Lexington Black

by Savannah Smythe

  Previously, he had sorted out the notes he needed to work on his novel. With the chapters he had already written, he was looking forward to collating it all and seeing how far he had progressed. It was with a sense of excitement that he put them in his in-flight bag. He didn't want to risk them being lost, should his suitcase not make it to Manhattan.

  Whilst eating sweet and sour pork out of a cardboard carton, he sorted through his old bank statements, letters and receipts. He made four piles, for recycling, filing, shredding, and for taking with him to America.

  Soon the pile of recycling was growing and the one for shredding was even bigger. It felt good to actually get his papers in order. With the first box sorted, he moved onto the second one.

  On top of yet more papers was a single photograph from his childhood. Staring at the slightly faded picture he saw his mother, tall and grim, with the five children, including him. There wasn't a lot of joy in them and as far as Rob knew, nothing much had changed. Roger was the superior eldest, practically a stranger now he lived in Quebec. Christopher was standing next to Geri, then boyish and truculent, and himself, lanky and angular, a carbon copy of his father. At the time the photograph was taken, Sara was an obstreperous five year old, held tightly by their comfortable nanny, who had given them all the love their mother seemed incapable of. Inevitably, his father had managed to get his long shadow in the frame as he took the picture. It would have been a family joke, had the family been capable of laughing about anything.

  More sorting elicited no more photographs, just a lot of old school reports which he did not have the heart to throw away, and a copy of his dissertation on Ancient Greek Poetry for his English Literature degree at Durham university. He flipped through it, hardly believing he had actually written something that intellectual. He could have gone into teaching with that kind of knowledge but had chosen accountancy to spite his mother. If he hadn't, he might have been an author by then. And he wouldn't be divorced from the woman he had met on his accountancy course, and sitting in a shitty flat that smelled of kebabs.

  And he wouldn't have met Lexington Black.

  As Lex said, regrets were useless. What mattered was going forward.

  He put the dissertation back in the filing box. One day, he might show it to Lex as proof that he wasn't just a pretty face, if he ever had the opportunity.

  The thought that he might not depressed him, so he shoved it away and continued with his clear out, finding some old cassettes which he chucked in the bin, grateful that his taste in music had improved immeasurably.

  Then he picked up a photograph album, and felt sucker-punched when he realised what it was. At the time, he hadn't thought about it, but he was holding his wedding pictures. Sandy obviously didn't want to be reminded of their wedding day and that actually hurt.

  She had looked so beautiful, ahead of fashion in a slim silk column of a dress, her hair caught up and fastened with white rosebuds. He was reticent and solemn in his top hat and grey tails.

  Looking at his picture now, he could tell he had been having doubts. He tried to summon some feeling of regret or love for the blonde woman standing next to him but she had ceased to mean anything to him. He might as well have been looking at a stranger's photograph, therefore the album could go.

  He slammed it shut and threw it on the rubbish pile, then after a moment retrieved it again. Whether she liked it or not, their marriage had been real and was an indelible part of their lives. If he just threw it away, he was no better than either his ex-wife or indeed his mother had been, trying to scrub his father out of existence after his death. It was something else to show Lex, if the opportunity arose.

  At the very bottom of the box was another, battered and rusted, with a slender metal handle. It was an old gun box, containing precious mementos of his father. The tin box had gone with him wherever he went, even up to his digs in Durham during his university days. He did not want to risk his mother finding and destroying it.

  After Charles Martyn's suicide, his mother had insisted he be buried in an unmarked grave, as if that would be enough to absolve the family of his shame. Rob had never forgiven her for that. He was desperate to have some form of connection with him. As soon as he could, he had gone into his study and taken a few precious items, his cigars, clipper and lighter, his pen, a spare watch and an unopened cardboard tube. From the label, he knew it contained a coiled photograph of his last year at Melville Hall. It was the only photograph he had of his father, yet he had never been able to face looking at it.

