Ben Halpern and his bit on the side

The angry bee buzzed in Ben Halpern’s head. The eyes of that strange man, a few years older than he, seemed as dark as ever. The buzzing made them even darker still.

“Fuck off” shouted Ben in the same instant he gasped for breath and found himself  wide awake. “Fuck,” he repeated and grabbed his phone.

“Good morning, Mr. Halpern,” said a voice instantly recognisable for its foreign accent and ability to convey a soothing menace.

“It’s 6 a bloody clock. What do you want?”

Minutes later, Ben was showered and dressed. His parents were already eating breakfast. The dulcet Geordy tones of his mother greeted him warmly as they did each morning and expressed regret as he grabbed a slice of toast, before dashing for the back door.

“I’ll be back by 8,” he announced for the benefit of his father and paused just long enough to ruffle the old man’s hair, in a gesture of appeasement and affection.

“You’d better be youth. We have a long day ahead of us,” called Harry Halpern.

In the large yard, from which Harry Halpern and Son Plumbing and Domestic Heating Engineers conducted its business, the younger Halpern was relieved to find his new, second hand car,-well really just a notch or two up from being an old banger,- was parked neatly between his dad’s motor and the firm’s van. For some reason this mundane fact was of some comfort after the strange meeting last night, as he now drove off towards the south bound carriageway of the Grangeford motorway services. He had not the slightest wish to meet Marius Metanin until he really must do so this evening. But he had little choice in the matter. Which Marius would greet him this morning, Ben wondered? The slightly sinister and certainly intimidating figure, or the quite amiable character who was all concern and who gave him that wonderful cigarette?

“I thought it best to meet in plain sight, then we would not be so readily noticed or remembered,” was Marius’s greeting as Ben stepped into the unprepossessing Peugeot.

Ben stared for a moment at his interlocutor, just about suppressing a twinge of fear before it become too obvious. Marius was dressed top to toe, all in a black to match his eyes, thought Ben. Even his face seemed to bare smudges of black. The man looked tired,- even vulnerable, after a fashion. Was that a balaclava Ben noticed, not entirely hidden from view?

“I’m here because you more or less summoned me,” said a plaintive Ben. ‘Very profoundly to your disadvantage if you don’t turn up’ were your words.”

“Terzves,” agreed Marius, speaking for a moment in his native language.

“Sidney Tate,” he continued. “Your deal was £6000 for the 6 golden spoons and the documents of provenance you had the skill and audacity to steal. It was a very astute deal on your part.”

Ben nodded, silently appreciative of the compliment.

“And tell me,-I ask only because some would find you very attractive.- Did Mr. Tate demand a sexual favour, as an additional condition of your deal, I mean?”

A second silent nod.

“Tate being Tate, he would have paid you for such a service, had you known.”

Ben felt his face become red, a flush of shame. He looked away. The large family clambering with much noise into a nearby campervan were suddenly of great interest to him.

“I didn’t know, at first; until he propositioned me I mean. But then I thought what the fuck. And one way and another, I found that I’d negotiated an extra 1500 quid on top of the £6000 for the damn spoons.”

At last, the family had decided who was sitting where and drove off.

He turned to faced Marius.

“And more fool me, he went back on his word to respect my limits anyway…”

“Then, later that day, his two thugs beat you up and took the entire £7500?”

“Yup.”

An expression of uncharacteristic sympathy animated the tired black clad figure beside Ben.

“Behind you. Reach behind you, on the back seat.”

Ben did as he was told. The Waitrose bag was just like any other, except that like the one Sidney Tate had stuffed with money and his two thugs had taken from Ben, it too contained an abundance of £50 and £20 notes.

“Jesus on a pogo stick,” exclaimed Ben.

“As you reminded me a moment or so ago, I did say to you that it would be very profoundly to your disadvantage if you don’t turn up, said Marius enjoying the look of disbelief on Ben’s face.

“But I thought that you were threatening me.”

