Buying a Globe-Wernicke

Jim was reading an email from Richard: … 'By the way, I should issue a correction. It's a minor detail but, on reflection, the American Officer whom I cuckolded in Germany was in fact a US Marine Officer, neither Army nor Air Force. His name was Colonel Poppelhincken.'

Phew! Jim thought. For twenty-four hours I had been horribly afraid that my own father might have fucked me! He's old enough, if he had been a very bad lad, starting at a young age; and he was; that is not in doubt. He still is! However the USMC connection and Poppelhincken rule that out.

Slightly later:Of course the bastard remembered that detail all along but he enjoyed making me sweat for twenty-four hours. What did Nigel say about him? 'A practical joker, whose jokes are usually hilarious but seem somehow less amusing if you are his victim'. There you have it, in a nutshell. It was a thoroughly mean trick to play.

Then: Why did he send me a photo of himself as a Sandhurst cadet – a very dishy one - saying that I reminded him of his youthful self, if it was not to reinforce that doubt in my mind? And there is some facial resemblance between me and that handsome, mischievous gentleman.

Jim remembered Richard's sadism towards the rats in Norfolk; towards Mrs Twaddle during the Great Rat Hunt Debate, and his laughing boisterously after the debate.

Of course he meant me to think that and be worried! At best maybe it was a kind of test; to see whether I'd really believe it – as I almost did. He would find that funny. I think we need to speak further.

He rang Richard, whose private land-line number he now had on his Mobile, to have it out with him. He was in luck; Richard was working at home that morning. As he unburdened himself, he could tell from Richard's voice that the disinformation had been deliberate and that he was grinning from ear to ear as he listened to Jim.

“You're a real bastard!” Jim shouted.

“Well, I have never made any secret of that!” Richard chuckled serenely. “I told you early in our acquaintance that I was born out of wedlock! And I told you that tale to test you.”

“Why? How? In what way?”

“To see how you'd react. A man of no principles would not have been bothered, or he might have tried to blackmail me. You plainly have ethical standards...”

“Which, equally plainly, you have not...”

“I shall ignore that remark. I have standards, but they are rather outmoded in many people's view. They include concepts like physical courage, loyalty and honour. Where you disappointed me slightly is that you evidently believed the story for a whole day and night. You did not ask me when and where the adultery had happened. In reality it occurred much less than nine months before your birth, in Germany. I was a Lieutenant; the young lady in question was a USMC wife, not Air Force, so I'm not your father.”

“Would it have made any difference if you had been?” Jim asked nastily.

Richard sounded both amused and mildly offended. “What do you take me for? If you had been my son, I would certainly not have done what we did together last time! Sons, If I had any, would be off-limits; so would be any young male relation, including godsons, for that matter.”

“So I was fair game?”

“Stop playing the victim,” Richard was getting irritated now. “It does not suit you. You were attracted to me; I was attracted to you, and if my memory of that night is accurate, you enjoyed yourself thoroughly; so did I. I also liked you a lot; friendship plus fucking is a great combination.”

“You liked me? You have a strange way of showing it!”

“Maybe I do. Look, I can tell that you're really feeling sore and annoyed with me. I'll give you your revenge: come and fight me and get it out of your system that way. One way or another, honour should be satisfied. D' you fence? We could have a duel! Not a serious one; we'd wear masks and keep the buttons on the foils. We don't want you to become another Pushkin!”

Too right,thought Jim. The one thing I know about Pushkin is that he was killed in a silly duel; whether with swords or pistols, I now forget.

“Nope. I don't know the first thing about fencing, and you can forget about pistols at dawn too!”

“Well, that's not a good idea, then! Can you box?”

“I used to, a bit, at College, then I got my nose broken. I had it re-set but was told that any further damage now could have serious consequences.”

“That is correct; now that I think about it, I have the same thing.” Pause. “Hmm... how about unarmed combat? Or do you wrestle?”

Jim smiled for the first time. “Yes, I do wrestle. I last did so two weeks ago. Do you?”

“Yes, although I don't advertise the fact. I did three years' training in my spare time, starting while I was still at school. I took it up again in the Army, after I'd transferred from the Guards to the Para Regiment. I'm considered to be rather good at it.”

“Well then, let's wrestle. But I thought that English Officers and gentlemen did not wrestle? I know that some of them box, but wrestling...?”

