Bohemian Summer

 

Theirs is a most unusual friendship, thinks Anthony Latham as he lies back on the bank watching Wroxley galumph around in the river with a landing net in one hand and a broken rod in the other.

“A little help wouldn’t go amiss,” shouts Wroxley with more than a hint of petulance in his voice.

“I told you it would be an idea to wear waders,” grins Anthony, chewing on a blade of grass and shielding his eyes so he can see the full extent of the mess John, or Jack as he likes to be known, has got himself into. Flannel trousers are soaked to the top of his thighs, no longer cream in colour but the dirtiest shade of mud brown, and Anthony can’t help laughing.

“Here, hold this,” yells Jack, abandoning the rod to the current and waving the handle of the net in Anthony’s direction. “You could at least have the decency to haul me out of this damned river.”

“I did warn you fishing was a gentleman’s sport, Wroxley, not to be undertaken by Plebeians.” Anthony regrets that comment as soon as it’s left his mouth. For a while it looks as if he’s going to withstand the sharp tug and manage to keep his footing, but the incline of the bank does him no favours and soon he’s lying face first in the reed bed, a very smelly reed bed at that.

With Jack’s laughter ringing in his ears, Anthony pulls himself up to a standing position, hanging onto some bull rushes for support, and glares down at his friend who’s toppled over backwards during the incident and is now doing an unimpressive breaststroke in the river.

“Fancied a swim then, did you?” smirks Jack and Anthony tries to frown but fails miserably. It is a boiling hot day after all and it feels wonderful to cool off in the water even fully dressed.

“It’s a good job your mama isn’t here to witness this,” says Anthony. “She’d need a dose of salts to recover from it.”

Essie Wroxley is a self proclaimed social climber and Anthony finds her adorably sweet. Jack’s grandfather made his money out in India and now the highly successful import company is run by Jack’s father who’s proud of his roots and absolutely will not give in to Essie’s demands to buy themselves a title. Anthony has witnessed several good-natured contretemps on the subject over the dinner table and, being a poverty-stricken member of the lower aristocracy, he can’t see what the fuss is about and has told Essie this many times over. Since he was befriended by Wroxley at the beginning of last Trinity, he’s spent every holiday with the family and would not have them change for the world.

Anthony’s own home life is bleak to say the least. He lives in a spectacularly decrepit Elizabethan monstrosity in Dorset with only his Uncle George for company. The title of Baronet doesn’t mean a damn thing when he’s greeted by silence and dark stares, and has bills from the wine merchants thrust into his hand by Edgerton, the long suffering family butler, every time he dares to set foot inside Latham Court. No, there’s nothing better than the idea of living out his days safe in the bosom of the Wroxley family with their warm hearted home and welcoming arms.

Jack splutters with laughter. “Knowing our luck we’d turn up at the house soaked through and discover that all the local gentry have actually paid her a call. Thank god the family are away in Europe. It’s wonderful to have the place to ourselves for six glorious weeks.”

“Hear hear,” sighs Anthony in complete agreement as he lies on his back in the water and squints up at the sun.

It doesn’t take long for the cold water to instil itself into their bones and soon, shivering and waterlogged, they trudge back to the house, only to be waylaid by Mary the housekeeper, who immediately relieves them of their sodden clothes leaving them standing in their underwear looking mightily ashamed of themselves.

“What have you two been up to now?” she scolds as she calls for Ruth the scullery maid. “Worse than a couple of school boys you are.”

“It feels so good to have the respect of the servants,” Jack declares as they race through the house and up the stone staircase, heading for safety and hopefully some good hot water.

While the huge bath is filling, Jack calls for the drinks tray and, when the whiskey decanter is delivered, pours four or five fingers worth into two tumblers. The boys climb into either end of the tub, soaking away the mud and sighing as the heat warms their cold bones.

“Never let me attempt fishing again,” groans Jack as he slowly thaws out in the steamy atmosphere.

“Yet another sporting pursuit cast aside,” chuckles Anthony. “That’s cricket, golf, fishing and rugby all dismissed. How about racing? I’m sure even you can manage to place your bet and watch the horse do all the work.”