“ Hmm.., yes. A wise precautionary assumption,” agreed Marius. “But best not start counting it now. Take it from me, it is all there. All £7500.”

“How did you know it was mine?” He ran his fingers through the notes in lieu of the pleasure of counting them.

“Well Ben, ignoring the proprietorial glee with which your ill gotten gains are reclaimed, all I will say is that before stuffing the money, Waitrose bag, and all, back into that child’s piggy bank of a safe, the ever greedy Mr. Tate also included a scribbled note of your name. Why, I truly cannot possibly fathom.”

Ben glanced at his phone. Time was pressing. The cares of the family business and with them the demands of his father must soon claim his full attention. For the second time in less than 24 hours he was certain that Marius Metanin was the ‘cat burglar’ for whom various police forces in England were searching.

“Dismiss the very idea,” snapped Marius.

Dear heavens, this man can read my mind, thought Ben, not of course for the first time in that same 24 hours.

“Alright then, consider it dismissed Marius. Just tell me one thing though, who has the 6 golden spoons.”

For a horrible second or two,  hands seemed destined to grab Ben and do to him who knew what? They landed one on each shoulder.

“To borrow from Lorcan my Godfather, ‘Ya have thole, you’re a brave wee man so you are.’”

What that meant, Ben could only guess.. But the fact that Marius was laughing heartily,- laughing even with those dark eyes, reassured him that nothing painful was imminent.

“Who can blame you for asking,” said Marius, gathering himself.

“By now they will be on route to a rich party member in Macau. Such it would seem are the perquisites of capitalism with Chinese characteristics. For good measure the real irony is that he is paying close on £95000 for them.”

Ben gave a long low whistle.

“I meant what I told you last night, Marius. I really have given up crime.”
“I think I believe you,” Marius replied almost gently.- “Even if you are clinging to that bag of money like an inmate of a maximum security prison.”  

A hand touched Ben’s left shoulder causing him to flinch with fear.

“About an hour ago Sidney Tate’s business premises and his home in Lincoln were both raided by the police. Money laundering, a little trading in stolen antiques and dabbling on the edges of the narcotics trade, where all pies in which his grubby little fingers made illicit money. You will learn much of this through media platforms in the hours and days to come. So telling you now is of little consequence.”

The grip on Ben’s shoulder eased. He sighed with relief. All he wanted to do just now was to get out of this car and run.-Not forgetting of course to take the precious Waitrose bag with him.

“But there is one final thing before you leave here Ben. You will never speak of this conversation to anyone. Most of all, not to Oliver Groves, nor to Frazer Shaw. It will very profoundly be to your disadvantage if you do. Please believe me.”

The look of acknowledgement on Ben’s face was all that needed to pass between them. “See you tonight, Marius.”

                                        **

Oliver Groves was so surprised when the black and burgundy Daimler turned sedately into view that he had to grip his garden gate so as to keep his balance.

“Rosie” he declaimed aloud.

He beamed in unalloyed joy as the limousine drew up beside him . At the wheel, there was of course, Marius. Dear Marius. Beside him sat Ben.

It was Marius who was the first to step from the vehicle. He looked so smart in his charcoal grey chauffeurs uniform. They hugged with obvious affection.

“When Ben told me that he had a special ride planned for us, I had no idea he meant Rosie.”

He paused and added with a big grin, “You scrub up well of course. But I’m so glad you are not wearing that chauffeurs peaked cap. It doesn’t suit you.”

“I am so glad to meet with your approval,” Marius replied in a mocking tone as the two friends hugged again.

Meanwhile, Ben who was already inwardly astonished at the difference between the complex Marius he had met last night and again this morning; and the friendly but formal Marius who called him ‘sir’ when collecting him and driving to Oliver’s flat this evening, was further taken aback when the two friends began talking to each other in Fiorentine and kissing each other’s hands.

As Ben waited, it occurred to him to wonder what David Attenborough might make of this strange ritual.

