous, Sis." And she knew and I knew she wasn't being at all ridiculous.
"Should have given him a ring there and then," she stated, "He'd have put it on his finger straight away, no questions asked."
"Who the fuck would want a ring of mine?"
"As I heard it you sent him in tears from rehearsal almost every day, and behaved like you didn't give a shit. Didn't you ever see that boy worshipped every inch of the ground you stomped him into?"
"If he did, Sis, then just as well I sent him crying hence," I shrugged again, "If he did, then that kept him safe, didn't it."
"Him safe, or you safe? Isn't he in your mind still, each and every day?"
"Only when I haven't had enough malt," I smiled weakly, and refilled my glass.
"Don't worry, sweetie," Sis refilled her own glass, "He'll be back."
"Not in this life," I sighed. "Mamon called and Brat answered."
I knew this was what was called a `crisis meeting'. Mum was here, looking furious and concerned at the same time, and Sandy had flown in from New York especially for the meeting. Kasper and his agent were there as well, talking in whispers. As the biggest name in the show he had to be included in every decision.
"Richard darling, I know things haven't gone totally to plan but you can't blame young Jacob for a flood! You make a biblical epic, and you have a flood worthy of Noah! Sounds like a happy coincidence to me darling!"
Sandy was laying the charm on thick, but Richard Davis seemed immune and stubbed put his cigarette in the overflowing bash tray.
"Troy isn't fucking biblical!" Mum pursed her lips at the bad language, but Sandy had told us no uncertain terms before the meeting started that he would do the talking.
"My mistake Richard darling, never paid much attention to the old classics Master. Now law school, that fascinated me. Especially the laws of contract." Davis gave him a furious look and I half expected him to call Sandy's bluff and fire me on the spot.
"I've built a city in the desert twice, I think we can handle paying off this brat!" Mum had taken enough and started telling Davis that if he called me that one more time she would rip off his balls, when Kasper's agent unexpectedly chipped in.
"Kasper doesn't have time to reshoot three months of material Richard, get rid of Jacob and we walk away from this shit storm." Davis went so red he looked like he was about to explode, but he couldn't afford to lose the show's leading man.
"Don't care how you do it Richard mate, but make it work. Get him a coach or some shit if you have to, but if he goes I go." Kasper chipped in himself and I mouthed him a thank you.
"He showed you a new and different world, Rich," Sis said as her parting words while I was waiting for a taxi to arrive, "And you did the same for him. You want more of the world he showed you, course you do, but, believe me, he's gonna find himself needing a lot more of the world you showed him. That boy was born to be an actor, Rich, and you, if nothing else, have opened a crack in his mind where he can see that."
Well, right or wrong, it doesn't matter, Sis, I mused, at home, in front of a big log fire, malt in hand.
Yes, I did dream of the Brat much of the time. Dream of his wonderful naked body, of the kisses and the taste of his ambrosia, but most of all, the really sadly sweet thoughts were of simply holding his hand.
They would fade with time, take on a rosy glow, but what would not fade was the knowledge that I would never see him do something that mattered - Dick Two, Othello, even, a really sadly sweet thought, Mercutio. The floods of tears he would have drawn from an audience as he cursed both the houses while he was being led, dying from the stage.
But those were like Prospero's insubstantial pageant faded, dreams only, just dreams.
I had work to do. Must forget Brat, or try to. Stratford wanted me to do Titus Andronicus, the revenge tragedy that out revenged all tragedies. No place for my Brat in that! They wanted me to do it because, they said, no-one else could manage it. I guessed that what they meant was that no-one else wanted to try to manage it. How to direct a play where, if you're in the audience and sneeze, you miss two murders at least?
Richard Williams could, and Richard Williams would. And no place for sad, or happy, thoughts of Brat while he did it.
As a New Year's resolution that was as damned to failure as all other such resolutions. But I would try.
"He's the only one I want!" We were sitting in the villa the production company had rented for me and Mum, Sandy flicking through his phone book with a furious look on his face. I was trying my best but somehow everyone seemed to think this mess was my fault!
"He's a director darling," the darling didn't seem too friendly as Sandy gave me a black look, and Mum also scowled at the mention of Richard Williams' name.
"He taught me loads! Neither of you listen to me! I hate it here!" Mum tried to stroke my arm to calm me down but I was having none of it.
"You both made me do this when he said not to and now it's all gone to shit and it's my fault!" I was going into full blown tantrum mode now which, strangely, felt quite good.
"You two fucked this all up and now you won't call him because you both hate him! I'm the one stuck here, so call him or I quit!" Sandy gave me a terrified look, maybe seeing the goose about to, not only smash the best, but take out the few remaining golden eggs as well, and he and Mum had a hushed conversation as I stormed out of the room.
'Othello', I thought as I leafed through the Titus script, now there's a play for Richard Williams! I had, and no boasting, done the stage some service, and I had, oh yes, I really had, loved too well and not at all
wisely. I could really put myself into an Othello! But I had Titus instead!
How to do it and not make it mechanical? I'd need Sis, no doubt of that. The actors at Stratford would be some decent, perhaps one or two good, a few from Drama School and at Stratford because there were no films on offer, and I doubted if any single one of them would be able to speak a word. Not as the Bard intended his words to be spoken, everyday conversation mixed with love, hate and tragedy - just like everyday life. But Titus was everyday life with twenty plus deaths and a few babies baked in a pie!
Get down to it, Richard, get down to it. You can make it work even if no-one else is willing to dare to try.
We were all sitting round Sandy's mobile, the iPhone set to speaker mode, as he keyed in the number. Neither Mum nor my agent were happy about this, but I had made it clear this was the only way I would agree to stay.
"Richard darling," Sandy didn't wait for Mr Williams to say anything and simply launched in once the call was picked up, "such a pleasure to hear your voice. We have a mutual friend who would like to say hello."
"Hi Mr Williams," it was weird to be speaking to him down the phone, unable to see his face. We had parted on good terms when my run at the Globe had ended but I wondered how he would react to this unexpected call.
The call on my thought interrupting mobile was listed as 'Unknown' but I recognised the fairy queen's voice straight away and, as always, the sound of it had hackles rising on my back.
I was about to cut the call when there was a different voice, a voice I knew, a voice I never expected to hear again, a voice that made, not hackles, but the hair at the back of my head rise, a voice that had goosepimples blossoming all over me, a voice that made me want to cry because I was hearing it again.
"Brat! I said, shocked, surprised and deliriously happy. "Brat, to what do I owe this unexpected delight?"
Mum glowered but I gave her a look and for once she didn't interfere.
