Desire in the Isles

by Roland Graeme

  Carter was a bit surprised by the lewd turn the conversation had taken. He liked all four of the young sailors—hell, he also liked Duncan Munro, whose more mature charms were far from negligible!—and he’d already indulged in fleeting fantasies about them, either singly or in various combinations. But it hadn’t occurred to him that his vile thoughts could have any basis in reality. None of the Scots, including Martin, had blipped on Carter’s usually reliable gaydar at all.

  “Don’t misunderstand me,” Hamish said. “Martin’s not gay. He just likes to suck cock.”

  “I see.”

  “Just like I’m not gay, but I do like to have my cock sucked. I hope that’s clear.”

  “I understand perfectly,” Carter assured the sturdy youth, although in fact Hamish’s logic rather eluded him. A penchant for sucking cock sounded pretty damn gay to him. So did receiving blow jobs from men on a regular basis. Whom did this strapping young number think he was fooling?

  Hamish, encouraged by Carter’s nonjudgmental response, kept talking, volunteering more information.

  “When it comes to getting a blow job, give me a man, any time. Most women aren’t very good at it. But when a fellow likes to suck cock, he’s usually really good at it. Maybe because he knows how it feels to have a stiff pisser himself. And he knows what it takes in the way of stroking and friction to bring it off.” There was a pause. Then, when Carter, who was at a loss for words, said nothing, Hamish went on, “What about you?”

  “What about me?” Carter responded, automatically. Their conversation was becoming a bit repetitious.

  “Don’t be shy, my man. Tell me in so many words. Do you like to have your cock sucked, and if you do, do you agree that men are better at it than women?”

  “Ah—yes, Hamish, and yes. Yes in answer to both questions.”

  “I knew you were no fool. Well, any time you’re hard up and you want some relief, just take Martin aside and ask him. He’ll take good care of you, and no one need be the wiser.”

  “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind, for future reference.”

  “Should any of the other guys find out, though, it’d be no big deal,” Hamish assured Carter. “Hell, we’ve had groups of gay men charter the boat. They sure knew how to party. They turned the boat into a floating Sodom and Gomorrah. They put the make on all of us, and sooner rather than later.”

  “Successfully?” Carter asked.

  Hamish grinned. “Well, Martin was in his glory. He spent so much time down on his knees that I told him he ought to buy a pair of kneepads. I can’t speak for the others. As for myself—well, like I said, I do enjoy a good blow job. I gave those men what they wanted. And, can you imagine? At the end of the trip, one of them handed me money, which he’d collected from his buddies. We’re not allowed to accept tips from our passengers, you know. But those gay guys thought I was a whore!” Hamish’s strong Scottish accent transformed the word whore into hoore, with a long-drawn-out, hooty vowel sound.

  “Did you take the money?” Carter asked.

  “Of course! I pocketed it, and my conscience never said a word about it.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  “You and the other Yanks, though—Martin wouldn’t expect any of you to pay him,” Hamish assured Carter. “He’d do it for the sheer love of cock. Like I said—the lad’s a bit peculiar that way. And you’re just the type he fancies.”

  “Ah—good to know, Hamish.”

  Afterward, it occurred to Carter—belatedly—that this might be a set-up, a prank. He’d proposition Martin, who’d react with indignation and disgust. Carter might even earn a punch in the mouth. And then Hamish would have a good laugh at his expense.

  On the other hand, Carter found it hard to believe that Hamish could be so malicious. And the rapturous look on Hamish’s face, the warmth in his voice, while he’d been talking about being on the receiving end of fellatio hadn’t seemed faked.

  Carter began to entertain fantasy scenarios in which he was cast away on one of the many tiny, uninhabited islands which the boat passed—with one or two of the horny young Scots for company. It’d make a good premise for a porn video, he decided. A sort of a gay version of Robinson Crusoe!

  “What are you smiling about?” Stash asked, when they got ready for bed that night.

  “Nothing,” Carter said. In fact he’d been smirking at the thought of Martin going down on him on a beach, after the two of them had enjoyed a nude swim and some preliminary man-to-man physical intimacies. “Just high on life, as the saying goes. Enjoying the trip, so far.”

