A Most Personal Property (Ganymede Quartet Book 1) (24 page)

“I was just watching…” Henry blushed and looked away.

“Was I too loud, Sir? You shouldn’t put up with it if I’m bothering you.” He was already putting the violin back in its case.

“No, no,” Henry insisted. “I
liked
it. I just wanted to see you play.”

“Oh, well, of course, Sir. You’re welcome to watch anytime.” He latched the violin case and added, “Any sort of music
you
want to hear, Sir, I’d be happy to play for you. I needn’t always be practicing my piece.”

“I like hearing the differences,” Henry told him. “The improvements. It’s getting better, don’t you think?”

Martin smiled. “It’s kind of you to say so, Sir, but I’m not sure you’re correct.”

Henry was about to suggest they play poker if Martin was through with the violin for the day when there was a commotion in the hall and a knock on the door.

“It’s Billy, Sir. May we come in?”

It was Billy, Paul, Johnny and one of the maids, all with packages and garments on hangers: Martin’s clothes. They carried it all into Martin’s room and put it into the wardrobe or piled it on the desk. There was a festive air to the proceedings and Martin was excited and exuberant. Henry shooed away the rest of the slaves and lounged in the doorway, watching as Martin unwrapped a stack of new shirts then took the dust sheet off of his new custom-made jackets and school uniform.

“May I try on my jackets, Sir?” Martin asked hopefully.

“Of course. You should try it all on, in case it needs to be redone.”

“Very good, Sir.” Martin shrugged off his ready-made jacket and pulled the nearest of the new ones off its hanger. “Oh, it’s better already, Sir! Such nice fabric.” He put on the new jacket and gave a little tug to the lapels, settling it over his shoulders. His face lit up with an incandescent smile. “It feels wonderful! How does it look?”

Martin’s beauty enhanced by boyish excitement was a thing to behold. Henry scarcely trusted himself to speak. “You look very nice,” he managed.

Martin did look nice. The sleeves were longer and the torso slimmer than with the ready-made jacket, and it made Martin look so much more aristocratic. He and Martin were built quite similarly, but Henry thought Martin more elegant by far, so graceful, and the new jackets showed him in that light.

Henry fled the room when Martin tried on his new trousers.

After perhaps twenty minutes, Martin emerged into Henry’s room dressed in all new clothes, everything made to measure and fitting perfectly. The fawn trousers, black waistcoat, black jacket and even the shirt were of noticeably superior quality compared to what he’d been wearing all week prior. He was beaming. “Sir, everything’s so lovely. I never had new clothes until I came to you, and now these are so nice! I’m quite spoiled, really!”

“You never had new clothes?”

“Well, except for the clothes I was given for the auction, Sir. But those were quite cheap—meant to be thrown away. There are so many boys at Ganymede, Sir, we all wore hand-me-downs. Everything there is worn until it’s rags.”

Henry had certainly never worn used clothes, and he doubted any of his friends had, either. He’d always imagined that the people who wore used clothing and hand-me-downs were the poorest of the poor, but maybe they were simply practical.

“It all fits very well, Sir. I shall do you proud Tuesday when you show me to your friends.” Martin ran his hands over his torso, smoothing the jacket along his sides.

Henry thought that would have been the case even if Martin was in ill-fitting clothes but did not say so. He could not think of a way to tell Martin how handsome he looked without just coming out and saying exactly that. “I’m glad everything is suitable,” he said stiffly instead.

Martin went down for his dinner excited to show off his new garments to his fellow slaves. He returned in high spirits and Henry wished he could give him something new every day, something that would make him happy like this.

“We have a little time before you need to dress for dinner, Sir. Would you like to play cards, by any chance?”

They played poker and, once again, Martin fared better than Henry, though it didn’t matter to Henry in the least. When it was time for Henry to dress for dinner, Martin had a dollar and forty-seven cents and Henry had fifty-three cents and, rather than putting their coins back in the tin, they kept them out and separate, with the plan being to continue playing until one of them was completely out of pennies and the other could be declared the overall winner. It seemed quite obvious to Henry that he would be the loser: he had no skill, no strategy, and he ultimately didn’t care about winning anyway. He just wanted to be with Martin without embarrassing himself too much.