Those dark, dark, eyes that had perplexed Ben and made him fearful only hours before, shone with something very different now. There was a kind of magnetism about Marius, his eyes seeming to draw Ben in and to send an unmistakable message to his loins.

“I am so, so happy to see you,” breathed Oliver, as he embraced Ben. “Our families, mine and Marius’ I mean, have been friends for decades “I’ve missed you so much Ben, it began to hurt. It really did.”

He glanced down at the bulge in Ben’s white chino’s. “At least you’re glad to see me.”

“Yes, I am,” Ben replied sincerely as they drew together in a deep kiss. It felt so good. His mates at the Dog and Trumpet would no doubt have something to say about this. True they had met Oliver and seemed very laid back at Ben suddenly having a boyfriend. But they were an old fashioned lot and might well harrumph at seeing him kissing Oliver in the street.

He sensed rather than saw that their chauffeur had tactfully put a little distance between himself and he and Oliver.

“My black leather bomber jacket suits you, Oliver.” The bare chest held Ben’s attention like nothing else could at that moment.

Oliver just smiled and guided Ben’s hand to the open jacket.

“Bite my nipples,” he whispered and moaned deeply as Ben moved ravenously from one nipple to the other in happy obedience. This hot August night Oliver was resolved to shag Ben’s no less hot hole in passionate love making.

“Do you mind if I say you are very pretty, Oliver?” So saying he parted Oliver’s blond fringe, the better to gaze into eyes as brown as his own.

“Not at all, you have before,” sighed Oliver. “But my legs need me to sit down before you do.”

The chauffeur was already holding the nearside rear door open. Oliver relaxed into the ample rear seat and stretched his legs as Ben rubbed them with an especial care. It was to Ben’s credit, though he did not know it, that the chauffeur noted that care.

“You did this for me weeks ago when we first met,” came Oliver’s happy reminiscence.

“Yes. As I  remember  after those selfish sods from the Royal Military Police riding school could not be bothered to dismount from their horses and help you mend a puncture,” Ben confirmed. Again, the chauffeur in silent approbation noted what Ben had done.

Ben for his part thought it best for now not to mention the incident just before he and Oliver first met. Here Ben had gone for a pee in what he subsequently learnt was a famed Skelthorpe cottage and had experienced his first blow job and rimming from a male: well rimming anyway. Which one of the  Fenton brothers he had exchanged first blow jobs with 9 years ago, he neither knew nor cared.

“Thanks, said Oliver. “My legs are just fine now.”

With the chauffeur’s encouragement and assurance that no, the limousine would not turn into a pumpkin at midnight, plans were made for the evening.

“I’d like a long, leisurely evening ride through the highways and byways  of Eastamptonshire,” was Ben’s suggestion.

“I could not agree more,” Oliver was quick to add; his own intentions for the evening very much in mind.

“Is that possible?”, Ben asked, addressing Marius for the first time since they arrived to collect Oliver.

“Of course, sir.”

“And a fragment of supper at Mrs. Marlowe’s famous establishment,” added Oliver, hardly able to contain himself at the prospect of riding alone with Ben.

“The drinks cabinet is empty, I’m afraid,” whispered Marius in confidential Fiorentine into Oliver’s ear, “But the Swiss Navy stand ready to serve.”

After that, it was not long before Rosie was edging through Skelthorpe, with Oliver having drawn the blinds between the two cabins and adjusted the intercom so that he and Ben had total privacy. The early evening scarcely reduced the 40 degrees of heat, even with all the windows open.

For a while the pair just watched the Eastamptonshire countryside glide by. Ben was even more resolved than ever, as Oliver snuggled close offering enticing  endearments, that he wanted to leave his criminal past behind him and somehow build what he could with the man nibbling his earlobes.

“The marks and grazes on your face weren’t there a few days ago,” said Oliver sounding almost casual in his observations.

Oliver felt his friend become tense.

