IMHO, Nifty is a resource that is every bit as valuable as the free Gutenberg Project or the free Audio Librivox and they still need periodic support.
Please Don't let Nifty's 25th anniversary go unnoticed!
http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html
The author “Chance” is me, “Larkin” This is an effort to re-compose my old roster into a new roster comprised old and new works, re-written and done with more careful editing. (omitting junk) I hope you will understand.
Please send comments to: to larkin@tutanota.com...And I will respond
First published a year and a half ago under the title of “New York 1912” placed in the historical forum but a goodly number of people missed it. This gives me the opportunity to tidy it up and add to it here and there and restructure the ending.
This is a work of fiction. All disclaimers associated with homosexuality will apply without exception. There is reference to some drug use that is in character with the period but it is only incidental and not to proselytize. Persons portrayed in this story are fictitious or at best, coincidental.
Waiting for the Titanic
Part 2
Early Recollections, 1895
He was a house guest visiting my mother and I didn't notice much more than that until the day of his departure. My mother had to go to a social meeting and Lucian was going to catch a train back to Connecticut. No one was home except the house maid and the cook.
He extended his hand to me. "It was a pleasure to meet you Edmund but I must be going."
I looked up at him. It was a peculiar way to treat a 6 year old.
Holding my hand he pulled me close and lowered himself to my level. "Let's have a look."
He opened my short pants and pushed them down and out of the way. "You know, Mothers neglect these things and sometimes we men must check on them ourselves."
Exposing my penis he tugged and pulled at it pushing my foreskin up and down. It felt strange and I didn't feel anything at first until it began to rise up and become stiff.
He looked into my face and said, "You seem to be in good working order.. Edmund, you should do this yourself and be sure to make it stand up like a good little soldier every day without fail."
The carriage was out front ringing its bell. Lucian pulled up my pants and buttoned me up. "Now remember, this is just between us men, ok.? I hope to visit again before high summer."
He placed a dime into my hand. Remembering it years later, it wasn't the dime that had significance but the idea of what had happened that cemented the lasting quality of this memory. I didn't know it then but that would be the last time I would see him. Lucian was my mother's gentleman friend,.. at least he was for a little while.
Claude Shannon
On the front page of the New York World. President Taft signed legislation creating the United States Children's Bureau as an agency within the United States Department of Commerce and Labor in an effort to eradicate child labor. I certainly approve of that unless they are working for me.
There were neglected errands I had to attend to. One was to the bank to retrieve household money in the form of silver and gold coin. I will not use paper money, I don't trust it and it is dirty to the touch.
I visited Arthur, my neighborhood Druggist who has been trying to entice me with these new heroin pills by Bayer. They take almost a half an hour to take effect and it makes it difficult to control the desired effect. I prefer my opium pipe. Keeping an eye on mischievous boys is difficult enough.
The druggist told me about these new hypodermic syringes that are coming in next week, only a $1.50 for the set with 4 extra needles. He told me about all the benefits of intravenous injection but for the moment, I remain skeptical.
I visited the tavern to find another interesting boy who had absolutely nothing to occupy his time. He was tall, slender and gangely. He had very blue eyes and a mop of slightly curly blond hair. I bought him a glass of beer in exchange for a chat. When he spoke I detected the remnants of an Irish accent that he seemed to be trying to repress. He had a brilliant and engaging smile that drew me to him.
"I've lived here all my life, in fact, I was born not far from here."
I answered his comment. "So was I, but further uptown."
When he received his glass of beer, he put out his hand to give me a shake of thanks. "My names Claude, what's yours?"
What is it about these delicious adolescents like my new acquaintance, Claude? They can be so smelly but have not yet gone rancid. Strong sweat and slightly oily skin could indicate a bottomless well of spermy, squirting liquor. At 16, he caught on to my interests and discretely displayed to me the shape of something long that was hanging down his pant leg. What closed the deal was the offer of wine and the fact that my flat was only a block away.
I brought him a glass of wine and in a casual way, Claude sprawled himself out on my divan. He revealed to me his amiable nature by spreading his legs in a friendly but blatant invitation. I removed his shoes and once done, there could be no doubt as to the purpose of this visit. He immediately took out his long cock that had a droopy and odiferous foreskin and began to masturbate. I would expect that this was a daily occurrence that he didn't mind sharing.
