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David's Contribution: First Vacations-Chapter 3
Platoons of attorneys and Schuyler Trust officials trooped to the Schuyler Campus the next day with a lot of paper work. Eric's first decision was to have breakfast, although he wasn't hungry. He was 'with it' enough to realize that good decisions didn't come from empty stomachs. Paddy and Tom brought food to him in his suite and he declined calls while he ate.
After breakfast he went to Isaac's office. He found no note or sign of Isaac's impending death. He asked security to look through the office to confirm that and be a witness. He also asked the security chief to take custody of the Louis XIII cognac bottle in case the police needed to test it.
He sat in Isaac's chair. He needed a secretary of his own. Paddy or Tom would have done nicely, but neither had secretarial skills. He called his security chief and asked him to come with him on a quick errand.
Arriving at a local city community college, they talked to the registrar who directed them to the career counselor and Eric outlined his need for a male secretary, about 23, discreet, assertive, healthy.
He wanted to interview three who were finishing within a very short time. They needed great keyboarding skills, people skills, language skills a plus, sophisticated a plus.
"Oh, you're talking about Henri. He's our only French student this quarter and will be done in a week. We'd let him out early though, since his GPA is 4.0 and he knows everything there is to know about computers."
"If he liked women, I'd beg him to date me. He's gorgeous, but deep."
"We don't currently have any other students with excellent computer skills AND language skills although we've a few with one or the other."
"May I speak to him?"
"Sure." She looked on her own computer. "He's in dictation class right now. I'll call him in."
A well-built, nice-looking man of 23 stepped into the office a few minutes later, his black eyebrows knitted in a light puzzle. "What may I do for you?" he asked the career counselor.
"These men would like to talk to you about a job here in Manhattan."
His face brightened, then subsided. "You should know that my course is not yet complete. Is that a concern for you?"
Eric made him the offer at which Henri gasped and turned pale.
"But M'sieu Eric, you don't know me. My skills may be different than your requirements... I, uh, accept."
"Can you accompany us back to the Schuyler Campus now?"
"But of course. I should be foolish not to do so now while 'le fer' is hot."
Eric grinned to himself internally, thanked the counselor, and the three men left, astonishing Henri by inviting Henri into a limousine and noting backup security which he knew about having seen President Macron with people like that.
"Henri, I have just myself inherited a position, so to speak, by the sad death of my husband, Andrew Lodge-Miller and his two parents. My husband died in an avalanche on Mt. Everest a day ago. His mother died yesterday of a heart attack; his father of a broken heart this morning. I have a lot of duties and tasks to track and need your help with that."
"I need tasking software that you manage, and I access every day, to keep me focused. I need it installed this afternoon. Your lodging, food, clothing...everything is free to you. You may draw from an account or spend the money and give the receipt to the accounting office for cash in return. You may spend whatever you like on whatever you wish."
"You have access to the corporate jets to fly home to visit for free by calling the travel office. Your first memo must be from me to the travel office authorizing that. Bring it in to me to sign, then you can have a footman take it down after you copy or photograph it. You'll probably find previous memos to the travel office for a model of this kind of memo."
"There will be floods of letters and phone calls. I cannot answer all of them and you will have to screen them. If you doubt, ask me whether a call is important."
"I should probably speak to New York Senators, state and local, the President, and our New York congresspeople. I would take high-level calls from Schuyler Bank, Schuyler Trust, Schuyler Traders in most of our locations around the world but keep it down."
"I will not second-guess your decisions so enjoy your function. Paddy and Tom are the footmen assigned to me. They have total access, of course."
Henri had whipped out his iPhone and turned on a dictation app the moment Eric had begun to speak and give him information. Later he would review the recording to make certain he hadn't missed anything.
"My mother will call, but I will not speak more than once a day to her. She is, to put it delicately, long-winded and I love her dearly, but I will be pressed for time in the next few weeks. You and I are going to earn our pay, certainement."
