Blitzed

Chapter Two

At the Ministry of Information

25 February 1941

University College, Gower Street, London

“That’s a very good turn of phrase there,” Neville Chambers said, admiration apparent in his voice. “I think you’re getting the hang of it. The wording comes out with a positive, but as the tragedy of the situation becomes more apparent, one won’t be able to come back and say the wording was false. It just encourages assumptions the reader puts in to it on his own.”

The light was dim in the writing shop of the Ministry of Information at the commandeered University College building on Gower Street in Bloomsbury. The rest of the desks were empty, junior writer Neal Singer having held back to finish off two reports on war events. Putting these reports out now would balance the earlier report that must be issued. The writing of the report on the worst event was so important and delicate that Chambers, the chief of the writers’ section, had to write that one himself.

Chambers was standing behind Neal, who was seated at the typewriter on his desk. The older man was pulled in close, looking over Neal’s shoulder and reading the final draft of the action report from February 20th, a “buck them up” notification that the British had landed at El Agheila, Libya, and had already engaged the Germans in what was the first British engagement of, as the report phrased it, the Krauts in North Africa. This was a rare “advance” bit of information that could be given to the public in recent weeks, and Chambers had been saving it for release with something that couldn’t be spun as positively or even neutrally.

Chambers was feeling positivity at the moment, though. He was being bold and was making headway, he thought. He’d wanted to bed the handsome young blond, Neal Singer, recently assigned to him upon the young man’s recovery from his Dunkirk wound, since Singer had been assigned to writing action reports for the public at the ministry. And the young man wasn’t discouraging Neville’s signaling. Chambers was emboldened now, because, having seen Neal in the sauna at The Stable bathhouse, he knew the young man took cock—and obviously enjoyed doing so.

At first it was primarily a fantasy, but ever since Chambers saw the young man being fucked in the Covent Garden bathhouse sauna, bedding him himself had become an obsession. This moment, right now, standing behind the lad in an otherwise dimly lit writers’ room, was as close as Chambers had been able to come to Singer in private. As he looked over the young man’s shoulder at the report Singer had rolled out of the typewriter high enough for Chambers to read the short text, he had his right hand on Singer’s shoulder and his left on the lad’s left side, above the waist.

And Neal wasn’t shrugging away from him or in any way rejecting the intimate touch. If anything, Chambers imagined he could feel the young man tremble a bit and his breathing becoming a bit heavier. It wasn’t a question of whether Singer took cock. Chambers had seen him doing so. It was a question of whether he would take cock from Chambers. Sir Neville was considerably older than Neal, but he was still in very good condition and he was hung. His experience was that young men like Neal went for men with big cocks. Phillip Talbot had a big one, and Chambers had seen Neal melt to it. The senior civil servant hadn’t gotten his release from a young man at the office before, but he had become so obsessed with Neal Singer that he was prepared to give it a go. It was Chambers’s experience that men like Neal also were submissive to men of high class, and higher office standing, such as Chambers.

“Umm, you smell nice,” Chambers murmured, leaning over the shoulder of the younger man. “What is that scent?”

“Sandlewood, Sir,” Neal said, not taking umbrage at the forwardness of his boss. But he went on, as if it hadn’t been said, “The other report. Is that one written well enough too?” he asked, gesturing to another sheet of paper lying beside the typewriter. He twisted his torso a bit. If he was going to move to dislodge Chambers’s hands, this was where that would happen—in such a way that he wouldn’t have to openly acknowledge that he was being intimately touched. The manager’s hands moved with the twist, though, and Neal didn’t react against that in any way. But the young man didn’t progress the intimacy either.

Reluctantly, Chambers took his right hand off Neal’s shoulder and picked up and read the copy, which was another report that could be—and was, in Singer’s writing—given a positive spin, at least for those looking for something positive in what was a low point for the British in a war that looked to have no end, certainly not a positive end.