"Claude, do you not have a girlfriend?"
He laughed. "What woman would risk the lot on a poor boy like me and besides, I'll not be marrying an another Irish or want any part of the Virgin Mary and that devil church. My father came here to be an American and that's what I am."
Curiously, his Irish brogue had suddenly become thicker during this exchange. I accepted Claude in whatever way he wanted.
I commented, “Isn't Claude a French name?”
By now we were up close to each other in the act of reciprocal masturbation. I didn't want to risk him cumming before I got my tongue up his 16 year old, parted rear end, so I helped him remove his pants.
Poor boy had no underwear. "Poor me!".
His cock was not weighty but it was long and narrow like a garden snake. He'll be the master when he is 30 but I'd rather have him now. He had little or no interest in my cock but expressed a desire to fuck me and I willingly accepted. Lubricating his stiff cock with gobs of his bubbly and slippery spit indicated to me that he was already accomplished in executing this dirty deed. He mounted me from behind and with all the energy of a stray dog, he fucked me very hard and fast. Unfortunately it didn't take him very long. When he withdrew his still bobbing cock, he presented it to me for closer examination. There is something holy and sacred about sucking a stiff cock that has just been stuck up your own ass.
Early Recollections, 1898
From what I knew about my father, which wasn't much, was that he was intelligent, handsome and that he made more than enough money to support my mother and me after their marriage broke up. Divorce was impossible so they just lived apart.
We stayed in the house on 79th street. It was a 5 story townhouse only a block from the park and the Hudson River. It had always reminded me of a fantasy castle I had seen in picture books except that it was tightly sandwiched between other townhouses. My mother and I lived on the 2nd and 3rd floor. The maid and cook lived on the 1st floor next to the kitchen and pantry. There were 2 floors of the house that were unfurnished and completely unlived in. They would serve as my naked fantasy retreat. Once in school it was here that I would lure school mates for the purpose of bodily experimentation.
My Mother was highly feminine, flamboyant and impossibly difficult. It is an explanation enough for my Father to put geographical distance between us. Her whole life was a show of what she thought other people thought was important. She was full of pretentious grandeur and myopic celebrity. Like a Siamese cat, I was her ever present familiar. When I was too young to protest, she dressed me to match her outlandish outfits and drug me around as if I was her toy poodle. Fortunately by the time I started school, she had quieted down and taken an alcoholic lover. It was then that she finally let me begin to lead a normal life. Of course all of these early excesses had a lifelong lasting effect on me. Early on, I had developed two consuming passions. One was books and the other was masturbation. Looking back I've decided that they both enriched my life and I wouldn't have had it any other way.
The Good Book
It was afternoon when I heard a knock at my door. After inquiring, I opened it to see a uniformed Peter shifting himself from one foot to the other as if he had to pee. He had on his hat and his shoulder bag.
Pushing past me, he said, Edmund, I've only a half an hour."
He tossed his bag and pulled his pants and underwear down to his ankles and laid out on my divan and began to masturbate. I started to remove his shoes so that I could tug off his pants,
"Edmund! I don't have the time! make me cum!"
I'm not sure if it is a wonder or a disappointment for someone to squirt all over the front of their jacket in less than 90 seconds, but who am I to argue?
After wiping off his jacket, still leaving very conspicuous wet spots, he sighed and lit up a cigarette.
"What time is it!"
I told him he still had 15 minutes and he settled back down heaving a sigh.
We were quiet for a moment until he said, "Edmund, do you go to church?"
I think I laughed out loud. "A jaded old wanker like myself? A reprobate and a cocksucker as you have called me? They wouldn't allow me in the door for fear the church would catch fire."
Peter was more serious than usual, "If you went to church, don't you think that God would give you a break?"
This line of conversation was something new. "All heaven and hell is right here on Earth. Let me ask you something Peter, do you go to church?"
He was thinking about it and then he looked up at me with the same feigned innocent boy expression that drew me to him in the first place.
His seriousness collapsed into a stupid smile.. "No." It was followed with his half high and half croaking laugh.
Now he was giggling. "So you don't go to church on Sunday?"
"No Peter, I don't."
"The reason I asked is that I have Sunday off and I was thinking that maybe I could visit you this coming Saturday evening and we could go to the Slide over on the Bowery and then I could stay with you all night and then just lay in bed all the next day."