Henri looked up and laughed. "Sans doute."
"Please order blue medium-tip Pilot ball point pens for my office use from the Supplies department. I love the style of Mont Blanc, I just don't enjoy messing with ink or cartridges. It is my concession to my plebeian roots."
"I want a printer in my office. A nice one with all the bells and whistles. I don't want to get up and walk somewhere else to get a sheet of paper. I exercise with... and..., his face fell, er, I used to exercise with my husband."
"I'll have to swim every day or something, I guess." Tears came to his eyes and Henri had the grace to occupy himself at his desk for a moment.
"We have a pool here which you are welcome to use. You can use it 24/7/365 unless the door is locked in which case someone is inside fornicating, probably. Dress code there is, well, there isn't one and many of the footmen don't bring swim suits to work and still swim."
"Take your lunch hour at any hour you choose. Take a full hour please, unless you don't want it, but the salary is the same. You don't need to wear a uniform but the dress code in this office is just under formal in nature. You cannot overdress, that's for sure. I don't wear a tuxedo, or black tie, but just under that."
"Please represent us well. I cannot imagine a French man wearing anything but the best if he can afford nice clothes, which you now can. The. Nicest. Threads."
"We are chauffeured everywhere for efficiency. We are followed by our security teams everywhere. There are those in this very city who would kidnap or murder any of us to get their hands on a billion dollars."
Henri tried to control his expression. This was the first real hint he'd had of the amount of money the Schuyler and the Lodge-Millers families controlled. No wonder his salary and benefits were good for a community college student just finishing school. He'd never heard of Alain Industries yet either.
"The security chief will come by with your security bracelet after you send him a memo asking him to do so. You may choose the color; you don't have to accept a color you don't like."
"While we're on the topic, there may be some who test me by testing you. I would appreciate your being strong and passing tests for me. There may be some who ignore or slight you. Deal with them. Tell me, involve me, only if you must. Think about that."
"Your power here is information and access to me. There are some who will suck up to use that power. Assume the power quickly with confidence. Those who must respect your authority will, but not if you dither. Don't let yourself be used. Stay focused on business and you'll do well. You must be discreet."
"What you tell one will be assumed general information for all. This family stays out of the limelight totally. No press. No reporters. A kind "no comment" is always a good answer and often the only answer."
"We all love to gossip. We cannot, however, afford that here at this level. Those who hear information about others will assume that others hear information about them, obviously intolerable here."
"Computerize everything you can and give me access to everything."
"Document your work appropriately."
"Take pictures and use an internal office cloud, not IBM, not Microsoft, not Google, not Apple, mind you... just internal... to record all documents. Make certain I have access to the cloud. Do not allow Internet access to any of our files. Hackers must have zero access through the Internet."
"If we must keep our informational computers off the Net, we must. I would appreciate your consulting with a computer security firm and having their work double-checked by a second firm."
"You must quickly develop relationships with the top management and boards of the Schuyler Bank, Schuyler Trust, and the Schuyler Traders."
"It would be good to be on a first name basis with the managers of the global branches of the Schuyler Traders and have their personal and business contact information organized in such a way as to be able to send an email to all of them as a group as well as individually."
"Cell numbers as well. Addresses as well. All contact information you can get your hands on. Organize a discreet background check on all of the Trader managers over the next six weeks, emphasis on the discreet."
"You must have a pile of papers on your desk to organize. Talk to me at lunch today. We'll eat in the office, ordering from the online menu in the office from our kitchens."
"You should tell me at lunch today how often we should meet for status reports on your work and put them on my iCalendar. Appointments go on the iCalendar and you should personally remind me of those appointments and introduce the guests to my office after the footman announces them. The footman will show you how that flows. No one besides yourself, Paddy, or Tom is to walk into my office unannounced. No one. Especially not my mother or her friend Rose."
"See you at lunch."