"I'm doing some filming Mr Williams, we're in the desert, it's cool and it's a..." My voice trailed off as I tried to avoid saying the words fucking disaster.
"Things haven't quite run to plan darling, but I don't have to tell you that's showbusiness!" Sandy took over and for once I was glad to let him talk.
"Thing is, the director, Richard Davis, you know him darling? Of course you do, get on famously I expect, well dear Dickie thinks young Jacob could do with a bit of help. Can't improve on perfection, that's what I told him, but you know these Hollywood types, want their star performer to have a chef, a tutor and a drama coach." Sandy tried to drop the last one in like it was a normal thing for an actor to need.
"Thing is darling, Jacob thinks you're the man for the job. Probably busy I imagine, but it would be all expenses paid and a nice consultancy fee for your good self. I'm sure you can't say no to your old friend Sandy can you?"
"Very easily," I said sweetly when he'd finished insulting me. "I do real theatre, as you may have heard, I don't try to get wooden dummies to stand on marked spots. Jacob is not a wooden dummy, and I would not insult him by attempting to even dream of turning him into one. Sorry, old chap, but you've called the wrong whore."
"You're breaking my heart darling, and I'm sure breaking young Jacob's heart as well!" Sandy was scowling as he talked into the phone, not used to having to go begging.
"Please Mr Williams," I chipped in, "this has all gone to total shit but I can't leave now! I really need your help." I sniffed a bit not wanting to cry in front of Mum and my agent.
"Take a hard man to turn down that darling, plus the word on Drury Lane is that you owe her Majesty and her Inspectorate a pretty penny. Jealous gossip I'm sure, but if you did deign to come and help our young damsel in distress then I'm sure I could persuade, say whatever you owe plus twenty percent to find its way to your account. Work a bit of the old Sandy magic on your behalf, gratis of my usual fee of course."
"Shut up," I said, or rather, snarled. "All of you fuck off and let me speak to Jacob. Just Jacob, not whatever crowd of pimps and whores you have hanging around there."
I grabbed the phone before Sandy could end the call.
"Sure, just me." Sandy and Mum instantly started arguing and I had to yell to make myself heard.
"Fucks sake let me talk to him. If you don't I swear I'm going!" Reluctantly both trooped out on to the patio and I slammed the door and clicked the latch so they couldn't open it and listen in.
"Sorry about that, it's just all gone to total shit!" Despite myself I started sniffing and then a tear ran down my face.
"Love you, Jacob Brat," I said softly, just in case he was still being listened to. Not the most sensible thing to say, but I said it anyway.
"Love you to," I whispered it back, sure I was safe from Mum and Sandy but still nervous of saying it out loud.
"Please come and help, it's a nightmare out here!"
'Love you too', had he really said that? And even if he had, was it just a theatre person's 'love you'?
Didn't matter if it was, he'd said it. "He'll be back," Sis had said and here he was. A boy, my boy in need of help. My help.
"What's gone wrong, Jacob Brat? What's got you in the state you're in?" I could hear his sniffs and snuffles, Tears were close.
"I don't know." I snuffled more, my head in my hands.
"Like it's not like what I've done before. You have to do hundreds of takes of the same stuff and there are thousands of extras and if you mess it up it costs shit loads and..." I started crying in earnest and had to wait a few minutes to continue.
"And mum's here telling me to spend more time with my tutor and Sandy's here trying to make me do films and it's too much! I can't concentrate on anything and then I'm shit on set!"
"Hush, Jacob Brat," I whispered, trying, somehow, to hold him in my arms with words alone. "I had you in tears often enough in rehearsal, and you always came back stronger and better for it. What's different now?"
"Now whatever I do is wrong!" I knew I sounded teenage and overly dramatic but right now I didn't care.
"And at rehearsal it was just us, now I'm stuck in this place with Mum nagging me every minute of the day and I'm going crazy!"
"You made me cry loads but you always told me how to be better," I added when the tears subsided, "please come help me."
"I've got a gig to do for Stratford, a 'Titus', and it's a fucking big challenge. It also pays quite well and your pimp is dead right when he says HMRC wants some money, and my fee from 'Titus' will pay them off.
I'm not going to come at your pimp's command, whatever he offers. But I will come out, for a day, two at the most, and talk with you, Jacob Brat, see how I can help. Just for you, not for money, not for your pimp and not for the Dick who's directing you. Just for you. Is than any help at all?"
"Thanks Mr Williams," when I stopped crying I went outside and told Mum and Sandy what was going to happen. They weren't happy about it but I told them it was the only way I would agree to stay.
As Sandy furiously arranged Mr Williams' flight I wondered what I would do when I saw him. I had enjoyed being in his plays, he had been hard on me but at the end it had all been worth it, but more than that I wondered how I would react when we were alone.
I hadn't fooled around with a guy since being with him, and couldn't get the memory of the way he would hold me out of my head. He hadn't been the best sexually, but something about the way he held my hand let me know he really cared about me and right now that was what I wanted to feel.
"Told you he'd be back," Sis said bluntly when I recounted the event to her. "How much you gonna screw them for?"
"Don't want their money, Sis. Need it, but don't want it. Filthy lucre, that's all. They are paying for first class flights and a five star hotel, and, Sis," a thought occurred to me, "Any chance that some of the people you know who write things might let slip that, if the bloody thing works at all in the end, it was because Richard Williams flew out to sort out Jacob Brat, a young actor who he believes has a real future?"
"Consider it done," Sis said, and that meant it would be done. Whatever the credits Davis' film finally got, the world would know that it was only because of the intervention of Richard Williams that it ever got made in the first place.
How I would be when I met my Brat again, I had no idea. That I'd grab him and hug him at the first opportunity was a given. Take it from there, I told myself. This is improvisation not a script to follow.
I was smiling when I landed, though I managed to turn that into a scowl when fairy queen along with ice maiden were at the airport, with Jacob Brat seemingly an afterthought.
"Hey Mr Williams," I held out my hand and was surprised when he gave me a hug. Nothing too affectionate, not in front of Mum and Sandy, but I moaned softly into his shoulder at the feel of his hands on my body.
I knew I looked like shit but he still seemed pleased to see me. We had come straight from a whole day filming for which I had to be in make-up at 5am, and I hadn't got a whole lot of sleep for the last week. The stress of everything going wrong and thoughts of what would happen when Mr Williams arrived had stopped me nodding off, which in turn hadn't made life on set any easier.
My Brat looked like something a dog had left on a pavement! Help? He needed intensive care, not help!