Dressing went well enough for Henry to be optimistic about the future. Should things continue to go well, he could foresee a time when he might even be willing to let Martin tie his tie.

Dinner was just Father and Henry and the slaves. Mother was most likely overwrought from her encounter with the Spiritualists and did not make an appearance.

“Timothy tells me that your Martin’s clothes were delivered today,” Father said. “Everything is in order, I trust.”

“He’s wearing new clothes now,” Henry told him. “They fit very well.”

“Stand where I can see you, Martin,” Father said, directing his remarks above Henry’s head.

“Is this good, Sir?” Martin’s voice, off to the side, out from behind Henry’s chair. “Is there enough light for you to see, Sir?”

“Turn around,” Father said. “All the way around.” He watched with a critical expression. “Hmph. Son, I want you to reconsider that hair.”

“Yes, sir,” Henry said, because he had to say something. He had no intention of cutting Martin’s hair unless Father outright ordered him to do so.

“Thank you,” Father said to Martin. “As you were.”

Father had nothing more to say to Henry until after the dessert plates had been cleared. “Once again, we are without your mother’s company,” Father commented. “Since there will be no reading tonight, I suggest you get a good night’s sleep, son.” To Timothy he said, “Do you think it’s too late to make a call to the West Coast?”

“I think it might be, Sir, but we can certainly try.”

Martin followed Henry up to his room. Again, it seemed early for pajamas, but Henry didn’t want to lounge around in his dinner suit and starched shirtfront. Martin helped him get into his pajamas, changed into his own, and took their laundry down to Mary.

Henry leaned back against the headboard, pillows plumped at his back, and tried to read while he anticipated Martin’s return.

“Are you enjoying your book, Sir?”

Henry closed the book, keeping a fingertip between the pages to hold his place. “Er, yes. I’ve read it before. It’s a good one; it’s one of my favorites.”

“Thank you again for letting me read your books, Sir.” Martin stood with his hands behind his back, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He had a tense, hopeful expression, and Henry gritted his teeth, knowing what was coming.

“Sir…if there’s anything I might do for you, you need only ask. Anything at all, Sir.”

Henry’s face grew hot and he stared furiously into the open pages of his book. “No, really, Martin. I’m fine. I don’t need anything.”

“It doesn’t have to be something you
need
, Sir,” Martin said, his voice faintly suggestive of decadent, muscular possibilities. “Just something you
want
. You understand this, Sir.”

Shocked, Henry stared at him. Martin looked back at him, his gaze direct and steady, his offer still there between them for Henry to answer.

“No,” Henry insisted. “I don’t want anything, either.” The lie was not convincing; he could see that Martin did not believe him.

“Very well, Sir,” Martin said, defeat in the slope of his shoulders. “I’ll just be going to bed then.”

Henry watched him turn and retreat down the hall to his own room, turning off his lamp shortly thereafter. Henry kept up the pretense that he was comfortably reading for perhaps ten more minutes before shutting off his own lamp. He lay awake listening for Martin, his breath, his limbs moving beneath the sheets, and thought of him undressing, bending naked. He shook his head, trying to be rid of the thoughts, but the images wouldn’t dissipate, and he struggled fitfully against their seductive tyranny, tangling his feet in the sheets.

He was almost asleep when Martin rose to use the toilet. Tinkle and flush, and then Martin came into his room, a few hesitant steps. Henry shut his eyes and was very still. Martin stood looking at Henry a few long moments and then returned to his room. Oddly, Henry felt a bit calmer after this, and was able to fall asleep in short order.