“I'm an exception,” said Richard. When you get to know me better, you'll find that I'm the exception in all sorts of ways.”

Jim started to feel keen: “That I could believe! Okay, where'll we fight?”

“Here at The Commoner. I've got the ring and the equipment. All you have to do is to turn up with your trunks and boots. It'll just be the two of us; no audience and I see no need for a referee, as it'll be an honour fight. May the best man win!”

They agreed a date and a time. A few days later Jim was walking purposefully through the backstreets of Westminster and down the street where Richard lived during the week. It was late afternoon. He was carrying a small hold-all, which contained his ring gear and a towel. The Dangling Commoner Inn overshadowed the small, narrow street. For the first time Jim properly noticed the high gambrel roof. It suddenly occurred to him that, given its reddish brick facade, the inn looked as though it were flushed, drunken and wore a wig. Given that it was a pot-house and that much of it had been built in the seventeenth century – there were some older bits - that seemed appropriate. He slipped past the bar and headed for the long flight of stairs that led to Richard's apartment. He bounded up; remembered and avoided the trip-step; entered the echoing store-room; found the carving that opened the panel that concealed the small staircase that led to Richard's lair and knocked on the door. The knocker, a grotesque mask, whose eyes were spy-hole lenses, leered at him. He did not wait long.

The door swung open to reveal Richard ready for action; he was wearing a dark green toweling bathrobe, which looked and smelt freshly-laundered. Below it, his legs were bare, apart from his wrestling boots. Richard grinned mischievously at Jim:

“So, you've come after all. You want your revenge?”

This was a loaded question, which Jim side-stepped:

“I accepted the challenge; I said I'd come and now I'm here.”

“Good man! Bang on time too! Are you still mad at me? If you are, you know what that means? It means that you're emotionally involved; that's what! If you were indifferent to me, you'd have shrugged your shoulders, stood me up and walked away!”

“What d' you take me for?” said Jim, consciously echoing Richard's earlier remark. “You're an impossible man.”

“I believe I am! Come on. I'll show you my multi-dimensional fitness centre.”

Richard ushered Jim into the apartment. In the ceiling of the short passage that led from the former guard-room, now Richard's dressing-room and bathroom, to the large drawing-room-cum-dining-room-cum-study, was a trapdoor. Using a window-pole, Richard opened it and caused a folding ladder to unfold downwards. He fixed it securely and said, “Follow me!”

Richard ran quickly up the ladder, Jim hot on his heels. Extremely fit himself, Jim was impressed by Richard's powerful, muscular legs. The guy could have been a bodybuilder; he presumably worked out a lot, but he intuited that the muscles were intended for more than mere show.

Richard threw off his bathrobe and showed himself clad only in trunks, boots and wrist-bands. Richard rarely bothered with knee- or elbow-pads. His crimson trunks were standard WWF ring-gear. They were low-waisted and brief. They were made of some shiny and iridescent material and close-fitting, so that you could see whether the wearer was cut or uncut: Richard was uncircumcised. Jim was again reminded how powerfully-built Richard was. His elegant dark suits, cut in Savile Row, slimmed him down. Now, nearly naked, he looked muscular and intimidating. His pale but healthy-looking body was completely shaven or waxed; his muscles stood out like those of an ancient Greek or Roman statue.

He's not your typical Member of Parliament! Well, he was in the Paras and the SAS, Jim thought. He also thought, with a sinking feeling: He's a hard man and he'll be hard to beat. It's too late to wimp out now, however; in for a Penny, in for a Pound...

“Here it is,” said Richard.

They were now in the attic of the mansard roof which, because of its construction, was almost as high as the ordinary rooms below. It had never been divided into rooms; a vast space with polished floorboards of some pale hard-wood. There were very few windows but the electric lighting made the place seem bright and airy. One wall was covered with mirror glass; the others were painted white. A few framed black-and-white photos of famous past wrestlers and strong-men were the only decoration. One, whom Jim recognised as the Russian-Estonian wrestler, George Hackenschmidt, was shown completely naked. A circuit, consisting of an exercise bike, a running machine and some serious weights, had been set up around the sides of the room. A wrestling ring stood in the centre of the attic.