"I've got the rest of today, tomorrow and I have to be on a plane back at midday the day after, so there's no time to waste.
I'll take a taxi to whatever hotel it is you've put me in, have a shower and some tea. Get Jacob to me by," I looked at my watch, "Say four." I sneaked a wink to Jacob Brat who had just about enough energy to wink back.
Pleased as I was to see him by the time Mum dropped me off at Mr Williams' hotel suite I was all but ready for bed!
"I think we need a truce Mr Williams, I might not like you but I don't like seeing Jacob cry himself to sleep every night. Please help him." I was having a piss in the toilet, door ajar when I heard Mum's whispered conversation with Richard. Things must be bad, I decided, if she was being nice to him.
Never trust an ice queen if she shows signs of melting, just look for a crack to get a pick into and lever like fuck!
So I did.
"When I was around Jacob's age," I said, all nice and sweet, "I said I wanted to go on the stage, not be apprenticed to a carpenter or a plumber. Naturally, parents didn't like the idea, said there was no future in it, that I could never be sure of work from one day to the next. They were right, of course. All they were thinking of was me and my future, but I wanted the theatre. They looked at each other, sighed and said, whatever it is that a child desires to achieve, it is a parent's duty to do all they can to help him achieve it. I am not Jacob's parent, but for the next forty hours or so I am going to try my very best to be one for him. He seems to be in need of one."
Cruel? Perhaps, but then the truth often is.
"Hey," I came out of the bathroom as Mum scowled at him, and if looks could kill that one would have seen Mr Williams dead in a hail of bullets.
"It's not Mum's fault, she wanted me to go to boarding school. I wanted to come and do this." Uncomfortable as it was it was the truth. Both Mum and Sandy had argued against it, but I hadn't liked their ideas and had insisted on doing this instead.
"I don't care a stale fart whose fault it is," I was horrified by how totally exhausted he looked; it would have been impossible for him to do Magic Roundabout in that condition.
"You, Jacob, are taking yourself straight off to bed. Several spare rooms in this nice suite I've been given, Find one, locate the bed, get in it and sleep!"
"You, Mrs Wills, can get on your phone, call Jacob's pimp and the Dick who's directing this whatever it is, and get the pimp to organise dinner for us at nine in this hotel.
Until then, Jacob sleeps and I get some real work done."
I didn't want Jacob Brat to sleep, I wanted to cuddle him, but he was dead on his feet and in no state to be cuddled.
Mum scowled at him but peace seemed to be holding as she left the suite.
"Can I shower first?" It had been three months since I had seen him but I was suddenly taken back to the first night we had been together when his hands shyly explored my body.
"So glad to see you," I hugged him and as his arms pulled me into him I started crying. I tried to stop, not wanting to embarrass myself, but he didn't seem annoyed and cuddled me closer.
"Love you, Jacob Brat," I said, not for the first time, "And even I cannot find the words to say how much I've missed you, how much I've longed to see you again. To cuddle you and hold your hand."
He looked up at me, a question in his tear-blurred eyes, and although I hadn't intended to do it straight away, now seemed like as good a time as any.
"Sis told me I should give you this," I said, taking a little box from my pocket, "Said I should have given it to you months ago, in fact. I said she didn't know what she was talking about, but one thing I have learned over the years, is to trust what Sis says.
The box contained a ring, a simple signet ring; one that fitted my little finger so I hoped it would fit one of his smaller, slender fingers. Plain gold, not wildly expensive and with the initials WS engraved on the front.
Well, if I was giving a signet ring, what else could be expected to be engraved on there but the initials of Will Shakespeare?
"I missed you so much," I planted a little kiss on his mouth and he was too shocked to respond and gave me the small box instead.
"Are you sure? It looks expensive?" I cuddled into him again and had another cry, though not as long this time as the feeling of his arms around my waist reassured me everything would be, if not ok, then better.
"No, I'm not sure, Jacob Brat. Why should anyone want to be given a ring by an arsehole, is what I said to Sis, and indeed, why should anyone?
And it's not expensive. I can't afford expensive."
I held his slender body, struggling to believe I was actually doing that again, buried my nose in his hair till it tickled so much I had to exhume it.
"Go to bed smelly," I smiled at him, "I like the smell anyway. It's a smell of you. Shower may wake you up and that's the very last thing you need right now."
A final, gentle hug, a kiss on his forehead and a very gentle push towards bedroom doors.
I giggled , laughing for the first time in what felt like forever and padded off to one of the spare rooms.
It still had a double bed, and with the air conditioning on I could almost feel my eyes closing as I stripped out of my shorts and t-shirt so I was just in my briefs. Laying down I didn't even have the energy to pull the blanket over me before I fell asleep.
I checked in on him half an hour later and he was dead to the world. I had a stupid little twinge of disappointment that he'd sensibly chosen a bed in one of the spare rooms and not the bed in the obvious master bedroom, but I couldn't blame the boy for being sensible.
He looked, as he always looked, lovely and beautiful in his skin, though there was a second twinge of disappointment that he'd kept his briefs on.
Just me, wanting too much, I shrugged mentally; it's a miracle just to see him, don't ask for a whole hatful of miracles, that's being greedy.
Knowing I was being greedy, I just stood leaning against the door architrave, filling my eyes and the camera of my mind with his beauty, and especially with the adorable beauty of his thighs. Such wonderful thighs.
I got some work done on experimental blockings for Titus, found, for some strange reason I didn't need any malt, and went back to where Jacob Brat was sleeping at around eight. He'd had a good three hours asleep, and looked even more lovely and beautiful.
"Hey," I struggled out of my sleep to find Richard watching me, and for a moment or two I was unsure where I was or why he was here.
"How long did I sleep for?" I rubbed my eyes trying to get awake and wishing he would lay down with me. Not for fun, well maybe a bit, but mainly just to cuddle.
"Bit more than three hours. Probably the longest you've kipped for ages." I sat on the bed beside him and dared a hand to reach for one of his. It wasn't much of a dare, and the hand it found didn't draw away, it curled softly around the one that found it.
"Get up and in the shower when you're ready," and said without any intention of letting go of his hand, not for a bit, anyway. "See if you can give us about twenty minutes before we go down to dinner. One or two things to explain. Nothing bad," I hastened to tell him, "Just so you don't get shocked about what I say and do."
I squeezed his hand, wishing he would lay in the bed and cuddle me like he had that night. With Mum possibly downstairs I knew that was way too risky but I still wanted it.
Reluctantly I stumbled out of bed and showered, the warm water waking me up a bit and after I'd dried my hair I walked into the main room of the suite.