Britain stood nearly alone against the Germans now, certainly alone in Europe. And the Americans could do no more than voice encouragement. No, that wasn’t completely fair or true. As a unit chief in the Ministry of Information, Chambers was given access to enough classified information to know that the Americans were giving material help below the table. But damn them for not coming in full force was the current judgment of most of those holding out in Britain, Chambers knew, which at least for now was opening a chasm between the unity of the two nations. Chambers was doing what he could to work with that.

Sir Neville, in fact, was nearly the only one in the Ministry of Information who was cleared to be given advance notice of military action to be taken by British forces abroad and on the status of antiaircraft measures in the cities of the homeland. His unit reported on the war news but someone had to know about what was planned in the field and in defense of the homeland so that his newshounds and reporters of the news were prepared to cover events and to put the wanted cast on them. That the someone in the ministry was Sir Neville, meant he held the highest trust of his government—which also meant he had to be very careful in pursuing his sexual fetishes. Many in the British aristocracy had mistresses, and that wasn’t just tolerated, it was celebrated as the norm and a sign of the man’s virility. It still was a black mark against a man in the British aristocracy to have male lovers—at least for the public to be aware that they did.

The second report written by Neal, fresh from the field and just cleared for public consumption to uplift their spirits, reported the sinking earlier that day of the Italian cruiser, the Armando Diaz, in the North African campaign by the British submarine, Upright.

“Yes, you struck the notes just right in that, Neal,” Chambers said, putting the sheet of paper down and brushing his hand against the young man’s cheek as he brought the hand back up. “Umm, sorry,” he murmured, but, again, no shrinking away by the young man, and the older man’s adrenaline took a hit.

“And the Swansea report? The three days of German bombings starting the 19th that destroyed the center of the city. Do you have—?” Neal asked, still not making any overt gestures of his own on sexual signaling.

“Yes, I have that ready to go too,” Chambers said. “Bundling that sinking in the release to the public tomorrow morning should take some of the sting out of the Swansea barrage. And we should turn our thoughts to more pleasant topics as well. Are you on for coming down to Stedman Hall, my country house near Salisbury, on the weekend? It’s a sendoff for my wife to Canada next week and we will be doing our best to have a jolly good time.”

When trying to maneuver a young man into your bed, Chambers thought, it’s worthwhile to let him see how many beds there are and how sumptuous they and their surroundings are. It helps to show the young man he will be kept comfortably. It was also advantages to put the date in the young man’s mind when his wife had set sail for Canada and thus irrevocably would be out of the picture.

Neville’s hand was cupping the side of Neal’s jaw and he was stroking the young man’s cheek with his fingers. There was no mistaking this gesture.

It was time. Neal leaned his face into the hand in a signal of surrender. The young man was panting lightly. Neville rejoiced. He was home free. The young man would open his legs for him. Dominance established, Neville let the hand drop. The deal settled, the consummation could come later, at a more convenient time and in a more comfortable and less-risky venue.

But the deal was set. The young man had surrendered. “Yes, thank you for inviting me,” he murmured to ad vocal agreement.

But why wait if the lad was hot for it, Sir Neville thought. His hands were on both of the young man’s shoulders now and he was doing a slight massage action. Singer wasn’t withdrawing. It was only a bit of a move to the lad turning his head and Chambers dipping down for a kiss that could start it all.

The typewriter. That would have to be moved somehow to have room on the desktop. Otherwise Chambers could take the young man right here on the desk. His tail would be raised. Chambers could run his hand down the lean back, under the waistband of his trousers, into the young man’s crevice, to the goal. Sir Neville was already moving into a fantasy of laying the young man on his back, stripping off his trousers and Y-fronts, spreading his legs, and laying him right here.

Would he be able to have his wounded leg spread, though, Chambers wondered. In doing so, would the pain snap the young man’s mood and spoil the whole seduction? What had been done in the sauna? Hadn’t his legs been bent and hooked on Phillip Talbot’s hips? Would that be more comfortable for the young man? Chambers certainly could . . .

