by Catt Ford
“What are you doing?” Henry asked, already knowing he wasn’t going to like the answer.
“We’re getting off.”
Henry assumed that he didn’t mean the traditional way. That would be far too tame for Dingo. The tram was beginning to slow as it reached the next stop, and Hodges was going to make it. As the tram rattled to a stop, Henry pushed the doors open and peered down the track.
“When I tell you to, jump. Grab the left handle, and I’ll grab the right,” Dingo instructed.
Henry saw a tram coming toward them from the opposite direction and realized what Dingo wanted them to do. “You have to be joking!”
“Nope,” Dingo said maddeningly.
“This is stupid!” Henry cried. “He knows where we’re going to end up at the end of the day! At your parents’ house! Why bother?”
Dingo shrugged. “Because it’ll piss him off.”
Henry knew this was mad, but Dingo was determined to do it. And even though he didn’t feel threatened by Hodges one bit as nobody else seemed to take him that seriously, Henry still didn’t want to remain on the tram and have to talk to him or even acknowledge his presence.
“Ready?” Dingo asked.
“No!”
“I thought you said you trusted me?”
“I didn’t know it would involve stupid stunts like this!”
“Live a little, Dash! One…. two….”
Hodges, panting, clambered up the steps to the doors at the opposite end of the tram and immediately began searching for them. Henry could see the glint in his eyes as Hodges spotted his quarry in the middle of the vehicle.
“Three!” Dingo bellowed.
As the tram shuddered past them, the two men leaped through the air in the incredibly narrow space between the two vehicles. Henry immediately grabbed the door handle on the left, which was the only thing keeping him balanced on the small inch of foot space available on the closed door. Dingo, however, was not so lucky. His feet skidded out from under him, and he was left hanging on the right side handle. He kicked his feet up so they would stay off the rapidly moving ground below them and scrambled up to find his footing. Henry reached out with his right hand and steadied him as he found sure ground to support himself. Dingo threw him an appreciative look and then whooped with delight as he turned back to see Hodges’s irate face pressed against the window on the other tram, disappearing in the distance.
“What now?” Henry yelled above the sound of the wind and the machinery.
“We go home,” Dingo said, using his left hand to pry open the door. The two men fell into the tram, landing awkwardly against the stairs. They lay there for a moment, stunned, and then began to laugh at the fact that they had actually survived the crazy thing they had just done.
“I told you to trust me,” Dingo panted, patting Henry’s shoulder.
“I must be crazier than you are,” Henry replied.
Dingo’s hand rested upon his shoulder, and the man was staring at him intensely. Henry didn’t know what to say, but the tram began slowing, and the jerk caused them both to fall back against the stairs again. Dingo’s hand fell away as he reached for the rail to support himself.
A conductor was racing down the aisle toward them at the same time the driver’s door banged open, and the furious-looking driver came barreling down the aisle from the other direction. “What the hell are you two pork chops playing at?”
“You could have been killed!” yelled the conductor. “Bloody idiots!”
Mortified at this public spectacle, Henry staggered to his feet and stood behind Dingo.
However, the driver’s face changed at the sight of Henry’s companion. “Dingo!” He turned to the conductor. “It’s okay, I know them. Well, this fool at least.”
“Rick, mate, how are you?” Dingo leaned in and pumped the other man’s hand furiously as the conductor made his way back to his stool and continued glowering at them.
“Do you know everybody in this bloody city?” Henry asked irritably, not liking the level of familiarity between the two men.
“We’re old friends,” Dingo said smoothly. “Good thing we landed on your tram, huh, Ricky?”
Ricky jerked his head and winked, grinning broadly. “I’m sure you have friends wherever you land, right, Dingo?”
The two men continued to talk to each other as Dingo accompanied the driver back to his squab, and Henry moved away to take a seat, retrieve his handkerchief from his pocket, and mop his brow. The adrenaline that had been pumping through his veins had rapidly subsided, and he was now left with a strange feeling akin to jealousy.
Henry knew he had to stop feeling this way, but he couldn’t help it. He stared out the window and longed for their quick return to Carlton.
Chapter 9
The roar emanating from the front yard alerted Henry to the fact that Dingo’s brothers had converged on the old family manse, although he would have thought that two men and their wives weren’t capable of making such a din. Of course, Dingo was down there to greet them, along with his dad.
