The Farm

Some chapters don't end, they just get published. And so it is here. If I can keep the characters dancing to my tune, this story will end soon. It's a big if. Prize is acting up again and pulling things away from the big plan. I gave up trying to quiet him. He has a story to tell, and if he doesn't get it out, he haunts me.

Sandi

Afterwards and Before

"Here ye are." Tom handed the pan of feed to Danny and smiled. "Sleep well?"

Prize nodded and looked into Tom's face to read his mood, to read his mind. He saw a Tom unchanged. Open face, a smile that reached his eyes. No hint of the night and what he learned. No hint of distain. No leer. No demands. Prize turned his attention to the insistent chickens. His hand trembled as he scattered the grain. Tom walked off to the barn.

The morning went as every other morning went before the coach and before the fucking and confessions in the room off the kitchen. Prize began to wonder if the night happened. His body told him it did. He wondered at what happened. He kept looking up to locate Tom. Tom cleaning Belle's stall. Tom polishing the harness. Tom sharpening the scythe on the whetstone. Tom looking at him as he watched him. Prize dropped his gaze and picked up the basket and started hunting for eggs.

Tom found as much as he could to do near the barn door. He wanted to keep his eye on Danny. He couldn't keep his eyes off him. The hard things Danny'd told him in the soft lamplight in the small room. His surrender to him for whatever Tom wanted troubled him now in the daylight. He knew he gave himself over to him in fear and passion. He feared he gave himself to be fucked or beaten as Tom willed. In the cold autumn light, Tom's doubts grew about what he'd done. He knew what he wanted to do, make love to sweet Danny. Now he wasn't sure if he had loved him or fucked him. He knew he wanted to kiss Danny again. To make him tremble with need and not fear. He knew he'd never have enough of him. He knew he wanted all of him. His love, his body, his fears, his desires, his past. He bided his time as the morning slipped away.

The cart hitched and Nanny handed up to William a letter in her apron pocket to be posted to Lord Downcliff. A letter crudely written with much effort and discussion. Tom waited until the jingle of the harness faded. He took a deep breath. Now. Danny sat on the milking stool face turned into the sun, eyes closed his hands clasped between his knees. Tom coughed to let him know he was near. No repeat of yesterday. He called his name. The azure eyes turned to him. Wary.

"I'll talk with ye, Danny."

Prize stood not sure if he should run. But run where. He read the attitude of Tom's body. He judged the tone of his voice. It seemed safe enough. Perhaps last night satisfied him. He didn't want to be chased down. And he was there close enough to touch him. He watched the big hand move toward him. Open palm up. He looked at the scrape on the jaw, the bruise he'd made. The hand touched his arm. He jumped.

"Are ye afraid of me, Danny?" Tom looked in to the face. "Did I hurt ye last night?" He closed his hand on the bicep. "I'll nay hurt ye. I told you so and I won't let them that did near ye."

Too much. Prize felt the fear rise. The grip like iron. Now with William and Nanny gone. Now. Then let it be now. He heard the words. He wanted to believe him, Tom big and strong as an oak. He looked him in the eye and saw no guile. The grip on his arm relaxed. The hand moved away.

Tom smiled. "I was caught off guard. Yesterday. They's not many that can knock me down." His head tipped to one side to catch Danny's eyes. "I meant what I said, I'll nay hurt you." He laid his hand on Danny's back far from where the pink scar marred the skin.

The first kiss was soft. It barely touched Prize's lips. The second firm and insistent. The tongue pushed against his lips. Prize opened to it. He knew how to suck the slick muscle. He'd learned his lessons well.

Tom pulled him close. He folded him in his arms. Prize let him. He kissed his neck. Prize trembled. He kissed his neck and tasted the skin. "I'll nay hurt ye," Tom whispered against the skin below the ear. Prize shuddered and shut his eyes and reached for the front of Tom's trousers with a practiced touch. Tom stepped back. "But I'll not have ye afraid. And I'll nay have ye as a whore."

A blow from Tom's hard hand less painful. More welcome. The word knocked the air from his lungs. It made his stomach flip. His heart refused to beat. Sweat tickled down his back.

Tom stepped away and rubbed the back of his hand across his lips. He returned to his work. Prize watched him cross the yard. A few sparks rose from the whetstone as Tom sharpened a rake and flashed blue against the dark of the barn. He didn't look up. He didn't look over.

