Appearances, copyright 2006, by Etienne. All rights reserved.
If the idea of two men loving each other and expressing that love in a sexual manner offends you, then you have clearly come to the wrong place. Feel free to leave.
-14-
Planning a Trip
As Charles pulled up to his grandmother's house, I felt a twinge of apprehension over the evening that was now at hand. This would be no quickie 'in and out' visit, and I expected that I would be very much on display and under scrutiny.
Goodman answered the door, and ushered the three of us into the library, where Mrs. Barnett was waiting. The room was indeed a real library, the only wall space not covered by shelves full of books being occupied by a tremendous fireplace and beautifully carved mantle. There was a painting of a man in late middle age hanging over the mantle, which I presumed to be of Charles' grandfather. Placed at a ninety-degree angle to and directly in front of the hearth, was a coffee table. On either side of the table there were matching sofas, upon one of which Mrs. Barnett was sitting. She stood expectantly as we entered, and Richard walked up, said "Hi Gran," and kissed her cheek. Charles followed on Richard's heels, also greeting her with a "Hi Gran," and kissing her on the cheek. I was right behind Charles, and acting partly on instinct and partly on impulse, echoed their greetings with a very lightly delivered "Hi Gran," and a kiss on the cheek.
She was caught off guard by this, but quickly recovered, giving me an intense look which was followed by a genuine smile. "I am glad you could join us, Philip," was all she said, but I could see that I had made a gesture of intimacy and acceptance that had touched her deeply.
Looking past the Mrs. Barnett, I could see that both Charles and Richard had turned to stone on the spot, their expressions indicating clearly that they were prepared for some sort of explosion precipitated by my brashness. Charles gave a little start when his grandmother turned to him smiling, and said "Charles, where are your manners? I presume you know what everyone would like to drink." She motioned Richard to the sofa beside her and me to the one opposite, while Charles went to a sideboard that I had overlooked in my first brief survey of the room, and mixed us each a drink.
We spent an enjoyable hour visiting, and the Mrs. Barnett reminisced at length (for my benefit, I suspected) about Charles and Richard as boys and young men. It became apparent, from her anecdotes, that Richard had spent more time in her home growing up than he had spent with his own family. From time to time, she would skillfully draw me into the conversation with questions about Louisiana and my family. I realized finally, that without having made an inquisition of the process, she had managed to gather more information about my history that one would have thought possible. Just in time to prevent us from having a third round of drinks, Goodman appeared in the doorway and announced that dinner was served.
The dining room was in the grand tradition, with a large cut-glass chandelier, and heavy mahogany furniture. The table at which we were seated, even with all of its leaves removed, could have seated eight in relative comfort. Dinner consisted of lentil soup, followed by a salad, and then by rock cornish game hen, wild rice, broccoli, and southern spoon bread. The latter dish, which was literally a yellow cornmeal souffle, was one that I had not tasted since my high school days, when my mother had been still alive. I proceeded to tell our hostess just that.
"My compliments to the cook. I haven't tasted spoon bread since I was in high school. My mother used to prepare it, and it was a family favorite."
"I'm so glad you like it," she said.
"I wonder if Mrs. Goodman could be persuaded to part with the recipe?"
"I don't see why not, but do you not have your mother's recipes?"
"Alas, no. She died long before I became interested in cooking, and I have no idea what happened to her recipes."
She promised to see what she could do about prying the recipe from Clara, and the conversation turned to other topics. When we were back in the library, having coffee, she asked Charles about the murder case in general and the investigation in particular.
"There is not a great deal to tell at the moment," he said. "Richard is waiting for a potentially important witness to return to town next week, and until we see where her testimony leads us there is not much to do. Fortunately, we have many months in which to complete our preparations."
Seeing that she was not going to learn anything there, she switched the conversation to the political arena. She was remarkably well informed on current events and seemed to have strongly held opinions on almost any topic one could name. The conversation grew lively at times, when one of us would dare to disagree with her. She made it clear that if we could not support a position, we should not hold it, and cross questioned us mercilessly when our views contradicted what she deemed they should be.