  Stash grunted as he continued to scrutinize his laptop’s screen. “Good. Keep up that positive attitude, if you can.”

  “You always seem to manage to stay in a good mood. How do you do it?”

  “Well, for one thing, inconveniences such as the seasickness aside, I really do love this job,” Stash declared. “And I don’t think I’m a morbid person. Not the brooding type. I may not always be happy—who is?—but I think I’m usually cheerful. The two things aren’t the same.”

  “Do you—ah—?”

  “Personal question coming up?”

  “Yeah, if you don’t mind.”

  “Shoot,” Stash invited his cabin mate.

  “Do you ever have sex with anybody on these trips?”

  “Sure. Not that I go out actively looking for it. I’m usually too busy for that. But if the opportunity happens to come my way, I’ve been known to take advantage of it. After all, that’s part of exploring the local culture, too.” Stash still didn’t take his eyes away from his screen. “Are you volunteering, by any chance?”

  “Sex with me wouldn’t be part of exploring the local culture,” Carter pointed out. “You and I are both imports, here.”

  “That’s a diplomatic answer. I can’t remember ever having been rejected quite so politely. What’s the matter? I’m not your type?”

  “I have several types. I’m sure I could fit you into one category or another. But there’s that whole sex in the workplace thing. Which is a no-no, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Oh, yeah. You seem to be kind of hung up on that. Tedious.”

  “Still, it’s a fact of life. And when in Scotland, it seems a shame not to enjoy some Scottish dick. I’ve seen some hot men here.”

  Stash laughed. “So have I. What are you proposing? I’ll take the high road and you’ll take the down low—is that it?” he joked.

  “Not a bad idea. Between the two of us, we could cover a lot of ground. Anywhere else, I’d suggest that we could take some time out to go barhopping together. But are there any gay bars—sorry, I mean any gay pubs—in these small towns, on these small islands?”

  “Probably not gay establishments per se. Gay friendly, is the most I think we could hope for.”

  “Imagine growing up in one of these out of the way places. Let along growing up gay. It must be incredibly frustrating. Agonizing, even.”

  “I’m sure it is. But in my experience gay men are resilient, and resourceful. Somehow they manage to survive, and to find each other. Hey, that gives me an idea. If we could find a guy who’d be willing to talk about what it’s like to be gay here—what an interview that could make!”

  Carter caught the excitement in Stash’s voice. “Don’t you ever take a break from work?”

  “Rarely,” Stash admitted. “This gig gives new meaning to the concept of a full-time job. Am I keeping you up? Go to sleep, if you want.”

  “I think I will. I truly don’t have your stamina. Goodnight, Stash.”

  “Goodnight.”

  Lying in his bunk in the dark, once again thinking about Martin, Carter tried to ignore the semi-erection he could feel pulsing away under the covers. Restless, he had trouble falling asleep.

  Fuck, he thought, before he finally drifted off. Here I am, on a boat with eight attractive men. One of them, who’s right here in this cabin with me, is gay, just like me. Another one, Martin, supposedly likes to suck cock. And a third, Ha
mish, likes to have his cock sucked. Didn’t he tell me that Niall lets Martin blow him, too? It’s beginning to look as though the gay guys, or the gay friendly and the bi curious guys, could outnumber the straights on this boat. I don’t know what I’m waiting for, what’s holding me back. I must be slipping!

  The Rock Dove sailed around Hoy, an island named by the Norsemen, in whose language “hoy” meant simply “high island.” Once home to a fishing industry, the island was steadily losing population. The boat landed at the town on Lyness on the east coast, because Stash wanted to visit and film the remnants of the Scapa Flow naval base, which during World War II had housed approximately thirty thousand men. The film crew also ventured the short distance to the southern tip of Hoy, to tour Melsetter House—an old laird’s manor house which was enlarged in the late nineteenth century in the style of William Morris, with furniture designed by Maddox Brown and Gabriel Rossetti.