Henri sat at his office desk, stood up, walked around the room and sat down again. He glanced at the computer, noting its make and model, noted the iPhone and iPad, found the chargers, and turned the Mac Pro on. He picked up the house telephone and asked the director of the travel office to come up to the beneficiary's office immediately.
It would be a test, he decided, of the degree of cooperation from at least one of the Campus managers.
When, some thirty minutes later, that man had not arrived, Henri sent an email to the Travel office stating that Eric Lodge-Miller had succeeded Isaac Lodge-Miller as beneficiary and had asked Henri to act as his secretary. He added that Eric had asked that all calls from Campus managers be routed through Henri for the time being until the job status of some Campus managers had been evaluated. He added "I hope you can find time in your busy schedule to come to this office immediately."
Five minutes later the travel office manager arrived in his office. Henri was civil and cool. "I have added your name to the list of managers for Eric to review. The positives in your case are that you have performed splendidly in the position to date, that no complaints have been received by the family who use your department's services. The negatives are that neither Eric nor I are familiar with you and also that you took 35 minutes to respond to an 'immediate' request, a disconnect that doubtless you will repair."
"The reason I asked you here was to inform you personally as a senior manager that Eric Lodge-Miller has replaced Isaac and Valentine Lodge-Miller as the beneficiary of the Schuyler Trust and Alain Industries as of this morning after the untimely death of both."
"Eric is in mourning for his husband. All of us need to support him by making our work smooth and transparent at this time, avoiding aggravation over small trifles like not arriving for appointments when requested. I intend to give him that support at all cost. It's the right thing to do."
"Please don't disappoint me again. You are a senior manager here and one of your duties among so many others is to provide a great example for the other managers."
"I expect it and I'm sure Eric does as well, although unable to articulate it now to you personally. I will continue to observe your otherwise outstanding performance at your work with pleasure."
The Travel manager thanked him and left.
Henri thought about the conversation, noted the highlights in Notes and attached the recording of the conversation. He then called the footman on call. The footman stepped in and Henri told him he wanted the biggest, badass cloud storage he could find within an hour at his desk.
"I will ask IT to find one here in the city," Henri said, "and you can go get it. Have it put on the Schuyler account after you show them your ID. They may call Eric's office and speak with Henri, his secretary for authorization if need be. Call IT in 30 minutes for the item and address."
IT answered and the manager answered promptly when Henri asked for him and introduced himself and his new job for Eric.
"I need to inform you on Eric Lodge-Miller's behalf as his new secretary that he is the new beneficiary of the Schuyler Trust and Alain Industries, controlling the Trust, the Bank, and the Traders as well. Please make a note of it and change all references to Eric as of this morning at 0900. He is mourning for his late husband, Andrew, and in semi-seclusion."
"He has asked me to carry on business and check with him daily. I am sure he wishes he could meet with you and tell you personally since you are one of the trusted managers on our Campus."
"I need a huge cloud storage machine at my desk in an hour. I need as many terabytes as the electric plug in the wall will support. I do not want Internet connectivity to that device. I have a footman who will pick it up in 45 minutes. Disregard price. I want the best quality."
"The footman will call you in 30 minutes for the address and name of the item. The cloud machine should connect and talk to my Mac Pro on my desk. I'm sure you have a record of that machine there and its specs." I appreciate your help and will certainly be depending on you in the days to come."
"I will schedule an appointment for you with Eric when he becomes available and give you time to prepare for the IT briefing which is so important for him."
An hour later, the footman trundled in a very large package followed by an IT tech who unwrapped the machine and connected it. Henri set the password based on the first letters of a sentence in French which he could remember easily along with digits and symbols he could easily recall. He made a Note to share that password with Eric.
A moment later all of that information had been copied to the new storage cloud, information which, after the formatting bytes, was the first of Eric's tenure as beneficiary.
Henri noted that noon was approaching. He logged out, turned the monitor off, told the footman at the door that he'd be with Eric and knocked on his door.