"Didn't bring any clean clothes," I smirked at him, flipping naked into one of the chairs. I knew I had to get dressed soon, but the look on his face was worth the risk.
"Naked in Arden," I breathed in admiration of his beauty. Worth, I felt, the liberty of making up my own quotation, though the desert close by was definitely no Arden. I knew he was naked because he wanted to be naked for me to look on, wanted to give me the pleasure of seeing him as he really was, and the look in my eyes must have almost overwhelmed him in the intensity of its pleasure and delight. And desire. Oh, yes, desire as well. Not rampant, bend over now desire, but still desire.
He hadn't I spotted, put the ring on and there was a hint of disappointment in that, disappointment, but no complaint. I wouldn't have put it on either if it had been given to me as a boy by an arsehole.
"Don't worry on my account," I flippantly tossed the words at him, "I like you just as you are." That was rather less flippant.
I came over to him and wrapped my arms around his neck, and suddenly realised what was missing.
"Shit sorry," I quickly went and got the ring from the bedroom I had crashed in and slipped it on my finger. "I just crashed before I put it on," I told him by way of apology, hoping he hadn't thought I didn't like it.
Disappointment can evaporate in the light of a boy's smile as mine did then.
"Part of your treatment," I lied, "When things get shitty and tough, look at the ring and think of Sweet Will, perhaps even Queen Mab, and that'll help you through." That wasn't a lie, but it wasn't why I'd given him the ring and I suspected he understood that full well.
I smiled and kissed him again, he still didn't tongue me, maybe the knowledge my mum might be downstairs made that impossible, but his hand stroked my shoulder and thigh which was enough for now.
I wanted to be naked with him, roll on the bed with him and forget all my troubles by tasting his spunk but reluctantly I retrieved my clothes from the floor and dressed.
"What did you need to tell me?" Time was moving on and I was anxious to hear whatever he wanted to say alone before Mum and Sandy arrived.
"While we're working our way through rubber chicken or whatever it is they give us instead of food," I mentally sighed as his clothes went back on, but the little imp was recovered enough to hitch up the leg of his shorts when he sat down, so at least some thigh was available for viewing, "I'm going to try to set things up so you don't get bullied, don't get overworked, and have some chance of doing whatever it is you do in a film to show you can act. I'm not going to be nice to people, when am I ever nice to people? And I'll talk about you as though you're not there, or if you are there, not worth having an opinion, not worth consulting.
And tomorrow, you will spend the whole day with me, from after breakfast till bed time and, between us, we'll see if we can make the rest of this fuck up of a production bearable for you."
I didn't tell him how we were going to do that, for the very simple reason that I didn't know.
I nodded, grinning as he said he wouldn't be nice to people. For once I was quite looking forward to Mr Williams the dragon coming out to play!
"Can't you stay here with me?" Even a few hours in his company had made me want him to stay forever, and the mention of him leaving brought me back to reality.
"That would be some love but little policy," another quote, but why not? Will had said all there ever was to say, hadn't he?
"I have to keep the wolf from the door, Jacob Brat, and though your pimp would offer me more than I could hope to earn in the next ten years, just for staying and making sure this crap hits a screen, it's filthy money and I'll have nothing to do with it. And, it's not my world, my lovely boy, my world is the live stage where actors act and think on their feet night after night. Not in my soul to do what you're doing."
I did cuddle him then, cuddled him and kissed him, kissed him properly, or as properly as I knew how, and went down with him for rubber chicken and the Somme.
I moaned softly into his neck, wishing he would stay and it could be just me and him. Those feelings only increased as his tongue slipped inside my mouth and we kissed as his hands roaming under my t-shirt, and I wrapped my arms around his neck and moaned loudly into his mouth.
I knew he loved the theatre and only wanted to do that, but that didn't make it any easier to think that I would need to say goodbye to him tomorrow. Even worse was the thought of the dinner to come, and I tried to pretend I was feeling ill until he told me in no uncertain terms that I was coming and we were going down now.
"No escape, lovely boy," I told him, "When the whistle blows we go over the top and face their fire. But we're not going innocent lambs to the slaughter, oh no! We have weapons as well, weapons they've never dreamed of. We have hope and courage and a future so bright it will dazzle them. Trust me, Jacob Brat, I'll be by your side even when I'm not here."
And with heads high and eyes blazing fire we joined them at an outside table for rubber chicken and Paschendale.
I giggled at his jokes as we made our way downstairs but my face soon fell when I saw the dinner table.
Sandy and Mum on one side, Mr Davis on the other and all of them glaring at each other already. I sat down next to Mum leaving Mr Williams with the only free seat next to my director who looked less than thrilled to see both me and him.
"Well, now are we in Arden," I misquoted, "The more fool we." I doubted if any of them, except Jacob Brat, recognised the misquote or where it came from, but no matter. Always best to start off on top I think. Get your enemy off guard and you can stick in the bayonet and give it a good twist.
Dick the director was puffing away, I noticed, so I joined him with total nonchalance.
"You've dragged me all the way from England to sort out some trifling problem. So what is it? A difficulty with your ego-centric masterpiece?" I demanded of Dick the director.
"Beyond the fact that half the cast fuck off when the mood takes them, the set has collapsed and in the middle I have your boy being more wooden than the horse?"
I slammed my knife down making some of the other diners look over.
"You never say anything to any of the others, only me! Have a go at them if they are rubbish!"
"My boy? Why, thank you for the compliment ....... Dick," I emphasised the Dick in case he was too thick to get it if said normally, "That boy has more talent in one toenail than you have in your entire body, and I'd be proud if he thought of himself as 'my boy!" Chew on that one, I thought. "You have some grandiose vision of the greatest masterpiece ever produced, but, let me let you in on a little secret," I smiled, "It's a vision shared by only you and your ego." The bayonet slid in so easily it took him a moment to realise it was in him.
"I don't doubt there are lots of other egos all around, jostling for position, but yours, I'm afraid, has rather lost its glitter." The twist of the bayonet opened up his stomach so very neatly. He gasped for breath, but was too far gone for words.
"Who next?" I asked.
"Richard darling, I'm sure we all want the best for the show don't we? No need to fall out." Sandy's smile suggested that what he really wanted was to stick his steak knife into Mr Williams' neck.
"Ah, the pander speaks," I turned to the fairy queen, "To you I'd say only 'Get thee to a nunnery', but I doubt if there's one that would take you." Again the insult was lost to all but my Brat, who'd done enough of the Bard to know that 'nunnery' was Elizabethan slang for a brothel, and the boy had a hard time not to burst out laughing outright.