  The boat’s next stop was Eday. Here Stash filmed a segment in which he told the story of John Gow, an Orkney boy gone bad. In November 1724 a trading ship called the Caroline put in on the pirate-ridden Barbary Coast of North Africa and took on cargo intended for Genoa, Italy. John Gow, the second mate, decided to take up pirating himself. He led a mutiny in which the captain and three of the crew members were brutally murdered. Taking command of the Caroline, Gow renamed it the Revenge, and he sailed out of the Mediterranean via Gibraltar to begin what he assumed would be an easy and profitable career of seafaring crime.

  He captured a few merchant vessels, but in each case he discovered to his disappointment and disgust that their cargo consisted entirely of Newfoundland dried cod. And so Gow sailed north to try his luck in his home waters. When he reached Orkney, he changed the ship’s name again, to the George, to throw off suspicion. With a distinct lack of imagination, he also began calling himself James Smith. He landed on Stromness and raided Clestrain House there, but the raid was a failure. Gow crossed over to the little island of Cava, where he kidnapped some girls and kept them captive as his and his men’s concubines for a few days.

  Letting the girls go, Gow gave them enough money to find husbands, men who were willing to overlook the fact that their brides were “damaged goods.”

  Next Gow sailed north to Eday, where he remembered that one of his old schoolmates, a man named James Fea, came from a wealthy family and lived in Carrick House overlooking Calf Sound. Gow decided to rob his old friend. But his seamanship had gotten sloppy, and the Revenge ran aground within sight of Carrick House. James Fea witnessed the mishap and also saw the ominous sight of a group of armed men coming ashore. He organized a resistance, captured the raiding party, and took Gow prisoner. It was February 1725, which meant that Gow’s career as a pirate had lasted barely four months.

  Fea turned Gow over to the authorities, and he kept the Revenge’s ship’s bell, which was still on display in Carrick House. With typical eighteenth-century efficiency, the pirate was soon taken to London, where he was tried and hanged—but the rope broke. The hangman gave Gow a reassuring pat on the back, and hanged him again, this time successfully. His body was left dangling in chains to rot, as a warning to others.

  This wasn’t the first sensational event associated with Eday. A century previously, John Stewart, the second son of Earl Robert Stewart of Orkney, was accused of conspiring with a witch named Alysoun Balfour and poisoning his brother Patrick. Alysoun was tortured, but John was acquitted, created Earl of Carrick, and granted the island of Eday. He built Carrick House, where the date 1633 could still be seen carved in stone above the courtyard gateway.

  Stash related these stories for the benefit of Off the Beaten Track’s viewers with his customary élan. He speculated that Fea may have bullied Gow when they were in school together, thus providing a motive for the aborted robbery. “Fea probably gave Gow wedgies—if that was even possible with eighteenth-century underwear.” During the tour of Carrick House, Stash got a special kick when he was allowed to tap the Revenge’s bell with a small wooden mallet, and make it ring. “There you have it,” he announced with glee. “The exact same sound which James Gow and his crew of cutthroats heard, back in 1725!”

  Chapter Nine: Two Men in a Tub

  As the voyage continued, Stash was disappointed about one thing.

  He had a list of historic old lighthouses, with a map showing their locations. He’d hoped to interview an authentic lighthouse keeper, to get some idea of what such a lonely, isolated existence must be like. But modern technology had invaded the Hebrides. One by one, the old lighthouses had been automated. They now operated efficiently, without human intervention, aside from the occasional visit for routine maintenance.

  Frustrated, Stash joked that they could always hire some grizzled old resident of one of the islands to pretend to be a hold-out, traditional lighthouse keeper. But honesty in journalism prevailed, and he contented himself with filming the lighthouses’ admittedly picturesque exteriors, and describing their histories.

  Perhaps by partial compensation, on the small island of Sanday, Stash and Carter were able to film abundant wildlife. The birds they spotted and identified included corncrakes, Arctic terns, and ringed plovers. The grassy areas of the island were overrun by rabbits.

  The crew visited Els Ness, which at one time in the distant past had been a separate island, but was now a narrow peninsula connected to Sanday by an “ayre,” the local word for an isthmus. Here there could be seen many ancient cairns. Among these was the beautifully constructed chambered cairn at Quoyness, which had a central chamber and six cells. It was the largest such cairn excavated in Orkney, and bones found in it had been radio carbon dated to about 2300 BC.

