The others heartily agreed. More than that, they shared their experiences with me. “Now this Mr. Debingham, he’s a rich and successful manufact’er. But what he likes most is to be undressed to his skivvies and be teased with little slaps and pinches. This excites him greatly and he’ll show it. Meanwhile call him ‘Bad Little Charles’ and he’ll grow greatly,” affirmed Big Joe, the oldest of the lads (number ten, Capricorn). “If you then force yourself onto his face, he shall at first turn aside but done one more time he will then accept you greedily and soon also achieve his wet little happiness.”
Slender, blond Freddy (number eight, The Scorpion) passed off his own well-to-do greengrocer. “Cover your pretties with a cloth, and prepare to be tongue-bathed, left ear to big right toe. For that is his demand. After that he’ll gaze at yer while you slowly as possible flog yerself.”
“I have known Greenie to deliver himself twice per session while gazing suchlike,” Barney Digby (number seven, The Scales) added in.
But soon, high-toned strangers to the house appeared for whom none of the established lads had any previous knowledge. Tiger Jukes would receive morning and early afternoon cards wrapped in fine notepapers of crushed rag, even vellum, requesting “the pleasure of the company of Young Mr. Addison,” often on a certain—usually that very—date, and a later time. As often as possible, she would accept the invitation. At the appointed time, the guest would be shown into Tiger’s own drawing room decorated with much heavy mahogany furniture, the current style. After she had ascertained the guest’s ability to pay and not to harm, she would ring a bell, and demure me would appear. After the second such visitor, she drove with me to Bond Street in her carriage for several fittings of clothing, so my appearance would be further appreciated. So particular in her directions for my shirts and suits was she that the tailors were certain we were son and doting mother.
I also appreciated how understated was my Mistress’s transition from the initial three-person social encounter in her drawing room to a more intense two-person one. “Ah, time! It runs away for one so quickly!” Tiger would say, surprised by the striking of the clock that she herself had set an hour earlier. “I must attend to household matters. Please, Addison, dear, would you mind escorting the gentleman to your chamber and show him your wonderful drawings?” Or new sheets of music, or recently purchased lithograph, or whatever.
Once in chamber (number six, The Virgin), Mister So and So or Lord Such and Such would enfold me in his arms and kiss me as often and upon as many suddenly bared parts of my body as possible. I, meanwhile, would quietly labour to bring him to a final pleasure as rapidly as manually possible. Often my client would be surprised to arrive there, and a second effort would be required, by other more personal means, “only because you are such a great Lord.” If I was interested enough, that would be even more delightfully achieved. A gift beyond what Tiger Jukes received would be forthcoming and a hope for a second or third or sixth meeting asked for. Once I’d delivered Lord Such and Such to the drawing room again and squeezed his hand in fond good-bye, there Anselm Jukes would be at his escritoire, beckoning a quick sit-down to inscribe a future appointment date.
None of the other lads were jealous, all of them looking outside to see the newest arrival and each one agreeing that “no such feller” ever visited them in their chambers. Eagerly did they ask me extremely personal questions about his conquests.
“His undergarments,” Digby must know, “were they silken?”
To which I, who’d looked closely enough, replied, “Italian wool.”
“Wool? Doesn’t it itch?”
“Ah, Barney, wool so fine it’s softer than silk.”
Which would garner a satisfied, “Aah! I knew it.”
But as I came to know the lads better, as well as their various boudoir attributes, I was able to pass some of my “better sort” on to them, especially if the lads had meanwhile developed “specialities.”
For example, Anthony, who was rather exotic in looks, with his olive skin and Mediterranean features, was “jest natcherally happy to have a feller up me bum.” So those who insisted upon such for me were treated to a double-lad experience, and while prettily I demurred, I also introduced Anthony, who would eagerly come in for the kill, as it were.