“I’ve checked and I can catch a train and be near enough by late Saturday morning. Perhaps there will be someone else at the party with a car who could . . . Oh, have you given up on me and come up?” Neal had turned his head away to face the door. The spell was being broken.

“Yes, certainly, I can send someone to the station in Salisbury, if I know which train . . . oh, hello there Mr. Talbot. By all means come in.”

Both men had heard the approach of Phillip Talbot to the glass-fronted door out in the corridor outside. Chambers, of course, drew back from the young man he already had writhing under him in his mind.

“I didn’t know if I should continue to wait for you outside or come try to pry you away, Neal,” Phillip Talbot said. “We had a darts game on this evening, Sir Neville. But if Neal has to work, I can—”

“No, he’s finished his work for the evening—and a very good job he’s done today,” Chambers said, with more cheerfulness than he felt. He turned his pelvis a bit away from where Talbot stood inside the glass-fronted door, afraid that his erection would show. “You go ahead and enjoy a darts game, Neal,” he said, patting Neal on the shoulder with his right hand and only then realizing that Talbot could see that he had had both hands on the young man’s shoulders. He pulled them away. “I’ll just put all of the reports together, release them for printing for the morning, and go home.”

He bustled around at Neal’s desk, as Neal left with Talbot. A few minutes later, he looked into the corridor, wistfully thinking about what could have been—what he thought tonight would be. But then he regretted he had. The two younger men had left the room, but they had paused in the corridor, a good distance away, but still clearly seen through the glass-fronted door. Talbot had Singer backed against the corridor wall and was embracing him close. The two were kissing, and Neal had raised a leg and hooked it on the other man’s hip. Their pelvises were rocking together. Whether or not Talbot was inside Singer, they were having sex, or soon would be.

Was it Singer’s good leg or bad one? Chambers let run through his mind. But then he cursed aloud, castigating himself for having let the situation befuddle him—and for the missed opportunity—and turned his attention back to the carefully crafted public war notices. Never the mind. He had established that the young man would take his cock. That was cause for celebration. He had just thing for that in his cabinet back in his office.

* * * *

“Thank you for inviting me to lunch with you, sir,” Phillip Talbot said, sitting, as the senior civil servant gestured him to do, at the isolated table in the dining room of the exclusive St. Regis club. “I’ve always wondered what lay behind these red doors.” He said this with a slight smile on his face.

They ordered before saying anything beyond the usual “before we get to it” chitchat. When they had their wine and the serving man had withdrawn, Chambers said, “You say that like you know why I invited you here.”

“Yes, sir, I understand you have been making enquiries. I hope you didn’t ask the men not to let me know you had.”

“No, that’s quite all right. It saves us time here.”

“So, what would you like to know?” Talbot asked.

“You don’t seem to be surprised by my interest.”

“No, sir. When you made enquiries, I did as well.”

“So, you aren’t just Neal Singer’s lover. You handle assignations with him too. That is my understanding from the results of my enquiries.”

If Phillip was surprised at the boldness of the man, he didn’t show it. “Yes, I do. Is that where your interest lies? You want to fuck Neal Singer?”

“Yes, although I was surprised to hear that he was for sale. Regardless, I would like to lay the young man too—as you do.” Chambers found in such arrangements as this that it was good to establish that the pimp be reminded of his vulnerability to exposure that, in this case, was as heavy a burden as Sir Neville bore.

They briefly talked price. “That’s quite a bit for a piece of a young man, for what, shall we say, are renewable resources. A painting can only be owned by one person for a period. A young man’s anal passage can be owned by several different men in a night,” Chambers said. “Is he any good, or would I have to do all of the work? His leg, for instance.”

“He’s very good. And you wouldn’t even notice the leg. It would not be his leg you were fucking. Also, at the price, it’s just the one time. If he warms to you, though, it’s his own decision whether to continue with you, whether for pay or for free, although I would suggest that you be generous with him in gifts and advancement. I’m not really his professional handler. I’m just a friend helping him get established here in London.”

