Boys of Two Cities Page 5

  The young hustler and boxing porn star put Mike upright again. “Looks like yer going well, mate. How many have you had?”

  “Too many, but I’m having a night out.”

  “Stay there, I’ll get meself one.” He elbowed his way through to the bar, exchanging nods with acquaintances and acknowledging slaps on the shoulder. Steve, Mike thought, was a popular boy. Mrs. Shufflewick’s strident voice rang out.

  “Well, I did the first thing that came into me head. I shot down this side turning which I thought was an escape route, and it turned out to be a dead end. And I was stood there with me back against the wall and me legs in two dustbins with a John West salmon tin where it mattered most… with the lid up… ooh those jagged edges… and there was him with his good conduct medals clanking away and his string vest at half mast, so I thought to meself, well this is it Gladys, death or dishonor. Then I thought to meself, well I’m not bleedin going yet.”

  The room erupted in a gale of braying laughter. Steve reappeared carrying a pint glass and a half, which he poured into Mike’s almost empty pint mug before lodging the emptied glass on a nearby shelf.

  “I heard about your Yank friend Gil,” Steve started. “Sorry. I liked him. A proper gent, even for a Yank.” He swigged his beer, watching Mike and seeing the blank look there. “She’s a fuckin caution, ain’t she?” He cocked his head toward the diminutive drag comedian.

  She said, “And then he started, y’know, all the manipulation with the hands—have you had it?—and then he started trying to tell me that this was Japanese jujitsu. Well they must be a filthy lot if that’s all they do. No wonder they’ve got wonky eyes.”

  The sniggering chortles seemed to nudge Mike. He turned to Steve. “Shorry. I’m not the best of company tonight.”

  “You missin ’im?”

  Mike leaned in close, breathing beery fumes. “Gil didn’t leave me, I kicked him out.”

  “Fuck, why? You both looked good together, I mean, y’know, well fixed up.”

  “Yeah. There was a good reason, but I didn’t want to do it. I was forced to… oh shit…”

  “Hey, hey, ease up, mate.” Steve caught hold of Mike as he stumbled. Mike dropped his head on the shorter guy’s wide boxer’s shoulders. “You need to get home. Here, c’mon, I’ll take you back, okay?” Mike nodded his acquiescence. “You got enough dosh on yer for a cab?” He rummaged about in Mike’s jacket pocket and pulled out five pounds.

  Mike managed a brief grin. “You’re good at that, aren’t you?”

  Steve punched him playfully. “I usually offer a service before takin the payment. Now, c’mon, finish that and let’s get out of ’ere.” He drank his beer off in three long swigs and then helped Mike to the street.

  At some unearthly hour in the night, Mike woke up and groaned softly at the effects of a hangover. He sensed a warm body in the bed next to him and snuggled up. He was asleep again within seconds.

  Daylight creeping through gaps in the badly drawn drapes brought him awake again. He tested his head gingerly and was relieved to find that the effects of last night’s drinking seemed to have more or less worn off while he slept. That’s when his hand bumped against warm flesh. Startled, he turned over to see the form of another person lying next to him. Then it came back in a rush.

  Steve stirred and, with his military training, came awake quickly. He rubbed the sleep from his sexy eyes and grinned ruefully.

  Mike sat up. “Did you…?”

  “Yeah. You were right out of it after all that beer, and all that confessing in the back of the taxi. Pretty much passed out on me after unlocking the door.”

  “You got me into bed?” Mike wasn’t wearing anything nor, he suspected under the bed covering, was Steve.

  The hustler’s grin widened. “Yeah. It was fun stripping you down. I considered taking advantage of the situation. Got meself all jacked up and ready and then I thought, oh poor guy, he needs his rest.”

  Mike flopped back and remembered that Steve was married. “Won’t your missus be worried, your not coming home?”

  Steve sniffed. “Poor cunt, she’s used to it. I bring the bacon home.” He shifted position and their thighs made contact. Steve reacted to the slight frisson that shook Mike’s body and slyly wriggled his hand up over Mike’s thigh to tickle just beside his balls. “Mmm. I know from past experience you got lovely big balls.”