Around ten thirty, we said goodbye and prepared to go, all three of us giving her a kiss as we left the room. When we were in the car and on the way, Charles looked at me.
"Jesus. You showed brass balls when we first got there. I nearly wet my pants when you said 'Hi Gran' to her. Whatever made you do it?"
"It just seemed like the right thing to say and do."
"Obviously it worked, but it surely gave me a scare."
"Your grandmother is a remarkably well-informed woman. She could have been a politician's wife, or perhaps even a politician herself."
"So she would have. If she were thirty years younger, I suspect she might even try it. In reality, she was a Judge's wife, but he was appointed not elected."
After we got home, Richard announced his intention to settle down with a late movie, and we went up to bed. The next morning, we resumed what had become our weekday routine - up at six, go for a run in the park, shower and shave, then coffee, juice and toast.
Charles excused himself to go up and dress for work coincident with Richard's arrival in the kitchen looking, if possible, even more ragged than usual.
I looked closely at his eyes "How many late movies did you watch last night?" and got him some coffee.
"Two, I think," he said, holding up three fingers.
I laughed at that. "Well, mother always said 'when you play, you have to pay.'"
"Well I'm paying, and I didn't even get to play."
"Can I get you some juice or toast?"
"Sure."
I put some bread in the toaster, and brought him a glass of juice. "I haven't asked you about the case in a couple of days. What day is that bartender due back in town?"
"Wednesday."
"Have you had any luck with those laundry tags?"
"Not yet, but there are a lot of cleaners in this town. It takes time to cover them all, and we still might not find anything. For all we know, she could have lived over in Conyers or for that matter in any of dozens of surrounding towns."
"You're telling me not to get my hopes up."
"Yep. On the other hand if that bartender can give us a name, or will cooperate with a sketch artist to produce an image, or both, then my guys will have something more concrete with which to work."
He finally went upstairs to get ready for work, and I cleaned up the kitchen and went up to get dressed as well. I settled for shorts, polo shirt, and deck shoes, went down and selected about five hours of music on the CD carousel, then back upstairs to sit down in my new 'office' to see if I could get the creative juices flowing. After studying my notes briefly, I was able to pick up the thread of my new book where I had left it two weeks before, and in fact became totally oblivious to the passage of time. So much so that when the doorbell rang, I looked at my watch and was surprised to see that it was ten o'clock. I nearly tripped over Lance when I got up to go to the door, as I had been so deep in concentration that I had not noticed him curled up under my chair.
I went downstairs to answer the door. It turned out to be the telephone installation man. I showed him the multi-line phone in Charles' study, telling him that my line should be on the third button, and then took him upstairs and indicated where the telephone jack should be by my desk. Being a typical union employee, he grumbled a bit at the trouble this would take, but brightened when I told him that the house was already pre-wired with enough cable pairs to accommodate several more telephone lines. All he had to do was tap into the correct pair.
The job was a great deal easier than he had feared, and he was gone forty-five minutes later. I sat back down at my computer, and place my first call
"Chandler, Todd, Woodward & Barnett," said a female voice.
"Charles Barnett, please."
"One moment, I'll connect you."
"Mr. Barnett's office," I recognized Rosemary's voice.
"This is Philip d'Autremont calling."
"Oh, Mr. d'Autremont, I'm sorry but Mr. Barnett is in a meeting. Do you have his private number?"
"That's all right, I could have used his private number but chose not to. I just wanted to give him my new private number."
"I'll be happy to pass it along."
I gave her the number, and we said goodbye. I repeated the process with my broker and my tax attorney, and then placed a call to the law firm in Boston that acted as a go-between between myself and my publishers and gave the information to them.
I was deeply engrossed in my manuscript when my new telephone rang for the first time.
"Hello."
"Hi, am I interrupting anything?" Charles wanted to know.
"Oh, I'm just trying to figure out a novel way for the hero to entice the heroine into his bed for the first time."
"Well, you could simply have him say 'wanta fuck?' and see what happens."
I laughed. "Not in what passed for high society in eighteenth century New Orleans."