Hearing the 'come in', Henri entered to find Eric lying on his couch, a bottle of Fiji water on the floor, and a sheaf of papers.
"You asked me to join you for lunch?"
"Yes. Let's access the menu for today. I usually exercise just before a light lunch. Come along."
Down a floor or two, they walked to the pool and shut the door. Eric walked to a long bench made of polished maple standing by one wall near the pool and started to remove his clothes. There was a wire rack of clean towels by the bench and clothes hooks on the wall.
"Unless you plan to swim in your clothes...," said Eric, gesturing to the bench.
Henri began to undress, slightly uneasy. All of his life he had avoided pools because of the taunts of other children, then later, other men. It wasn't a case of 'look, there's the kid with the tiny cock'. It was the unkind, cutting 'look, there's horse-cock again'.
Henri had been cursed, he felt with genes that dictated a penis much larger than average and always much larger than anyone expected. He had learned to concentrate on various things to avoid erections in public and in showers. The usual chain of thoughts that worked for him was to imagine a gaping vagina speaking to him followed by his prim French grandmother bare-breasted and sagging followed by scorpions fighting over a dead rat. On the rare occasion that sequence threatened not to work, he just left.
His current uneasiness stemmed from the fact that he couldn't really leave this situation and that put a great deal of pressure on the thought sequence to accomplish the task.
Once his clothes were off, Eric glanced down. "Chromosomes, huh?"
Henri relaxed. He wasn't going to be harassed or teased or judged. Eric had addressed it, not ignored it, with a comfortable, quick quip.
Eric dived in and began to swim toward the shallow end and after a minute so did Henri. Henri's hair was a dark brown with reddish tints, his complexion slightly dark, a fine set of cheekbones, an engraved chin, perfect Eric thought, an ass almost as good as Paddy, the Neanderthal cock, balls low-hanging... one glance revealed Henri's ass and hole too, a smooth, hairless wonder, tight, funneled in...Eric told his mind to stop right there.
Andrew hadn't been dead for 48 hours and he was perving on his brand-new secretary. He couldn't think of anything lower except what he was seeing was handsome and would have tempted a saint.
After a few strong laps of the pool, both men climbed out and dried themselves. They noted clearer heads, dressed, and headed back to the office.
"I'm having a bowl of 5-cup salad, an old tradition here on the campus, so named by Blossom Jones, Michael Schuyler's mother's nurse. She requested it on Rainier, the original Gulfstream, thinking that the chef couldn't come up with it and he surprised her. She named it 5-cup salad because it has one cup of mandarin orange segments, one cup of shredded dry coconut, one cup of sour cream, one cup of small marshmallows, and one cup of well-drained, pressed pineapple chunks."
"I'm asking them to send up a crème brûlée as well."
Henri thought for a moment. "Perhaps escargot... " He felt rather than saw Eric's shudder and laughed. "Just kidding. I hate them. Always have done."
"I'll try the salad one time and take the crème brûlée as well."
Lunch was served by the footman at Eric's desk and he withdrew to stand outside the outer door.
Over lunch, Eric asked Henri to recap his morning and had a few requests.
"It would be best, I think, to line up a series of ten minute phone calls this afternoon to the President of the Schuyler Bank, the President of the Schuyler Traders, the head curator at the Louvre and his counterpart at the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum here on 5th Avenue for courtesy calls to inform them of the change here at the Schuyler Campus."
"You will need to call their secretaries and schedule the calls in advance to coordinate. I can dial the numbers, you can give me the number to call, and if you are present you can take notes of the calls."
"I need to meet with each manager here on campus, noting that you have already spoken to Travel and IT as you just told me. They should plan to give me a report on their department and I would like you to be present to take notes. I will ask them what they need or want for their departments and you can record their responses."
