“I want to fuck with you. Now!” Richard was now staring mesmerically at Hal. His eyes were sparkling and his grin was wider than ever. His cock was erect. “Come on. I saw the way you looked at me last night. Why d’you think I suggested strip poker in the first place? And now that I’m a dragon-slaying hero, you’re gagging for it, aren’t you? Adrenalin is a great aphrodisiac!”
“I kinda guessed…”
“Shuddup and come here. No time like the present, is there?”
Hal walked over and stared into Richard’s dark hazel eyes. They looked back at him, mischievously. Richard’s hands were now sliding smoothly over Hal’s body. Richard sank to his knees. He continued to stroke Hal’s legs; his inner thighs; his balls… He took Hal’s cock gently between his lips. Hal almost fainted; he buried his fingers in Richard’s dark, curly hair. Richard sought Hal’s asshole and gently slid a finger inside.
Be Prepared is the motto of the Boy Scouts; Richard, a former Scout, always was. His fishing bag – like his game bag and his overnight holdall – habitually contained lube and condoms, as well as more conventional tackle. Hal represented a challenge; as masculine and strong as Richard himself. Gentle seduction, Richard decided, was the way ahead, so he kissed and expertly handled Hal until he was desperate with desire. Hal was outside his comfort zone: used to rough sex with men, he was startled, charmed and shocked to be subtly seduced by an expert. Finally Richard stretched Hal out on the grass and rode his cock until they both experienced explosive orgasms. They lay exhausted beside the dead alligator. Richard grinned, stretched out his hand and touched Hal. Hal opened his eyes, looked at Richard and smiled.
“Wow! That was mind-blowing!” he said,
“Glad you enjoyed it. I did, too! Now, what the fuck do we do with this corpse? What an afternoon!” Richard gestured towards the alligator, which bluebottle flies were already investigating.
Hal shrugged: “Get rid of it ASAP!”
“Easier said than done. I know what I’d really like to do: dump it in Edmund’s front garden and leave him the task of disposing of it! However, as he’s a spook, his private address might be hard to discover.”
“And he probably lives in a flat anyway!”
Eventually a solution presented itself: Toby Bloodgood possessed a JCB mini-digger on his farming estate. It could excavate a pit big enough to inter the reptile. The tail however was cut off and kept in the freezer; Richard, who had travelled in America, had emailed John Kaiser, a US Marine Corps friend from Savannah, Georgia, for the recipe of Fried Cajun Gator Bites with Remoulade Sauce; a great barbecue dish.
That should have been the end of the alligator story; but it wasn’t, in the event. As mentioned above, Hal had taken his camera to the scene, hoping to get some shots of the reptile, which he did, although by that time it was the late reptile. Hal was a good photographer, having been trained by the Army and having won the Army Photographic Competition two years earlier.
Hal’s grainy black-and-white photo of a naked, wet and heroic Richard, Bowie knife between his teeth, muscles straining, pulling the dead alligator onto the land by its tail, which was draped over his shoulder, allowing a full frontal portrait, turned out to be a masterpiece. Richard, who was proud of his wrestler’s physique, was not much bothered about being portrayed naked. At John Kaiser’s request, he emailed him a copy of the photo. At this point the fun began. John Kaiser unwisely shared the picture with a few USMC friends, along with a highly-coloured account of the fight, which suggested that Richard had killed the alligator armed with nothing more than his Bowie knife, which was not the case, and had saved someone’s life, which was only indirectly the case, in that he had presumably saved the lives of future bathers in the Pool. Before long the photo went viral. Richard first became aware of this when the Editor of Playgirl invited him to pose for a centre-spread. Gay magazines too were wowed by the photo. His former Lance Corporal, Roddy McSpunk, now a Sergeant, wrote begging for an autographed copy. Richard had to put up with a certain amount of badinage from his other army friends but made it clear that he had not personally authorised the image’s release. His popularity with the voters of Flogham and Lynchfield was undiminished. From Paris, Thierry, Richard’s natural father, wrote:
“Your nude portrait has appeared in Paris-Fiche. Naturally there is interest, given your involvement in my divorce from Segolene a few years ago, and the publicity that that aroused! You look very fine and manly; like the Farnese Hercules – please don’t grow the beard, though – and, as people are now swimming and sunbathing nude on the Cote d’Azur, why not in Norfolk as well? I don’t see what all the fuss is about!”