"I suppose they said 'voulez vous couche avec moi, ce soi?' instead."
"Not quite. It was a little more subtle than that in those days."
It was his turn to laugh. "I don't want to drag you away from your muse, but would you like to do lunch?"
"Certainly, when and where?"
"One o'clock, at the Prince George."
"It’s a date. I'll be the one with a red rose behind my ear."
This elicited another laugh. "I felt sure you would be familiar with that restaurant."
"Oh yes, very much so." Then I thought about my attire. "I'm not exactly dressed up - shorts and polo shirt - should I put on my semiformal gown in case someone sees us?"
"You can come naked as far as I'm concerned. Seriously, you must be aware that it is a casual place, and I'm more than happy to see you no matter what you are wearing. Or not wearing. If anybody sees us, they will conclude that you are some trick that I am trying to pick up."
Before I could respond in kind, our conversation was interrupted by the doorbell. "I've got to go answer that. See you at one."
"Okay, bye."
I went downstairs, opened the front door, and found a delivery man from Lord & Taylor with a package in his hand.
"Package for Philip d'Autremont."
"That is me, but I am not expecting any package."
"Well, you got one anyway, just sign here," and he held out a clipboard, handing me a pen and pointing to a blank line.
I thanked him, took the package, went back inside, and carried it up to my desk. I opened it curiously, and was pleasantly surprised to find the sweater that I had almost bought on Saturday. That prompted me to dial Charles' private number.
"Charles Barnett."
"Hi. The doorbell was Lord & Taylor delivering. Thank you very much for the sweater. You shouldn't have, but thank you anyway."
"Of course I should have. Why not, you clearly wanted it but just couldn't quite convince yourself. So, I decided to surprise you."
"And so you did."
We said goodbye, and I carried the sweater into the bedroom and hung it in the closet. I went down and made some iced tea, and armed with a glass of it, returned to my computer. Before I started working again, I took a small alarm clock out of the desk drawer and set it for twelve thirty, having learned the hard way that I lose all track of time when I am creating.
The alarm took me by surprise, as it always does. I made a quick backup copy of my work on diskette. I had once learned the hard way about computers and hard disk failures, then shut things down and went to clean myself up. As it wasn't a particularly hot day, I chose to walk to the restaurant, which was on a side street between Juniper and Peachtree only a few blocks from the townhouse. The Prince George was in fact adjacent to the Armory, and was operated by the same people. It has been a favorite lunch spot for years, frequented by a fairly mixed clientele, some gay, some straight.
Arriving ahead of Charles, I took a seat at the bar and ordered a coke. I was sipping it slowly, and not paying much attention to the room, when the bartender came back to me.
"Excuse me. Guy over there wants to buy you a drink." He pointed at a not unattractive thirty something man on the other side of the horseshoe shaped bar.
"I smiled at that. Tell him thank you, but I'm meeting a very special someone in just a few minutes."
As the bartender walked away, Charles came up to me.
"Hi, been waiting long?"
"Just long enough for someone to try to pick me up," I said and told him about the drink offer.
"Well he can just eat his heart out."
I left some money on the bar to cover my coke tab, and we went to the entrance of the dining room to ask for a table. The dining room was full, so we were shown to a small table in the bar area. We both ordered chef salads, which arrived promptly. A pleasant hour later, we were making our way out of the restaurant.
"I didn't see your car out back, where are you parked?" Charles asked.
"Actually, I walked over here."
"Want a ride back?"
"Of course."
Minutes later, we were in front of the townhouse.
"I've got a meeting in a few minutes, so I have to run."
"That's okay, I've got a horny hero still waiting to get laid."
I leaned across the console and gave him a kiss, and got out of the car. He drove off, and I went back up to see if I could get my story line moving again. This time, before I settled down, I set the alarm for four o'clock.
Before the alarm interrupted me, I had managed to write several thousand words. I left the computer up and running, and went down to the kitchen to see about dinner, selecting and preparing some simple things that would be eighty per cent done by the time Charles came home but that would survive being put on 'hold' while we went to the 'Y' and swam and could be finished after our return.