  In addition to filming the site for the TV program, Carter took some cell phone shots of it. These, he forwarded to Liam, who he knew would be interested in them.

  Such Stone Age burial mounds were well preserved because they had been treated with respect by the island’s subsequent inhabitants, to whom it was well known that every mound had its own hogboon or goblin in residence. If disturbed or otherwise annoyed, these hogboons were likely to emerge from their appropriated dwellings and make life miserable for their mortal neighbors.

  Carter sent many of the pictures he’d shot of the cairn to Liam, who was now installed on the island of Rum. Liam thanked him, and the two men had a nice long internet chat.

  “Still carrying the torch?” Stash asked Carter.

  “Liam and I are friends,” Carter said, primly. “That’s all.”

  “All, my ass! Well, when we get to Rum, I’ll make sure to let you have some time off, so you and your friend can sit down together and discuss archaeology,” Stash promised.

  “Thanks. Is that sarcasm I hear, though?”

  “More like envy.”

  By now, life on board the Rock Dove had settled into a comfortable routine. Even Stash had begun to get his sea legs, although he still suffered agonies whenever the water got rough.

  “The Poles are known for a lot of things, but not for being a seafaring people,” he said, ruefully.

  Carter spent as much time as possible up on deck. Sharing a small cabin with another man wasn’t all that onerous, because he and Stash really used it only for changing their clothes, and for sleeping. But Carter enjoyed helping the crew sail the ship, or just standing at the railing observing the passing scenery.

  The food—the one thing Carter had been worried about, ahead of time—turned out to be excellent. Niall, in his capacity as ship’s cook, had a genius for making the most of canned goods. Every time the boat docked anywhere there were human inhabitants, he went exploring in the towns or the neighboring crofts, in search of fresh foods to purchase and add to the menu, to provide some variety.

  Nor did Niall restrict himself to foraging on land. Once morning the Rock Dove found itself sailing alongside a tiny fishing smack, manned by two weathered, rugged-looking older men. The bottom of the smack was filled with fish, freshly caught, still alive, and flopping about. After
some shouting back and forth of pleasantries, Niall lowered the Rock Dove’s dinghy and rowed over to the smaller craft. Negotiating a price, he returned with enough fish to provide feasts for three nights in a row. Poached, steamed, or grilled, and seasoned with herbs, the fish fillets were a big hit.

  Niall’s excursions on land did have some unexpected results. After the Rock Dove left Sanday, the crew dined on a hearty dish consisting of a braised mystery meat, tomatoes, potatoes, and vegetables.

  “What’s this meat, exactly?” Bill asked.

  “Wild rabbits,” Niall replied. “The kind we saw all over Sanday. I got them from a farmer who traps them. He even skinned them for me, because he wanted the skins. Tasty, aren’t they?”

  Hamish was aghast. “Oh, my God!” he blurted out. “We’re eating Peter Rabbit!”

  Robert shrugged. “Mr. McGregor always swore he’d get the little bastard.”

  “Guess we shouldn’t expect a visit from the Easter Bunny, next year,” Stash joked.

  Carter pondered for a moment, but then he too shrugged. “Screw it,” he said. “I’ll have another helping, please.”

  One of Niall’s specialties, thick, meaty grilled portabella mushrooms served on toast, was such a hit that the other men began asking for it as a regular treat, either for breakfast or lunch.

  The name Fair Isle was thought to be a corruption of “Far Isle,” because the crew’s next stop was beautiful, but indeed isolated. Fair Isle had several claims to fame. In 1568 an auxiliary flagship of the Spanish Armada, the thirty-eight gun El Gran Grifon, survived an attack by Sir Francis Drake in the English Channel and escaped into these unpredictable and often treacherous northern waters. A squall wrecked the ship on the rocks of Fair Isle at Sivars Geo, on the southeast side of the island, and about two hundred men made it to shore. The islanders assisted the castaways at first, but they lost patience when the Spaniards began helping themselves to their livestock, killing and eating their poultry, sheep, and cattle. They persuaded the sailors to board a ship headed for Shetland—where, because Scotland, unlike England, was not at war with Spain, the men were well treated until they could be repatriated.