Prize watched for a moment more until he felt he could control his legs and went to the kitchen door, removed his boots, and closed the door behind him. He filled the kettle and placed it on the fire to heat. He found soap and a cloth.

The small basin hung on the wall. He didn't want to use the room off the kitchen to bathe. The room where he said whore. That was Tom's now.

Bathing in the kitchen was awkward and exposed. Prize removed his shirt and washed his upper torso with a bit of cloth and a sliver of brown soap that didn't lather. He kept one eye on the door. He shivered in the chill air. He ran the cloth down the long white scar along his ribs. He didn't take time to dry his chest and arms. Prize pulled the shirt back over his head. It smelled faintly of sex and Tom. The water cooled but he didn't pause to warm it, just stripped off his trousers and socks and washed his hairless legs. As he rubbed the soap over his circumcised penis, rubbing and rubbing, he thought about last night in the room. A climax at the hands of another. It was the first time he wasn't used and left to seek his own release as best he could. He grew hard under his hand remembering Tom's callused hand bringing him to orgasm. The giving and not the taking. The warm kisses. His hand drifted back and stroked the soft skin between his cheeks. A soapy finger slipped inside. He felt sore. His fingers long and soft where Tom's were hard and rough skinned. His hands hard, his intentions soft. His breath ragged. Prize rhymes with sighs. Always a whore. Always a whore. Tom didn't want a whore. His penis softened.

Prize pulled on his underclothes and trousers. He tossed the water out the door onto the bare ground. Tom tested the edge of the sickle with his thumb. He didn't look up. Prize carefully put the kitchen back in order and went to the hearth, his hearth. He pulled the winter quilt around him and rested his cheek on his arm. He tried to sort through what happened in the night and in the yard. He slept. Dreams of a farm.

He walked through the ripening wheat heading for home. A boy barely on the threshold of manhood. The swelling heads of grain brushed against his hands and bent as he passed along. He looked back at the path he'd left in the grain. Green turning to gold. A lark sang. Crows screamed out their territory and circled above him, black kites against a sharp-blue sky. Home, he had to get home. The wheat reached his shoulders and tangled around his ankles. The low hum of insects and the calling of crows lower now.

Something big made its way through the wheat. He saw the blades bow and tremble as it moved parallel to him. Home, he had to get home.

At the crest of the small rise, he broke free of the wheat. Over the stone style onto the low cropped grass where the sheep grazed. Below him the farm rested in a long valley. The solid two-story house of stone, the thatched roof, four windows above and two below, smoke rising from the kitchen chimney. The great cow barn. Stables to the left. The farm hands moving through the yard. The milk maids with their pails carried their burdens to the cooling barn.

The thing in the wheat stopped moving. A crow dived and brushed his hair with a wing as black. He ran down the hill toward the farm. An old man tall and broad shouldered stood in the kitchen garden shading his eyes with his hand; he looked toward the hill and waved. Almost there, almost home. He ran faster.

Prize woke breathless. Tom brought him tea and placed the mug on the hearth, a plate of buttered bread next to it. He busied himself with his own mug and looked up at the picture of the boy and dog.

"Came from the manor, that did." Tom nodded at the picture. "Nanny brought it with her when she left. Used to hang in the nursery."

Prize sipped his tea, hot and sweet.

"That's the boys' nursery, Anthony and Gordy."

Prize looked over at Tom. He'd said his name and made him real. The name that lurked in every part of the little freehold. The name no one said to him. The name only used in other rooms. Prize felt better now that it was spoken.

"Anthony died. It broke Gordy's heart."

Prize waited for more.

"Tomorrow we have a job to start."

"You can't expect him to do such work as yet. He's not ready." Nanny thumped the kettle down on the table.

"I'll go slow. He needs to work."

"The chickens are his."

"Naught but a chore for little girls. It'll be the wall."

And so it was the next morning; Prize woke to feed the chickens in the chill autumn air. Tom rushed him through his morning ritual and thrust shovel, pick, and digging bar at him. He led him down to the dry-stacked wall that fronted on the lane. "We'll build the wall up to meet the laurels."

Prize followed the line of Tom's hand. A stretch of sixty yards to the trees. He nodded and set down the tools.

Nanny watched from the doorway as Tom drove the first peg and tied the line. Daniel swung the pick, tentative at first and the footer began.