Having set dinner in motion, so to speak, I went back up to my computer and spent some time reviewing the days' work and making some changes and corrections here and there. I was in the process of doing another backup when Charles came home.
He came into the room with a smile on his face, but I thought I detected an underlying trace of disappointment. "I was hoping to find you naked in bed," he said. That explained the look.
"That can be arranged, if you don’t mind disturbing his highness," I said, pointing at Lance who was again curled up under my chair.
He leaned over and kissed me. "He’ll get over it. When?"
"Just as soon as I turn this thing off. While I'm doing that, why don't you go down and turn off the burners on the range."
"Consider it done."
After he was out of the room, I finished my backup, turned things off, and went to the bedroom, arriving at the same time as Charles, who went quickly into the closet to remove and hang his clothes. I simply placed mine on a chair, knowing that I would be wearing them to the 'Y' later.
We fell on the bed and into each other’s arms with a hunger that belied the fact that we had done much the same thing some ten hours or so earlier. Charles and I had discovered that neither of us liked labels such as ‘top’ or ‘bottom,’ and we were both extremely versatile. Our lovemaking had become a mix of oral and anal, and we were pretty evenly matched in terms of who did what and to whom.
This time, without even talking about it, we automatically assumed a classic sixty nine position and begin to work lustily on each others’ erections. I had just moistened a finger and sought his anus when I felt his finger at my entrance.
The combination of finger massage and oral ministrations brought us both to orgasm in no time, after which we cuddled face to face on the bed.
He broke the silence: “Sometimes we are so ‘in synch’ that it is really spooky.”
“I know,” I replied, “I have never been so ‘in tune’ with someone else sexually speaking. It is truly amazing.”
Later, when we had dressed and were on the way to swim, he asked about dinner.
"I just put together a few things that can be quickly finished when we get back."
"You're pretty amazing, you know that?"
"It takes one to tell one."
We spent some time soaking up steam, swam a little over a mile, and returned home where I immediately busied myself with dinner, which consisted of a steamed vegetable platter for each of us containing a baked potato, broccoli, cauliflower, squash, and carrots. With the addition of a small salad, it made an adequate meal particularly in view of the heavy meal we had eaten the night before.
I had noticed that Charles brought a briefcase home every evening, but I had not seen him open it. I thought I knew the reason why, so I broached the subject.
"Did you bring some work home from the office?"
"Yes, but I can leave it go."
"No need to do so on may account, I really need to put forth some extra effort if I'm going to meet my deadline, and even if I didn't have work to do, I think we are beyond the point of having to entertain each other twenty-four hours a day."
He looked relieved at that, but did not articulate his feelings. We cleaned up the kitchen together, leaving a plate of food for Richard that he could nuke later if he so chose, and went upstairs to work.
As I was booting my computer, he asked "Will music bother you while you work?"
"Of course not, I've had it on most of the day."
"Any requests?"
"No. Look at the five discs in the machine and guess my mood from them."
He went downstairs to select some music, and was back in a few minutes, preceded by sounds of Bach from the speakers. We worked separately, and in silence, until nearly eleven o'clock, interrupted only by Richard, who stuck his head in the door to make a tacky comment about 'long hair' music. He shut up when I told him there was food waiting for him, and excused himself to go eat it.
We were in bed by eleven, and asleep a half-hour later.
The rest of the week passed in much the same manner, the only sour note of the next four days being that the elusive Bartender had not returned, and was now not expected until Saturday.
I got so much work done that by Friday afternoon I was able to call my publisher and schedule a meeting for a week from Saturday. He agreed to the meeting, and I then called my Boston attorneys to arrange the meeting. As a precaution against my identity becoming public, we never met in the New York offices of the publishing house, instead using the offices of my Boston lawyers for our infrequent meetings.
I called Boston, and talked to William Lane, one of my two lawyers, and set up the Saturday conference, also arranging to have dinner with William and his partner on Friday evening. I told him I would probably be bringing a friend. Then I called the Ritz-Carlton in Boston, booking a room for two nights, and my travel agent to handle the airline reservations.
When Charles got home, I asked him "Can you get away from the office by Noon, next Friday."