Ben had been planning what he would say since he had spent the night with Frazer. To Frazer he had told the truth of course. To others, not least his parents and his mates in the Dog and Trumpet, he proffered variants of a theme in which he had accidentally become involved in a brawl in Braxton. The theme contained a sliver of truth and because it sounded plausible to many who knew Ben, it was accepted.

His phone pinged in timely distraction.

Good luck. Just be your decent self xx.

“It is from my very best friend, Frazer Shaw.” He showed Oliver the text.  “He introduced me to Marius, which is how we come to be here now.”

“But I don’t remember seeing him with your mates in the Dog and Trumpet.”
“You wouldn’t pretty one. It’s not really his kind of place most of the time, even though he lives not very far from it.”

That, and the way Ben began stroking his hair, stilled Oliver’s curiosity for now.

“I’d love you to meet Frazer. He is one of life’s good guys. You would like each other. But for now, let’s both turn our phones off.”

Oliver who had an interest in such things, anyway, calculated that Marius was driving at about 20 miles per hour. His intention of fucking Ben as they made passionate love in this limousine from another era, made him tingle all over. Who knew that the discreet hum of a Daimler DS420 limousine in motion was possessed of such aphrodisiac properties?

“How is it that you know Marius,” Ben asked, as Oliver began delicately unbuttoning his lover’s shirt. You are quite a posh boy compared to me, Ben did not say. But that is what he meant. Nor did he say aloud that it was more or less obvious to him now that the man acting the part of the deferential chauffeur  was probably from a supposedly superior social status than either of them. But he meant that as well.

Oliver inhaled the heady combination of arousal, a dash of aftershave and a hint of soap, that Ben effortlessly offered his senses.

It is very simple,” he replied with a suddenly serious and  thoughtful tone that nonetheless did not impede the sense of vocation he brought to the agreeable task of removing Ben’s clothes.

“Our families met when my parents, unknown to each other at the time, met during a hiking trip to the Kingdom of Triesenbourg in 1989. They were camping in a small field. There was a sudden deluge of rain and the owners took pity on the young foreigners and invited them in. They both remained friends with the Metanins and soon married. That is it really, our families have been close ever since.”

Ben helpfully raised his bum.

As one unwrapping his prize, Oliver quickly pulled down Ben’s Chinos and Aussiebum briefs. A manhood straining and oozing, swayed delicately with the Daimler’s slowing at the Orbistan Saint Hugh cross roads and the turn northwards through the Creswell Pounds Country Park.

“When my mother died six years ago, the old Count and the Countess and Marius flew here within 48 hours to comfort my father and I. True friends.”

For a few seconds the lovers gazed each into the other’s brown eyes. For Ben, another layer of complexity was added to his understanding of Marius Metanin.

“Yes, I can see that,” said Ben, “true friends to be sure.”

Oliver was kneeling in front of him gazing at his rampant cock and trimmed brown pubes. He looked so utterly shagworthy in that open, black bomber jacket. Ben had seriously considered adding blond highlights to match those in his spikey brown hair, but through lack of time had not.

“Are you alright. Kneeling like that, I mean,” asked Ben gently.

“It is shag pile carpet,” was Oliver’s sexy response.

One second later, Ben was sighing as deeply, as Oliver’s full and pretty lips were engulphing his cock.

He moaned and sighed under their ministrations. As these continued Ben tried to make what sounds of appreciation and encouragement he could put together sound like more than just grunts.

Oliver looked so beautiful as his lips went up and down Ben’s straining desire to shoot his hot passion down Oliver’s throat and yet postpone that bliss for as long as possible. Their eyes locked.

“Please don’t stop my darling Oliver. Don’t stop. I love you!. I Love you.”

But Oliver did stop, for what was but a moment; a moment which for Ben seemed to trespass upon an eternity. The Daimler stopped. But lost in his own transports of desire, Ben did not notice. Had he done so, in the fading light of late summer evening he might have noticed Marius stride leisurely to the front of the limousine and light one of those cigarettes.

