The Boy Avengers (6 page)

ILL, I HAD GIVEN THEM THE BENEFIT OF EVERY doubt, hadn't I? What more could I have done in giving them an opportunitynot to make things right, for a violation can never be made right, but rather to see to it the transgressors were suitably punished? I would never have wanted a single day in prison inflicted on them, for no person has ever been chastened into a good life by imprisonment. It tends to reinforce the worst elements in a person. Only a homosexual lacking the courage to be himself elsewhere can be truly happy in prisonwhere he can pretend to have been coerced into homosexual activity.

Leave them to heaven? The same
God
that did not prevent them from forcibly raping Jeff would refrain from punishing them. There are some who say there is no one god, that every man has a little bit of god in him. So
I
would play god. And having played god, I would then put away childish things.

I attended no classes the day after Jeff's rape. Following my unsuccessful visits to the athletic master and the headmaster I headed for the school's tiny office. It was tended by a fluttery closet queer (yes, I know all the terms) who could go to pieces over a misfiled folder. I am going to room with Jeff Talbot, I told him, and we require a room with a bath.

Do tell, Master Lattimer! he said with a superior smile. He mistakenly believed this was one of the few situations he could be on top of. In the first place, we do not allow a change of rooms except at the beginning of a year. In the second place, only the
masters
have rooms with baths. You're new here, but surely you knew
that.

Yes, I knew that, I said flatly.

Well, then ...

Well then, I said, go to the headmaster and tell him I wish to room with Jeff Talbot and that we require a room with a bath, even if it means kicking out one of the masters.

Do you
really
want me to go to the headmaster with that?

Yes, I said, I do.

He drew a deep breath, smiled again. Very well, then. You wait right here. I am sure the headmaster will want to have a few words with you. He turned to the door that led to the headmaster's study.

Tell him we want to move in this afternoon, I called after him. He turned back, his hand already on the doorknob. For the first time he looked gratifyingly uncertain.

He was gone scarcely a minute. He came out looking as though his whole world had come crumbling about his pointed ears, as though he had suddenly discovered his closet had glass walls. Obviously there had been no time for prayer. You will be moving into Mr. Butterworth's room, he said in a strangled voice. You and Talbot. Two o'clock?

Two o'clock will be fine, I said graciously.

Needless to say, Mr. Butterworth was the newest, most innocuous of all the masters, the one with the least control over the boys. And now this! I resolved to make it up to him in some small way. Thank you for your cooperation, I said in parting.

Not at all, said my fainting former adversary.

I went directly to the schoolroom where I should have been, where Jeff, sitting twisted in his chair to spare his bruised asshole, was listening as the Latin master was drawing the excruciating details of Caesar's Gallic Wars out of a luckless lad who had unwisely been catching up on Prince Valiant. I beckoned to Jeff. He came at once and left with me. Not an eyebrow was raised. The Latin master elaborately ignored the whole business. How quickly word had spread that I was not to be crossed.

We went to Jeff's room, got his things and moved them to my room, to simplify our final move at two. Jeff stripped, and I applied Jack Foster's unguent to his battered asshole. Oh, that feels good! he said in surprise.

Apparently it was concocted for this very purpose, I said.

Your fingers, too. They feel good. I peered at the typewritten label on the jar. Massage well, it said. And I did. That feels so good, Jeff whispered, eyes closed. It almost doesn't hurt. Yes, I had an erection.

There was a discreet knock at the door. I had massaged Jeff's asshole well, perhaps sufficiently for now, and signalled him to dress. Then I unbolted the door.

It was Mr. Butterworth. May I see the room? he asked. I understand I am to exchange rooms with you. I felt another pang of guilt that he said this entirely without rancor.

Come in, I said.

He nodded to Jeff and looked around. A pleasant room. Where's the bathroom?

The end of the hall, I told him.

I suppose I can always pee in the washbasin.

I never thought of that, I said. And I never had. I am not without a sense of humor, and a couple of weeks later sent Mr. Butterworth a sterling silver chamber pot that had been difficult to find.

Now he looked at Jeff. I could see he was summoning courage for the question he wanted to ask. I smiled to encourage him. How is he?

I'll be all right, Jeff said, speaking for himself.

It was a terrible thing to do to someone, Mr. Butterworth said. Someone who didn't want it done.

They will regret it, I said quietly.

He looked straight at me. I hope so.

Yes, I assured him.

This exchange, brief though it was, told me all I needed to know about Mr. Butterworth. He had, in that succinct exchange, revealed himself as one of
us.
More than that, he revealed himself to me as sensitively homosexual, whether he himself was aware of his proclivity or not. What followed confirmed it in my mind.

In the war, Mr. Butterworth said, I was a medic. Would you like me to have a look at it?
It,
notice.

I think he's going to be all right, I said. His face fell. Would you
like
to take a look at it? I asked.

Yes, he admitted with disarming frankness.

Jeff, also, had recognized that Mr. Butterworth was with
us,
and quickly, willingly stripped. My astute eye caught the quick swelling at Mr. Butterworth's groin as Jeff's beautiful body was revealed. This in itself was not significant, for as I was to discover time and again, Jeff's very special beauty seemed to obliterate all proclivities, to raise unexpected lusts and sometimes amusing uncertainties in the most vociferous heterosexual.

Jeff unselfconsciously knelt, bent over on the bed so Mr. Butterworth could best inspect his violated asshole. He gasped when he saw the ugly bruise that surrounded it.

Have you seen a lot of this? I asked. In the Army?

No, he admitted. With hands that bespoke the excellent, sensitive medic he probed gently. I think he will be all right, he said, and the relief in his voice reinforced his words.