“Dash! Get yer bloomin’ arse down here!” Dingo bawled from the foot of the stairs. “We’ll be out back!”
Henry grinned as he tossed his book aside, speculating that the quiet was finished for the night. He didn’t realize how right he was as he made his way down the stairs.
Helen greeted him in the kitchen, where she was piling great slabs of raw meat onto a tray. “Dash, dear, go right on out there. And please bring this out to Henry.” She smiled at him as she hefted the tray and thrust it into his hands.
He gasped, almost dropping it in surprise at the weight. Helen handled it as if it were a featherweight, whereas it must have been at least twenty pounds.
“Off with you then, Dash. The children will be getting hungry,” Helen said with a doting smile.
Somehow Henry knew the smile was for her grandchildren and not for him. While Helen turned back to her preparations, Henry nudged the screened door open with his hip, wincing at the cacophony that struck his ears.
Shrieks of gleeful joy echoed from where Dingo was walking, albeit with great difficulty as he had a little carbon copy of himself clinging to each leg. Henry marveled at how much the boys bore the family resemblance, as if they had sprung from one of the brother’s loins fully formed, with no assistance from a woman.
Dingo was growling, Baz was howling with laughter at something his father had said, and another man, his face bearing the inimitable Chambers stamp, was shouting something at the boys who held Dingo captive. Henry deduced that he must be Johnno. Two young women were conversing excitedly, their voices shrill to be heard over the noise.
To Henry, used to the quiet decorum of his own family gatherings, it felt as if the yard were crowded with people, all of them yelling and laughing at once. For a man used to reserved politeness, it was mayhem, and yet Henry felt more at home than he’d ever been with his own parents and brother.
Dutifully he made his way to the older Henry and yelled into his ear, “Helen sent this out for you!”
“Righto then, Dash. Set ’er down round about there,” Hank answered, pointing vaguely at the rock ring that now encircled a briskly snapping fire. “Coals aren’t ready yet. Women know nothing about roasting meat outdoors. Lost without a stove, they are.”
“You must be Dash. Johnno here. Pleased to meet you.” Johnno waited for Henry to set his burden down and pumped his hand vigorously. “My boys, Jack and Baz,” he said, waving a hand toward Dingo and his riders.
“Isn’t it confusing to name them after your brothers?” Henry asked.
“Why, who else would I name them after?” Johnno roared with laughter. “Besides, Dingo never answers to Jack unless dad is reading him the riot act, and we don’t live near enough Baz for it to matter three days out of seven. Watch this.” He turned his head, put his hands to his mouth, and yelled, “Baz, on the double!”
Henry snickered as Johnno’s son and brother both blithely ignored his summons.
“See? Don’t make any difference,” Johnno said proudly. “They’re all a proper bunch of varmints. Won’t get tamed down ’til some woman catches hold of them.”
Henry winced slightly at the thought, even while noticing the two young women eyeing him with interest. “I should go and introduce myself—”
“Lori Lou! Margot! This here’s Dingo’s mate, Dash!”
Henry almost covered his ears when Johnno began to bellow out the introductions, but Dingo’s brother had a firm hold on his nearest arm.
“Lori Lou’s my ball and chain. Margot’s Baz’s,” Johnno explained.
Henry wondered if Lori Lou could really be her name but was too polite to ask. He would find out later through Dingo that because she came from an area in the Victorian countryside known for its wild ways, she’d had the nickname bestowed upon her.
“My, he’s a good-looking fellow, isn’t he?” Margot giggled.
“If you like them skinny,” Lori Lou said. She slid her hand into the crook of her husband’s arm, squeezing his bicep. “I like a bit of meat on a boy.”
“Well, but you’re not taking him home when you’ve got Johnno then, are you?” Margot insisted. “I’m just speaking hypothetically in any case, seeing as he belongs to Dingo.”
Blushing furiously, Henry stammered, “Your boys are very, uh, spirited, Mrs. Chambers.”
Lori Lou joined her husband in laughter. “Well, they’d have to be, don’t they? They’re Chamberses. If I’d given birth to a quiet bookish sort, Johnno’d think I’d played him false, wouldn’t you, honey?” She smiled up at her husband, who grinned back.