"He's right," Mum surprised me by siding with Mr Williams. "You," she turned on Richard Davis," blame him for all your problems and you," she gave Sandy a withering look, "would have him on a street corner if you thought it would make you ten pounds."
"Why, Mrs Wills," I turned to her in, admittedly, more than some surprise, "You are an unexpected ally, but a most welcome one nonetheless." I bowed my head to her, genuine, no piss taking. "If you are going to take the side of, maybe not the righteous, but certainly in this instance, the right, then I welcome you with open arms."
Mum scowled at him but for now the peace between them seemed to be holding.
"Either you," she jabbed a finger at Davis "treat him like everyone else or I fly him home tomorrow."
"Allow me, Mrs Wills," I interrupted, "A street brawl outside a tavern is no place for a lady." I was enjoying myself far too much for the entertainment to end so soon. Jacob, I noticed, was looking at his ring with a curious expression on his elfin face.
"If either of you," I looked back at Dick, who was still trying to stuff his insides back into his stomach, and the fairy queen who had seen her pumpkin disappear in a puff of smoke, "Harm but a single hair of this boy's heart, mind or soul, I will make it my personal crusade to see that you," to Dick, "Never work again, and you," to the fairy queen, "lose your licence. The boy has been clearly over-worked, illegal hours being just the tip of the iceberg, and Equity doesn't take kindly to that sort of thing. I don't expect you to recognise talent," I opened up Dick's stomach wound again, "How can you hope to recognise what you don't understand? But I suspect you have just about enough sense to recognise a threat and a promise when you see them together.
Ah, the rubber chicken arrives, I see," I finished as waiters appeared.
My boy was looking open-mouthed. He'd seen me demolish actors, been demolished by me himself, but that was all play. This was the real thing.
The meal proceeded mostly in silence and by the end I was so tired I just wanted to go to bed.
"Thank you," I hugged Mr Williams as Mum and I got ready to leave the hotel where he was staying, a long hug which couldn't involve as much touching as I wanted but at least allowed me to get in close to him.
"Thank you Mr Williams," Mum offered him a handshake, not quite as cold as before, though still not exactly enthusiastic.
"My thanks to you, madam," I said with a deep, stage bow, "Your assistance was invaluable. Tomorrow, if it is what Jacob wishes, he may spend the day with me and I will do what I can to put him back together, plaster his wounds and get him ready for the fray again. I emphasise, if that is his wish. If it is not, I shall enjoy one more day of unaccustomed luxury and then return to England and work. My thanks again, Mrs Wills, Good night to you, and to you, Jacob."
Not the worst scene I've ever performed in or directed, I thought, and if Jacob did come to me tomorrow, then it would be the scene of which I would be the most proud.
A more sober reflection, I must admit, came later along with an evening malt, or the nearest to a malt as this forsaken place could provide. Mrs Wills had given me an odd look or three, and when I said I'd see Jacob tomorrow, that look had become somewhat both intense and suspicious.
And, I had to confess to myself, not without reason. Why should a well-known director of Shakespeare, a director dedicated to live theatre, fly a thousand miles and more to sort out the problems a fourteen year old boy was having making a crap film? A boy, who as far as the world knew, had simply been directed by me in one show. How credible was that? Not very. And to publicly declare that I'd destroy the careers of any who harmed that boy? How sensible had that been? Not very.
And I had given him a ring as well, a ring that he was wearing. Sleep was just a little troubled that night, not surprisingly.
"He's not ... fiddling with me Mum!" I tried to avoid her gaze, she had an uncanny ability to tell when I was lying, and stamped my foot.
"I'm not accusing you Jacob ... he just seems very interested in you that's all. More than a grown man should be."
"Fucks sake Mum he's not a pedo!" Mum looked deeply uncomfortable, not angry just worried. She had woken me up early with a kiss and a cuddle which had turned into a delicate question about whether Richard Williams had ever done anything to be more than friendly.
"He wants me to be in more of his plays if you have to know. I didn't tell you and Sandy cos I knew you'd go mad." Mum embraced me and tearfully told me I could tell her anything.
I felt bad lying, but the truth was out of the question. Still, I knew I would have to be extra careful around Mr Williams in front of Mum.
I supposed when I woke, shaved, dressed and had coffee, that the best I could hope for today was a message from Mrs Wills, I'd uncast her as ice queen just for the moment, to say that Jacob had decided he did not need my help after all, thank you very much. No-one to blame but myself, I'd let my feelings for Jacob Brat show rather too plainly. I had, as Sis would so delicately put it, been fucking stupid.
Oh, well, more coffee, more cigarettes and wait. Nothing else I could do.
"You don't mind if Mum stays for a bit do you Mr Williams?"
Mum hadn't been totally happy with coming to the hotel, but with me denying everything and insisting we came she had reluctantly agreed on the condition that she also stayed with us.
"I think it matters very little if I mind or not," I tried to be gracious, but don't think I quite made it. Of course I was overjoyed to see Brat, but no way could I do what I had hoped to do with the refreshed ice queen around.
I suggested we retire to the tea room, not actually a room, more a terrace, and found a table in the shade, well away from anyone else.
"So what is it, Jacob? I asked, "Are you being worked too hard? Are you, just perhaps, finding it difficult to create your character? Do you miss the freedom of the stage, perhaps? Whatever it is, I'm sure we can find an answer."
I lit up and glanced at the ice queen, who had a deep look of suspicion in her glittering, icy eyes. Not, I noticed with a touch of surprise, the dislike I expected to see regrown there, just suspicion.
Jacob, I did not fail to notice, was wearing his ring.
"It's too much Mr Williams," I didn't want to cry again so took a long gulp of my coke instead.
"Davis just yells at me every chance he gets and whatever I try he thinks is wrong. Like if I do too much it's a problem, if I try and stay in the background he says I'm not doing anything. Like you would tell me how to do it better, you'd yell and stuff but at least I knew what you wanted!"
"He can't just leave you to work out what he wants, surely? I know nothing of film making, but surely the storybook or whatever it's called, has everything mapped out?"
"Yeah but he changes those every day! One moment I hate Achilles next I'm in love with him!" I threw my arms in the air in frustration and Mum stroked my arm to calm me down.
"Sounds to me he hasn't the faintest idea what he wants. Can't say I'm surprised, mind. He seemed pretty clueless last night. And, I suppose," and I didn't miss the ice mother's hint of a slight melt when she stroked Brat's arm, "There's no way he'd let you and Achilles work things out and come up with suggestions?"