“You’re so amusing, Latham. And what prowess do you exhibit, pray tell?”

“I’m an expert at sponging off my friends.” Anthony splutters as Jack sends a spray of bath water his way, making a direct hit on his nose and mouth. When eventually he stops choking he smiles at his friend, “You, on the other hand, have talent to fall back on.”

Jack is an artist through and through. His paintings and drawings are good enough to be shown and Anthony wishes he would take himself seriously.

“So does this mean you’re finally going to let me paint you?” Jack sips his whiskey and looks innocently over at his friend.

Anthony frowns; he’s walked right into that one. “I’m not the sit still type; I’ll look ridiculous.” Climbing out of the bath, he wraps a towel around his waist and escapes.

Jack follows at his heels, shedding droplets of water behind him like a wet Labrador. He takes hold of Anthony’s elbow leading him into his bedroom.

“Look,” he says, spinning his friend around and forcing him to look in the monstrous gilded mirror that takes up an entire wall. “You’ll look wonderful.” Then he pauses studying their reflection, “You look wonderful.”

The strange moment dies as the bell sounds and the two young men hastily dress and make themselves as presentable as possible to dine. There may only be the two of them at the table but Essie has given strict instructions that they are to behave with decorum at all times.

“So tomorrow you’ll let me paint you?” asks Jack as he sips at a spoonful of cucumber soup.

“I packed none of my best clothes,” replies Anthony trying to drum up any excuse he can think of. “Perhaps we should take a trip to my tailors and then I’ll be able sit for you in some decent attire.”

“Decent, indecent,” says Jack with an indecipherable smile, “It hardly matters to me.”

After an unusually subdued evening meal, the boys retire to the drawing room where Jack plays record after record on his phonogram.

“Will we ever recover from the war?” says Anthony from his favourite perch in the window where he sits smoking a cigar and looking out over the river. “I sometimes wonder. There seems to be a blackness ahead of us.”

“So morbid,” sighs Jack, “Live a little for a change, my friend. Come, dance with me.”

Anthony is startled but mesmerised, and finds himself in Jack’s arms as they attempt their own clown-like version of a tango to the sultry music.

“Morbid it might be,” says Anthony, “but there will be another war, you mark my words.”

The dance slows down almost to a halt and they end the evening trapped inside a sadness that’s hard to break out of. Anthony thinks of his father who died in the trenches and he knows that Jack is empathising with him. Sometimes it’s awkward having such a close friendship.

Next morning the mood has lightened and they talk of trivialities over kidneys and bacon for the best part of a quarter of an hour until the topic twists back toward Jack’s favourite subject.

“The orangerie,” he proclaims decisively, popping a piece of crisped up bacon into his mouth.

“Yes,” replies Anthony, “That glass room where your family attempt to grow obscure tropical fruit. What of it?”

“I want to paint you there in amongst the leaves and branches.”

“Oh, so I’m a monkey now am I?” says Anthony with a smile, lifting his tea cup and inclining it in the direction of Martha the maid.

“To call you a monkey would be far too great a compliment.” Jack laughs and ducks the copy of the Times as it flies in his direction. Collecting the newspaper from the floor he rolls it into a cylinder and stalks toward Anthony brandishing the makeshift weapon. “You will sit for me today, Latham, or I’ll tear up the tickets for that new Wodehouse play at the Lyric.”

“You’re a cruel man, Jack Wroxley,” says Anthony. “A master of hard bargaining.”

And so after breakfast, won over or perhaps threatened into submission, Anthony finds himself hunting through his wardrobe to find the perfect outfit. One that’ll make him look slim but not skinny. Colours that’ll make his mid brown hair a shade darker or lighter. Clothes that can work a miracle and fashion him into a handsome man.

“These,” says a voice from behind his shoulder. A hand appears pulling out a worn pair of flannels and an old cream shirt.

“So stylish,” replies Anthony with more than a hint of sarcasm. “The same rags I always wear when loitering around your family estate every summer.”

“I want you in these,” says Jack petulantly. “They’re you. How I always think of you. You were wearing them that first day when you fell off your bicycle into my arms.”

