New Story

We must be grateful that
spectacles small and sometimes large,
refreshingly break our often dull routines.

Nell Noddings

Quotidien Routines Interrupted

Back at home with his best companions, Dalton and Afzal, Edwin fell into synch with readying the house for the furnace men, the delivery of Dalton’s new bed, rearranging of rooms and furniture, removing clutter, and tackling regularized schedules for daily commutes to the University, for meal times and study. It annoyed Edwin to have so little time for his work at the Art Institute. When energetic Afzal and enthusiastic Dalton threw themselves into the housework, Edwin drifted into cogitation about organizing his time. A “You-hoo, buster!” call from Dalton re-engaged him for this project or that, but he was nagged by the suspicion that attending classes would hold him back.

After relating his Cleveland stories to dear Dalton, Edwin had taken on an incipient air of self centeredness the old man had never perceived, and heartily disliked. “Too early, my sweetheart,” he admonished gently, “and ever so unnecessary.” He kissed the young man’s brow and hugged him closer. “Stick to the plans. They will see you through all sorts of annoyances. Why, the attention of your documentary, the talks you’ll do and the reactions you’ll receive – you can spell those and the schedule at school with Duane’s canvas. There’s no deadline for that. Work on it will be better the more time you take to think through every touch of your brush. When finished, it will redound to your credit like nothing else. You, as only you can do, will have subsumed yourself behind Friedrich’s glowing image and allowed the world to see it as he must have meant. That will be your proudest moment.” He put himself at arm’s length, drew up and over the supine Edwin, looked seriously at him, and said, “My proudest moment, as well.

Everything is something you can do – with my support and Afzal’s, especially if you free yourself from the…” – he sought words for effectiveness – “the pestilence of petulance.”

Bingo.

Young Edwin laughed. His brow cleared, its seamless beauty returning.

From the doorway, Afzal surveyed the tender scene. “If this is an orgy, what’s my part in it?”

“Our star needs the attention, I do believe, of a blow-job, to clear his mind of muddled thoughts.

If you can be so kind, I will assist.”

A second’s hesitation later, Afzal spoke up, “Indubitably.”

Edwin soon found himself in delightful torment, as Dalton held him in place against his own ample chest and stomach to twiddle enticing nipples and as Afzal knelt to assault the ivory-colored shaft’s now-rigid stand. From tip to root, the Malaysian’s tongue, mouth, and throat brought each inch to heated life.

Thereafter, night’s fall gave the trio all the benefits of loving calm.

Winter did its best to attract attention by directing the Ohio weather front and its sleety rain over Indiana and Illinois. Dalton Brawne’s old brick house resisted, well-waterproofed, its double-glazed windows holding tight.

This is the work; this is the toil.

Publius Vergilius Maro

Practical application is the only mordant
which will set things in the memory.
Study without it is gymnastics, and not work,
which alone will get intellectual bread.

James Russell Lowell

Classes, Extra-Curricular Activities, Business

“Now, now. Can it really be as bad as that?”

“Dalton, she’s a dope. Uptight, too.”

“It’s only been a week, my dear.”

Edwin looked out a hoar-frosted window, “She opened by claiming her class would contribute to our ‘quality education,’ spouted some trashy educational jargon, was inconsistent in just about everything, hadn’t specific standards by which to grade our work, said she wanted us to ‘activate’ our vocabularies and that every time somebody asks a question is ‘a teachable moment’ – now get this – and she called herself ‘the end-user’ of what we would write. She even said we could have ‘some face-time’ with her outside of class.”

“A grad student, I take it?”

“Something like that.”

“You got off on a bad foot with her?”

All innocence, Edwin turned, “Well, when she assigned us to write a brief biography of ourselves, I raised my hand and asked that we read hers. When she hedged, I said we ought to see how she wrote about herself if we were to know the sort of thing she expected from us.”

“So?”

“She protested that our own approach would do. She didn’t want to prejudice us. Bull. I shut up and, next session, handed in my application essay. Remember? – Young Edwin Owen of Late, Conflicted? An Essay Concerning the Person by Himself. I even indented the paragraphs. She thought it lacked ‘every-day immediacy,’ was ‘impersonal,’ ‘too wordy,’ and needed ‘believability.’ I countered that it could not be faulted for consisting in what I wanted known about myself. That was a matter of my judgment. For good measure, I threw in, ‘As to believability, that surely resides within you, since nothing in the essay is anything but unambiguous truth and expressed as such.’ She looked a bit peakèd, as Aunt Aggie sometimes says, and went on to the next student.”