"Kasper hates him, says this is the worst film he's ever done. Like whenever we try stuff which isn't in the storybook he goes crazy but then tells us we're wooden when we do it exactly like the script!"
I had developed a bit of a crush on Kasper, not on the way I fancied Mr Williams, but just looking up to him. We had spent a lot of time together and despite being the most famous person in the film he was always nice, joking around and making me laugh.
"And have you worked out a relationship with this Kasper? He's Achilles, I suppose, is he? You get on with him okay? Able to work with him?" Part of me wanted to ask 'have you been to bed with him', but that was just the jealous part.
This was nonsense. I hadn't come all this way to make platitudinous noises and have pangs of jealousy that were totally unjustified. I'd come because Brat pleaded with me to come and now I was here all I could do was ask him if he got on with his character partner. Pathetic!
How could I do anything else with his mother a suspicious glacier sitting, waiting to pounce?
Was it suspicion in her eyes, or was it certainty? My Brat wouldn't have said anything, that I did know, but that was no reason to hope she hadn't worked out things for herself, was it.
Too much, it was too much! "Anything you wish to say, Mrs Wills?" asked as nicely as I could, and it meant, and I knew she knew it meant from the glitter in her ice eyes, 'Come on, out with it, say what you've got to say and let's be done with it'.
"I'm curious why you have given my son a ring Mr Williams?" I slunk lower into the chair wishing the floor would swallow me up.
What would I do if Mr Williams told her the truth? How would Mum react? I was the one who had made sure Mr Williams touched me, cuddled me, kissed me and did so much more. If I hadn't come on to him he would never have had the nerve to do those things. What would Mum do when she found that out?
"And I'm curious why you have flown so far to help an actor who has appeared in just one of your plays? You seem very interested in my son." Mum stared at him, and I tried my best not to look at either.
Well at least she didn't come straight out and ask when I last went to bed with her son! I'm a bastard, but not a lying bastard and I'd have probably said 'Far too long ago', and that would have done nobody any good, would it!
"I am very interested in your son," I tried not to be my usual abusive self but stay calm. "When you and he first appeared on my doorstep I had already cast your son," slight emphasis on the last two words just for effect, "As a conceited, self-opinionated, hormonally ridden boy with some acrobatic skills." A touch of the real Richard Williams would not go amiss, I thought.
"He changed my mind very quickly. I still think he's a Brat," would the boy spot Brat had a capital 'B'? Hoped so. He is not talentless, quite the opposite, as I said to the Dick last night, he has more talent in one toenail than Dick has in his whole body. What he doesn't have is any idea where that talent comes from and how to use it. He's been pimped and manipulated and now the poor sod has no idea who or what he is. I know who and what he could be. I have a well-deserved reputation for destroying crap, would-be actors, Mrs Wills, but now I have been fortunate enough to come across a boy who really could act, and I'm bloody well not going to let that talent be poured into the sewer of fifth rate film without putting up some sort of fight to save his soul, even if that means saving it from himself."
Get your ice head round that, if you can, and risked a glance at Jacob Brat who, and I didn't know if I was happy or sad with what I saw, was struggling not to cry his lovely eyes out.
"As for the ring, well, it's easier for him to carry round than a fire bucket." Brat, I knew, would understand that. Ice mother probably felt that it confirmed that I was off my head.
"It's a joke Mum, like a private joke!" Mum was still staring at Mr Williams, though now she looked a little embarrassed; she had accused a man, even indirectly, of one of the worst crimes imaginable.
"Nothing's going on!"
Mum spluttered that no-one was accusing anyone of anything and I sat back in my seat as if I was having a sulk.
"I think we can all see that this was a mistake," Mum hadn't exactly warmed to Mr Williams but she did at least look like she no longer wanted to kill him, "and Sandy is suggesting more of the same next time. What do you suggest Mr Williams?"
"More of what, Mrs Wills? I'm not at the beck and call of that fairy queen. I do not have pimps selling me, I sold myself to Sweet Will forty years ago, and with the Bard I will live and die." Dramatic, certainly. Why not? This was a play after all and not too far removed from Faust at that. A shade vitriolic? Perhaps, but well diluted vitriol.
"He wants me to do the super hero films," I had quite liked the idea of The Siege of Troy until I had got here but the super hero movie Sandy was desperately fighting to get me in really didn't appeal.
"It's a piece of fucking shit," Mum gave me the 'mind your language' look but didn't object. I knew she wasn't keen on the idea either as it would involve a whole year of filming in America.
"If you do, fair youth, I have no wish to be further acquainted with you." The misquote from As You popped out unbidden, but, bidden or not, it was still the truth.
My mouth fell open, would he really cut me off if I did it? Thankfully I was spared from having to answer by Mum.
"After this disaster I think our relationship with Sandy may be coming to an end. Jacob said you want him in more of your plays Mr Williams, is that true?"
"I fear Jacob is being a little presumptive. I did say to him that, if he decided to act, I would certainly be happy to use him on stage when he is ready. I do not, willingly at least, put untrained actors on a stage. Nor do I presume to train them either. I can show them, help them to understand, what it is they want to do, what it is inside them that seems to drive them to bare their souls for audiences to gaze on. It's not an easy thing to learn, how to know yourself enough to be able to show parts of yourself, naked and unadorned, to hundreds at a time. That I do as a director, do it time and time again, and, probably, do it brutally as well.
I offered, in an undoubted moment of weakness, even perhaps, sentimental weakness, to take Jacob, tear him open so that he could see what was inside himself, and then stamp what he saw into the ground. And, if he could gather up the resulting mess, somehow stuff it back inside himself, then he could indeed, become an actor. A fucking good actor, maybe a fucking great one!"
Not, perhaps, the best sales pitch ever made, but that's me. Bastard, always a bastard.
"And you would help Jacob? Mum gave him a look and I slunk even lower.
"You see Mr Williams while I don't want my son stuck in another mess like this I also do not want him sitting in his room with only his x-box for company. At the moment he has no problem getting roles, maybe not the sort of thing you approve of but roles none the less."
"What I have to offer Jacob," I said, more calmly than I imagined myself capable of saying, "Is blood, sweat, toil and tears." Well, perhaps it wasn't only Will who came out with good lines! "Lots of blood, oceans of sweat, toil beyond the limits he thinks he can toil to and tears never ending." I paused, for dramatic effect, obviously. "My proposal was that he stay living at home with you, go to his ordinary, everyday school and give me his life at weekends and holidays. As for his earning potential, well, there is a living to be made from adverts and possibly the odd part in a play. Other things, things worth doing, may crop up, but the purpose of it all is that young Jacob has a chance to find out what it is he wants to do, not do what others want him to."