“When you frightened the life out of me with that obnoxious car horn and sent me flying into the gutter is my recollection,” laughs Anthony. He may make fun of it but he also looks back on that day with fondness, smiling at the memory of Wroxley leaping out of his motor car wearing that trademark puppy dog look and dragging Anthony off to the nearest public house to lavish whisky after whiskey upon him until neither of them could stand up. It was the start of a beautiful friendship, one that Anthony has come to value more than anything in his life.

“The orangerie as soon as you’re ready then,” says Jack beaming at his victory and skidding out of the bedroom in socked feet, eager to set up his painting equipment in the conservatory.

Anthony watches him go and wonders again about their friendship as he does at least ten times a day. Why did such a free spirit as Wroxley choose him as a companion? He lives in fear that one day Jack will see him for what he truly is; a short, thin, uninteresting man with a love of solitude and good literature. Anthony feels almost transparent when he stands next to Jack who is such a larger than life character, his handsome face constantly lit up and animated and his eyes always shining with excitement. Generous to a fault Jack lives every day as if it is his last, always trying to see the best in others and do his utmost to please and Anthony admires everything about him.

Bathing and dressing as slowly as possible, he checks his reflection in the looking glass and is sad to note that the transformation he so wished for has not taken place. Making his way at a funereal pace down the stairs, he pushes open the doors to the orangerie and is smacked in the face by a heat that’s almost stifling in its humidity.

“Wroxley,” he shouts but sees no sign of anyone, just a room filled with exotic trees and bushes. “Wroxley, I’ll suffocate if I have to spend a moment longer in this inferno.”

“But the light is ideal and I have Buck’s Fizz to cool you down,” comes a voice from somewhere inside the melange of plant life.

Anthony follows the words and eventually, having taken a couple of wrong turns, comes upon a surreal tableau. In the midst of this home grown jungle Wroxley is lounging on cushions and an eiderdown quilt, sipping delicately at his drink.

“Perfect wouldn’t you say,” he smiles, pouring another glass of sparkling orange juice and then offering it to his friend.

Of course it’s perfect, everything here is always perfect. Anthony takes the drink and lies on his side next to Jack. “We should travel next summer,” he says thoughtfully. “We’re becoming slothful in our old age.”

“True indeed,” agrees Jack lighting two cigarettes and passing one over. “We shall leave home for good. Spend springtime in Egypt, summer in the West Indies, autumn in South America and finally we shall over-winter in Switzerland, snug in a mountain chalet where I shall learn to ski and your sole purpose will be to bring me brandy and warm me up.”

“Oh God, how I dream of snow,” sighs Anthony dramatically, finishing his drink and casting the glass aside. The sweat trickles down off his forehead and he goes to wipe it away with a handkerchief. Jack, who is staring intently at the beads of perspiration, stops him.

“This is how I want to paint you,” Jack says. “Hot and bothered and disturbingly beautiful.”

Anthony is bemused. He is none of those things, except perhaps for hot and bothered.

Once the cigarettes are finished, Jack sits back on his heels looking at Anthony with artist’s eyes. “Lie on the cushions,” he orders as he constructs the scene he wants to paint. Jug half-filled with champagne and orange juice at the front, glasses tipped over and cigarettes spilling out on to the quilt. “The way the light dapples your skin is so very pretty.”

Lost for words, Anthony lets himself be manoeuvred around like a doll. His shirt is untucked slightly, a few buttons are undone and his shoes and socks are removed. When Jack runs a hand through his hair mussing it up into damp tendrils, Anthony is afraid of what he must look like but he sees reassurance in Jack’s eyes and hears comfort in that single hushed word.

“Beautiful.”

Stunned into silence, Anthony watches Jack sketch, listening to the pencil scratch against paper. His friend is an image of fever pitch intensity.

“Let me see,” he says, finally dredging up some courage, helped along by several glasses of the champagne he discovered in a cooler behind him.

Jack sits on the rucked up quilt, wiping his forehead with darkened fingers and leaving behind long grey smudges which Anthony finds oddly fascinating. He needs something to focus on to keep within the realms of sanity.

“Look,” says Jack leaning up against him and showing him the sketch.