  Mike did not stop him. He gave a faint snorting laugh. “What, now I have to pay for your kindness?”

  Steve’s sucked in a breath that turned to an amused grunt. “Nah, this one’s on the house, if you want it, and you aren’t objecting that I can tell.”

  Mike felt Steve’s hand work up over his balls and begin stroking his stiffening cock.

  Impatiently, Steve tossed the blanket and sheet aside and moved to kneel between Mike’s legs. “You just relax, get yer mind off things fer a bit while I wank you off. That’s it,” he crooned softly, “nice’n hard.” He bent over and gently mouthed Mike’s swelling cock head with plenty of spit, then began jerking him, slowly at first with long pulls of both fists. He kept gobbing mouthfuls of saliva down onto the action to keep the shaft well lubricated and rubbed two-fisted with gusto.

  Mike closed his eyes and fantasized that it was Gil working on his cock. Steve was a practiced stroker and he soon had Mike writhing in bliss. In his mind, Mike could see Gil, looking so serious as he concentrated on the task in hand. His breathing became uneven and stertorous as Steve expertly brought him on a continual rise toward coming off. “Ohh yeah… eeuurrgh… yes!”

  Steve kept up the regular fast motion as Mike’s orgasm peaked and a translucent freshet of cum shot out and up to land with a heavy splat on his shoulder. The second went as far but landed on Steve’s cheek, at which point the hustler lowered his parted mouth over Mike’s cock head to finish him off. Mike felt Gil’s mouth gentling his last spurts and pushed his cock up against the pressure of Steve’s tongue. Steve took his time, licking and sucking until Mike began to soften. Then he sat back on his haunches, wiping the back of his hand over cummy lips with the satisfaction that a workman has at a job well done.

  “You was miles away, wasn’t you?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “I know. You was thinkin about yer Yank giving you a wank.” He gave a gruff laugh. “See, I’m a poet an don’t know it.”

  “You said I confessed. What exactly did I tell you?”

  “The whole shebang—you, Gil, this fucker James Rosen or summat, what happened in New York.”

  Mike said wonderingly, “Really? I managed all that in my state?”

  “Yeah, well some of it were a bit hard to understand, but I got the general drift.”

  Mike sat up abruptly, took Steve’s head between his hands, and kissed his mouth. “Thanks, doctor, I think your treatment worked. I’m not feeling so blue. The least I can do now is cook us some eggs and bacon you haven’t taken home.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Aberdare Interlude

  Gerald Mundy, the “fixer,” fitted the description. Short of stature, pugnacious, and with a short fuse, he was an amalgam of King Kong and a carnivorous dinosaur. Mike was reminded of a television East End gangster and thought he was exactly the sort of thug Rosen would be involved with. Quite what his role at Pinewood was remained obscure to Mike, but he was as good as Rosen’s word, and after three rapid-fire phone conversations, fixed Mike up with a position on the Wall crew. He also hinted strongly that Rosen’s favors were now used up. Mike got the distinct feeling that Mundy had no love at all for the American producer.

  “How long have you known James?” Mike asked, all innocence.

  Mundy scrutinized the boy carefully. “Some years. Why?”

  “He told me you two do business together.”

  “Did he, indeed? He should keep his fuckin trap shut. These Hollywood skanks are all the same, shooting lines off left, right, and center.”

  The word “lines” caught Mike’s attention and he connect
ed the probably artless meaning to the stash of cocaine he had seen in Rosen’s private room.

  “He has his associates, I got mine. Sometimes their interests coincide—less so of late. Anyway, what the fuck’s it to you?”

  “Nothing, just curious. You seem very different.”

  “I am, sunshine. Sometimes it suits me to help him out with getting work for his ‘boys’, like you. Just do your job well, keep your nose clean, and don’t get me in shit with the director for foisting a useless turd on him. You can start tomorrow. Report to production outside L Stage.”

  Mike promised he would do his best.

  From his previous stints at the studio complex, he knew Pinewood well and soon fitted into the crew. Over the following week he worked flat out, as he usually did, and there were no complaints that he heard of.