“Right you are, love. No insult intended, Dash,” he added hastily, as if just remembering that Henry was pale, skinny, and wore glasses, sure signs of bookishness, if there were any.
“None taken,” Henry said, amused. “Some of us are doomed to the bookish pursuits.”
“It’s the glasses,” Margot agreed, nodding wisely. “Hard to play cricket in specs.”
“Actually,” Henry started, beginning to puff himself up a bit. After all, he had played all through college, and rather well, too, although not on the house team. But his panegyric about his own athletic prowess was cut short when Dingo, burdened by his nephews, barreled into him, knocking him off his feet. At once, Henry found himself rolling in the rough grass, gasping when Dingo’s weight pressed him into the earth only to roll off, leaving him the prisoner of two small boys.
“Grab him, Baz!” Jack cried shrilly, attaching himself to Henry’s right arm and using his full weight to pin it to the ground.
Baz Jr. didn’t answer, being busy with trying to sit on both of Henry’s long legs at once.
Dingo laughed from where he was sitting in the grass. “Looks like Gulliver’s Travels for you, Dash! Cheerio!”
“Hey, you can’t leave me here, a prisoner of these ruthless—” Henry gasped as Jack kneed him accidentally in the solar plexus. “Oh, you two are so going to regret this. Don’t you even wait to be introduced to people before you take them prisoner?”
“Yo ho ho, we’re going to stew you in Grandpa’s giant pot and eat you!” Baz Jr. screamed.
“Savage cannibals, eh? You can’t eat me, not if I eat you first!” Henry shook himself free, gently tumbling the boys onto the grass and got to his feet. Both boys hurled themselves at him, but he caught them round their waists and lifted one under each arm, letting out a yelp of triumph. “Where’s that pot? I’ve got dinner right here.”
Dingo was still sitting on the grass, laughing fit to kill himself. “Dash, I never thought you had it in you,” he cried unhelpfully.
“Point me to the nearest cage. I’ve got to keep these two prisoner while I sharpen my knife,” Henry said threateningly. He grinned at the delighted squeals from the two boys, who wriggled in his arms trying to get free, even though it was all he could do to hold them.
“Toss me the big one, and I’ll show you where we pen them up ’til we cook them,” Dingo said.
It wasn’t much of a toss, but when Dingo’s hands were supporting Jack, Henry shifted his weight to transfer the boy. “Lead the way, Dingo.” Henry shifted young Baz up onto his shoulders while Dingo raised Jack with seemingly little effort, slinging him crosswise over his own shoulders.
“Dad, look what we’ve caught for you to barbecue for dinner,” Dingo said, heading for Hank.
Hank played right along, poking a finger into the tummy of his giggling grandson. “These are nice juicy ones. And the fire’s almost ready.”
“Grandpa, it’s me!” Jack shrieked. “You can’t eat me!”
“Why, they talk too! Where did you find such a fine specimen?” Johnno said.
“Dad, no, it’s us!” Baz Jr. cried out.
“And they’re pretending to know us too,” Johnno said admiringly. “Clever ruse!”
“All right, then, that’s enough,” Helen said calmly, much to Henry’s relief.
Even though he’d started it, he’d had no idea how to finish the charade. Helen gave him a warm smile, and, from the twinkle in her eye, he suspected that she had realized his dilemma and had taken mercy on him.
“I’ll take them,” Lori Lou said, holding out her arms.
Henry admired the way she was able to heft both of them on her hips, although both boys slid down and ran away from her as soon as they could.
“Whew,” Dingo said, slinging his arm across Henry’s shoulders. “Got nephews?”
“One,” Henry admitted.
“He must love you. You’re good with kids.”
Thinking of certain illicit fishing expeditions he had enjoyed with his nephew as his brother James deemed it a sport below people of their status and better left to gamekeepers, Henry’s face creased in a secret smile. “Perhaps.”
“Meat’s ready, boys,” Hank called out.
Dingo clapped Henry on the back. “Let’s eat.”