Richard’s enemies in the House of Commons; notably Mrs Gwen Twaddle (La, Birmingham Crosspatch), sought to make an issue of it and claimed that Richard had been guilty of behaviour unbecoming of an Hon. Member and of a display of ‘toxic masculinity’. Richard defended himself masterfully (I summarise), suggesting smugly that, while he could stand any amount of exposure, other people – such as Mrs Twaddle – would do the public a service by remaining covered up; better still, they might adopt Islamic dress. And meanwhile, they should shut up.
Uproar. Several Hon. Members left the chamber.
Mr Speaker: Order, Order! I will have Order!!
But the disorder continued. Several remarks by Mrs Twaddle were deleted from the official record, as having been expressed in very unparliamentary language. Richard enjoyed himself thoroughly and afterwards joined his fans in The Dangling Commoner for a celebratory pint.
It took several months for Richard to become familiar with Edmund’s routine. He now knew that Edmund lived in Woking. He was cautious, varying the time and the route that he took into London to work at his office. Occasionally he worked from home. From time to time he would go abroad for a few days. However he had one unexpected hobby; motor-bikes. He kept a small stable of them in a rented garage near Woking. Mounted on one of these monsters, he would make the country lanes hideous with their noise; killing wildlife and generally acting an antisocial way. He had been spotted near Little Kansas on a Lambretta.
This aroused Richard’s suspicion that Edmund was up to something; probably something lethal, directed at his friends Jim and Hal. His visits to Norfolk were becoming more frequent.
I’m not sentimental but I don’t want anything bad to happen to Jim and Hal. I’ve fucked with them both; they’re great guys and they’re plainly nuts about each other. We have a sort of bond. And equally Edmund, who is one of the nastiest men in England, is determined to wipe them out, because Hal gave him a taste of his own medicine. No; that cannot be permitted.
There was a small bridge over a stream giving a good, albeit distant, view of Little Kansas. Not of the whole property, but certainly of the showroom (the former Officers’ Mess); of Jim’s bungalow (formerly the Base Commandant’s Residence); and of the Office (formerly the Guardroom). It would be easy to see whether the place was busy and, with binoculars, to see who was around.
'Now see you how this dragon egg of ours/ Swells with its ripening plot?'
It was also relatively easy to discover when Edmund was going to be in Norfolk. Richard had his bike garage watched. If he took a heavy machine out on a Friday evening or early Saturday morning, he was likely to be heading for Little Kansas. The little stone bridge would be his first stop.
On the day Richard was waiting for him. He had tied a strand of fine wire to a tree opposite his hide. It now lay flat on the road surface. If anyone drove over it, they would be unaware. A single vibration on his pager told Richard that Edmund was coming. He drew a deep breath.
As the sound of the Lambretta grew closer, Richard tightened the wire, so that it was now about three feet above the road. Let’s hope no-one else shows up...
The wire caught Edmund across the brisket, throwing him into the air. The Lambretta, out of control, thrashed about on the road like a wounded animal.
Edmund fell into the narrow valley of the stream; his neck was broken. Richard tiptoed down to make sure of that. Then he removed the wire. After that, he paid a surprise visit to Little Kansas. Jim and Hal were pleased to see him; they insisted that he should stay to swim and have dinner. (“It’s just a curry!”)
It was not until the next day that Edmund was found and later still that Jim and Hal learned about his fate. They wondered whether Richard’s surprise visit to them that evening had been a coincidence or not. Probably, on balance, just a coincidence. He had seemed very cheerful and carefree; not a man with murder on his mind.
As Hal said: “Accidents happen. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke!”
Richard sent them an anonymous postcard, but they had not the slightest doubt as to its provenance. It was from the Royal Horticultural Society and depicted the Lily of the Valley:
'Take thou this flower to strew upon his grave;/ A lily of the valley; it bears bells,/ So universal is the spirit of folly; And whisper, to the nettles of his grave,/ "King Death hath asses' ears!"
"Typical Richard, to think of that, and typical Richard to know and like an obscure gay poet like Beddoes!" said Jim.
Hal shrugged. Beddoes meant nothing to him. "His meaning's plain enough: he hates the guy, even when he's dead. We must never get on Richard's wrong side!"
They drank to that.
