He caught these thoughts as well and abruptly squashed them, warning himself not to get ahead of things. Escape came first. That required transportation. Besides, what would he want of some hypothetical nameless male when business was still so very much pending with Hamilton? Damn it to hell, but he would have that man.
Incredibly, that last kiss continued to tingle on his lips.
When he spotted the dark-haired man, he halted and kept his distance a moment. His quarry stood framed in a wide, open entrance to one of the rough structures. The interior was shadowed as the daylight continued to ebb. The man was drawing on a pipe, periodically illuminating the underside of his features.
In the dirt, twin tire marks led to the building. Jonny figured this group probably had access to more than just that one electricar. Ramona had mentioned people being shipped out tomorrow. That would require some concerted transport. But this camp was supposed to be a secret location, so the vehicles couldn’t be left outside, lest a passing Brit airship see them.
He studied his target. The man seemed to be trying to maintain a relaxed air, but Jonny noticed how he fidgeted and scuffed at the ground with his rough boots. Maybe he was worried about tomorrow, about going off to war or however it was these folk thought of it.
Or maybe he was anxious because he was waiting for something. For someone. For the answer to the flicker of a question he’d posed with his eyes across a table a half hour ago. Jonny sometimes wondered how it was men ever got together with other men at all. What if you didn’t know the clandestine signs? What if, like Hamilton, you had no sixth sense for homosexuality in another? Christ, they should print and distribute a field guide for queerness. Such a helpful volume was certainly overdue.
The man took a last nervous puff on his pipe and turned to go inside. That was when Jonny saw that the interior didn’t just lie in shadow. The entry was covered by a drape of dark canvas. They would have a measure of privacy within. He walked casually toward the structure and slipped past the crude drapery.
Inside, the dark-haired man was lighting a lantern and nearly tumbled it to the ground as he spun about, hearing Jonny enter. Jonny had deliberately scuffed his boots in the dirt, though he could easily have glided soundlessly in here and crept up behind this man. But he didn’t have violence in mind.
He put a finger to his lips in a shushing gesture. The man gulped, visibly and audibly, his gray eyes shining with the muted lantern light. Jonny’s vision swiftly adjusted. There was a car parked inside, a compact model. The mud on its wheels was fresh, so it must be in a functional condition. Good.
Jonny returned his attention to the nervous male. He stepped toward him, giving his movements a sliding ease, allowing a fetching smile to slowly play across his lips. He slipped the shotgun off his shoulder and set it on a shelf where anonymous tools lay. He held the other man’s gaze, staring penetratingly, no fast, cryptic glint of a look now.
One learned to read people. Like dreams, they fit into categories. There were set characteristics and levels of experience that went into the making of an adult homosexual male. In Jonny’s estimation, this man was no virgin as far as sexual contact with other men went. But he’d had to be terribly cautious about it. It must have been a risk to life and limb to practice the ways of Sodom in whatever village he had called home. Then again, one could get beaten to death on a city street for the same sort of “crime.” The prejudices of people were astonishingly stupid.
Still in silence, he stepped right up to the man with the dark, shaggy hair, who couldn’t hide his trembling nor the swelling excitement giving the crotch of his rough trousers an enticing bulge. There were subtler readings to take now. Jonny had met gay males who absolutely refused to kiss, regardless of whatever other acts they might eagerly participate in. He thought if he tried to press his lips to this man here, he might well bolt. So instead he simply stepped right up and pushed his groin against the man’s.
Jonny’s own cock answered the other’s swelling. A base excitement touched him, an almost mechanical bodily response. He dutifully produced a hard-on of his own and, moving his hips, ground it against this man’s. It had the desired effect. The man’s face clouded with lust, even as he continued to shiver. His gray eyes squeezed shut, and he said in a choked whisper, “My name’s Gus.”
Some men needed names. Some wanted total anonymity. Jonny obliged, sticking to the alias, which was all Hamilton knew him by. “J.C.”