  William Smith lounged against the left end of the sofa, slowly flicking the pages of a magazine. The large living room was barely furnished, but his older brother Mike had added a few bits and pieces: a circular camping table with four “director’s” folding wood-frame and canvas seats; a battered three-seater sofa bought from a used goods store and, facing it, a rented television on a stand, complete with VHS video recorder.

  The set of keys to the apartment that had belonged to Gil, Mike had given over to Will so that he could get away from home whenever he felt the need. Mike was at work and Will had time on his hands. Another boy of the same age was splayed out beside him. He waved a remote at the TV lazily, flicking back and forth through the few channels. Will and his friend Ben were teenage bored. They had shared the same school but Will hadn’t known Ben much before their final year, and they were now at different colleges. The vacation wore heavily; neither wanted to get a temporary job doing something useless to earn a bit of money. So they were bored.

  Will also felt horny, partly from boredom, partly because the magazine was one from Mike’s small collection of soft-core porn. He gave the occasional chuckle as he leafed through photographs of the scantily clad beefy young men, some baring all. Ben gave a cursory glance at a page every now and then, exhibiting a part-puzzled, part-curious countenance. “Where did that come from?”

  Will raised an eyebrow. “My brother. He has a few like this lying around.”

  “He’s a queer?”

  Will gave an evil chuckle. “No. He’s gay. It’s what they call it now.”

  “Oh…” Ben tossed the remote aside and chewed at a broken fingernail, mulling over the surprising statement. He inspected the nail, and then settled back with his long legs stretched out, arms thrown behind his head on the sofa back. “Does he have any videos, you know…the naughty sort?”

  It was Will’s turn to consider the meaning of this utterance. Did Ben think that being queer meant that Mike would own porny videos of men and women? Will didn’t think of himself as an innocent; Ben, he knew, was strangely so. While making light of the magazine, looking at the pictures made Will feel hot. Almost without thinking, he adjusted the position of his dick. He hadn’t ever done anything with Ben at school, but the thought idly crossed his mind that he found his friend a bit sexy, and it was a few days since he’d last got his end away with that girl Carol who lived across the road. “See the box over in the corner behind us? There are some cassettes in it. Might be something there”

  He watched Ben as he dragged himself wearily to his feet, leaning on the sofa arm to pivot around the end. He mooched over to the large box. Ben was a real carrot-top who wore his naturally curly red hair so short he resembled a fuzzy skinhead, claiming that if he let it grow out it soon resembled an Afro. His one concession to fashionable hairstyle was luxurious sideburns, which ran down to just below the ear lobes. Ben’s skin was even-toned and unmarked, not pale and freckled as so many redheads. His mobile face with its stubby nose expressed a naturally light-hearted, humorous disposition—when he wasn’t bored—which is why Will thought they got on well. Ben knelt down and began to rummage through the contents of the box.

  “If he’s got any ‘naughty sort’ vids, they’ll be queer, you know,” Will offered nonchalantly.

  “Oh… nothing with girls?”

  “Doubt it very much. Like this mag, only loads naughtier.”

  “You watched one, then?”

  Will puffed his cheeks out and popped the breath. “Actually, yes. There’s one in there I found one day. Boy, was Mike mad at me when he came in and caught me watching it.”

  “What, this one?” Ben held up a VHS cassette, blank on its cover apart from the hand-penned title BOX HARD.

  Will turned to look over the back of the sofa. “Yes, I think that’s the one.”

  Ben dropped it back in the cardboard box.

  “What, you aren’t going to put it on?” Will gave him a dare-you wink.

  Ben didn’t look at him, but his cheek and jaw muscles worked nervously. “Dunno. You want to watch it?”

  Will began to feel the stirring of a semi-hard-on and decided to be just a little bit wicked. “Don’t mind… if you don’t.”

  “Hmm… I suppose it might be laff.” Ben retrieved the cassette, got to his feet, and went over to the video recorder. He pressed the power button, reached out for the second remote, and pushed the cassette into the machine’s maw. Then he came and sat down again beside Will. He pressed PLAY. The screen flickered briefly and then came to life. Disco music issued tinnily from the TV’s small speaker, accompanying the legend MAN TO MAN FILMS presents… Box Hard. It faded out to be replaced by a scene of two guys in a boxing ring, sparring. One was short, dark-haired, the other taller and fair-haired. Both were buff and sweaty. They wore tight-fitting sport shorts which showed off their maleness.

