A Most Personal Property (Ganymede Quartet Book 1) (27 page)

At lunchtime, the boys filed into the refectory to see their slaves waiting for them behind their assigned chairs. In years past, Henry had always envied the older boys the pageantry of slave ownership, and he did enjoy seeing how the lower school boys watched wide-eyed as the slaves held chairs at the ready for their young masters. He murmured a thank you to Martin but noted as he did so that none of the others did the same; he would be less grateful in the future, perhaps.

There was a prayer—which Henry only half-observed out of deference to his father’s beliefs—and then they began to eat. There was little for the slaves to do during the meal unless their masters happened to drop silverware or require more water poured; their attendance was usually largely symbolic. However, on this first day, many of the young masters exercised their rights simply for the novelty of it, sending a veritable cascade of forks and napkins to the floor during the meal.

Henry looked around at the slaves as he ate. They were like a flock of swans attending geese, or maybe squat little ducks. There was Freddie’s beautiful Tom, of course. Albert’s princely Stuart had had his blond hair cut short—Albert related that his father had insisted on it. Charles’ Simon had lustrous red ringlets which were regrettably due to be shorn immediately after school, also at a father’s command. Why were fathers so bothered by lovely hair? Though it was a given that they were all attractive, in Henry’s opinion only pretty Tom and Gordon Lovejoy’s icy-blond Julian were even close to matching Martin’s good looks.

After the meal, they were let out into the yard. The younger boys they had been friendly with last year were now beneath notice. The twelfth-year boys, who had already had a year to get used to ownership, were as condescending as ever, which was unexpected—traditionally, the boys with slaves banded together against those without. Their collective pride a little wounded, the new masters kept mostly to themselves then, standing in the shade of the school building sharing details about their new slaves.

Robert Townsend’s Richard, who Robert was calling Dick, was uncommonly strong and Robert believed he could best any of them, free or slave, at arm wrestling. Philip van Houten’s David (who would be called Davey out of deference to classmate David Maxwell) could sing sweet as a bird. Wendell Franklin’s Ralph could run the hundred-yard dash in record time, and Wendell made him prove it twice over.

Martin stood talking with Tom and Peter and Albert’s slave. Henry realized he was looking over at him quite often, too often, and made himself stop, instead turning his attention to his friends.

“So you say he plays violin, but what other tricks does yours do?” Charles asked, elbowing Henry.

Henry thought of Martin reading, doing the voices, and flushed. He didn’t want to share; he wanted to keep Martin’s special qualities to himself. But the other boys misunderstood his blush and laughed.

“They’re all good for that!” Louis said, happily teasing.

“You’ve all tried it both ways by now, I assume,” Robert said. “Which do you all prefer? I like the mouth better; it seems more like what a woman might feel like.”

“Buggering for me,” Wendell asserted. “You can do it a lot harder.”

“We’ll have to start trading them around,” Charles said, appalling Henry with his casual attitude. “See who’s trained the best and all that.”

“There are a couple of ‘em who look pretty enough to be girls if you squint,” said David. “Those are the ones I’m interested in.”

There was general agreement with David’s remark, and Henry realized that of course Martin was one of the ones David meant. This entire line of conversation made him very uncomfortable. He had no intention of letting anyone else touch Martin. He was grateful for the bell signaling the end of the break.

Because it was the first day, most of the teachers went easy on them, but not Dr. Foster, who surprised them with a quiz. “Just to see what we recall from last year,” Dr. Foster said with unwarranted optimism.

Dr. Foster paced around the room as he enumerated his questions. It was no use; Henry remembered nothing, or nearly so. He flushed with shame as he handed his paper in.

Dr. Foster made Henry stay after class. He stood behind his desk holding Henry’s test paper in his hand, a disappointed frown on his face. “I thought you were going to study over the break, Mr. Blackwell.”

“I did, sir,” Henry lied, shifty-eyed.