  For a while he looked at each item, running it through his hands, sniffing the faded aroma of the cigars, now crisp with age. He held the cardboard tube in his hands, his thumb stroking over the unbroken seal. He had to face it at some point and that evening was as good a time as any.

  In the end he finished his meal, washed up the cutlery and put the recycling out for collection.

  Then he put all the confidential documents for shredding in a plastic bag which he hid under his bed, and packed the metal gun box back in with the filing. He reassembled his coffee table and checked his suitcase yet again, making sure he had everything packed and ready as the taxi was picking him up at five the following morning. A small rucksack held his hand luggage, including his plane tickets, passport, wallet, other important documents, camera, e-reader, laptop and a spare pair of glasses just in case he sat on the others. He went through it all two or three times to satisfy himself that he was completely organised.

  And all the while, the cardboard tube sat on the sofa, waiting.

  When he could not possibly do any more chores, he sat in the chair opposite and stared at it as if it were an unwelcome relation bringing bad news.

  Maybe he wasn't ready.

  He was a grown man and if he wasn't ready, it didn't matter.

  But he was a grown man, and he should be able to cope with things like that. Cope, deal with it, and move on.

  As he went to break the seal, his phone rang. He threw the tube on the sofa and went to answer it.

  It was Geri, making sure he had packed everything, and no doubt, to try and convince him not to go. She hadn't been as relentless as she usually was. Maybe she realised that she wouldn't be able to sway him. As they talked, he put the cardboard tube in his suitcase, and zipped it up. He would better be able to deal with it when he was 3,000 miles away.

  Lex called to confirm flight details, and to tell him to meet him at The Blue Bayou at 8 o'clock the following evening. Other than that, there was little conversation, as he had just stepped out of a meeting. He sounded weary, and relieved that Rob would soon be there.

  I'm in your hands, Rob thought, as he went to sleep.

  CHAPTER 7 - An Ego Is Born

  For a long while, I believed that Lexington Avenue had been named after my parents' one and only child. After all, they were obscenely wealthy, thanks to their forefathers prospecting on the property market. My grandfather carried on the tradition, owning large tracts of Manhattan, which he filled with skyscrapers. My father managed them, eventually building one of the largest investment companies in the city. I was expected to carry the mantle forward and so far, I had not gone against his wishes. A multi-million dollar trust fund tends to focus the mind. Even so, I intended to leave it all behind one day and live where I could smell the tang of the sea again, and drive into the mountains where the air was so fresh it turned my lungs inside out with a single breath.

  Yet I love skyscrapers. When I was much younger I wished I was Peter Pan so I could fly around them, watching snapshots of people's lives, alighting on the very pinnacle of the Chrysler Building and admiring the facetted glass panels and art nouveau design close up. I wished I could have been there in the 1930's when it was being built, and feeling the awe of something that had never been accomplished before.

  So I loved skyscrapers and hated them too for taking me away from the libidinous life I had in California. My father's stroke put paid to my fun. Suddenly, I had to grow up, be responsible, m
ake expensive decisions. Just as well I was good at it.

  There were some compensations, though. My home was at the very top of Black Tower, fifty stories above 5th Avenue, with a spectacular view of the city and an infinity pool that was the envy of most other penthouse occupiers, and I had a team of people to deal with the necessary irritations of life. There were maids to run my apartment, keep it clean and keep me fed. I had two chauffeurs on call, both trained helicopter pilots so when they weren't driving the company limousine they could fly me to wherever I wanted to go. My PA, Jonathan, was my carotid artery at work. He was a master negotiator, planner, organiser of almost every aspect of my life. I paid them all well, looked after them, and in return the service was exemplary. My life was as seamless as I wanted it to be, except for one thing.

  Love doesn't come easily when you are heir to vast wealth. If you're a handsome fucker like me, it's even worse. An ugly man will know that their potential partner is likely to be more about the money than the love, but a good-looking bastard like myself will never really be sure. My therapist says I have trust issues. Well, hold the fucking front page, mister.