At times, Barney and or Big Joe might be gently called by a bell by the bed, all but invisible to guests, and join in with me and my client. The former for his acrobatic abilities—“I’ve never seen a nautical knot I couldn’t imitate” was his motto. While Big Joe was another “prodigy of nature” genital wise, and eager to insert that prodigy into orifices one might think ordinarily too small for it.
Freddy, of course, was the codger specialist, a lad who became truly stimulated only when his client had snow white hair, moustache, and beard, although any two attributions would do. He satisfied these elders to such an extent that once they’d tasted his exquisites, they never asked for any other lad. It goes without saying he was more highly rewarded than any lad, except for myself, since this age group represented a most consistent class of visitors.
Meanwhile, the extra pelf gathered smoothly, and lust-stricken Michael Aloysius ensured its placement outside the house in a spot only he and I knew of. Four dozen sovereigns were in that hidey-hole when, one thundery evening, a new client made a quiet entrance into Folly’s Ditch. Few of the men the lads were ever visited by were anyone but large, or full, or even plump gentlemen, since there was an assumed physical girth to anyone successful, and even the Peers were overfed by six-course repasts. So, the arrival of the slight and slender Eugene was notable. As was the fact that he was carefully, richly clothed and carried the proper accoutrements of a gentleman, from the rainbow hued pinfeather in his bowler hat down to tartan striped cross-strap for his boot spats. He had come particularly for Addison, he said, and Tiger had shrugged upon meeting him, meaning whatever Addison wished, yea or nay, before she would guide them into chamber six.
I was curious. This gentleman was unusually young—not quite beardless, he couldn’t have reached the age of thirty. He was slight, supple, but apparently also strong and masterful, inured to getting his way. Leaving me even more curious.
Once we were alone, he asked me to undress, which I did slowly, and with as much erotic intent as possible. Eugene definitely showed signs of erotic interest. His cheeks and ears reddened, and his eyes shone. But he didn’t for some minutes touch me, and, in fact, kept his hands to himself.
Disappointed that I wouldn’t have even an athletic tussle with this new client but must perform solo for him, I tried to fantasize what a possible encounter might be, when of a sudden Eugene had me by my standing member, and muttering something or other unintelligible, made it clear that object was his main interest. I watched him during this operation, and there was a definite heightening of all of those outward manifestations of love-making. So, why was there nothing more? Was Eugene deprived of his own manhood? Was it inoperative? For the latter, more than one client depended upon one of Tiger’s lads for successful stimulation to overcome such shortcomings.
I closed my eyes then, to think back upon Michael Aloysius’s last visit, but when I opened my eyes a slit, I watched Eugene prodding himself through his trousers at—nothing at all. This is no fellow, I said to myself and extended a hand to remove Eugene’s own and found unbuttoned exactly what one would expected to find with a Miss rather than a Mister. We quickly frigged each other to the expected bliss. Then, in a second, Eugene was up and about to leave.
“Wait!” I leapt up. When he insisted upon going, I said in a low voice, “Don’t let me call Tiger’s men on you for you to be thrashed.”
Eugene turned with fear apparent.
“Why?” I said.
As she stuttered an unheard reply, I went on. “I care not who you are, ‘sir.’ I expect it is easier in this outfit to secure a cab and come a distance.”
“Yes. You do understand.”
“I do. You may visit whenever you wish, no mat
ter what you may wear.”
“You mean so long as the hag takes her majority cut of your wages?” Eugene said to my surprise.
“Said boldly enough. Does that mean you would offer me better business?”
“I could and would, if you would allow me to.”
Her name was Vanessa, or so she said. She had been a young girl taken in hand by a glamorous elder and brought to the highest pitch of social acceptance in her own class, just one level below the highest Peers of the Realm. As such, she had succeeded in a fiduciary way well enough to retire.
“I travel incognito like this often,” she said, “even among my own sort. I’ve heard your name spoken in several of the best clubs in the Mayfair. Why not take advantage of that repute you have gained and strike out on your own? I assume you have savings. A great deal more can be obtained. There are gentlemen who would not step so far out here to Southwark, even to gaze upon your lovely self. But should you be ensconced closer to Hyde Park, they could easily become a far more regular custom.”