It touched off something in the other man—in Gus. As if permission had been given, he seized Jonny’s hips and jammed his cock blatantly against Jonny’s, humping and grinding. He let out soft breathless grunts. Jonny wondered if all he had in mind was rubbing off against him. Maybe that was all the sex Gus had ever known.
Jonny pulled back, just enough to reach a hand between them. He slipped his fingers into Gus’s open fly and grabbed hold of his fiercely hard shaft. Gus jumped. Jonny squeezed the staff and gave it a few promising pumps. He smeared his thumb over the crown, feeling the oily ooze already seeping from his piss-slit.
“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” Jonny said in a low growl. “I’m going to kneel down and take this sweet stick in my mouth and suck on it until you come. You’ve never felt anything like it before. And after, you’re going to help me take this car out of here, with the friend I arrived with. You understand all that?”
The cock pulsed in his hand. Gus continued to quail. In the same choked voice as before he said, “Your… mouth?”
Had he never been sucked off? Maybe not. Just fast animal humping for him, because he didn’t know any better, because he hadn’t had the chance to truly explore who he was with other like-minded males. It was another good argument for living in the city, where there was at least variety to be had.
Jonny tightened his grip to an almost painful pressure. “Understand?” he repeated.
Gus started nodding jerkily and couldn’t seem to stop. Jonny smiled grimly and made to go to his knees. But Gus’s surprisingly strong hand caught his shoulder. “Wait,” he whispered. His eyes were suddenly full of pleading. “Please… take off your clothes. Lemme see you.”
Jonny wasn’t happy about the delay, but the entreaty was touching, in a pitiful way. How starved this country queer was. Jonny shed his waistcoat and shirt. He stepped out of the moccasins he’d put on to go out to a casual dinner in the French Quarter last night. But he removed his trousers slowly, letting Gus enjoy the final disrobing. Jonny had seen burlesque shows in New York, and while he had no great appreciation for women’s bodies, he valued showmanship. There was something exquisite about the last teasing bit of undressing when anticipation was keenest. Gus’s eyes got as big as saucers as Jonny finally stood nude before him, cock twitching. His gaze roved the bare flesh, and a look of melting desire overcame his face.
Despite himself, Jonny flushed at the attention. But to the business at hand. He knelt before Gus and drew his cock wholly out of the coarsely woven trousers. He was a fine length, and the musty lantern glow made the minute veins along the shaft stand out in relief. Jonny cradled his balls, feeling the sac stir with an aroused inner heat.
He slipped his tongue tip inside the foreskin and peeled it back from the bulging crown. The taste of him was raw but not disagreeable. He had a flavor of sweat, of exertion, and the familiar tang of masculinity. In his lifetime, how many cocks had Jonny Callahan sucked? It was a question for the ages, but he ignored it now as he settled to his task.
Closing his lips around the cockhead, he bathed the knob with his tongue. Gus deserved the full treatment. As he moved the circle of his mouth farther down the shaft, he heard the inevitable sigh of pleasure from above. He kept up a firm suction around the staff. His tongue traced the veiny lines, plucking skillfully at the thick underside cable.
He dropped his mouth lower and lower. Soon Gus’s cockhead was lodged comfortably in his throat, while Jonny buried his nose in the thatch of midnight-colored curls. He inhaled the sweaty scent, feeling a thrill
ripple through his own body. He hadn’t expected to have to get naked, but it was strangely exciting to be nude while his lover remained clothed. Something about the juxtaposition tickled an offbeat fancy. Sex was always the same and never the same.
Having given Gus an idea of what was it was like to be held so professionally in another man’s mouth, Jonny proceeded to blow him. Instantly he fell into the habitual rhythm. His neck muscles easily found their well-worn groove. He slipped the ring of his lips up and down the straining length of Gus’s cock.