“You see, it's like this. I only recently got thatset up,” Richard said, indicating the ring. “You'll be the first challenger to use it!”

“I'm impressed!” said Jim truthfully.

“You should be! All this equipment cost an arm and a leg. Now, get your kit off! I'm waiting!”

Richard climbed into the ring and examined himself critically in the mirror wall. He did a few warming-up exercises, flexing his muscles, stretching his legs along the ropes, performing a few feats of agility and doing his signature 'vertical take-off'; a high jump that allowed him to knock out his opponent, or at least inflict shock and hurt, by kicking him in the head with both feet.

Jim stripped quickly, to put on his own ring-gear. As usual, he wore black: his wrist-bands, knee-pads and boots were black. His Speedo-style trunks were matt black; they covered noticeably less than Richard's did. The black set off Jim's all-over tan. The cut of the trunks emphasised his bulge and revealed a little of his lower ass-cheeks. As on a previous occasion, a gay motif was stenciled on an oval white patch on his left buttock. Jim was both pleased and slightly irritated at the way in which Richard looked him up and down with evident admiration.

He looks like a Staffy terrier which has its eyes on a prime beefsteak, he thought.

After dodging and feinting, they closed together and locked hands. It became a trial of strength; one which Jim was not certain that he could win. He did not; Richard got him in a bear-hug and squashed the life out of him. This was followed by a pile-driver, in which the victim is slammed head-first onto the resilient canvas. The first time this happened, Jim bounced back and managed to get Richard onto the ground, where his own youth and quickness gave him the advantage. At one point he got Richard in a backbreaker over his knee and gave his genitals a good squeeze, while Richard roared with pain and fury. However he soon got his revenge; another bear-hug. The second time, Richard got a better hold on Jim and hugged him relentlessly from behind, lifting him off his feet. Jim hooked his feet behind Richard's knees, while trying to wrench his hands apart. As he got weaker, his feet lost their purchase; as he could see in the mirror wall, his legs flew apart and Richard turned him upside-down before delivering another piledriver. This time Jim did not get up; he lay groaning in a pool of his own sweat. He had never felt so sore or tired in his life.

Richard knelt beside him. “Content now? I'm taking these as a trophy; I love the design and the motif!”

He pulled down Jim's trunks, tossed them aside, admired and stroked Jim's bare ass, which was beautifully symmetrical. There was a moment's silence, broken only by Jim's breathing.

“What d' you want now, Richard? Am I going to be fucked? Isn't that what happens next?” Jim groaned.

“Only if you want it. Forced sex is a no-no; not the act of a gentleman. Look, you were brilliant and brave; I respect that. It's just that I am more experienced than you and still stronger, despite the age difference. But in a year or two you'll beat me easily. How about a shower?”

Richard had conveniently forgotten about two or three occasions when he had in fact cheerfully subjected an enemy to forced sex. One had been an IRA supporter whom he had murdered after fucking him. The most recent victim had been a policeman who had the temerity to book him for speeding. Richard was still blackmailing the offending copper, of whom he had taken some very compromising photos. These, he had threatened to leak; not only to the police authority and the local Press, but also – worse still - to the rugby club of which the young Sergeant was a star. Their ribald laughter would have been audible in the next county.

After his shower Jim felt better; he seemed to have got rid of his anger. He would probably feel a few aches and pains tomorrow. Then Richard took his shower. After that, wearing his bath robe, he padded into the main room, to find Jim stretched out on the sofa, unselfconsciously naked. He was skimming through a book entitled Dieux du Stade, illustrated with grainy photos of equally naked and handsome French rugby players.

“D'you like them? I used to play rugby; I still do, for a veterans' side,” Richard asked.

“Yes, I like rugby players! That one, for instance; the big blond man. I bet he's from Alsace. Take a look.”

Richard came closer. Without ceasing to look at the book, Jim reached out and put his hand on Richard's leg, just above the knee. He slowly ran it upward and slid it round to stroke and caress the nearest buttock. Then Jim grabbed his cock, pushed back the foreskin and squeezed the swelling penis, digging in his nails.

Richard gave a low groan of pleasure: “I knew something this would happen! Wrestling's so bloody erotic. I'm up for it. Let's go next door,” he chuckled. He scooped Jim up in a fireman's lift and headed for the bedroom.

(To be continued)