Heidelberg, Germany, 1905
"What do you see, Varick? Where are you going?"
I put out a restraining hand as the Baron von Richthoven brushed past me and out into the corridor of the first-class carriage of the train. I followed him as he moved toward the steps down to the platform of the Heidelberg rail station. The train had stopped here en route from where we started in Berlin—leaving hurriedly—and where we were headed in Munich. It was a time of retreat, and Varick had chosen his secret hunting chalet near Füssen, the Bavarian Alps, as his place of hiding—and hunting—at least for now. I had accompanied him to try to protect him from himself and because I didn't have any other choice.
"I wouldn't suggest leaving the train, Varick," I called out to him as he was doing just that, his black silk cape billowing around his tall, trim body. "We have no idea how long the train will stand at this station." I was speaking to his back, as he moved along the platform, his attention riveted over to the shadows of an iron column three tracks down that was helping to hold up the canopy over the concourse separating the end of the tracks from the station building. His gold lion-headed walking stick provided a staccato beat to his progress. He was an imposing man, dark and hawk-like while still being uncannily handsome. He still was in his forties—or so at least it appeared—although looking somewhat younger, and, as I well knew, he clearly was charismatic.
Neither that nor his title had kept him out of trouble in Berlin, however.
Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks and I almost ran into him. "There. Over there. See him, Otto?" He was pointing with his stick toward where his attention had been focused ever since he stood in our train compartment and gazed out of the window.
"No, Varick. You promised restraint. No more at least until we reach Füssen. You will have more free rein there to do as you wish, as you need."
The young man—I knew it was the young man who Varick was focused on—was beautiful. His smile was radiant as he looked up into the face of his companion who had pulled him close into an embrace—obviously a farewell embrace. The young man's curly blond hair was tussled and, in the beams of light filtering through the translucent glass canopy onto the platform, it looked like his head was swathed in a halo. He wasn't tall, but he was perfectly formed. His clothes were those of a student, albeit an affluent one. Heidelberg was the home of a major university. It was at the end of a term, and it could be reasonably speculated that he was a student returning home and bidding farewell to a lover.
It didn't take much to assess the lover judgment. Before Varick had pulled up, the two men had been kissing there in the shadows. The taller man was cupping the young blond god's buttocks with his hands, squeezing them, and, briefly, the blond had raised a leg to hook his knee on the taller man's hip. If they could have done so without causing a scandal, they would have been fucking.
"Only if he is taking this train," Varick murmured to me. "That will be a sign that I can have him."
"You've had rather too many signs of late, Varick," I responded. "That is why we are on this train."
"You presume too much," Varick said, suddenly turning to me, his expression changed. Seeing the other Varick in him, I shrank away from him, but he reached out, his hand suddenly clawlike, and pulled me back to him. "You chose to come with me in this exile. You chose to share this with me. Only if he rides the train. Only if he wants it."
Varick pulled me back to the train and we stood on the platform by the door up into the area separating first-class from second, positioning ourselves on the platform as if we were stretching our legs to break the journey.
My heart both sank and doubled its beat as the young blond man approached. He was taking this train. As he approached, his eyes locked onto those of Varick's and I groaned in the knowledge that that was all it took. Varick was of a mesmerizing stock, his piercing violet-hued eyes able to capture, disrobe, and ravish the susceptible at will. The young blond's answering radiant smile marked that he could be possessed. When he turned and mounted the stairs into the train, Varick followed the blond closely from behind. I followed as well, no less a captive of Varick's stare than anyone else with my proclivities.
At the top of the stairs, the young man turned as to enter the second-class compartment, but Varick laid a hand on his arm and said, in low, melodic voice, "Perhaps you would join us off to the right here. We are in the first-class carriage. You would be more comfortable and there is plenty of room in our compartment. We would enjoy the companionship." His hand then went to the young man's buttocks, squeezing one of the well-rounded, firm orbs, and steering him to the right.
The student smiled at Varick, and with a quiet, "
Danke
"—thanks—"I would appreciate that," and without so much as a flinch for the hand still palming his buttocks, turned to the right. With that, I knew he was lost. It probably would have been better in the long run if I had accepted that and capitulated to the inevitability of it.
Few of the first-class compartments were occupied—none in proximity to ours. The young man sat in the seat facing the one that Varick and I occupied, and we said little until the conductor had been through, Varick had smoothly paid the difference in the ticket price for the student, and the train had started on its onward journey.
It wasn't lost on the young man that he was being paid for.
"Perhaps you can pull the curtains to the corridor, Otto, and give us more privacy."
Varick wasn't looking at me. His eyes were holding the blue eyes of the beautiful young student with his. The young man didn't stand a chance. He wasn't even fighting it—pure innocence and openness. He knew. He just didn't know the all of it—not by a long shot. After pulling the blinds down on the windows looking out into the corridor, I shrank back in the corner of the seat and watched it all unfold, both horrified and fascinated.
The conversation started with minor chitchat. Varick—the Baron von Richthoven—who had been residing in Berlin, was heading for a vacation at his hunting lodge in the Bavarian Alps. I, Otto Gensler, his lawyer, friend, and, I suppose, his protector, was accompanying him. All so natural and benign. All true, but not nearly as benign as it sounded. "Vacationing" was more like retreating three steps ahead of the mob bearing pitchforks, and the hunting lodge rather than the Castle in Mecklenberg being the goal more because of its remoteness and secrecy than anything else—Varick could have his way longer and with complete privacy in at the remote hunting lodge in Füssen than in Mecklenberg.
"So, you are a student at Heidelberg?" Varick asked.
"Yes," Stefan Heinz answered, for that was what we'd ascertained was his name. "I am Austrian. My family lives in Saltzburg. That is where I go now. The school term is over."
"And you are studying art at the university?"