When Gus started thrusting, instinct taking over, Jonny was ready for it. His throat muscles remained at their ease, and he swallowed Gus wholly every time his hips gave a spasmodic jerk. He knew he was probably ruining fellatio for this man from this moment forward. If ever Gus found another male who would use his mouth so—and he would certainly be motivated to—he could only be disappointed by sloppy suck-offs, by painful grazings of teeth, and men who didn’t know how to overcome their gag reflexes.
But that was too bad. His cooperation was required in tonight’s caper, so Jonny would be sure to leave him happy. As for his future, well, bumpkin Gus here would have to find his own way.
Jonny maintained his soft grip on Gus’s testicles. He increased the speed of his rising and falling mouth. Gus laced his fingers in his thick blond hair—more instincts asserting themselves—and thrust all the harder into his face. He was quivering again, but not from fear or anticipation. He gave a last spastic jolt and abruptly his seed was filling Jonny’s mouth.
The goo coated his tongue, the salty taste strong and lively. Jonny kept his lips sealed around the foreskinned cockhead until the final jet issued. Then he held him a moment more, gently caressing Gus’s balls while he faithfully swallowed the load.
He sat back, his own flesh still tingling, his cock hard. He fished around for his clothes on the dirt floor.
“Wait,” Gus said. “Wait… let me do that to you.”
For a second or two Jonny was very tempted. But he came up with his trousers and started to step into them. “That’s okay. You don’t have to.”
Gus’s strong hand landed on his. “Please. I want to. Where I’m from, no man’ll do anything with his mouth. It’s like a code. We—the few of us what fancy other men—we just rub on each other.”
Again Jonny was touched with pity. He hesitated. Gus quickly dropped his own clothing, revealing a thin but well-proportioned physique. The sight drove Jonny’s heart faster. “Well….”
Gus took that as an affirmative. He went abjectly to his knees before Jonny, eyes alight with wonder as he beheld Jonny’s rampant cock up close. How many firsts was it for this man tonight? Jonny glanced behind. The sunlight had all but disappeared around the canvas covering the building’s entrance. Anybody could walk through that at any time. Jonny shrugged. He’d made love under more perilous circumstances before, and who was he to deny his friend a rightful taste of cock?
But Gus, apparently trying to imitate Jonny’s actions, clutched his balls much too tightly. Jonny winced, reached down, and adjusted the man’s grip. It soon became obvious he would need to guide him through every stage of this particular activity.
That might do some widespread good, Jonny thought ruefully. Perhaps when this revolution was done, whichever way it ultimately shook out, Gus would return to his hamlet and instruct his fellow know-nothing queers in the proper art of oral gratification. Then they in turn could continue to spread the gay carnal gospel.
It started as a laborious exercise but then settled into a pleasant phase as Gus learned how to cradle Jonny’s cock on his tongue and apply an appropriate amount of suction. He kept his teeth tucked behind his lips. His enthusiasm couldn’t be denied. He made soft, deep, relishing sounds as he swallowed Jonny inch by inch. The gag reflex remained an impasse for several minutes. Jonny told him not to worry about it, but Gus wanted to know how it was done. He’d seen his own erect shaft disappear completely into Jonny’s mouth after all.
So Jonny talked him through that, and once it was accomplished and Gus had proudly swallowed him down to his buzzing balls, Jonny set himself on course to his own come. It didn’t wait far-off. But he was conscientious of Gus’s nascent sucking skills. He let the man drop his mouth repeatedly on him without answering with any drastic thrusts. Let him learn to manage that with some other future lover.
Jonny felt the muscles in his body loosening, felt his balls start to tighten. Pleasure streamed up through him. His skull seemed to fill with a soft, billowy cotton. He let his eyes roll back. He felt the lush, active warmth of Gus’s mouth.
But he needed to call an image of Hamilton to his mind to take him to his completion. Hamilton hovered in his thoughts, so beautiful, so desirable.
Then the final prickling bliss overtook him, and he unloaded his jets. He wouldn’t have faulted Gus for accepting one spew, then changing his mind about the matter and pulling his mouth away. But Gus stayed doggedly on the job, and Jonny looked down to see his throat working almost convulsively. It was always a fine thing to spend in a man’s mouth and see him drink it down.