Dr. Foster looked slightly disgusted and clearly did not believe him, which was not surprising; Henry was typically a bad and uncommitted liar. “You can do better,” Dr. Foster said. “As a matter of fact, you certainly can’t do much worse!”

This struck Henry as unnecessarily unkind and so he did not deign to respond.

“My colleague on the other side of the school tells me you have an impressive slave,” Dr. Foster continued. “An excellent scholar. Why don’t you take advantage of the resources available to you, Mr. Blackwell? Get this slave of yours to help you.”

Henry was surprised. “Is that all right, sir?” If he could have Martin do his Latin homework, his grades would surely improve. But in doing so, he’d have to let Martin know how stupid he was, how little he understood.

“Delegate, Mr. Blackwell. Manage.” Dr. Foster waved his hands in a shooing gesture. “Do better work,
somehow
.”

Henry walked into the cloakroom to find Martin waiting for him, hat in hand. The rest of the boys had gone ahead; he expected Louis would be waiting for him outside.

“Good afternoon, Sir.”

“Afternoon, Martin.” Henry was short with him, embarrassed by how attractive he found him anew, after a separation of just a few hours. He was afraid he would blush again if he met Martin’s eyes. He put on the hat.

Martin put Henry’s books into his school bag. “Shall I carry this for you, Sir?”

Henry did blush. “No. I can do it.” Martin wasn’t a pack mule; Henry was perfectly capable of carrying his own books.

Outside, Louis was talking with Victor, whose Will had been raised at Endymion along with Peter.

“…tells me they were buggering each other all the time in there,” Victor was saying. “In class
and
in their free time. Sounds like it was an absolute
bacchanal
.” He turned to Will and demanded, “Isn’t that right, Will? Isn’t that what you told me?”

Will looked at Peter and laughed. “Yes, Sir, that’s what I told you.” Peter laughed, too.

Until this very moment, Henry had actually not considered what sort of sexual training the slaves might have undergone, what sorts of hazings or rituals. He’d vaguely imagined that they were simply told to put up with whatever their masters devised, but it would make more sense for them to have practiced. What exactly were they trained to do? Had the slaves at Ganymede also been buggering one another constantly? The idea was both horrifying and titillating. Ganymede was a very old House, though, and very well-respected. Endymion was not as old, perhaps a little rougher around the edges, and maybe things were wilder there.

Henry turned to Martin and cleared his throat. “What’s your friend’s name again? Albert’s slave?”

“Stuart, Sir,” Martin told him.

“Is it good to see a familiar face?” Henry asked him. He wanted to ask if Martin had ever been buggered by Stuart, but he couldn’t begin to imagine making his mouth form the words.

Martin smiled. “Stuart has always been a good friend to me, Sir.”

They walked home with Louis and Peter, Louis chatty and Henry pensive. Martin and Peter walked behind, talking in low voices.

“Listen, Henry,” Louis began, lowering his voice so that Henry had to bend to listen. “You know the others are eager to swap, don’t you?”

Henry blushed. “
I
don’t want to,” he said. “That’s how you get diseases.” It also ran counter to the dictates of his possessive soul, but he did not want to admit this.

“I know, I know. You’ve always been a prude about this, Henry. You don’t have to do it, of course, but I just wanted to warn you. Everyone wants to try Martin because he was so expensive. They think he’s had special training or something.” Louis paused and thought a moment. “Has he?”

“Louis!”

“Well, in any case, be prepared to say no and put your foot down. But think about it, Henry. It could be fun.”

“Are you going to do it? Swap Peter?” Henry glanced at Peter, who smiled and tucked his long blond hair behind his ear. He couldn’t understand how Louis could be so unconcerned about Peter’s welfare, Peter’s feelings.

Louis looked embarrassed, at least, when he admitted that, “Yeah, I think I will. I mean, I’ve heard so many stories from James over the last four years, Henry. I haven’t even told you everything because I know it would upset you, the things James has done. I just want to have some fun. We’ve waited so long and now we’re finally masters…we can enjoy ourselves and do whatever we like.”