  Will watched Ben surreptitiously from the corner of his eye. Ben’s were fixed on the screen, his face an expressionless mask, a man-of-the-world expression of unconcern, like he had seen all this kind of thing before.

  Soon the boxing scene gave way to a locker room. The shorter, stockier of the two guys came in and picked up a towel, began drying himself. At that point a second boy appeared and took the towel from the boxer. Within a minute, the newcomer was kneeling between the boxer’s thighs as he lay on a bench. And after that it all became very hot.

  Ben shifted uncomfortably, but his gaze never left the screen. Will’s cock grew, and he shifted a hand casually over the tenting in his unfashionably loose jeans.

  Ben cleared his throat a trifle nervously, Will thought, then croaked, “What’s supposed to happen?”

  “How do you mean?” Will pressed his fingers of his left hand down on his swelling bulge.

  “I mean, why do people watch this stuff?”

  “Get you off,” Will came back. “It’s a wank movie.”

  The sound track was now a flurry of sucking noises. Will felt his body reacting, and very carefully began manipulating his increasing hardness, all the while keeping one cautious eye on his friend. And then he saw it. Ben’s package altered shape so subtly that Will wondered whether he was imagining it. But no, Ben was getting stiff too. Will increased stroking himself more openly, and was rewarded by a sideways flick of attention from Ben. With his right hand, he pulled down his fly zipper, and tucked his other hand inside.

  This time, Ben turned slightly to watch. Will gave him a sly grin. “Well, like I said, it is a jerk-off movie.”

  “Yeah,” doubtfully. “But they’re all guys doing it.”

  “So? As Mike says, sex is sex. Get it where you can.”

  “Does he do it with girls, then? I thought you said he was queer.”

  “Mike! No way. He’s been screwing guys ever since…well, ever since he started staining his bedsheets. Maybe even before.”

  “How do you know all this?” Ben pressed down on his crotch, eyes back on the action as the boxer fucked the other kid up the ass.

  “For a bit we had to share a bedroom and he told me all about it when I caught him tossing himself off over one of these.” Will nodded at the discarded magazine.

&nbs
p; “Didn’t it bother you?”

  Will shook his head. “Not really. I’m easy going when it comes to things like that.”

  By his wide-eyed expression, Ben seemed to find this a revelation an interesting one.

  “What, you’ll do it with anyone?”

  “If I like them…maybe.”

  In the next scene, the young attendant was bent over the taller boxer.

  “Shit! That one’s hung like a stallion,” Ben muttered in awe, as the attendant began to suck the giant cock.

  Will exalted to a sudden rush of lust and moved to the next stage. Pushing the waistband of his briefs down under the jeans, he let the head of his cock poke out and rubbed his thumb over it evenly. Ben took a sneaky peek, swallowed, and then followed suit, but daringly allowing more of it to stick up. Will gave him a good look over. He saw a nicely shaped dick of a darker tone than the rest of Ben’s skin coloring. Will eased his bottom forward so he lay more slumped on the seat and pushed his jeans down a bit. Ben also lay back more, gently stroking. Starting to relax in each other’s company felt good to Will and he treated himself to watching Ben’s action more closely.

  “Did you do this sort of stuff in your boarding house when we were at school?” Ben had been a day boy because his parents lived nearer the school and they had only recently moved to the Swiss Cottage area.

  Will made no pretense of his interest in watching his friend’s hand moving up and down his shaft. “A few circle jerks.”

  “How did that work?” Ben still pretended a lack of interest.

  “We stood around in the dormitory and wanked off to see who could come first. Or… once…you reached out to the kid on your right and wanked him, while the one on your left did you.”

  “Hoo…I bet that was quite exciting.”

  “Made a hell of a mess to clean up. Lucky the floor was lino.”

  They continued alternatively watching the action on screen and each other.

  “The little guy’s good,” Will commented. “Look how he gets it all in, right the way down.”