A gentle delirium swept Jonny’s being, and then he brought himself back to the present, to the reality of what lay ahead. He grabbed for his clothing. Gus did the same, a lost smile on his face, his lips wet and slick. He was someone new now. Someone more authentic.
Jonny grunted to himself as he stuffed his softening cock back into his trousers. So long as Gus fulfilled his promise, he could be whoever or whatever he wanted.
TEN.
HAMILTON HEARD the tantalizing gabble of broadcast words as someone haphazardly toured the frequencies of a crystal communications set. He had to get in there and listen to the Fleet transmission. It was imperative he find out if this revolution were real or not, and if so, on what scale it was being waged.
The colonel to which Ramona had referred was named Turnbull. Hamilton had learned this simply by asking one of the camp’s slovenly inhabitants. He’d also found out that there was indeed an electricity generator, a small one, supplying power to the colonel’s cabin, and that, yes, Turnbull kept a crystal in there. He liked to monitor it. The Colonial Underground had made use of the frequencies, again according to Ramona, employing a system of coded transmissions to pass about information. It was an idea Hamilton himself had once had, he recalled, but he’d been reluctant to pose it to anyone of greater authority in the Fleet lest the proposal be summarily slapped down because of his status as a jackyank.
All that bother about caste and station seemed fantastically petty now, Hamilton thought bitterly. Why should any British-born person care that his mother had given birth to him in a Boston hospital? That peculiar prejudice must have its root in idleness. The “Brits,” with their comfortable superiority in all things militaristic, technological, economical, and cultural, had somehow found time to nurture a trivial intolerance for fellow citizens who hadn’t drawn their first breaths on proper English soil.
Was that how these Colonists—these Americans—felt, with their own sense of oppression writ much larger? Did they hate the British for their smugness, as much as anything else? Not that Hamilton was feeling the least sympathy toward their cause. He had witnessed firsthand how cold-blooded and murderous they could be. Certainly he would never forget Berwyn Prichard dying in his arms from a knife wound inflicted by one of those people.
After sharing that kiss with J.C. inside the latrine, Hamilton had gathered his initial field intelligence and circled around to Colonel Turnbull’s hut. The kiss had been another sweet shock, a sexual and even romantic jolt. He desired J.C. more than he knew how to express, but his connection to J.C. ran deeper than the needs of the body, it seemed.
J.C. was helping him get away from this place. They were partnered up, working in concert. He wasn’t one of these rebels. He wasn’t looking to murder British citizens or—what was the ultimate goal of these revolutionaries?—take total control of the Colonies. Did these rebels think they would be a nation then?
Misguided savages. It took strength of character to stand as a sovereign nation. It required tradition and moral fortitude. The Americas had none of these. This was still a youthful land, and a youth’s lot was to obey its elders.
But it was the kiss that rose up in his mind whenever he thought of J.C., blotting out all other considerations. It was now as though the man had been stamped into his being, his impression permanent. Hamilton wanted him in every way. Body, heart, intellect. All of him.
By God, was this what the poets wrote about? Was this… love?
He had come around to the back of the colonel’s shack. Through a window covered over with dark cloth, he heard the cascade of changing voices, the odd blurps and bloops as one frequency was rapidly traded for another. It was maddening. He could barely catch five words in a row before the impatient hand spun the control knob. This, then, was Colonel Turnbull’s idea of “monitoring” communications. It seemed more how a child would treat a crystal set, twiddling capriciously, endlessly delighted by the magical invisible people who spoke out of the box.
The day had gone. Forest night was settling. Hamilton didn’t have much time until J.C. had said the vehicle would be ready. How J.C. meant to acquire the transport he didn’t know, but he trusted J.C. to deliver. Which meant he, Hamilton, had to complete his own mission as swiftly as possible.
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