“A very intimate friend,” Sir Neville said, looking pointedly at Phillip over his menu card.

“Yes, granted,” Phillip answered.

“Oh, I think he’ll be warmed by me,” Chambers said, with a smile. “Young men like him appreciate big cocks.”

“Which you have?”

“Most certainly.” He didn’t add that he’d seen Talbot’s cock, and, although it was one to be proud of, it wasn’t as big as the one Chambers had.

“I’ll pass that on,” Phillip said. “It might help Neal being amenable to the arrangement. He does like a big cock.”

They agreed on a price and the service rendered for that price. Funds were exchanged in anticipation of an assignation.

“I appreciate a man who is as direct as you are, Sir Neville. Most men in your position with your desires are much more secretive and less open about their wants than you have been. You don’t worry about that?”

“With you, no. A man working in the Foreign Office at the level to be liaising with other ministries has much to lose—perhaps more than I do. I am protected by class. I’ve checked out your family. You have done well to rise to where you are and have that to protect. You are at the start of your career and I am concluding mine, with no ambitions to go higher. It’s time for me to take my pleasures. I don’t think you can afford not to be discreet with my preferences. Besides, it’s arousing to be able to talk with another man in these terms—with a man, especially, who I will be sharing Neal Singer with.”

“Understood,” Talbot said.

“Tell me of the positions and practices he likes,” Chambers said. “What sexual acts arouse him the most, will make him open to me? I want him to give me passion for that price. I don’t want him just to lie there like a lump of coal.”—and Talbot did so, graphically and in a straightforward manner.

“And your special preferences, Sir Neville? What do you want a young man to do for you?”

“I want total surrender from the beginning. I want the young man to lie on his back, spread and raise his legs wide—bending his legs and pressing his feet to the mattress, lifting his tail, and offering me his hole to do as I please with him. But with the leg wound—”

“Don’t worry too much about the leg. He will tell you if there is pain he can’t endure. But in the throes of passion—and that’s an advantage to coupling with Singer; he does it with passion and for pleasure—Singer is aroused by a bit of pain.”

Chambers gave a little smile at this. He got a little extra arousal out of the use of the riding crop. That probably came from his early schooling and the use of caning there, he’d always assumed, but now he took on the role of the head master rather than the student.

“So, you know something of my preferences.”

“The bondage and the whip? Yes.”

By the time they had finished, both men were humming, and satiated with coffee and cognac. Chambers couldn’t resist. “And you, Mr. Talbot. Are you strictly a dominator?”

“I’m afraid so,” Talbot answered.

“A pity. I find you . . . stimulating. I think I would have enjoyed covering you, and I thought there was a gleam in your eye when the crop was mentioned. Are you sure—for a price?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

Chambers didn’t pursue the point. “But, Neal. Have you shared all of your research with him. Will none of this come as a surprise to him? How does he come in to falling in with the arrangement?” Chambers asked. “He is coming to my country home this weekend. I would like to fuck him then—and to use him. I have paid for him and don’t want to waste further time seducing him.”

“He will know to come to you when you summon him. I usually act as middleman, helping to bring the two parties together at the assignation time, though.”

“Are you free to come to my weekend in the country as well and help make it happen—stand guard, as necessary, and let us know if we are getting too vocal?”

“Certainly. I’ll drive down there. I have access to a staff car.”

“Singer was going to come by train. Perhaps you could drive him.”

“Certainly. I enjoy driving him, as I am sure you will.” Talbot said, both men laughed as the serving man arrived with their lunches.

As they were finishing their meal, Talbot asked, “If I may be as bold as to suggest it, I would like to bring my wife this weekend too.”

“Your wife? You’re married?” Chambers asked, the surprise evident in his voice. “I would think—”

“You are married too, are you not?” Talbot asked, and then, when Chambers didn’t answer directly, he continued. “I find it good camouflage, as I am sure you do as well. In this case, it would help provide cover for you—and me, and Neal, as well. There will be other guests this weekend, won’t there?”