Ben was momentarily devastated, until with a little difficulty Oliver rose enough for their lips to meet. Dizzy as he was, Ben had the concern and presence of mind to ensure that Oliver did not lose his balance, as Oliver’s tongue jousted his own in the depths and passion of their kissing.

“My bomber jacket really does suit you,” cooed Ben playfully nibbling Oliver’s nipples.

Oliver gasped and sighed. “Harder! Do it like you mean it,” he shouted. Ben did as he was told. Just for an instant he recalled a blur of girlfriends whose tits he had devoured in a past which seemed so long ago.

Ben took the length and loveliness of Oliver’s cock in his hand as they continued to kiss deeply; and Ben to marvel at the responses every time he bit, nibbled and sucked on Oliver’s hard nipples.

“You are so fucking sweet,” Ben growled. “Get those lips around my shagging tackle again.”

Everything about today, the here and now, seemed so different to their first lovemaking together in Oliver’s flat. Ben inadvertently voiced this thought as he sucked and admired Oliver’s cock almost as if seeing it for the first time.

“It’s bigger than mine,” Ben conceded in the light hearted conversation that followed.

“I repeat,” Ben ordered in a pretend display of dominance, “get your lips around my shagging tackle.”

Devotion to Ben’s needs willingly became again Oliver’s mission in life. Slurps from Oliver and sighs from Ben- which became more demanding thanks to Oliver’s utter dedication,- took on a rhythm that sent a particular delirium through Ben, that not even Carrie could have equalled.

Suddenly, an intermittent focus on Ben’s full and heavy balls came to an end. Hands gripped the sides of Oliver’s head, pulling at his blond hair as they did so. Ben was in control now. The delicious and sensual rhythm of Oliver’s blow job were unceremoniously superseded by Ben’s rising and falling hips driving his flaring, hungry rod deep beyond those pretty lips and deeply down Oliver’s throat. Oliver  and gasped for breath as he kept pace with Ben’s desire . Attempts to slow the thrusts were at all events scarcely heard or seen above the shouts of passion voiced by Ben and certainly ignored by him, as his hips rose and fell yet again in his final shattering climax.

The tactful chauffeur knowledgeable in the skills of selective deafness finished his cigarette and set the sedate Rosie in motion just as Ben recovered from his two second post orgasm black-out. Drained and struggling to refill his lungs, he grinned contentedly at his lover.

“You look so totally gorgeous,” he announced in unrestrained triumph as he watched his own cum spill from Oliver’s lips.

Oliver allowed himself a wan smile as Ben calmer and more careful now, pulled the kneeling Oliver up beside him so they were sat side by side. The merest hint of a warm breeze reached them on the approaching twilight.

Ben dabbed Oliver’s features with a white handkerchief. “Sorry if I was a bit rough,” he whispered, as much taken aback by his own fervour as he assumed Oliver to have been.

“I like my tops to top when they top; and you topped,” was Oliver’s happy reply. Some ten seconds later came the urgent afterthought: “Not that I,..well.. you know, throw myself at guys shouting, take me! Take Me!”

“Aww drat,”  that’s me fucked then, Ben sighed, drawing Oliver into his arms.

“I have a feeling we have accidentally strayed into the enemy territory that is Northamptonshire,” Oliver announced, for the first time taking some notice of their direction of travel.

Ben did not stir from the comfort and pleasure of holding Oliver close. He knew every road in Eastamptonshire by heart and a good part of the adjacent counties as well.

“We’re looping round so as to avoid all but minor roads. We should be back in Eastamptonshire in about 10 minutes and on to Mrs. Marlowe’s.”

“You are very clever my Ben. I know how the Eastamptonshire County Council works, but nothing of real importance.”

Ben began to lovingly bite on Oliver’s collar bone.

“Millions of years ago this was part of a wing,” he announced before giving his attention to Oliver’s nipples.