"Please call the Trust Offices and ask them to summon an urgent meeting of the Trust Board. Tell them I want to introduce myself and hear from them. Repeat that, another day obviously and with travel office help, for an urgent meeting with the Alain Industries Board for the same reasons."
"If anyone calls from one of the museums... Eric broke off, seeing a question mark in Henri's eyes... the museums with which we have relationships... the same question mark remained... "
Eric realized that Henri had no idea what the core, initial business of the Trust and Campus was all about.
"Come with me."
Along with security, they descended to the basement floors where Eric showed Henri the thousands of priceless pieces of art collected over several decades by the Trust and personally by the Schuyler family.
"Inside those suitcase-like containers are a whole lot of valuable paintings. The containers are locked and connected to gas cylinders on the wall for the establishment of inert gas environments around the art objects many of which oxidize and decay in oxygen environments."
"This basement level is full and the one below."
The two men went down a level to the deepest basement and looked at a similar sea of containers of varied sizes, labeled and off the floor on racks just like the floor above.
"In addition to these, the whole building contains other objects of art on display and in the suites. There is also a similar, but larger 'warehouse' in Colorado with more of the same. Many of the gems collected by Carol Schuyler are one place, a collection again priceless. We have no idea what that collection might be worth, except that the collection could buy several small countries."
"This tour was to show you our core business. We lend paintings to museums around the world for study and to attract visitors that enjoy fine art and encourage people to be educated about art. Some lends are short and some long-term."
"We also provide museums a service by buying paintings they would like to acquire in the future, but don't currently have the cash to buy. We buy the items and offer the museums first dibs to buy them at the original price we paid without markup."
"If they don't buy the items, we have acquired a masterpiece off the market before other collectors are able to snap it up. The museums happily play that game with us and we scratch each other's backs."
Henri asked the obvious question. "Do you know the current value of the paintings you hold?"
"No idea except to say that my mother always said that an item is only worth what someone will pay for it, a sobering thought in our case."
"Henri, please think about funeral services for Andrew and his parents. I know that I must make many of the decisions, but if you could contact the NYPD, the coroner's office, the legal people to establish some tentative data they will be done with their investigations and make a short-list of funeral homes in Manhattan large enough to handle an event like this and check to see if any funeral arrangements or plans/wishes might be in the wills or if any burial plot exists, that would help."
"We also need to know the highest-ranking official that plans to attend, contact their secretaries or security people to begin to accommodate them. We need to know an approximate number of guests and ask the city for a motorcade and hire extra off-duty police to manage traffic. You might ask the Police Commissioner to recommend a liaison to help hire those off-duty cops and ask if the department has plans for large funerals like this in the city which won't cripple traffic."
Henri thought for a moment. "We ought to buy a cemetery in New Jersey or space for one across the Hudson from the Met-Cloisters and dub it the Schuyler-Lodge-Miller Cemetery. There must be twenty acres overlooking the Hudson somewhere for sale and then those in the City can just cross the bridge. The high-ranking types can bring their helicopters in and out, routed and timed, bringing their security with them. That would take care of graveside services. I read somewhere where the Riverside Church in Morningside Heights is spacious, and the family has used it before."
Henri excused himself and went back to his desk, swamped with calls and paperwork and tasks to do, tasks to organize. The tasking software, up, purchased and running was sending tasks to Eric, spaced so not to overwhelm him, decisions requiring a 'yes' or 'no' answer only.
Paddy slipped in and asked Henri if he could see Eric for a moment. Paddy went in and gave Eric a hug and asked him if he needed anything other than the obvious. Eric couldn't think of anything. "Tom and I slept with you last night to keep you warm. We'd like to do that again tonight. Do you mind?"
"I slept real well last night. I dreamed that you guys slept with me, naked, by the way. It was very comforting. Please consider keeping me warm tonight."
For many weeks, Paddy and Tom brought a small snifter of Louis XIII cognac at bedtime to Eric's suite, watched him sip it, undressed him, and themselves, and climbed in on either side naked, and kept him warm. They didn't fool around.