The pencil drawing is of a bohemian young man that Anthony doesn’t recognise. The boy is relaxing back with this look of indolence and self assuredness that couldn’t be him ever. Too attractive, too wild, too knowing.

“Not me,” he mutters looking away from the paper.

“Yes you, all you,” answers Jack. “My Anthony.”

“So hot.” Anthony falls back limp against the cushions, the arm on which he’s been propping himself collapsing beneath him.

“Agreed,” replies Jack twisting around and unfastening a few more buttons on his friend’s shirt. “This will make everything cooler.

The cotton slips off Anthony’s shoulders and he looks up feeling startled and more than a little strange.

“I’ve never had the opportunity to paint a nude before,” says Jack, “And it’s not as if we haven’t seen each other naked.”

Anthony can’t dispute that; they bathe together and swim together and never once has it seemed anything but ordinary, but this? This seems very different.

“But I’m-"

“My model,” says Jack, “And my friend. So please.”

The little boy wheedling voice shouldn’t work but it does and Anthony frowns as he undoes the catch and zipper of his flannels. “You manipulate me altogether too much,” he says as he slides his trousers and underwear down then buries the clothing under the sea of cushions. “It’s quite shameful.”

“I know.” Jack sighs plaintively. “And I shall go to Hell for it, but right now I’m far too busy taking advantage of your good nature to worry about trivialities.”

“Bully,” laughs Anthony glancing down and wondering whether his penis looks how it’s supposed to. How is a man able to tell these things?

“Stop fidgeting,” instructs Jack, “You’re perfect.”

Anthony lazes back looking up at the branches of the trees and the sun blazing fiercely through the glass roof. It’s hot beyond belief and he’s too lethargic to even think. The pencil scratch of the sketching finishes and he can hear the swirl of water and the chink of brushes against glass and he closes his eyes and imagines the dabs of different colour pigments washing over the picture.

“Anthony.”

The voice is distant and he pushes it to one side.

“Anthony.”

There’s a gentle tickle tracing over his ribs and down to his stomach and it feels wet and cool and decidedly pleasant.

“Anthony, wake up, my sweet sloth.”

The wetness is back and the words become louder and Anthony opens his eyes and is greeted to the sight of a laughing face looming over him.

“You’re no longer my model, I’ve demoted you to canvas in order to try and wake you. Now be still and let me finish my painting.”

Anthony shivers and looks down in amazement as Jack swipes colour onto his skin transforming him into a kaleidoscope of shifting patterns. Then the brush licks over his left nipple and he trembles as the tiny peak begins to harden and watches fascinated as Jack decorates his body with a steady hand, biting at his lower lip in concentration.

“Jack,” whispers Anthony finding it harder and harder to breathe, “You must stop.”

Wroxley hands him a glass of champagne and selects a thicker paintbrush, wetting it and sliding it over the splotches of colour on his palette. When he’s satisfied he loads the brush up and strokes it in a winding weaving pattern that works its way from one swell of pectoral to the other.

Everything inside Anthony is in a state of flux. His mind is as heavy as lead and yet his body is floating, swept away to a different place by the sensuous feel of soft wetness on skin. “Please, Jack, no more,” he begs.

The watercolours begin to dry, shrinking into a film on his skin and that in itself is yet another sensuous experience as his body reacts to the pleasure, nipples as hard as tiny pebbles, the blood slowly pumping into his cock. It’s all so terribly wrong but it’s like nothing he’s ever felt before. He swills down the wine, coughing on the bubbles, and spreads himself out, basking in the sunlight and longed for attention.

“Beautiful,” breathes Jack and Anthony can feel the heat of his body as he moves closer for some intricate detail work, inking out the outlines of vines that climb their way up the Grecian column of Anthony’s neck which strains and cords under the onslaught of soft licks.

“God.” He gasps the word out and it sounds to his oversensitive ears more like orgasm than speech. This illicit desire that’s filling him is better than climax, his whole body on fire from the gentle touches of Jack’s brushes. Anthony knows he should cringe with humiliation at every roll and thrust of his hips, at the moans and whispered expletives and mostly at the sight of his erection, exposed and weeping, inches away from Jack’s body but the moment is too perfect to spoil with self recrimination.