“Yes, there will. I do see, yes, very smart. Camouflage.” Chambers gave a little laugh.

“It will all be quite natural. My wife is leaving London. It is time she was evacuated into the country. This bombing shows no sign of ending. She was arranging to go to her sister on a farm near Amesbury. That should be safer. Not much of war interest there. We can come to your party for the weekend and I can take her to Amesbury from there. Neal can come back to London by train. No one at the party will have any reason to suspect that Neal is there for you to bed.”

“Very clever,” Chambers said. “The weekend is being laid on as a farewell gathering for my wife. She leaves next week for Canada by ship from Southampton. I can say you have been invited because you will be farewelling your wife for now, as well. Very clever. I am bringing in a few escorts—both female and male—to service some of my other guests. Neal will be there as one of the ministry employees, but, if there are questions, he can be understood to be an escort.”

“Because he essentially will be,” Talbot said.

“Yes, but for a patron of one,” Chambers responded.

“One holding a riding crop.”

“Perhaps,” Chambers said and both men laughed.

* * * *

The house Phillip Talbot went to after leaving Sir Neville’s club was a small red-brick Georgian-style mews house tucked away on Starcross Street off Gower Street, near St. James Gardens. The ground floor, raised on an English basement, was entered by way of a hallway with a staircase to the upper floors. The hallway led to a kitchen at the back after passing by a small parlor and dining room. The rooms were small, but exquisitely outfitted. On the floor above were a bedroom in front, Chloe’s bedroom, and Phillip’s bedroom at the back, with a bathroom in between. The basement, entered under the raised stoop for the entry door of the main house, consisted of a bed sitting room with a bath and kitchen behind. This was where Neal Singer was living. It wasn’t where Neal Singer was when Phillip returned home, though. There was yet another, earthen-floored, low-ceilinged cellar under the basement.

Neal heard Phillip entering at the front door and he went to meet him. Chloe was sitting in the parlor, reading a book before the fire. Although she surely heard Phillip return and the two men converse in the front hall, she continued sitting, reading her book.

“Did he want—?” Neal queried.

“Yes, it’s all arranged. He is fairly salivating at the opportunity. You will drive with us to Salisbury on Saturday morning.”

“So, he invited you too?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“It went well?”

“Yes, it went very well—and it was very lucrative. You are worth every bit to him of what I specified as the fee. He is besotted with you. He will, as we surmised, be very demanding. Come upstairs and I will tell you of our talk.”

Phillip fucked Neal on his bed in the back bedroom, the two of them standing, facing each other as they kissed and fondled and unclothed each other and then swayed against each other, moaning, as Phillip frotted their cocks, preparing them. He bent Neal over the foot of the bed, one arm wrapped around the young man’s waist and the hand of the other arm cupping Neal’s chin and arching the young man’s head back into his chest as he penetrated him and began to pump.

“Take me deep,” Neal whispered.

“Chambers asked if you took it deep,” Phillip said as he set up the rhythm of the fuck. “He said you’d enjoy him if you liked them big.”

“I enjoy you, and you’re big. Did you tell him we saw him in the sauna at The Stable? That we know he’s big?”

“No, of course I didn’t. You know I wouldn’t have said we had seen him there.”

“Oh fuck, yes. Like that, there,” Neal moaned. “Take me harder.”

Phillip moved the younger man up onto the bed, on his belly. Neal reached out and grasped the brass rungs of the headboard, as Phillip raised him up on his knees, crouched over him, mounted him, and began to fuck in earnest. There was no more talk until after they had gotten their exercise and both had come.

“You know I didn’t do this because of the job, but because I wanted you,” Phillip said.

“I hoped that was so,” Neal answered.

“No hope for affection, though. That would not be wise.”

“No, none. I understand,” Neal answered.

TO BE CONTINUED