"What would we do in bed all day?"
He smiled and said, "Same thing we'd be doing all night long."
I nodded with approval. "Ok."
He laughed and we went onto other things until he had to leave.
The
Latin Tutor, 1898
I had just turned 9 and even though I was already going to St. Paul's Episcopal Boys School down on 74th Street, my mother hired a tutor to supervise my education.
She had a habit of looking down at me from the top of the stairs. "Edmund, I want you to put all your things in order because Mr. Townsend is arriving this coming week."
Mr. Robert Townsend was commissioned through an agency by my mother to come all the way from the British Isles just to make sure I had a foundation in Latin and Roman History. All this sounded very formal and highfalutin but the truth was that she wanted a babysitter so that she could go off and not give me a thought. Previously she would leave me with cook and the maid of whom she regarded as simple and utterly stupid. I was not entirely sold on the idea of a tutor.. I liked being free and largely unsupervised.
It was late at night when I heard a commotion downstairs. The front door slammed and there was all manner of trudging and the thumping of luggage. Then I heard something I hadn't heard in the house for a long time.. the voice of a man. The new tutor was there at breakfast sitting stiffly at the table with my mother. Cook served up the meal.
"Edmund, This is Mr. Townsend. I hope that you will be on your best behavior and assist Mr. Townsend in becoming accustom to New York."
He was very tall and skinny. I remember that he had a prominent Adam's apple that rose up and down when he talked or drank his juice. Every once in a while, his dark wavy hair fell into his face causing him to brush it away almost pulling off his wire glasses each time. He was very nervous and awkward. At that time he appeared humorless and unmovable. The prospects didn't look good. There was a large walk-in linen closet next to my room that carpenters refitted into a small study and bedroom for Mr. Townsend. It was my mother's intention that if I was ill or needed something in the night, Mr. Townsend would be there and not just the maid or cook.
Preliminary to our studies consisted of Mr. Townsend asking me to conjugate Latin verbs and having me explain to him who Tiberius was and where Hadrian's Wall was located and more importantly, why it was there.
I didn't know anything. The knowledge of this seem to worry him as if the task was overwhelming or insurmountable. He appeared so nervous and tense that I felt bad for him.
In the beginning he was short with me and called me an idiot. I responded by asking him who won the Civil War. He stopped and had to think very hard because he didn't really know. It was plain to see that neither one of us had any choice in the matter so we gradually developed a rapport out of necessity.
Only a few days after Mr. Townsend's arrival, my mother announced that she was going to Europe for a an entire month....What a coincidence. The evening before her departure the three of us had an after dinner gathering where we discussed any problems that might arrive in her absence. She had a list. Doctors, lawyers tradesmen and who at the police station would take a special interest and many other important details. The maid came in with a bottle of fine wine and even I got a glass. By his own efforts, the bottle of wine was quickly emptied and Mr. Townsend began to loosen up. It was also an unexpected surprise when he stood up and began to sing in a high and pure voice. My mother and I listened. My mother approved considering his performance polite entertainment. I wasn't sure what to think..
Mr. Robbie
The morning after my Mother's departure Mr. Townsend entered my room and commanded me to rise and dress.
"You are going to have lessons all day. We have a lot of catching up to do!"
He tried to pull the covers off of me and I clung to them with a death grip. He tried harder and it ended up being a full scale struggle.
"You know boys that do this in England get canned and end up being very sorry, very sorry indeed!"
I know that he saw my miniature erection sticking up out of my night clothes. Both the maid and cook had seen it, why should Mr. Townsend be spared?
After breakfast we settled down and the tedious lessons began. Since St Paul's School had let out for the summer season it looked like a dreary summer ahead. I had to commit to memory and recite again and again.
amō
amās
amat
amā́mus
amā́tis
amant
Over and over and over again. I was hating it.
"Mr. Townsend, Latin is a dead language, why must I learn it?"
He look angrily at me. "One more time, Master Edmund!"
Towards the end of the day, the maid brought him a glass of wine and he began to relax. He also decided the teach me Roman history by just telling me stories about the emperors and their despicable behavior. This proved to be more agreeable to both of us and I found myself beginning to enjoy his company. I took it upon myself to cuddle up next to him as if he was a parent or a big brother. This seem to make him uncomfortable or ill at ease but I persisted and he gradually got use to it.