The thick sleek hairs of Jack’s paintbrush travel down the right side of his body and he watches, shivering, as a willow branch appears sweeping downwards toward his cock which is lying in a puddle of glossy fluid and twitching along with every flick of artistic fingers.

With what seems like one twist of the brush the sun appears wrapping itself around his navel, the tip dipping in and out, making love to him with soft wetness and he feels like a lunatic for thinking such things but he’s never been pushed to such heights before - fucked senseless with licks of paint and long intense looks until he’s a fraction away from adding a spill of titanium white to the palette of his belly.

Then time stops as the paint dries and Anthony is left panting for breath and wanting so much more. “What now?” he murmurs opening his eyes and looking at his friend.

Tongue replaces brush as Jack leans in, painting patterns in glossy saliva to one side of Anthony’s straining cock, then he shifts backwards and upwards. “We can forget any of this ever happened,” he says, his green eyes solemn as he waits for a response at this pivoting see saw moment. “Or-“

Anthony presses paper dry lips against Jack’s nervous mouth. It’s the most succinct answer he can come up with when his heart is missing every other beat and he can barely remember how to breathe let alone form words.

The kiss is painfully innocent, bodies still separated by the jumble of glasses and jugs and cigarettes that litter the quilt. Somehow the staged detritus shifts out of the way and Jack is lying in Anthony’s arms and they’re kissing with all the fervour of children learning to play a new game.

Anthony’s fingers develop a life and a bravery of their own and, while his tongue is delving and sliding, exploring Jack’s mouth, they’re off on a journey, undoing buttons and mapping out his friend’s body. Jack is a series of planes, hollows and satin smoothness and when it all becomes too much for Anthony and he falls back into the cushions awash with confusion, Jack is there to pick him up, reassuring him with comforting words and husky sounds and kisses that make his erection harder than glass.

‘Touch me,’ he wants to scream but instead he begs with his eyes, sighing and watching the path of the clouds as Jack shucks off his clothing and settles himself against Anthony’s body. Teasing the painted nipples Jack scrapes his nails over ribs and abdomen until Anthony is reaching up with his lips for kisses and down with his fingers eager to touch what is to all intents and purposes forbidden.

They love each other with a young man’s passion, fervent and greedy, demanding and fearful. How can any one thing be made up of all those different facets? It seems impossible but as he and Jack lie next to each other, fingers on missions of discovery and mouths still busy kissing, they are complication and contradiction and Anthony wouldn’t have it any other way. When Jack befriended him, it was as though he was born. Now that they’re entwined together, Anthony feels he’s finally grown into the person he was meant to be.

Easing himself downwards on the rucked up waves of eiderdown quilt, he takes Jack’s cock in his mouth and tastes it, exploring each ridge and vein, testing himself, testing Jack. Wanting to find some answers hidden inside the tiny slit or the delicately flavoured fluid that flows out onto his tongue.

Jack groans and Anthony is terrified when he’s pushed away, but his friend immediately turns the other way and crawls between Anthony’s legs, washing his cock with long swipes of his tongue then taking the swollen shaft into his mouth and sucking so very hard. It’s like being encased in molten glass and Anthony cries out then muffles the sounds of his pleasure by swallowing down so much of Jack’s erection that he’s struggling to find breath. It’s worth it though, especially when Jack loses control and uses his mouth hard and fast, hips pumping, body smothering him, hands running over as much skin as he can find. He comes hard when he tastes the first mouthful of Jack’s sperm and once the flow of semen finally runs out, Jack crawls up into Anthony’s arms.

“Are we lovers now?” asks Anthony in between salty sweaty kisses.

Jack takes hold of his hand and sucks gently at each fingertip “We’ve always been lovers,” he replies “Only it's taken you a ridiculously long time to see it. That’s what comes of being an interbred member of the aristocracy. You lack brain power, my friend.”

Anthony smiles the smile of epicurean delight. He feels shamefully over indulged with all the good things life has to offer; love, lust and indolence and six long weeks to enjoy every one of them until Michaelmas and the miseries of study begin all over again.

 

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