Not that they weren't tempted, but they felt this was an almost sacred duty to support Eric, the guy that had hired them, had suffered a horrible loss, and had a fierce weight placed on him suddenly.
Then came the day when Paddy and Tom decided to swim just before lunch, entering the pool area and found Eric and Henri doing laps. Paddy and Tom dived in after shedding their clothes.
When Henri climbed out, he heard a wolf whistle, and he turned. Paddy and Tom's eyes were glued to his cock. For some reason, he became erect, didn't want to leave, and his thought-stream therapy didn't work.
He stood tall and waved his cock in their direction, humping the air in their direction. They playfully dived under the water to escape the sight and emerged smiling. Paddy and Tom noticed his monster and had the sense to stay silent.
After the footmen left the pool, Eric swam over.
"You seem to be getting used to showing your assets to others, more comfortable."
"I feel you and Paddy and Tom are friends."
"Good progress, Henri."
The funeral didn't require more land. All of the wills requested cremation. A large parcel at a local cemetery was found to be owned already by the family. The Riverside Church was available, and the huge organ and choir sang a Requiem for the three deceased family members.
Both New York Senators, about half the Representatives from the Congressional delegation, the Governor, the Mayor, the Police Commissioner, many employees, museum directors from all around the world, Eric's mother and Rose, her friend, Henri, Paddy, Tom...all celebrated Andrew and his parent's lives together.
Eric had no intention of being a hermit for the rest of his life. He had laid Andrew to rest and he knew that Andrew would have wanted him to love again and love well.
Love, for Eric, again, came from an unexpected source. Paddy and Tom were off on vacation the day that Henri knocked on Eric's door with a puzzled look on his face.
"Eric, there's a man downstairs at the security office with a note for Tom O'Brien. I think that's Paddy's Tom, from our employee records. He looks like he's been traveling for a long time, not too clean, not well dressed, but you should see his hair. The office sent up his picture... flaming, bright-red hair and he looks just like Tom."
"Send him up to me and bring him in, if you would."
A few minutes later, Henri knocked and came in with a man looking just as Henri had described. "Eric, this is Seamus O'Brien from Ventura, California with a note for Tom O'Brien. We do have an employee here by that name, sir."
"Welcome, Seamus. Have a seat. Are you hungry?"
"I'm near starved. I had a sandwich four days ago and ate an apple yesterday in New Jersey that had fallen off a tree."
"Can we have the kitchen send up a burger and fries and a milkshake?"
"Yes, sir. Thank you. I don't have any money left over from the trip though... "
"We'll donate it. It wouldn't look good to have a guy die of starvation on this Campus, now would it."
The food came and Seamus ate it, essentially attacked it like it might be his last meal.
"Tell us more about how you came to be here."
"I was born in Ventura 20 years ago. I never knew my father. My ma told me that he was a mean drunk and struggled with drug addiction. She left him in Boston urgently and went as far as she could toward California. I was born 7 or 8 months after we got to Ventura."
"Mom died of ovarian cancer six months ago and I was going over her papers a couple of weeks ago and found a note for me and this note addressed to a Tom O'Brien of Boston."
"My note told me that he was my older brother, that she had been forced to leave him behind against her will and that I should contact him wherever I could as soon as I could."
"I didn't have any money to speak of. Mom didn't have any to leave to me. My temporary job with an CPA came to an end. I was trying to keep my head above water and eat and pay the electric bill and not doing too well when I finally found the notes."
I didn't find anyone in Boston who claimed that history or was the age she gave, but I found one on Facebook with the right birthday and he looked like me and so I set out to find him."
"He lived in Manhattan and when I got here, I searched like crazy at the library and the city offices and found that his address was here."
"I'm not sure he lives here but someone might know him and where he lives."
"Seamus, I'm going to interrupt you here. There's a good chance we can hook you up to your brother. Are you willing to take a cheek swab for DNA to verify the relationship? I don't want to disappoint either of you if you aren't related."