Henry thought about the things he wanted to do, the things that he wasn’t supposed to do. They
couldn’t
actually do whatever they liked. He couldn’t run his hands through Martin’s hair and kiss him on the mouth. He couldn’t kiss him
anywhere
, for that matter: not the hollow of his throat, not his nipples, not the head of his cock—and Henry desperately wanted to do these things, these tender, generous things. Yet, while everything he wanted was forbidden, the others could have cruel group sex parties where the slaves were treated as toys and it was all excused as boys being boys, youthful hijinks. None of them would be accused of being an invert or a fairy because of it.

Two years earlier, when James had left for college, Louis and Henry had both been very eager for any news, but James had neglected to telephone home at all during his first week upstate. However, when he finally did call, he made up for it by talking to Louis for an extra-long time, and Louis was eager to relate everything James had told him.

“He says they’re having fantastic parties every night, everyone drunk and raving, and they make the slaves wear costumes and put on skits and compete in all kinds of events. He says there are absolutely
perverse
swap parties, and they make the slaves put on sex shows for all the masters to watch. He says he’s been drunk for days and has barely gone to class.”

The stories of the slave-swapping parties James had participated in while he was still been living at home had been bad enough; to Henry, this more extreme, competitive, alcohol-fueled version sounded horrifying. He thought of cheerful, good-natured Joseph being used and abused in such a manner and felt sad for him. Henry had resolved then that he would never treat a slave in such a way, and now that he was faced with the opportunity, he was glad to pass it by. Besides, if he wasn’t going to touch Martin, neither would anyone else.

They reached the Blackwell gate. Suddenly, his head filled with thoughts of sex parties, Henry was reluctant to be alone with Martin. “Are you coming in?” he asked Louis.

Louis shook his head. “We have to get home. Susannah’s fiancé is coming to dinner.”

Henry had forgotten Susannah even had a fiancé. “Is he nice?”

Louis shrugged and made a face. “Eh. He’s a stuffy bore with big sideburns. I wouldn’t want to marry him.” He laughed and elbowed Peter. “C’mon. See you later, Henry.”

Over the next couple of weeks, they settled into a sort of routine. Martin woke Henry the same way every morning, the hand on the shoulder and the cheerful “Rise and shine, Sir.” He ended the day the same way, too, always asking if there was anything—
anything!
—that he might do for Henry, and every day Henry put him off, and denied that he needed any service that Martin might provide.

Henry did worry a little about Martin. He was chipper when Henry addressed him, but in moments when he believed himself unobserved, he seemed very dispirited. Because of his mother, Henry was sensitive to signs of melancholy, and hated to think that Martin might be suffering. He felt guilty, too, quite certain that Martin’s mood was a result of Henry’s treatment of him. He could easily imagine that his standoffishness and aversion to physical contact might be things Martin would take personally. He did not think there was a way to explain that he was protecting Martin from his ungentlemanly advances without actually exposing himself as a deviant.

Grateful for opportunities that kept him from being uncomfortably alone with Martin, Henry accepted the invitations that were extended to him, so after school they rode their bikes, visited the arcade and loitered in the park with Henry’s classmates and their slaves. They played cards almost every night and Martin practiced his violin. Henry thought the piece was getting better, noticeably so, but Martin continued to politely deny that he was making any improvement.

Thinking it might cheer Martin up, Henry asked him about his friends. “Say, Martin, are you particularly friendly with any slaves that you’d like to see outside of school hours? I mean, slaves of boys I don’t normally spend time with right now.”

Martin seemed confused. “Sir? My friends are the slaves of
your
friends.”

“Well, yes, ideally,” Henry said. “But is there anyone, any
slave
, you’re fond of, but I’m not close with his master? Because I was thinking I could try to be a bit friendlier with those boys and make it so that you could see your friend more often than just in school.”