By the end of the week both the maid and the cook approached Mr. Townsend with a conspiratorial proposition. They want to go home to visit with their families until just a few days before my Mother was due to return. They used Mr. Townsend as a way to see if I would go along with it. I did on the condition that I would have to study only 4 days a week and not 6. He reluctantly agreed making him a guilty party within a conspiracy. Right from the start it proved that I now had some sway over him..
Once alone in the house my tutor became more human and approachable. I was enjoying the company of a man, something I had been deprived of most of my life. Every evening he would go down to the cellar and return with a dusty old bottle of wine and we sit on his bed in his study and talk casually.
I asked, "When Caligula did all those terrible things didn't people hate him?"
"Yes they did hate him but more than that, they were afraid of him because he was the emperor. In the end it was his own Praetorian Guard who murdered him."
I giggled and said, "I guess he had it coming."
This struck him as funny and we both started giggling.
After only one or 2 glasses, he would go through a strange transformation.
"I can't go on calling you Mr. Townsend it's too formal. You know this is America."
He had become languid and serine. He staired at me arching one eyebrow slightly.
There was a long pause and then, "You can call me Robbie....But never around your mother. If she is around, be sure to always call me Mr. Townsend. And what shall I call you, Master Eddie?"
I smiled and said, "Yeah, I like that."
When I asked him how old he was he told me that he was 20 years old and that he was glad to be out of England and that he hoped to stay in America and never go back. As we talked, he got drunker and drunker. I didn't mind because he became friendlier and even affectionate. When he fell asleep I returned to my room and prepared for bed. Before I had gotten to sleep a dark figure came stumbling into my room. It was Mr. Robbie in a state of complete drunkenness. He climbed into bed with me and at first he seemed to just go back to sleep. I immediately took to his warm body in my little bed and gravitated towards the shelter of it. Soon he was pulling up my night shirt, stroking my chest and belly and manipulating my penis. Whatever apprehension I had had evaporated once I became stiffly erect. I reveled in the physical attention and It was then that I was initiated into the wonder of mystical lust. When he took my penis into his mouth I was introduced to an even more rare and exciting experience. Many men and boys I've talked to had their first ejaculation in solitude or in the middle of a dream sleep. My first experience was with my Latin tutor and it left my head spinning, leaving my direction in life forever altered. The next morning Mr. Townsend was back to normal if even a bit crankier than usual. He didn't seem to remember a thing from the night before,.. However I remembered all of it and vowed to do whatever it took to provoke its re-occurrence. It didn't take me long to realize that the key ingredient to Mr. Robbie's undoing was wine or alcohol. Years later I would learn how unscrupulous men would ply youths with drink just to get them to pull down their pants and here I am, at the tender age of 9, a youth who was taking advantage of a man's weakness for wine in an effort to get my penis played with. It tickled me no end and all but destroyed his relationship with me as a serious tutor. Once he had a glass of wine, I could tell by a soft tone in his voice or sly glance of the eye when the time was right. I felt free to climb into his lap and embrace him. This would disarm him so completely that resistance was useless. He would search my pants for my erected penis.
It was only several days into it that I became curious as to what lay between Mr. Robbie's legs. It was fueled by several brushes and touches on something that must be very large and hard confined in his pants. In my darkened bed room I coaxed him to open his pants and reveal it to me. Once I got my hands on it I couldn't let go of it. How could a large erected cock be so incredibly intoxicating? As much as I was able, I made an effort to do for him everything he did to me with slightly different results. I would reach a point where my young lust would cause my whole body to contract and expand in exquisite pleasure while Robbie's enlarged cock would spew a viscous, jelly mess. All our studies had been set aside and every day was a sexual advancement over the last. In the month of my mother's holiday, I received the core foundation of my adult sex life.
Years later, tucked away in the attic, I found a trunk he had left behind. In it were letters meant to be mailed home. Most of them went something like this...
From the first time I saw Edmund I knew that I would fall hopelessly in love with him.
When my mother returned home she discovered that most of the rare wines collected by my father were missing and all of the grocery money was gone. Robbie was fired and was he gone before I could say good-bye. I was too self involved and I don't think that boys really fall in love but to say that I didn't miss Mr. Robbie would be a terrible understatement.