"He will be back in three days and by that time he will have his DNA results available and compared to yours."
"Can I sleep in your park, by any chance?"
"You could, but there's a suite here with a bed that has your name on it for the next week and all the food you can eat and a pool and a laundry and a footman to wait on you hand and 'foot'... pardon the pun. Henri, will you make the arrangements?"
"Yes sir."
The swab was taken that same day and rushed to a private DNA lab in the city with a STAT label.
Eric called Tom. "Hey Tom, are you having a great vacation? Great. I have a request. Sweet Pea is landing in Phoenix in 8 hours. I need you to go to a hospital and get a cheek swab for DNA analysis done and take it, labeled and dated and timed, to meet Sweet Pea at the airport and they will fly it back tonight. Are you willing to trust me on this one? You'll be very glad you did."
"Yeah, it sounds mysterious. Because it's a really dramatic
story and you'll be very interested in the results. See you when you get back. Hi to Paddy."
Henri had been very busy. He made certain that Seamus showered, shampooed, got a manicure and haircut, then took him shopping for clothes and shoes. The next morning the footman brought breakfast, laid out his new clothes and his soap and shampoo. His assigned footman, David, was brand new and well-trained. He'd been assigned without the traditional interview after Eric spoke to the senior footman and cleared the way.
Seamus stopped by Henri's office to check in and at that precise moment, Eric happened to step out to check on something and his eyes lit on Seamus. His throat constricted and his breath caught. Before him stood a gorgeous, handsome, flaming red-haired man who cleaned up really well, the spitting image of Tom, swimmer's build, good chest, wide shoulders, a great package, a fine ass just better than Paddy's, flat stomach, well-dressed, and smiling at him.
Eric forced himself to breathe in and out. After his throat relaxed, he spoke with an initial squeak, then his usual voice. "Good morning. You've had breakfast? Did you get the DNA test done?"
"Good morning, yes and yes."
Henri rolled his eyes and grinned. He knew what was going on and was delighted for his employer.
"The gentlemen are flying back early on Raspberry and should arrive tomorrow at 4 p.m. The results should be back by then."
"Thank you, Henri."
"Don't mention it."
Eric tried to glare at him, unsuccessfully.
"Today, Seamus is exercising in the pool at ten a.m. if you care to join him then to ask him any more questions. Lunch is at noon. I have no new items for that status report today so if you wish to meet with Seamus for a tour of the museum, you could, or you could go to the movies or, uh... "
Henri broke off, observing Eric's narrowed eyes and pursed lips and icy faux glare intensifying a little, and he decided not to push it too far.
He was having a good time with this and loved the drama.
He observed Eric's eyes relaxing and chimed in again " ...or I could take him to the movies... "
Henri noted the immediate re-narrowing of Eric's eyes and this time a real glare emerged. " ...or not."
Henri knew how to skate but had little experience on thin ice and recognized that he had left thick ice with that last remark.
"See you at the pool at ten a.m., Seamus," Eric said.
"Henri," asked Seamus, "Do you know where I could get a pair of swim trunks cheap?"
"Now let's see," replied Henri, "I didn't tell you that the pool is a suit-free zone, did I?"
"You mean... "
"Yep, naked."
"Common practice here. The footman and a lot of guests enjoy fornicating behind the locked pool door."
"Oh my. My cousin in Boston is gay. He thinks. My mom said it's a sin."
"Do you believe everything your mother told you?"
"Well, not everything."
"What do you think, Henri?"
"It feels too good to be sinful."
"Like sneezing when you need to cough or scratching when you itch?"
"Better than that."
"Oh. Ten this morning, you said?"
"Enjoy naked swimming. Excuse me, before you leave, what did you mean when you said your cousin 'thinks' he's gay?"
"Just that. He's a virgin, so I guess he doesn't know yet. I can relate to that."