Henry enjoyed watching the Chambers family members as they ate. The noise continued unabated, and he wondered that the neighbors seemed to accept it with equanimity as none of them appeared to complain. The two boys were so excited to see their uncle Dingo that they barely let him eat and didn’t eat much themselves, amusing themselves by howling in his ears like dingos whenever he took a bite.
It amused Henry to see that Lori Lou and Margot seemed to be able to put away almost as much beer as their husbands. Everyone drank, but no one got noticeably drunker, as nobody sat still for any appreciable length of time.
When the fire died down to embers, Helen brought out a flashlight and shone it upward on her face, giving herself a lugubriously spooky look. She started telling a ghost story, and at a critical juncture, handed the light to her son Johnno, who took up the tale with relish.
Henry deduced that this was for the benefit of Johnno’s sons. They listened with wide eyes and open mouths, gradually abandoning Dingo and creeping closer to their mother.
By the time the flashlight reached Hank, the boys were fighting to stay awake, and accordingly Hank let his voice grow lower and lower until they were asleep.
“Better take them up to bed, John,” Helen said.
“Right, mum.”
Johnno picked up Jack, while Lori Lou lifted Baz Jr. “We’ll see you lot in the morning. Thanks for playing with the boys, Dash.”
Henry felt a little glow at Johnno’s praise. Dingo bumped his shoulder gently and smiled at him.
After Johnno and his family went upstairs, the group around the embers grew quieter, Helen nestled in Hank’s arm, and Margot pressed up against Baz for warmth.
Self-consciously, Henry drew a little way away from Dingo, feeling the odd man out in this familial gathering for the first time that evening.
Henry awakened in what must have been the early hours of the morning. The room was bathed in a chalky, blue-ish moonlight, throwing everything into a muted relief; it was also blessedly silent of Dingo’s snores.
Because Dingo was also awake and staring right at
him.
“Is everything all right?” Henry asked hesitantly.
Dingo didn’t say anything; he merely nodded.
Henry grew puzzled as Dingo pulled down the blankets that covered them. Clad only in his boxers, Dingo then rolled over onto his side and slowly inched them down over his hips. Henry couldn’t withhold his breath and gasped as he first sighted the cleft between Dingo’s buttocks. The boxers continued coming down, and with his back still turned to the other man, Dingo casually reached down and threw them free of his body.
Henry wanted nothing more than to turn Dingo around and gaze at him fully, but he could only watch fascinated as Dingo ran his hand over his own arse, stirring the light golden hairs upon the cheeks. Henry could feel his cock straining against his own boxers, a small damp spot already forming from his own excitement.
He sighed with desire as Dingo gently parted and lifted one of his arse cheeks, presenting himself as if a gift.
“Dingo….” Henry breathed, as if awaiting verbal permission.
Dingo still didn’t say anything but remained in the same position.
Henry couldn’t control himself any longer. He sucked on his index finger, slicking it up. He tentatively traced around Dingo’s hole, and Dingo withdrew his own hand. It was now all Henry’s, to do with whatever he wished. Gently, Henry breached Dingo with his finger, and the other man’s back arched. Henry supported his neck with his free hand, his finger exploring further within. He massaged the silky walls, and Dingo moved in closer to him.
“Is that good?” he asked, but Dingo’s only response was to try and impale himself further.
Henry withdrew his finger and sucked on it again for further lubrication. This time he was rewarded with the musky taste of Dingo himself, and his cock surged with a further rush of blood. Dingo gave a small grunt as he was thrust into again, this time Henry curved his finger tip slightly and found the nub he was searching for. Dingo was now writhing in front of him, and Henry’s cock was begging for release. With a slight sucking sound, he pulled his finger out and offered it to Dingo to suck upon. As he felt Dingo’s mouth close over it, Henry groaned and wriggled out of his boxers as best he could. His cock jutted painfully free from the fabric, and his boxers went flying across the room. Henry regretfully pulled his finger out of Dingo’s mouth, and with both hands turned Dingo upon his stomach. His delectable bum rose before Henry, and he scaled it as if he were the first explorer to ever do so. His cock brushed against Dingo’s cleft, the tip threatening to slip in and begin penetration. Henry dragged himself further up Dingo’s back, his balls tightening as they brushed against Dingo’s bum. Desperate for friction, Henry ground his cock against one of Dingo’s arse cheeks—