With a snort, Dalton asked, “Was there another incident?”

“There was. About poems. She showed us one, read it out, then attempted to analyze it. We had better at Treydon High,” Edwin sighed. “I kept quiet while she glossed over the rhyme scheme and the meter as if we were in kindergarten. Kipling’s If – can you believe? That lame thing. I couldn’t take it, so I pointed out that it’s not much of a rhyme scheme if the first three lines end with the same word – you. I also pointed out that the number of syllables in its lines made no pattern, weren’t consistent. And, that a basic construction in English is if…then, the one requiring the other to be logical, yet Kipling starts eleven lines with ‘If’ and never in the whole, long sentence that the poem is uses ‘then’ to show that his hypotheses lead, at the end, to a true conclusion. My teacher at Treydon, who had a doctorate in English, called it ‘maudlin, muddled, and largely irrelevant – a statement about stoicism consisting of unsupported assertions.’”

“My, my. Bet that rattled the bitch.”

“Sure did. She spouted some generalities about poems but couldn’t, when I asked her for one, provide a definition of the word poem. Actually, she got mad and told me that, if I were so critical, I should write a poem of my own – ‘simple, actual, clear in meaning, expressive, relevant to the present day, with rhyme and meter.’” His index fingers indicated the quote.

“Did you?”

“I did. It got me in trouble. Want to see it?”

“In-du-bi-ta-bly,” Dalton over-imitated the way Shan, Afzal and Edwin used the Chip ‘n’ Dale cartoon word for their banter. He balefully eyed the single sheet being handed to him.

Feelings and Behavior in Rhythm and Rhyme

by Young Edwin Owen

A dark night
Storms
Hearth’s alight
Forms
In that light
Ready
As they ought
Steady
In their thought
Heady
Crotches rising
As they might
Cunnies sizing
To be tight
Caught
In the glare
Fraught
By her stare
Mom turns away
So teens can play
Thunder
Plunder
Fuck

The eighty-year-old could not contain himself. Edwin’s last five lines coming under his view, his
laughter grew alarmingly. Parental consent!Dalton coughed while laughing, even started to
wheeze. Red in the face, he slapped his thigh in an effort to recover. Finally, he managed, “If I
may quote your aunt, it’s ‘a hoot.’ How did it get you in trouble?”

“I told you the teacher’s uptight. She threatened to complain to the Dean that I was harassing her.

I gave her one of my best expressions and let her know that she was harassing the intelligence of the class by her incompetence.”

Dalton sputtered, “What?”

“The ‘what’ is that I walked out and dropped the course.”

* * *

A pair of arrivals brightened Chicago’s dismal, wintry grayness in the lives of Dalton and Edwin and of the experts working in the Conservation Department at the Art Institute – Duane Wilderforce and Hassan Yasamin fresh from travels abroad. Seemingly mismatched, they presented as an unusual team.

Older by several decades, Duane, a big American fellow with a prominent belly, close-cropped gray hair, and a somewhat florid nose, collected rare, old-master paintings in his house in Paris and owned a penthouse atop one of the Windy City’s prominent hotels, that known under its long-established name, the Palmer House.

His companion, Hassan, recent celebrant of a seventeenth birthday, cut a much different, less circumferential form. Diminutive, radiantly muscular, exotically skinned, curly headed, and graced with the whitest teeth that a beaming smile could reveal, he was Duane’s possession.

Literally.

He had been purchased from the brothel in Marseille where he had been born and, after his mother’s death, raised mostly by one of the whores. An act of mercy as much as sexual interest, Duane’s purchase had saved the young man’s life. Seemingly nothing about realms of physical pleasure was unknown to this child of a Chinese woman and a Moroccan man. That Edwin had found out the previous Summer with George Tanner during their visit to Paris. He had been consigned to Hassan for certain specialized instruction, a venture determined by George and his long-time friend, Duane.