  Okay, so here's the deal. In the mirror I see someone 6'4" and well-built, (thanks Irish Dad) with pale blue, almost grey eyes and sharp cheekbones in a long, oval face, topped with straight black hair (ciao, Italian mom.) They also imbued me with a gigantic sense of self-worth. When I asked why I didn't have any brothers and sisters, my mother told me that perfection could not be bettered, and for years I believed her.

  What an arrogant asshole I was, until Melville School cut me down to size.

  After I came out of the closet, I had no patience with people who hid their true nature. I valued honesty above everything else. The wealthier you are the more it counts. I can't understand celebrities who are afraid of ruining their careers by coming out. Ditto action movie stars. Everything they are afraid of is bullshit. Once I informed my father and seen his world come crashing down around his feet, I made no attempt to hide my sexual proclivities. After all, at the time I thought my inheritance was dead in the water anyway.

  I work by day in my office on Madison Avenue, overseeing the staff of Black Tower Investments, Inc., acting as a benign, and sometimes not so benign, presence that people can come to if they need help. I have a vast, glass-lined office, in which I break all the rules and smoke Cuban cigars when the mood takes me. There is Grand Marnier VSOP on an antique card table that was sent over from England soon after I returned home when I was eighteen. As the years go by, I know I am morphing into the man who has haunted my thoughts for years. I know it, but I don't want to stop it.

  And now I cannot stop thinking about Robin, his beloved middle son.

  Robin Martyn. Just rolling his name around my tongue makes me hard. Crude, but it's true. As soon as I saw his beautiful face, I knew I had to have him.

  I was drawn to him whilst he was polishing the white Audi, giving the car loving, almost sensual attention. I was transfixed by the way his muscles moved under the white cotton shirt, his brown wavy hair and long, lean limbs. Of course, I didn't know who he was then. My eye had just been caught by an attractive man caressing the hood of a beautiful car. I watched him under the pretence of admiring the vehicle, but when I saw his face fully for the first time, the breath was snatched from my body. I knew that face almost as intimately as my own.

  At that moment, my feelings on honesty changed. I would have to lie like the devil if I wanted that man in my bed.

  ******

  When I was twelve, my mother got it into her head that the only decent education I would get would be in England. No-one considered asking me what I thought of the matter. I do remember protesting wildly, and sobbing into my pillow on the first night at school whilst the other boys whipped me with socks to get me to shut up. It took a year for the torment to stop, and it only did because I grew about a foot in that time and learned how to tackle.

  At the age of fourteen I became friends with two boys who had been boarding at the school since they were six years old. For all that time, they had been inseparable, and now they were in senior school, their devotion to each other had taken on a different dimension. Their names were Peter Wyngarth-Jones and Gavin Farquar, but we knew them collectively as "The Queens" due to their sarcastic, effected speech and camp mannerisms. They were constantly bitching about other people, as well as each other, and were so incredibly intelligent that they could have run the country. Because of their academic prowess and vicious tongues, they were left alone, which made everyone's life slightly easier.

  I guess they must have sniffed out something about me because they became solicitously friendly. At the time, I had no idea of my sexuality. I hadn't given it a thought.

  Actually, that was a lie, but I had gone along with the assumption of everyone else that I would find girls attractive. It wasn't until I was fifteen that I admitted to myself they did nothing for me.

  The Queens had already suspected though, and one day when we were talking in their room, Peter produced a magazine from the bottom of the trunk at the bottom of his bed. We all had them, filled with personal items that no-one else was allowed to touch, on pain of extra homework or detention.

  To my surprise, it was a copy of Hustler. On the front, a pretty blonde girl with big breasts pouted out at me.

  'We're doing a scientific experiment,' Peter explained, handing the magazine to me. 'Have a look at that.'

  'A scientific experiment?' I was sceptical, as the Queens were known to play cruel tricks on those they despised, which was just about everybody.