And that, I sighed, is far too much to hope for.
"Well, it's not for me to decide Mr Williams. I think Jacob should be the one to say yes or no." I gave Mum a surprised look at that. Usually it was her and Sandy who decided what was going to happen but it didn't take me long to give my answer.
"I want to do it Mum," I looked over at Mr Williams giving him a shy smile.
"The best I've ever been is in Mr Williams' play, I think we should do the sort of stuff he thinks is a good idea for a while." Mum gave Mr Williams a first smile and, humiliatingly, kissed me on the cheek.
"So if you boys want to get to work I will go to the spa." I wiped the kiss off but gave her a hug as she left us alone together.
"And you, Mr Williams," she stared at me, "Will promise me that you will not interfere with, or molest my boy."
Jacob winced when she said that, but I was quite happy to give her that promise. "Never would I dream of 'interfering' with him, nor of molesting him; that I can most definitely promise you."
And not one word of a lie in that. Anything that happened between my Brat and I would always be with his wholehearted consent, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
"Fuck!" I felt like I could finally breathe as the door to his hotel suite closed, leaving us alone together for the first time in months.
"I seriously thought she knew!" I felt elated, like I had just got away with an enormous lie, and while the whole experience had been terrifying now being alone together also felt intoxicating.
"You ok?"
I gave Mr Williams a shy smile, knowing he had far more to lose than me if we were discovered.
"She knows," I said, "But she also loves her boy and, for his sake, she is going to pretend, for the moment at least, that she doesn't know."
I, strangely, was starting to feel some admiration for the ice queen. Perhaps she was an ice queen because that's how she had found a way to survive, as I had survived by being an arsehole.
"You think?" I had thought we had got away with it, but the idea that Mum might know something was going on made all the colour drain form my face.
"She's your mother," I shrugged, "She can read your mind. That's why she's left us alone, because she knows what's in your mind."
I wasn't sure how I felt like that. In some ways it was embarrassing and terrifying, but also a relief.
"You sure she's not calling the police right now?" I stepped forward so he could hug me if he wanted, not the hug he had given me at the airport but a proper cuddling hug.
"Very sure," I held him, not crushed him, just held him and smelt the boyness of him. "Didn't you hear what she said when she left? 'Don't interfere with him, don't molest him'? Nothing about keep your hands off him if he wants your hands on him."
I did want my hands on him and he, thanks be to all above, or below, wanted my hands on him. "Picked her words very carefully, did your mother." The scent of his hair, of him, of Jacob Brat, was intoxicating. I'd give up malt anytime for this scent.
I moaned softly as I nuzzled into him, the smell of his cigarettes and aftershave filling my world. It was a strong, heady mix, and I felt his hardness through his trousers.
"You know your hands are allowed anywhere they want," I reassured him, holding him tight.
"I know, my lovely Brat, I do know." And I did know. Sis was right, he had come back, back all the way, and even more than that.
"Not the same now, though," I murmured into his silken hair, "Not sneaked, behind the bike sheds, fourteen year old boy needs to spunk any more,"
I can get actors to speak someone else's words of love and do it most convincingly, but to find and speak such words myself was way beyond my craft or sullen art.
I giggled, roaming my hands over his body. "I always need to spunk," I told him, guiding one of his hands to my bum so he could feel it.
"Of course you do, you're fourteen and can't get rid of the stuff anywhere near as quickly as you make it."
He giggled into my shoulder, told me, wickedly, that he was making more of it and more quickly than he had been when last I saw him, and wanted to know what I was going to do about that.
"I have a job to do," I teased him, "A very important job. I have to get Jacob Brat in a frame of mind where he can finish the crap of a film he's making. Any ideas how I can do that?"
I hoped his ideas would be the same as mine, ideas that included the very rapid, and soon done, removal of his clothes.
"Well they way I see it Patroclus loves Achilles. He's the greatest warrior, the greatest hero and Patroclus is desperate to be noticed by him. That's why he's jealous anytime Achilles talks to someone else, and why he takes the armour and pretends to be him when he fights Hector." I knew it wasn't the way the book read, but it was the most interesting thing I could do with the scripted character.
"So maybe we could practise something which would help me with that?" I gave Mr Williams a smirk.
"From what I can recall of ancient history," I played along with his little game, "The Greeks spent an awful lot of their time naked, didn't they?"
"Yeah and I've not got my costume, so maybe I should get undressed. You think that would help Mr Williams? Maybe you should take off what clothes you don't think I need." I broke the embrace and stood in front of him smirking. I was dressed in shorts, t-shirt and trainers, wondering if he had the nerve to unwrap his gift.
"That may be construed as molesting you," I smirked back, "So perhaps I should just watch and dribble while you reveal your wonderful self to me?"
"Oh I don't think you would be molesting me Mr Williams," I stripped out of my t shirt and tossed it on the floor by his feet. "I think molesting is you ripping these clothes off me when I want to stay dressed, and I think it's really hot in here and I want to cool down."
His slender, almost skinny, only just adolescent chest was a sight I had thought I would never enjoy again, but here it was, presented to me as a gift for my longing eyes.
Anyone divesting themselves of shoes and lower garments is not a completely erotic sight, the movements required, even for a boy, are too awkward to be sensual, so I helped him, though he did kick off his trainers in a very non-sexy way.
His shorts were the tailored variety with a button and a zip to undo, and they came undone as he melted again into my arms, and no longer restrained by button, zip or convention, those shorts obeyed gravity and slipped down his long, wonderful legs.
Underwear, why did he wear that? That item was eased down him while his mouth searched for, and found, mine, and, with tongues twisting together, his briefs joined his shorts around his ankles.
I kicked my CKs from around my ankles as I melted into his arms, his mouth meeting mine and our tongues meeting inside. I closed my arms around his body and his hand found the back of my head. He wasn't forcing the kiss, just letting me know he didn't want it to end, and I was more than happy to oblige as my tongue hungrily forced its way into his mouth.
"Love you, Jacob Brat," I whispered when our initial urges had been a little satisfied by the twisting of tongues. I don't think I needed to tell him that, I suspected he'd already got hold of that idea, but I told him again anyway.
He showed me then that he was starting to understand, to think through the subtleties of a plot. There was, by promise made, to be no hint of advantage taken, molestation intended, and he led me to the bedroom, not the other way round, and watched from the bed, unashamedly treating himself to the sight of me unclothing. A little smile crossed his lips when he saw that I had retained the absence of body hair, which I had done as much in memory of one wonderful night as anything else, and opened his arms for me when I joined him on a bed of asphodel.