“And your own take would be?”
“A share of my own household expenses, nothing beyond.”
But first I must see Vanessa, or Eugene as she preferred to be known, in action. And for that she must first invite me to a private party at such a club as Eugene had spoken of.
Getting out of the house under the best of circumstances would be a chore, Tiger guarded her cubs so carefully. However, I had heard there was an upcoming annual vacation to the seashore, which Tiger would not miss for anything, one to which she brought some of the older lads and a few of her Bravos. As a rule, the house at Folly’s Ditch remained open for business, so long as the clients were known and, so to speak, established ones. No new ones might visit, since they must be greeted and first assessed by Mrs. Jukes’s gimlet eyes. They had to be already quite familiarly recognizable to Jem or Michael Aloysius.
And so, Eugene visited, and I got myself out of the house via a back stairway. Once that so-called visit was over, Jem and Gwillyum heard Eugene thanking a lad who was not even present, as I’d already slipped out and was waiting in her carriage two doors down the street.
Her driver met her and dashed into Rotherwite Lane and then farther west. Just beyond the docks area, Eugene and I laughed and kissed each other quickly at such a successful lark. Not very long after, the sparkling wet landau was clattering over rain-washed Waterloo Bridge into central London.
I’d been to several upper-class emporia, thanks to Tiger’s insistence that I dress higher than my station, but even so, the club we entered together took me by surprise. Not that it was ornate—it was anything but. Rather because it was so settled, so there, really, in all its dark wood wainscoting and deep tufted leather arm-chaired glory. Not a single object was small, thin, or in any way other than the steadiest and stoutest of its kind.
This particular get-together was a punch and smoking party, Eugene told me. I didn’t smoke cigars and hadn’t liked the one I’d once tried. But I found that with the windows and French doors open to a sort of second-storey stone terrazzo, I could breathe easily enough through the cigar and cigaret fumes. She had dressed me in my best clothing with a few of her own accessories, and the single glance I caught of us in a floor to ceiling looking glass as we were coming up to the second floor corridor showed me a fellow even I was amazed to see.
Not everyone knew Addison by name or reputation. Possibly none did. That was fine. I would be relaxed and confident and pass as one of the fellows. Meanwhile as I looked about myself, I saw at least one other person en travesti, taller, older, with a deeper voice and bewildering confidence, even swagger.
“I see you’ve noticed Terence,” a voice said next to my left ear. “Quite a remarkable story there.”
The speaker was a tall, soigne, ginger-haired fellow with nearly crimson moustache and a perfectly tonsured matching shovel beard. He’d been among a group Eugene had introduced, and I had noted these features immediately as well as his bright, sometimes hazel but more often green as a dragonfly, eyes.
“Indeed! I take it that you, Lord Tay, shall be kind enough to excuse my current ignorance and impart that story?”
The ginger eyebrows danced over the now merry green eyes.
“’Tis completely physiological in nature,” Tay said in a low voice.
“Completely?”
“Fearfully so. An undescended—” Here he leaned in close and slid a large hand along my inseam. “Testicle!”
He had found my own double number of that organ, and his hand must be rather delicately lifted away.
So, that was the story that Terence was giving out! Well, why not?
“Fearful, of course,” I commented, “to those of us who are fortunately fully descended.” Here I took hold of Tay’s inseam and found my mark.
“Touché!” Tay said, holding my hand in place. “Now that we are properly introduced and identified, more punch?” he offered with the other.
Eugene arrived with Terence and some other actual gentlemen to be introduced and Lord Tay slipped away. Throughout the next half hour or so until my group adjourned to a late supper of cold meats and cheese in a lower hall, I kept an eye on Tay, who never seemed to be too far away from us. “Your companion?” he queried. “Is he as much for the ladies as I have heard?”
“What have you heard?”