The sweet tingling pain caused Oliver  to call out Ben’s name for the simple joy of saying it aloud again. They shared another passionate kiss.

“I am going to fuck you, Ben.”

“Yes..Please. Like you really mean it!”

“Like I really mean it!”

With a little prompting, Ben lay back on the limousine seat, bringing his bum to the edge of the seat. “At least I didn’t have to ask, ‘how do you want me,” he giggled just a little nervously.

Delicate licks and kisses to Ben’s legs and inner thighs, caused apprehension to dissolve into something wanton and needful. Perhaps it was the way Oliver looked at him. Ben had become the prey, somehow very different to their first lovemaking, as it now fleeted across his mind.

Their stiff manhoods parried briefly before the hum from the Daimler mingled with sounds of Oliver taking Ben’s heavy balls between his pretty lips and Ben emitting hums of his own.

“Please keep going,” Ben was almost sure he heard himself say, at the same time he slapped his palms on the leather seats to each side of him. Oliver kept going. Oliver had no intention of stopping.
“Oh Oliver! Oliver!” Ben certainly heard himself cry aloud in his next breath. His arse was being parted and one, then two digits probed in demanding ingress into his hole. Oh fuck yes. It felt like nothing Ben had experienced, ever. And it seemed like Oliver would not stop.

From the furthermost corners of his mind, Ben recalled how he would finger fuck Carrie’s willing cunt, as if it were ages ago, rather than just weeks ago. So this is what it felt like. “Taste your beautiful cunt,” he would say, offering his fingers to her lips, and Carrie did. “Taste your beautiful fuck hole,” said Oliver, offering his fingers to Ben’s lips. And Ben did.

Then Ben would dive into Carrie’s cunt. ‘Muff diving’ his less gallant mates at the Dog and Trumpet called it. His tongue went deep into Carrie causing her to writhe and scream to orgasm.

The Daimler swayed slightly in a corner turn and apparent reverse movement. Oliver and Ben paused their endeavours.

“We can wait until we get home if it is too cramped in here for your legs….”

“No! It is going to be here, Ben. The chance to top you in a moving limo might never come again. So you might as well lay back, think of England and enjoy it.”

Ben nodded and before Oliver resumed his quest he took time to extol the beauty and desirability of Ben’s rear.
“No one has ever admired my bum like you do, Oliver,” he whispered, a little surprised at the suddenly submissive note  to his voice.

“Such a pretty fuck hole,” Oliver hissed, deliberately echoing the description Ben had used to praise Oliver’s lips.

Sounds of submission came with renewed intensity as Oliver’s tongue began to explore Ben’s arse. Slowly at first the tongue probed Ben’s bottom. With each move more determined and deeper than the one before it, Ben’s noises of appreciation became a symphony. He reached to part his cheeks, thrusting his arse forward: an encouragement Oliver did not ignore.

No slouch in the matter of arse appreciation, Oliver rimmed Ben with a combination of skill and desire sending waves of lust through them both. Oliver’s only regret as he rimmed and playfully withdrew, that he might keep plunging his skilled tongue even deeper into Ben, was that he could not resist his desire to shag  his lover any longer.

“Oh thanks my Oliver,” sighed Ben. He drew Oliver close as they kissed and savoured the taste of his own arse on Oliver’s lips and tongue.

“Are you ready?” Oliver’s gentle question hid his own sense of urgent desire to fuck Ben, as much as it sounded so different from the sounds of passion that had filled the limousine hardly minutes before.

“Rock hard for it,” said Ben, wrapping his hand around their cocks.

With the invaluable assistance of the Swiss Navy, Oliver’s manhood entered Ben’s arse. Ben gasped for a breath. It hurt at first. More than it did during their first congress in Oliver’s bed. Oliver’s words of assurance and devotion calmed him as much as the gathering momentum of the seeing to itself, that Oliver was giving him.