"If I have to, why?"
"Because we have a plane to catch."
"Say what?"
"I have a conference in Boston with my publisher, a week from tomorrow, and we have a dinner date with my Boston attorneys a week from this evening. We also have reservations at the Ritz-Carlton and with Delta."
Without a word, he picked up the telephone, dialed his office dictation system, and left a note for Rosemary to clear his Friday calendar from eleven o'clock on.
He looked at me. "Any more surprises?"
"Not really. Well, maybe one. This place could stand some cleaning."
"I know, and that is my least favorite task."
"Well, as it happens, I know a couple of queens who do a super job of housecleaning at a reasonable cost, and I'd like to engage them on a weekly basis. It will be my contribution to the maintenance of this household. They call themselves 'The Merry Pop-Ins.'"
He agreed, and to my relief made only a token argument about my paying for it. This made me feel much more comfortable with our arrangements. We went to the 'Y' as usual, and afterwards, to Micks for a light supper. When we had finished our supper, we decided to go back to the bookstore, where we killed nearly an hour, browsing (and buying).
Charles was driving, and when we pulled out onto Peachtree, he turned North instead of South. I didn't ask him what he was up to, deciding instead to wait and see. He turned right off Peachtree onto Paces Ferry Road, and pulled into a parking spot about three blocks down from that intersection. I got out of the car when he did.
"Aren't you going to ask me where we are going?"
"Nope."
"Why not?"
"Because I have already figured it out. This was the first available parking place after we passed The Dessert Place."
"You are too smart for your own good."
We walked in silence down the sidewalk to the eatery in question, one of several such outlets around town, which offered coffee, soft drinks, and a wide variety of pies, cakes, and cookies. We ordered coffee, selected our desserts, and lingered over both for some time.
"Tell me about your Boston lawyers."
"There’s not too much to tell. The firm is Cabot Lodge Lane. The two principals are William Cabot Lane and Henry Lodge Lane. They are first cousins, their fathers being twin brothers, and they look very much alike. They are also lovers, and live in a townhouse on Beacon Hill. As you might expect from their middle names, they are descended from two of Boston's best known first families. For that matter, the Lane family has as much claim to prominence in that city as do the Cabots and Lodges. I think you will like them."
"What kind of practice do they have?"
"That part is kind of strange. The two of them handle the affairs of a number of Boston's old moneyed families, charging them outrageous fees. They use those fees to subsidize about a dozen associates who provide legal services for the working poor, that is those folks who make a little too much money for legal aid, but cannot afford to hire lawyers. They both have considerable incomes, from trust funds set up years ago, so money is not of paramount importance."
"Do you go to Boston often?"
"Five or six times a year."
"Done much sightseeing there?"
"Very little, actually, why?"
"As you know, I spent seven years in Cambridge, during which time I explored Boston extensively. Maybe we will have time for me to play 'tour guide' for you."
"I'd like that."
"One thing, though."
"What is that?"
"There might be one or two ghosts hanging around Boston, considering who I shared it with. Robert and I used to go back there once or twice a year, ourselves."
"If we encounter any ghosts, we will have to exorcize them."
He had no reply for this, so we finished our coffee, went home, and settled down to read for a while. Later, I was nearing the end of a chapter, when he, apparently having reached a stopping place in his book, began to get playful. I made him wait until I finished three or four pages before we went upstairs to bed.
Saturday was almost a mirror-image of the previous Saturday, excepting that we went back to the Pleasant Peasant for dinner. We arrived home early, as we were hoping that Richard would be waiting with some news of the elusive bartender when we returned, but he had not yet returned by the time we were ready to retire.
Sunday morning, Richard's bed appeared not to have been slept in. Charles said this was not unusual, given Richard's lifestyle, so we went on with our planned schedule. After church, we went to J. Paul's and had a wonderful Brunch, returning home about two-thirty. There was still no sign of Richard, so we crawled in bed for a nap.
Around four o'clock, we dressed and went downstairs, where Richard was sound asleep on the sofa in the study. Charles immediately woke him up.
-To be continued-
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