***

Had the letter contained a description of the man driving the Growler, Gordy would have responded like the wrath of God. Had William and Nanny included Prize's violent reaction to Tom's touch, Gordy would have removed Prize from the freehold to the safety of Leeshore. Had Prize told of March standing next to the barn, Gordy would have loaded his pistols and kicked in the tulip-yellow door at Mrs. Featherwink's. Had the letter been more legible, more urgent, more cohesive, more informative Gordy would have whipped and spurred the grey through the night to reach them. But it wasn't and Gordy read it once and replied with soothing words addressing a lost coachman and the stress of illness, a five-pound note, and news he planned on returning to Leeshore with his bride in the early spring. At Caroline's request, he sent a copy of Far From the Madding Crowd. Gordy smiled when he thought of the novel in William and Nanny's sitting room displayed prominently as the Bible but unread. What would Prize make of such a thing? Always Prize.

Two evenings before his wedding Gordy visited Greco. A quiet home of some size and moderate stone decoration on a cobble street lined with mature linden trees. It stood in a section of London considered out of fashion and on the decline.

Gordy let the brass ring of the knocker fall. The ring pierced the nose of a brass bull's head. Hairy and wild eyed, its nostrils flared. The horns long and lowered as if to charge. The Cretan Bull. Footsteps echoed within and a slim grey-haired man in impeccable formalwear opened the door and ushered Gordy into a well appointed vestibule and relieved him of his gloves and hat. He slung his coat over his arm and with a gloved hand, ushered Gordy through to a comfortably masculine drawing room. Gordy asked for a whisky. Paisley wallpaper in forest green, prints of hunting scenes on the wall, a polished brass chandelier, deep leather chairs in ox blood, an upright piano against a wall, a large fern tree near a statue of Adonis, a fire warm in the marble fireplace. A glass on a side table told Gordy that he was not the first visitor of the night. Gordy chose a chair near the fire, extended his legs, crossed them at the ankle, and waited. The pocket door slid open and the same slim man entered with a silver tray balanced on his left hand, a thin album of photographs, and a solicitous smile. No words were spoken. The whisky and album left within easy reach on a mahogany table. The used glass removed with an apologetic smile.

Gordy sipped the liquor and opened the album. Inside a series of pictures of men. A few pages devoted to each man. A portrait, full frontal shot and one from the back, and a costume picture. Each chapter provided a short biography and description of abilities. Gordy flipped the pages. On the page for one of the young men a purple ribbon lay with the word "engaged" stitched neatly in silver thread. Gordy flipped through the pages finding this reason and that to eliminate each. He paused at a costume picture of an African, upper torso wrapped in a shawl of some sort. He stood like a stork on one leg and leaned on a tasseled spear. The man looked down the lens of the camera with fierce black eyes. Gordy moved on.

The young man lay supine on the divan, his hand behind his head, left leg bent, torso turned slightly to the camera, eyes hooded. Long limbed and lean, hairless below the neck. Lips parted slightly in a knowing smile. Gordy rang the small bell and the host appeared. He tapped the picture with his middle finger and said, "How are his teeth?"

"Quite good."

"This one, then."

"Excellent choice. Shall I bring your drink along?" A purple ribbon pinned to the page.

And up the wide stairs past more prints and paintings. Down the dim hall. A soft knock. A sound from within and the door opened. The host entered carrying a silver tray with Gordy's whisky and placed it in a long-fingered hand. He bowed and left.

He stood there barefooted in his shirtsleeves and trousers. Clean and fresh and handed the drink to Gordy and directed him to a chair and went to stand near the fire. He looked up from under long lashes with dark brown eyes and reached for the top button of his shirt.

Gordy watched as each button slipped free. Slowly the shirt drifted down from the white shoulders and off his hands to hang by the tails tucked into the tight trousers. He stepped closer and knelt on the yellow rug. Gordy stood and placed his hand on the dark hair and directed the face to the front of his trousers. The first kiss light against the fabric. The second firm against the encased head of the penis. Hands to undo buttons and slide them along Gordy's thighs. The kisses continued, wetter now against his undergarment. The hand inserted. The shaft firmly grasped. The kisses joined by a pink tongue. Gordy's penis pulled free and held in a firm grasp. The tongue darting at the eye, circling the head, lips to kiss along the shaft.