“You are a beautiful stud,” assured Oliver. His eyes locked on Ben’s as  his thrusts demanded more urgent and deeper ingress. Ben’s legs were draped now over Oliver’s shoulders, just like not so long ago, Carrie’s legs were draped over his, Ben recalled to himself.

The pain eased, then it was gone, replaced by  sensations only men can bring forth for other men. He could not describe them. But whatever they were, Oliver was providing them and Ben did not want them to end. As he pounded Ben’s ravishing arse, Oliver was torn between trying to hold at bay a gathering orgasm, at the same time as kissing and biting Ben’s sensual neck and so sweet nipples.

“Please don’t stop,” Ben managed to say amid the incoherent babble pouring from his lips.

“Never!” cried Oliver sinking his teeth into Ben’s neck far harder than he had intended.

Ben sort of screamed. His entire frame shook. His cock could take no more. A great rope of cum coursed from his balls to his cock, pooling between him and Oliver. Sensing its imminence, Oliver had slowed down is fucking.

“H.h..h.I wasn’t even touching my dick,” Ben managed to blurt out.

“That’s because you are total fuck stud,” Oliver said instantly as his tongue and Ben’s locked in a deep snog. So saying, Oliver resumed fucking Ben’s hole.

“You still OK with this?,” he asked gently, though resuming his thrusts with anything but gentleness.

“Defo,” replied Ben, realising as the lovely pounding regained its momentum that Oliver’s Adam’s Apple was quite sexy.

“Go on my pretty Oliver. Fuck me..Yeah. That’s it. Yesss! Harder!. Make me pregnant,” Ben heard himself say. Just as Carrie had said to him. Just as Oliver had said to him.

“You are beautiful; your arse is so tight and made for shagging.  I’ll make you so fucking pregnant Ben fucking Halpern. I want you Ben,” Oliver was shouting, calling to the heavens it seemed to him, as his entire being convulsed, sending his seed deep into his lover.

                                    ***

Mrs. Marlowe’s famous establishment was renown for its limited but tasty menus. First come first served was its watchword and did not seem to put anybody off. The current Mrs. Marlowe was in fact Julia Craddock, great niece of the small restaurant’s founding matriarch.

Julia welcomed Marius Metanin as she always did with a delighted pretence that she was embarrassed at his, “continental ways” and the courtly bow as his lips lightly touched her finger tips. Her cup of delight filled to its more earthly brim when she saw Oliver Groves. She embraced him with all the fervour of the family friend she was, who still privately worried for Oliver and his father. Julia had even heard of Harry Halpern and seemed delighted to meet Harry’s son at last.

“I’ll squeeze you in somehow,” announced Julia, a wave of her hand indicating the near impossibility of the task. Not for the favoured came her expression regret and hope that the disappointed diners might try again another day.- As many of the disappointed often did.

“I’m here not as a diner, but as a mere menial; a chauffeur in fact. I should have thought that the uniform and Rosie out there, might have provided a clue.”

“Stuff and tosh, Marius Hance Sebastian Lorcan Metanin, off you go up to apartment and see what you can find in the larder and the fridge. You know very well how pleased Connie and Jack will be to see you.

“Now, what to do with you two young blades? Follow me.”

They followed, with Ben discretely assisting Oliver.

“I was too long on my knees in the limo,” Oliver whispered as he supressed a giggle.

“A quiet little spot, where you will not be disturbed,” Julia told them, in a confiding voice. “I’m afraid all we have left is toad in the hole, with spotted dick and custard for pudding,” she added.

“She is like a force of nature, Oliver.”

Oliver nodded in agreement, as they watched Julia bustle away.

They were seated at a stone, square table, on a small terrace. Behind them, the little restaurant afford a pool of light. Before them, the long hot August day had reluctantly become a cooler night.

A young woman arrived precariously balancing a bottle of wine, two glasses and two bowls of soup on a large tray.  “Mrs. Marlowe thinks you might like these,” said the young woman and was gone as quickly as she appeared.

