Jaime Poole and I had performed in various capacities—I was a pianist, actor, singer, and dancer, and he was all those things except that he played violin rather than the piano—at the three-week Gloucester Summer Arts Festival and I hadn't realized he was a high-muckety-muck in the country. I'd noticed people giving him deference, but I thought it was from his looks and ready smile, not because he had some sort of title.
We'd gotten along really, really (I mean really) well and I'd floated along in his slip stream for the three weeks. He seemed to know everyone and be able to get anything he wanted. That certainly had worked with me as long as I stayed close to him. I was here on a summer lark from school at the New York College of Performing Arts. It was a summer opportunity I picked off a bulletin board, something that would look good on my résumé. Five weeks at the festival, two in prep and three in performance, and then the rest of the summer kicking around England and pickup up culture—and having a good time. Who knew I'd latch onto someone with a title in the process?
Jaime was part of that good time to have during the summer. He was my age—twenty—and was studying, just as I was, to be an entertainer. He was further along here in England than I was, though. Because of his great looks and body, he already was a model and had done some TV commercials and even had been in a BBC drama in a minor role. I was only now finding that this success was as much because of his connections as talent and good looks.
"The festival is winding down," he said to me as we were stretched out against each other in my rooming house bed in old town Gloucester. I didn't know where his room was. We'd always done it in my room. He'd just finished fucking me and we were sharing a joint.
"You say you're going to roam around the country now for a couple of weeks," he said. "I have a two-day gig at a country house south of here from tomorrow. You want to come along? It's providing music in one room—both classical and more pop, nothing we haven't done during the festival—while an art auction is being conducted in another room. Room and board for two nights plus a bit of cash and any tipping you can get attendees to give. It would be fun. I know these people. Some of them tip very well. Others will pay generously for a blow job or a fuck."
Jaime didn't just know these people. Jaime was these people. Easton Hall was a pile of very old rock on the eastern banks of the Severn River just south of Gloucester. The current lord of the manor was a Sir Henry Poole. The surprise to me was that he was Jaime's father. The Poole name was famous from history as contenders for the throne. I didn't have the nerve to ask if they were those Pooles. I now knew where Jaime bunked during the Gloucester Summer Performing Arts Festival. I'm surprised he deigned to enter my miserable digs to do me.
"So, do I call you 'Sir,' now?" I asked as we set up at a grand piano in the multipaned bow window of what he called the music room. Art was set up on easels around the wood-paneled walls of the adjacent great hall overlooking the Severn. That's where a day-long auction was being conducted. Jaime and I were to provide continuing soft-music entertainment in an adjoining room to offer temporary escape from the auction for those seeking it.
"Dress nicely," Jaime said. "We're as much eye candy as smoothening for the ears. And you might manage a lucrative hookup. The art world here is crammed with queers. My dad caters to them."
"So, we're being pimped," I said, with a smile.
"Yes," he quickly answered, leaving me in limbo on whether he had taken that as a joke or not. He knew I could easily be had. He had easily had me. He also knew I wasn't above being paid for sex and that I needed the money.
Drinks were set up in here, and there was more small-group conversation and drinking going on than listening to our music.
"I'm a third son. You can call me 'mud,' if you like until and unless my two older brothers kick it before I do," Jaime belatedly answered on the title.
"Does your father know about us?" I asked.
"Do you mean does he care that you'll be sleeping in my bed tonight?" Jaime asked, with a laugh. "My father doesn't really care anything about me and isn't likely to until and unless, as I noted, my two older brothers toss it in before I do. And he surrounds himself by queers, so why should he care if he has one under his roof. Is he himself a queer, though? I don't know—or care."
We took breaks. On one of mine, I went into the auction room and roamed around, looking at the art. Visual art wasn't my thing. I was into performing art. But I paused in a corner where the art concentrated on male nudes. As I viewed these paintings, sketches, and photographs with interest, a voice behind me said, "As alluring as these young men are, they don't hold a candle to you. You're the one at the piano in the other room, aren't you?"
"Yes, that's me," I said, turning to see that the man who addressed me was the chief art dealer for the auction. I'd seen him and his assistant, a young man of about my age, a sultry dark-headed, foxy sort of thin character, moving fluidly around in black satin, deftly handling and positioning the artwork and setting up the artwork before the auction opened. The art dealer was a man of vitality in contrast to his assistant, red-haired, robust, probably in his early forties. He obviously was the salesman of the two, gregarious, outgoing, as his assistant floated around in the shadows. Ruddy of complexion, the art dealer had strong, square-jawed features. He was a big man, muscular, not fat, but weighty. He dressed well—but more tweedy than his assistant's satin.
"You play well. And you look divine. I wish you had been sitting for one of these paintings. If I acquired one of you, I wouldn't be selling it."
"Thank you, I think," I said, looking down at his hand. He was grasping my arm with a strong hand, probably, I thought, with a stronger grip than he realized. He had a heavy gold signet ring in his middle finger.
"Your name is Neal, Neal Younger, isn't it? And you're American."
"Yes," I said, in surprise. "How did you know?"
"I saw you perform at the Gloucester festival last week. You photo and name were in the program, along with some background notes. You're twenty—young to have accomplished what you have. We came over to start setting this auction up and I went to a couple of programs. You were singing in a gay chorus number—the soloist. I am Duncan Chambers, by the way. From the other side of the Severn—at Littledean Hall, above Newnham."
"Yes, that was me." Where he was from meant little to me—that he might want to pay me for sex was everything. He looked to be in good shape and to be a good cocksman. He certainly was confident enough. I probably wouldn't have to do a thing; he dominates and take what he wanted.
"And it was a gay chorus, was it not?"
"Yes." Was this when he hit on me? But of course he'd been hitting on me from the moment he'd walked up behind me and started to talk. Did I mind? No, not really. I was promiscuously gay. I was casual about sex if I encountered someone I fancied. And I did like going with older, robust men. And I did like the look of this Duncan Chambers. I checked out his crotch with my eyes. Promising. I did like a thick cock. If I was going to do it, I wanted to feel it.
He was about to say something else, when his assistant interrupted us. "Excuse me, Duncan," he said. "There is a woman—obviously moneyed—looking at the Frederick Cotman 'Harwick Harbour' painting. I think it requires your touch to make her love it."