“Two fellows I know well witnessed Eugene with a chambermaid, not fully hidden from view, and they watched him pleasure the lass with his hand until she became so loud he needed his other hand to gag her and then she nearly fainted.”
That was interesting.
“And I’ve heard report that he is an expert in the French manner,” Tay continued, rubbing his tongue along his upper lips.
“While I’ve not myself witnessed Eugene engaged with any maid,” I said, “nevertheless, I’m left in no doubt of Eugene’s many oral talents.”
“Many oral talents! Do you mean to say…?” But then he was called away by insistent friends whom he’d promised to join for supper outside the club.
When we were again in the carriage and headed back south of the Thames, Vanessa asked, “What did Laurence want of you?”
“Laurence? You mean Lord Tay?”
She nodded.
“He wanted to see if I had both of my balls.”
“Because you were the prettiest there,” Vanessa assured him. “So, he wanted to be certain which you were,” and as she spoke she made her own inspection, busily opening my trouser buttons.
“Odd. I thought you were the prettiest,” I said as she worked to bring me off. But I was thinking of Laurence, Lord Tay, all the time she was frigging us together.
✥ ✥ ✥
One more such adventure was needed so that those in the house who may or may not have noticed me gone a while or returned would pass it off as a lark or at least not feel uncomfortable with the situation. This one took place at the end of that fortnight, and Eugene and I took a larger, faster four-horse brougham than usual, not into town but somewhat south and east to what I was told was a house party.
Such an event had become increasingly common among Eugene’s set, she told me, and was often written up in society pages the following week. Unlike the jolly-fellow-well-met atmosphere of the supposedly all-male club party, this was a display of both genders, and also a display of wealth although displayed mostly to one’s own equals, perhaps to a few poor relations and other hangers-on—and, of course, to the staff, which often numbered in the scores.
These country manses were mostly newly built, financed by recent, successful business schemes and fresh-as-paint affluence and were quite large, consisting of a dozen public indoor and semi-outdoor rooms as well as at least a score of bed chambers for guests. Games and sports were played out on the lawns and courts as well as indoor games in chambers specifically built for billiards or snooker. Bridge, whist, and other popular card games were common. Two younger fellows sharing a room was also common and younger fellows were requested,
indeed absolutely required, since for many a Mama, house parties were the ne plus ultra crux of their marriage plans for their well brought up and substantial, if seldom beautiful, daughters.
One might encounter young men in such numbers of such breeding and so very casually at house parties, so that the beginning of the Season In-Town sometime in mid-October was deemed do-or-die in the annual upper crust British mating game. Eugene flirted outrageously with several heiresses, including an American named Rosemary. And though I kept my eyes on lookout, I never found her with a chambermaid, unless she was better hidden than before.
Instead I looked around more circumspectly and most particularly at those young men who remained unattached after several rounds at court tennis or whist. I even more noticed those who appeared to be making what were clearly financial engagements leading to marriages where they might ensure that they later remained free enough for other types of more personal pleasure. These, I thought, might become the basis of my own future clientele.
Not exactly among this set was Laurence, Lord Tay, who was already in residence at Gathering Oaks, as this monstrosity of a house was known, when Eugene and I arrived for luncheon. He may have already been in residence for a period of time, since the owners, Prescott-Tays, were relatives. He clearly had several girls and especially their Mamas chasing after him. But his elusiveness was legendary, abetted by the story put about that he had been engaged to a lovely if fragile Yorkshire Miss, possessor of a manufacturing fortune, who had foolishly acquired a nasty ague and, even more absurdly, had died of it during their long engagement. As a result, Laurence was deemed “sensitive,” and even “rather morbid.”
“You, of course, are too young for any such course of action, are you not, Mr. Addison?” a particularly simpering Mama asked, as we estivated in wickerwork swings upon a veranda, while her bored daughter looked elsewhere in embarrassment. “Yes, of course, too young,” the Mama answered herself.
“But Lord Tay,” I asked her. “He’s of the right age, is he not?”
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