Museums and their holdings were part of Edwin’s curriculum to be studied diligently, for sure, but in concert with intense sexual experiences. There, in Duane’s handsome Nineteenth Century hôtel particulier, he had been laved by Hassan outside and in, worn his first caftan, taught to fellate, introduced to Kegel exercises, and fucked for the first time in the presence of others, Duane and his apparently happy slave.

Parallels between themselves and the men in whose control they were assisted the bonding of Edwin with Hassan, two years his junior. Subsequent meetings in Chicago and Malaysia had reinforced their friendship.

The visit’s promise excited Edwin, Dalton, George, and Zvi Rosenberg, head of the Art Institute’s Conservation Department.

There was underway in the museum’s lab both the cleaning and restoration of a long-thought-lost canvas by Romantic German master, Caspar David Friedrich. Discovered in Duane’s dusty attic and vetted by a Parisian expert, the painting had been shipped discreetly to the museum where Edwin was a participant in the delicate work. Duane had come to inspect its progress. Although incomplete, the revelation of Friedrich’s glowing yellow sky and portions of the verdure-covered mountains beneath was breathtaking.

Photographs of the cleaning were shown in succession, rapid to the point of animation. Director Helmut Schachter, his Curator of Education, George Tanner, and the owner looked with appreciative eyes. Rosey, as everyone called the man in charge, explained the work, praised his staff, each of whom he introduced before singling out Edwin to speak about the pigments.

The scientific part the young man based on an earlier week’s instruction at Chicago’s McCrone Research Institute and analytical techniques carried out in the museum’s lab. More fascinating for the group were Edwin’s descriptive terms, drawn from nature, for the varied hues in the dawn-or-dusk-lighted sky: straw, maize, dandelion, apricot, jonquil, daffodil, goldenrod, and mustard. “It’s like an encyclopedia of yellows from the plant world,” he said, “and ever so beautiful.”

Duane, fresh from seeing drawings and a watercolor of Edwin’s presented to friends in Malaysia, pursed his lips in consideration. From his deep baritone register, he asked, “Could you paint a copy of it for me?”

“Who, me?”

“Of course, you. I don’t plan to take the original back to Paris.”

Schachter looked at Tanner. A possible gift to the Art Institute? What a coup that would be.

Already committed as a future legacy were Duane’s old masters – a half-dozen exquisite aquarelles by Claude and impressive oils by artists such as Ruysdael, van Goyen, and Poussin.

Both men regarded Edwin, whose eyes twinkled.

“I can try – if they’ll let me.”

Rosey, quick to catch the import of Duane’s statement, studied Helmut steadily and glanced in Dalton’s direction, nodding. “Oh, we can make room back here someplace.”

His English no longer hesitant, Hassan exclaimed, “And you can bring it to us in Paris!” In Edwin’s ear, he whispered, “And I can show you des choses nouvelles.”

New things.

* * *

The “whole gang,” as Dalton termed it, sat around Duane’s penthouse living room (“It’s Hassan’s, too,” he had said, implying something new in the relationship.) after dinner – Dalton between Edwin and Afzal, work crew members Tom Loft with boyfriend Roger Dawson, and curator George by himself but near Hassan, who had kissed everybody in welcome. There were presents for Dalton and Edwin from the Penang contingent – new-model South African condoms with pull-on tabs (much admired), their favorite Sumatran coffee (much to be savored), and a new balm (to be appreciated) from the Battacharya twins, Fazwin and Zakir, Edwin’s devoted admirers. Salil had sent some extra funds for his sons (to be spent freely). Talk drifted from distant friends, past associations, travels, art exhibits, and the weather to Edwin’s classes at the University.

[Note: The above – and some of the content below – derives from action in the book ]

“My studio class is doing exercises in ‘spontaneous expression.’ I guess there’s long-range purpose to that but it seems silly. To play it safe, as Aunt Aggie advised, I watch what the others are doing, listen to comments, scribble or smear stuff around, juxtapose unrelated objects now and then, and make up stuff to say. The more Zen-like and cryptic, spoken shyly, as if to me  alone, sort of mumbled and kept brief, the more everybody nods.”

George Tanner looked on with suspicion, “Is it really a waste of time?”

“Maybe not. I’m figuring out how these sorts of people operate. I guess that could prove useful before the end of the term, or later.”