"You're learning then?" I was shaved smooth, my pubes veeted off and I giggled at the sight of his naked body. Not laughing at him, just at the naughtiness of the situation.
He wrapped his arms around me when he was on the bed, me underneath his larger frame. He wasn't totally laying on top of me, instead crouching over me, holding me, and I rolled him over so my smaller lighter frame was on his. Without asking permission I tickled his left nipple with my outstretched tongue, watching his face as I did so.
"Still have worlds to learn," I gasped when he stopped licking my nipple and my body came to rest again.
He was crouched over me, his face close to my chest, and he had to look up for his eyes to fasten on mine. There was wickedness in those eyes, a boy's wickedness, but there was more than simple wickedness, there was a love of life as well, and, for the first time in three months or so, my boy was alive again.
His hair had to be ruffled, his ribs and vertebrae counted, his hips adored, and, as they had to be so treated, then treated so they were, and when I reached behind him and cupped his bum cheeks, he knew instantly it was because I wanted him to move, move upwards so I could once again taste the glory of having his cock in my mouth.
I moaned as his hands found my bum, one of my cheeks seemed to fit perfectly in one of his hands like we were made for each other. He squeezed them, felt them, then pushed me gently forward. I knew what he wanted and scooted further up, my cock in front of his face so he could not only see it but taste it if he wanted.
And there it was, in front of my eyes. More of it now than when I had last seen it; more, but still the same. Slender still, with tapering head, and skin covered as I remembered it. Hard as a fourteen year old cock is hard, hard enough to point, not straight out but upwards some so my view was more of the underside, the soft underside, the underside that I remembered well so liked to be licked and adored.
Too soon for that. First I wanted to worship it, to feel its throbbing life around my face, against my closed eyes, and so I did, taking it adoringly in my hand and brushing it all around and over the skin of my face.
Then, and only then, opening wide for it and closing lips around it as its head pushed up against my soft palate and my tongue made licks of adoration to the soft underside.
I moaned loudly as he wiped my cock around his face, his eyes screwed close as he gasped in pleasure. He seemed to love the feel of my skin against his face and for a moment I thought he would rub it around and around until I spunked, but then he slipped it in his mouth and it was my turn to gasp.
He sucked slowly, tasting it at first but then tickling and teasing it with his tongue. He might not have sucked much before, but he was clearly a quick learner, and I moaned loudly and put my hand on the back of his head so it wouldn't end.
I tried my best to please him, even managing to get all of him in and still be able to poke out tongue and lick, at least a little bit, of his balls. That he did seem to like so I did it again. And again.
I knew, and I think he knew, that this wasn't sex, this was so much, much, much more than sex. We had permission for sex now, and later, soon later perhaps, he would come to understand that, and love his mother for loving him enough to grant that permission even though she wanted to fight and rage against it.
For now, though, my Brat needed not sex, but restoration, and he could find some of that in my mouth.
Deprived of affection he had been for three long months, well, he wasn't being deprived of it now! And, I felt, though why I felt it I didn't know, but I did know it was the right thing to feel at this moment in time, that affection would be best shown by letting him, and wanting him, to spurt the juices of his love into my mouth and have those juices eaten and consumed because, and only because, they were his juices.
He needed the release of orgasm, not pointless orgasm in his own hand, but orgasm created by and given to someone he knew loved and adored him.
Even while I was sucking him I was teaching him to get to know himself, though that thought and that intention were well in the background as I savoured his taste and his wonder.
I snuggled into him when it was all over, my head on his chest as he played with my hair. We had shared a spunky kiss afterwards, I could see his cock was still hard against his navel and I reached out and stroked it.
"I want your spunk inside me" I wanted to please him, to make him feel as good as I had just felt and I knew he was still too shy to ask me to do that himself.
"You already have my soul, Jacob Brat," a whisper that came from somewhere deep inside me. What I meant was really that I was, after so very long, becoming to understand that a cock is more than a cock, a cock can be both life and soul itself, all wrapped up in a few, small inches of blood-filled tissue.
Somehow he knew what I meant and went down to show me that he, for this time and place at least, loved me as well, and he sucked my soul as well as my spunk into himself.
We lay beside each other after, his hand searching for and finding mine this time, and we recovered physically and in mind as well.
"Call mum," I said, "Tell her we'd like to have lunch with her," and though he gave me a strange look, he did.
The Jacob Brat who came down to lunch with me was not the same Jacob Brat who had come into my room three short and very long hours ago. This Jacob Brat was all radiant smiles, a restored and recovered, wonderful Jacob Brat.
Ice mother looked both surprised and unsurprised at the transformation.
"Hey mum," I gave her a little kiss on the cheek as I sat down, not really making eye contact. Having my Mum knowing what I was up to was precisely what I had been trying to avoid, and I still found it incredibly embarrassing.
"You look better."
I gave her a smile and went back to studying the menu intently.
"If I could have him for the afternoon," I suggested, "And the evening, perhaps it may be possible to get this Jasper, or Kasper or whoever it is he is working alongside, to come over and we could look at a scene or two, see if anything can be made of the shit he's got to try to deal with. Would that, do you think, be possible? Oh," I added, "Don't either of you worry about the Dick, he knows he's standing on one foot poised over a sewage dump, so he'll go along with whatever it is we can work out between us."
"I can ask him," Kasper was a huge star and I wasn't sure if he would just drop everything and come and see us but would ask anyway.
"Jacob dude, I'm so fucking high. You need to come here if you want to talk." That's the other thing about Kasper, he has a Hollywood star sized drug habit to go with this Hollywood sized bank balance.
"Can you take us over Mum?" I couldn't really tell Mum that my co-star was too high to leave his house so made something up about him being busy with script reading.
She could and she did and we did make something of it. Kasper, high as a kite as he was, was still all there in some ways, and told me, when neither the boy not his mother was in hearing, 'That I'd got myself a fucking nice kid there' and gave the sort of wink that said, 'No worries, secret safe with me.'
"Tell Jacob," I said to the nowhere near so icy mother, "If he really decides he wants to put himself though hell in the outside hope of finding heaven, to give me a call when you're all safely home."
We actually, and incredibly, parted on good terms. She knew, and I knew she knew I knew she knew, that, whilst I was most certainly not molesting Jacob, I was just as certainly enjoying aspects of a very willing Jacob that, she felt, I should not be enjoying.
I could cope with that.
May possibly, undoubtedly would be, somewhat harder for the Brat to get his head around it, though.