He knelt there like a supplicant at prayer in a pagan temple offering himself to his god. Softly he placed his cheek against the shaft and planted kisses along Gordy's inner thigh. He twined his arms along his legs and up and behind to stroke Gordy's back beneath coat, vest, and shirt and down to the buttocks. And all the while the mouth and tongue working: sucking, licking, dancing, kissing, his mouth pulling gently and insistently.

"Remove your trousers."

And he did without removing Gordy's penis from his mouth or losing a stroke from his hand or abandoning eye contact. Gordy felt his climax building and pushed the face away. Not yet. Not yet.

"Assist me with my coat."

The young man rose with reluctance and a final kiss but did as he was told and helped Gordy remove the remainder of his clothing. He took in his form with a practiced eye and smiled to see the flat stomach and muscled chest and arms lightly dusted with dark hair. He reached to stroke a melon-colored nipple, but paused his hand, fingertips short of their goal until Gordy nodded permission and was rewarded with a smile and a touch and soft lips. Gordy left him to lick and nip and nuzzle, and suck across his chest and always lower to the goal. Again his penis touched the lips and the tongue flicked against the exposed glands and teased the g-string beneath. Gordy hissed in appreciation. The lips opened and the penis slid into the warm mouth, deeper until it touched the back of the throat. The young man adjusted his position slightly, moving between Gordy's legs and easing down on his own claves he dropped his head back slightly to create a straight line and began to swallow. Hot and tight. Gordy felt the head of his penis bump the larynx. And like a sword swallower in the side show, the young man swallowed and swallowed. Gordy laid his hand against the throat and felt the passage of his member as he pulled out and in. So enthralled by the delightful passage Gordy forgot about the person attached to tongue, mouth, and esophagus until a soft push on his thighs and gurgle returned him to the room with the yellow rug.

He pulled out and the man gasped then returned to kissing and licking the dorsal side from base to slit.

Gordy groaned in animal satisfaction as he came. The young man moved quickly to capture the pearls on his tongue. Those that escaped his quick mouth, he licked from his lips and scooped up from his chin with his fingers. He sat before Gordy licking his fingers clean then with a questioning look at Gordy moved to gently lick clean the satin tip of his penis. He curled his legs beneath him and eased Gordy back into the embrace of the chair and pulled his balls into his mouth and rolled them on his tongue. Gordy sighed and let the tension in his muscles float away. He reached for his whisky and found the glass empty. The sound of the empty glass on wood roused the young man, and he uncurled himself and walked with fluid movements to a crystal decanter and poured more amber liquid into the glass. Gordy heard the trickle of water and a cool cloth pressed against his neck. Fingers massaged his shoulders, drifting down across his pectoral muscles to tease his nipples. His body glowed; his legs fell open; the young man returned to the floor at his feet and kissed his instep. Gordy enjoyed the view of his bent back and leaned forward to wrap his fingers in the long hair and pull the head back sharply.

"Bring the ottoman here."

The man obeyed. His rigid penis bounced as he walked to the yellow and green piece. He slid it slowly in front of Gordy, giving him a lovely view of his buttocks, and produced a large linen cloth to cover the fine tufted materiel and waited.

Gordy stood and walked to him carrying his glass. He tipped the head back and poured the whisky past the puffy lips. He drank. He drank again. The glass emptied. His blush grew deeper. Gordy refilled his own glass and settled back in the chair and designed the scenario.

"Move it closer."

It was done.

"Lie on your back."

He did still hard. Like a beautiful offering on an Aztec blood altar. Feet flat on the floor head fallen over the far edge, arms languidly drooping toward the floor. Gordy stood with his glass and walked the three steps to him and knelt. He dribbled the whisky on the belly and drank it slowly from the hollow of the navel. He licked the smooth skin of the abdomen. He twisted a small pink nipple between his thumb and forefinger until he heard a moan. A drop on the puckered nipple tip to lick and suck. The penis danced. The stomach rolled. The hips snapped once. Yearning into air.

Gordy smacked his chest. "Hold still."

Gordy ran his hands up the body. Light and dancing. Butterfly wings on skin as smooth as lily petals. The man held still though blood rushed hot just under the surface of his skin, and he turned pink as a tea rose. Gordy laughed deep in his throat and moved between the legs. He pushed the knees farther apart and ran his fingers along the soft skin between thigh and groin. He continued to tease and touch and lick until the young man disobeyed and snapped his pelvis just once in desire. Gordy smiled.