“What do you really like?”

“Two good classes, Dr. Hananian’s seminar in the Middle Ages and the survey of epic literature directed by a nice man, Dr. Knoblock, in the English Department. I’m learning tons!”

“Such as?” Duane wanted to know. George, too.

“Well, in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries, the Emperor Constantine and his mother, the Augusta Helena, and Saint Ambrose, Saint Jerome, and Saint Augustine (accent on the second syllable we were told) – those people set Christianity on its course for the next eight hundred years. That means the architecture, the sculpture, the mosaics, the manuscripts, and even the music, although I don’t know anything about that. Our next big stop will be at the first Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne, in the Ninth Century, when there’s the Carolingian Renaissance which is fantabulous.”

“A word you learned from Dr. Hananian?”

“Uh, no, George. I picked it up from one of the students outside of class. I know it’s not real. It’s just fun to say.” He shifted gears, “Hananian’s really smart. She gives us oceans of information. I like her a lot. And Dr. Knoblock’s lit class, that’s very interesting. We’ve read the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh – boy, what a love story! – and large chunks of Homer’s Odyssey, and are headed toward Dante.”

Duane’s interest piqued, he asked, “Do you know Gustave Doré’s illustrations to the Divine Comedy?”

“Not yet. I’ve seen a few in books. I did see real Doré drawings in Cleveland. Why?”

“With your artistic curiosity, I should think they’d make a terrific subject for a term paper. One’s

been assigned, n’est-ce pas?”

“Gosh, yes. Thank you. Mmm, I like that idea! I’ll look into it.”

Dalton chipped in, “We’ve another scholar in the room – this brainy darling.” He hugged a blushing Afzal.

“Tell us,” Hassan said, clapping his hands.

Afzal shrugged, “Nothing special to report but all good. I have a Social Studies class and an English class different from the one Edwin was in with that dopey teacher. It’s okay,” he brightened, “My three other classes deal with numbers, ways of accounting, you know, and how to write financial reports. I’m making all As in my classes and I’ve met a really cute girl.”

The room’s occupants focused attention.

“Edwin knows her, too.”

“I do. She’s the one I learned ‘fantabulous’ from. We’ve had lunch together a few times. She’s got a head for figures and,” he snickered, “I think, the hots for Afzal.”

“Tell us,” Hassan repeated himself eagerly.

“She calls herself Amy, her first name, after her British mother’s. Her real name’s Indira – you know, like Gandhi. But she was raised in Turkey, where her father’s business is, in Istanbul.”

Edwin reminded the room, “They have the most amazing architecture there from the time of Justinian.”

The unrelated remark distracted no one. Certainly not Hassan, who shot a crafty – perhaps mischievous – look in Afzal’s direction. “Are you going to fuck her?”

The blunt, French-accented question startled Tom and Roger. Dalton huffed but smiled. A second or two later, Duane, too. Sounded like an echo. George showed disgust.

“He should, if he gets the chance,” Edwin was matter-of-fact. “He’s practiced a lot with me.”

To contain himself from blurting out his secret about Amy, Afzal sat tight-lipped. Let them talk. When he saw how red-faced Afzal had become, Hassan jumped up. He grabbed a hand, tugged the Malaysian to his to his feet, and dragged him from the room. “I will tell you everything to do – just right. Come with me.”

Duane rolled his eyes, laughing. “Bet it involves fingers and tongues. You don’t mind, do you?” he asked Edwin.

“What? Me? No. Afzal’s dying to be with a female. Indira’s two or three years older, of course, but being with someone older’s never bothered Afzal, has it Dalton?”

“No more than it’s bothered his brother, his father, or you.”

The remark phased no one.

“Anyway, she seems to like him a lot. One day, she said he’s as much fun as the little brother she wished she’d had.”

Dalton muttered to Duane, “The smell of incest is in the air.”

In the two young men’s absence, conversation shifted. Shantanu and certain matters of commerce and investment came up. Spurred by their holiday encounters in Malaysia with the innovative creations of Japanese erotic tailor Noriuki Sato – among them, Shan’s revelatory costume for his role as Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and his very personal exercise outfits – Duane and Hassan had engaged their new friends Stephen Cobbett and Terry Lee in plans to market globally a line of high-end products for the dominant/submissive trade. Stephen, Terry and Duane had matched wits with each other over the prospects.