The soup was good. The wine was even better. It’s vintage in the Triesenbourg Alps prompted a knowledgeable appreciation from Oliver, to which Ben appeared to lend every interest. It was only after they had done extolling the manifest deliciousness of the toad in the hole that Ben said, “I suggested this, this… excursion, because I need to tell you something important, Oliver.”

“Tell away,” Oliver replied breezily. An instant later, Oliver stopped refilling their glasses and allowed his fork to clatter on to his plate. A slightly shameful reality hit Oliver hard.

“Oh! Heck Ben. And all I was intent on doing was fucking your back legs off. I do try not to be inconsiderate, but..”

“It really is alright Oliver. But if our relationship is to be more than a bonkfest when we both have the time for one, I need to tell you that until you and I met, I was a crook. A thief, pickpocket and a burglar. You came into my life and thanks to you and only thanks to you, I can and will go straight from now on.”

From that precis, Ben ploughed on, going into far more detail about his criminal activities than he ever had with his best Marra, Frazer Shaw.

“Best Marra?” At last, the now seemingly impassive Oliver, got a word in.

“Best friend” Ben lost in the intensity of what he was explaining, became clearly irritated by the interruption. “My mother is a Geordy. You know,- from Newcastle.”

Oliver of course knew  how to define a Geordy.

“I love you,” said Ben’s voice as if from afar, before, continuing as though he had not uttered the words at all. By now Oliver was listening to his companion in total amazement. Only when the young woman arrived with the spotted dick and custard and more wine, for which Oliver had the presence of mind to thank her,  was there any kind of pause.

At length, Ben’s litany arrived at his most recent crime. He told of the six golden spoons; Of Sidney Tate; Of how in the pub, he had suddenly come to the realisation that he loved Oliver and would give up his life of crime forever.

The distant expression that had dominated Ben’s features lightened as he explained how he was going to give most of his proceeds of crime away.

“But not all of them,” he announced with a quick  grin. “I’m not Mother Theresa, after all.”

Whatever this brief foray into humour was intended to convey was lost on Oliver who simply gave up on the spotted dick and reached gratefully for the last of the wine.

The grin vanished as quickly as it had appeared when Ben went on to describe how later that day, Sidney Tate’s thugs beat him up and took his money.

Of what followed after he had hired Rosie and her chauffeur at ‘mates rates,’ he decided to heed Marius’s warnings and say nothing.

“So you see my pretty Oliver, It is all thanks to you that I want to go straight and make a go of it with you. What do you say?”

“It is such a beautiful night,” Oliver replied.

He needed to think. For something to do, he scrolled through his phone. Maybe the Queen was not so ill, after all. But Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister whom many thought to be a liar and now openly said so, was only waiting for his party to elect his successor, before returning his Seals of Office to the ailing Monarch.

“I say I need time to think, Ben. You tell me all of this. You land it on me…”

“But, but..”

“But nothing,” Oliver’s voice, usually so warm- and come to that sexy as well,- was cool and angry. With difficulty he held Ben’s gaze.

“You have cheek Ben. You say you want to go straight! Yet what do you do? You in effect place all the pressure and responsibility for YOU giving up crime, on MY shoulders, for goodness sake.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Oh yes it is, my friend. It is exactly like that!”

“We love each other,” Ben choked.

“Actually what it was, was sex. Great sex, especially this evening..” Oliver paused. He rebuffed Ben’s attempt to take his hand.

“I didn’t mean that to be as callous as it sounded. For that I apologise. But until we met you were totally straight.”
“True enough,” Ben agreed, as though the thought had never before occurred to him.

“ I sort of hoped that we could get to know each other, have some great sex along the way and just see how things developed from there.”

“It sounds like a plan,” said Ben, with all the fervour of a man who knew he was clutching at straws.

“Except that it is not a plan,” Oliver stated as kindly as he could. “I cannot take the responsibility of keeping you away from a life of crime. Only you can do that. Perhaps when you have done that we can meet again.”

The final chapter to follow.