  I started to flip through the magazine. Tits, tits and more tits. I had seen magazines like this before, well-thumbed and pored over by my room mates, but they didn't do anything for me. I shrugged and threw the magazine on the bed.

  'Good. Now this one.'

  It was a catalogue selling men's underwear. The men were all tautly muscled, with big packages filling tight briefs. I began to feel slightly uncomfortable and shifted my position.

  'Hah! Thought so,' Gavin crowed, snatching the underwear catalogue from me. 'You're one of us, Lexi. You belong to our very exclusive club.'

  'Sorry, I don't get it.'

  Peter sighed dramatically. 'You're queer, darling. A poofter. Just like us.'

  Considering I was over six foot by then and quite capable of knocking them senseless with one blow, it was a brave, if not absolutely foolhardy, trick to pull. But as they said it, everything made sense. I had begun to worry that I just wasn't interested in sex. It turned out that I was, just not with girls.

  The Queens were happy to keep quiet about it, on account that I had stood up for them on occasions when newcomers thought it was funny to bash the girly-boys. I was their tame muscle man, and they were happy to be discreet for me. Not that there was anything to be discreet about. During my time at Melville I wasn't buggered, sodomised, abused, gang-raped, Svengali-ed, seduced, groped, squeezed or anything else for the whole five fucking years I was there. For a country whose closet had been nuked wide open at least two decades before, whose male population was, it was said, to be inherently gay, there seemed to be absolutely no male tail to be had in the whole goddamned school. Apart from the Queens, who were like sisters to me and therefore strictly off-limits, everyone, every-fucking-one was straight.

  Yeah, right. And I was fucking Snow White.

  As my hormones went into over-drive, so did the callouses on my palms from all the jerking off in the dead of night. The beginning of each term meant fresh porn, brought in by the Queens. God only knew where they got it from. It was pretty strong stuff and if a teacher had discovered it, it would have meant instant expulsion. That formed the basis of my sexual enlightenment. As far as cock went, I wasn't fussy. Cut or uncut, it didn't matter. I didn't dig hair on any part of the body apart from the head or the pits. The thought of chewing on pubes didn't float my boat at all, yet Peter thought it was the hottest thing ever. He was into big bears of men, guys who could gather him
up, nurture him and pound him into the floor. Gavin, the hairiest motherfucker I'd ever seen, was into pretty, smooth-skinned boys. They were ideally suited to each other.

  Me? My ideal porn playmate would be dark, brooding, toned and devoid of groin forest. I lost count of the amount of heated discussions we had about finding a dark-haired man who didn't have a positive thatch going on down there. Peter said they didn't exist, and if they shaved, it would just look weird.

  I would say that wanting pubes in your teeth was weird. I mean, crunchy.

  The conversation would almost always head round to my ideal man, and there was only one person I had in mind for that role. In a school where secrets were hard to keep, this was mine, the object of my lust. And because I was Lexington Black, I aimed high. I aimed for the fucking top.

  CHAPTER 8 - The Satyr Awakes

  Mr. Martyn joined the school the same year I did. I remember sitting near the front of the school assembly. The younger boys all sat on the floor, being kicked by the older ones in the chairs behind them. I remember two things from that first assembly. My ass, numb from all the kicking, and the tall, brown-haired man with hawk-like stare, scowling at us in a way that made my balls shrivel. The old Head had retired. He was known as a kindly soul whom all the boys adored because he let them get away with murder, but this new Head was the most terrifying man I had ever seen. He wore a black suit and tie, as if going to a funeral, and he wore his black robes with elegance. As he fixed each of us with a glare we all shrank back as if to try to hide from his steely gaze.

  We soon discovered he was a hard taskmaster, and would give detentions for the slightest misdemeanors. He never raised his voice, and because of that, he was all the more frightening. The coldness in his tone as he chastised us in our maths class was enough to ensure acquiescence. I was totally in awe of him, but it wasn't until I realised I was gay that my admiration took on a decidedly sensual piquancy.