There were to be articles of body wear custom-crafted from elastics, leathers, metal rings and buckles for customers male and female and innovative, complex, electrically operated slings that rendered their occupants immobile for sexual use in virtually any position. Humans reduced to objects for utilitarian sexual use, fantasy-play for those who could afford it.

Terry and Hassan, along with two visitors, had gleefully tried them in what Edwin called STEPHEN’S FORNICATERY, the home gymnasium where so many pleasurable debaucheries had been shared.

Under discussion, an instructional video on the exotic massage techniques of the curious Battacharya twins. It was to be produced and made available with their own line of massage oils and lubricants, and a tour arranged for private sessions by them with select customers in major cities where Messrs Sato and Wilderforce had connections – Tokyo, Honolulu, London, and Paris. Just for starters.

Edwin’s skin crawled in memory of his exquisite, titillating massage from the twins and from the training session they had given Afzal and Hassan. His thoughts flickered from: The skin is our largest sex organ to Nearly as good as sex with Dalton.

Undetermined was a range of bodily inserts unique in the world of anal pleasure. In addition to certain novelties designed by Noriuke Sato, Duane had in mind those designed and made singly by George for Edwin and Shan, and the grand one he had also fashioned for use in Afzal, “the one that Edwin drew based upon your cock, Dalton.”

Duane spoke openly to the beaming Dalton, who had been in George Town with Edwin, and to George, with whom he had negotiated his commitment to the museum. “There’s money to be made, gentlemen. First, the products – their designs and techniques of manufacture – then the marketing. We’ll pay the two of you royalties, of course. We must discuss this.”

Dalton said softly to an astonished George, “We would do personal appearances, to sign our dildos – perhaps offer instruction in their use. Stars on a fast-track to promotion.” He rubbed together his plump hands avariciously.

Edwin’s gaze connected with George’s look of doubt. Both their heads went to Dalton’s face, still smiling at his own fun.

Content as observers thus far, Roger and Tom, had listened, fascinated. Roger decided to enter the discussion.

“We inspected Shan’s new halters that first day back,” he told Duane, “somewhat to his initial chagrin.”

Tom spoke up, “When I told him they made him look even better than the old one – the one he got from you, Duane – he relaxed, got harder, and sort of preened. In the black rig, he’s great; but, in the red one, outstanding. My god, how he’s grown. His cock’s about as big as Roger’s or George’s now. You all should see it. Jesus.”

“We actually were concerned whether his cock might prove too big for his boyfriend in Treydon,” Roger said. “Jesse’s physically small, we understand. But….”

George finished the thought, “Your Aunt Aggie took care to prepare Jesse, as you might imagine, so the reconciliation, she reported to me, ‘went very well.’”

“Yes,” Dalton nodded to Duane. “Shan confides totally in Edwin and with his brother far more than before the holidays. That was largely his father Salil’s doing. You know, father and son got quite close at that time.”

“Dalton, watch it,” Edwin remonstrated in flat tones heavy with meaning. Bent on changing the subject, he added, “Shan’s in touch with his father. Often. Their relationship now is open. And he speaks with Afzal, too.”

Interest showed in Tom’s eyes. Kinky aspects of relationships were his thing. He loved the fact that Dalton, eighty, had married Edwin, eighteen. He thrilled to his role as sex object for Roger, his partner of years, and George, whose fierce attentions to him in bed rekindled Roger’s sexuality. Two ‘fantabulous’ studs to service my ass. Is anybody better off?

His two men noticed Tom’s inclination forward. His desire to know more of the father-son relationship was obvious. Even the idea of tactile sensations – whatever they may have been, the more remarkable the better – they understood was a love of Tom’s. Actual sensations inside his backside, pelvises and pubic bushes pounding against him, slaps to his face, straps to his butt and upper legs – continuous tactile sensations under dramatic circumstances – satisfied his yearning to be used. The less predictable their attacks were, the more enjoyment for him.

Maybe they’ll volunteer me as the American test subject for those new products. I’d like that!

Especially if they pay me.“Duane,” he said, “if you need an American on whom to try your products, I’m available evenings and weekends.” Like a schoolkid, Tom even raised his hand.