Monday was the Labor Day picnic for all the slaves. It was a day of extra work for Cook and the scullery maids, who prepared a special meal for all of the Blackwell slaves in addition to making breakfast for the Blackwells. The slave picnic was packed up with the second-best china and was ferried to the park in wagons, where everyone sat on blankets on the grass in clean, starched uniforms and stuffed themselves and socialized with slaves from all the other grand houses up and down the street. Additionally, all the working people of the city had a parade downtown that Henry was not allowed to attend, Father and Timothy citing riffraff and rabble-rousers as reasons to stay home.

Martin got Henry up and dressed, and accompanied him down to breakfast, but Henry understood that he would have to let Martin go for the rest of the day. Even though these last few days had been a sort of torture and it would be a relief to be alone for a bit, he would feel Martin’s absence. Henry ate his pancakes slowly, prolonging their time together.

Even Timothy would go to the picnic, though Pearl was stuck with Mother. Poor Pearl never got a break from her mistress. Martin seemed a bit impatient, which Henry could understand a little; it was Martin’s first outing as a member of the Blackwell staff, one of the first opportunities for him to meet his counterparts from other houses. From what Henry understood, the Blackwell slaves had it better than most others, were better provided-for, better-fed. If you had to be a slave, being a Blackwell slave wasn’t a bad life at all. As far as Henry could tell, all their slaves were happy, or happy enough.

After Martin left, Henry had no better idea how to occupy himself than when Martin was steadily at his side. The house always seemed big and empty, but even more so today, without the slaves creeping silently about their work. Henry thought to go to the nursery to visit Cora, but then remembered that at her age she’d be in the park with Nurse. He wondered if Cora was happy to see Martin again and guessed that she would be.

In his room, Henry dithered, pacing the short hall between his room and Martin’s, back and forth past the open bathroom door. He had every right to go into Martin’s room. If Martin walked in right now, he could have nothing to say to Henry about his behavior. Henry was allowed everything, all the time, wherever he wanted to be. He took a deep breath and went into Martin’s room. The maids had made the beds while he was at breakfast and had changed the sheets, so there was no point in pulling back the covers to seek signs of Martin’s presence.

Martin’s clothes hung neatly in the wardrobe. He’d had them such a short time, he hadn’t even worn most of them yet. Henry stuck his head in the wardrobe and breathed in deeply, but all he smelled was wool and laundry soap. Henry snapped open the violin case and looked for signs of him there, finding a few fingerprints on the body of the violin but nothing more tangible. There was the faint, piney smell of rosin but no more personal scent. Despite this, Henry’s cock was hard, his body wracked with nervous trembling, and he was overcome with an urge to put the wet head of his cock somewhere that Martin would touch later, unknowing. He had his pants half-unbuttoned before becoming disgusted with himself, and tore himself away, whirling back to his own room where he hurriedly did up his pants and sat on his hands on his desk chair, breathing in harsh, frightened gasps.

He got up and stood in the hallway again, looking into Martin’s room, remembering Saturday night, Martin undressing. Martin naked and bending, his long white back and lean limbs, his balls and cock exposed from behind. Tender pink skin, reddish hair. Would Martin’s skin feel like his own, tissue-thin and hot and silky? Would the hair be soft or crisp? What would he smell like, taste like? Henry felt frantic, like he would have to tear off his own head to get relief. He rubbed his cock through his trousers, a petulant keening escaping through his nostrils. He wouldn’t go to the park to find Martin and demand he return home, he wouldn’t do that, but oh, how he wanted to! He wanted to make Martin strip for him and bend over, exposing his ass and balls and cock, and he’d touch him, eager to know all the different textures of his delicate parts, and then he’d lick him everywhere and feel him grow hard in his hand or, better yet, his mouth. The idea of licking Martin’s balls while reaching between his legs to squeeze his stiffening cock was nearly enough to push Henry over the edge.

Darting a guilty glance over his shoulder, he ducked into the bathroom and locked the door, leaning back against it and pulling his prick out of his pants. He jerked off quickly, the image of Martin bent and exposed foremost in his mind, and he came imagining his face pressed against that pink-and-white skin, his mouth full of Martin’s flavor, whatever that might be.