We were given an unguent, I said. Perhaps you would like to apply it.

Yes, said Jeff.

Yes, said Mr. Butterworth. He opened the jar, sniffed the unguent, took a dab on his fingers, examined it closely, then rubbed it gently but firmly into Jeff's asshole. Jeff sighed at the touch that indicated more than professional competence. His beautiful cock rose to its full, surprisingly-adult size, but he didn't seem self-conscious about it. It was, actually, my first view of his cock in full erection, for when I had massaged his asshole he'd not been up on his knees; if he'd had an erection, which I haven't any doubt he did, it was hidden by him being flat on his stomach. I was almost sorry that from his position behind Jeff, Mr. Butterworth couldn't see the erection, for in full erection Jeff's cock was exquisitely beautiful, a perfect satin-smooth shaft capped by a perfectly-detailed head with a surprisingly deep cleft. As I mentioned before, he had been circumcised by an expert, something I realized fully only when seeing his cock in erection. The surgeon had left ample flap so that it created a double, firm corrugation in association with his corona. The lucky person enjoying Jeff up his ass would have nearly double the ordinary friction. Almost without thinking, quite naturally, I reached out a hand to touch and weigh and test Jeff's beautiful cock. Mr. Butterworth couldn't see me do this, but I wouldn't have minded if he had. He accepted Jeff's new gasp of pleasure as a compliment to the skill of his fingers. I was glad that he didfor his own sake. My searching, admiring fingers lingered only a moment on Jeff's cock. His eyes sought my face when I withdrew my hand. I smiled and nodded my head in approval. He seemed relieved, as though he hadn't been entirely certain of the beauty of it.

Where did you get this? Mr. Butterworth asked.

Jamie Crawford and

He means the salve, I interrupted. From Mr. Foster.

It seems effective. I shouldn't wonder if he himself hadn't inflicted a need for it from time to time.

Apparently Jack Foster's flaunted genitals had attracted Mr. Butterworth's notice, and not favorably. Not forcibly, I said, though I don't know why I felt the need to defend him.

You think not? he asked with interest. I found it significant that his impression of Foster included the possibility that he was capable of raping a boy. To my mind, a man capable of raping a boy would never flaunt his genitals; but I may be mistaken.

When Mr. Butterworth was through with the massaging he and Jeff said thank you at exactly the same moment, then laughed. As Jeff got up to dress his cock was still nearly fully erected. I caught the significant widening of Mr. Butterworth's eyes as he noticed, for it did seem incongruously large for the relative slightness of Jeff's body. What an interesting circumcision, he said. Jeff paused in dressing so he could look at it more closely. I was interested to notice that the young master wasn't sufficiently uninhibiteddespite the recent massageto take the beautiful cock in his hand to examine it.

A good doctor, I think, I said.

Mine was done by a butcher, he said with a wry smile.

I found myself liking the young instructor very much. I resolved to see that he derived benefit from my admiration. He was a pleasant-looking fellow, of average height and build, and at first glance quite suitable for prep-school life. But his mouth was a little full, his eyes a little vulnerabledespite what he must have seen in the warfor the cruel world of Cornhill.

What I have seen already, he said, makes me wonder if I really belong here. At Cornhill, I mean.

Or any of them, I said. Stick it out for the year. I think you'll find it interesting, and not harmful. I meant the latter as a promise. I think he recognized it as such.

I shall, he said with a smile.

I put him on the spot. Are they afraid of me?

He hesitated. I was glad he was the type who thought things through. In effect, I had asked him to make a choice; perhaps he had intended to stay neutral. He had only to say, I don't know to remain neutral. Yes, he said. They
are
afraid of you. That's what it amounts to. Are you afraid of
them?

Only of their stupidity.

Seemingly, I had made my peace with Cornhill, having exacted from
them
the special room. This was exactly what I wanted them to think. It hadn't been a token gesture. Though Bill Butterworth was the least of the masters, his room had been as good as the best, the headmaster would know that I appreciated it.

Our new room was in a stretch of continuous buildings that otherwise housed only senior masters and the headmaster. It was a one-story section with high-raftered ceilings. As I moved my clothes into the spacious closet I noticed with interest not only that there was a trap door leading to the attic, but that there was a built-in iron ladder giving easy access to this trap door. More of this later.

The day following our move into the new room, I returned to classes and applied myself to my studies, to the obvious relief of most of the masters.

On Saturday, I went alone into Waterbury, a dingy industrial city of which most of Connecticut seems ashamed. Factories, tenements and commercial buildings clung to the slope that rose steeply from a narrow valley; they were so ugly they were picturesque. In a directory I had spotted what seemed like a halfhearted advertisement for a private detective. A hunch made me follow it up.

The private detective proved to be exactly what I needed, and I recognized this at once. He was, by belief and vocation, a painter still in search of the perfect means of expression. Though I was taken with what he was willing to show me of his work, he deprecated the paintings as painfully far from what he would be willing to have the public view. He was nearly thirty. I found it commendable that he was in no rush to reach the public.

As for the private detective end of it, he was the son of a man who had risen high in the Pinkerton Agency. He had assimilated a thorough knowledge of some of the darker workings of the agency and meant to use the talents acquired only enough to provide a marginal living for himself, thereby leaving as much time as possible to find what he was seeking in art. He was, by the way, an abstract expressionist.

He lived modestly and seemed content. After talking with him only ten minutes I resolved to put him on a large enough retainer so that he'd never have to work for others. I was aware from the beginning that I had put him in possession of information he could use to blackmail me, but I was certain I could trust him not to try it, that he'd recognize I wasn't the sort of person who could be blackmailed with impunity.