Gut Feelings
All you Yanks out there! You've had the best 8 years in economic years. You can continue it or go back to recessions. You can go back to bigotry made law or build on the changes that have been made the past 8 years. Your choice. And not making a choice is choosing bigotry and recession. Vote. No excuses. Vote like your life depends on it. It just might.
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
"This Ilyich did promise a car to meet us, didn't he?" I asked as our train slowed to a stop at Chichester station's platform.
"Come on, Phillip!" Brett groaned. "Don't go and think I'd leave us stranded out here in the middle of nowhere. Ilyich promised a man sitting here at the station and waiting for us after eleven. Hopefully, he'll be here and we won't have to twiddle our thumbs very long."
"Relax, Inspector," said Richard more comfortably. "Ilyich is a stickler for carrying through on something he's said he'll do."
I sat back against the seat, uncomfortable now that I was nearly at the beginning of an investigation that I couldn't even ensure my access to. I was dependent on the people I was investigating even for my mobility. Of course, the senior levels of the police forces of both Chichester and Selsey knew I was conducting an investigation within their jurisdictions. They were probably even more unhappy with me being here than I was going to be - if there wasn't a car waiting for us.
Of course, I had known this before we'd left London. It went hand in glove with this being an undercover operation. I was the guest of my suspects and I had no doubt of how well things would work. But that had been London and the situation theoretical; now, however, I was in Chichester and would quickly be facing the reality of my dependence upon others.
"He's a cutey," Brett said, pointing to a lone blond lad as our carriage came even with the platform. The train shuddered as it came to rest. I reached for my knapsack and slung it over my shoulder.
"He is that," Richard agreed. "I want him."
"You don't even know if he's part of this thing we're here for," Brett groaned in friendly exasperation, picking up his bag and slinging it over his shoulder.
"I can hope," Richard shot back and grinned lopsidedly at the rest of us.
"Slut," groaned Brett. "Didn't you already get enough this morning? Besides, he's a blond, Richard. You don't like blonds very much."
"I'm versatile," the Irishman shot back as he grabbed his bag.
"Come on, lads," I told them as I stood up. "Everyone gets his own stuff, right? Let's go see what we're going to see."
On the platform, Richard began to grin widely as the blond youth made his way towards us. "There is a god, after all," he mumbled under his breath.
The lad reached us and glanced from one to the other of us. "Is one of you Brett Chandler?" he asked in heavily accented English, his eyes fixed on me.
He was a fine looking lad, an inch or two taller than Brett. His hair was almost white, it was so blond. He was slim. His face was a rounded, heart-shaped perfection of Slavic beauty. He was definitely a cutie, as my lover had labelled him.
"I am," Brett told him. "Are you here to pick us up?"
The boy's gaze pulled from me as he began to blush. He looked at Brett. "Pick you up?" he asked suspiciously.
"Ilyich was going to have a driver meet us here, to take us to the dacha-"
"Good!" Relief flooded the blond's face. "Yes. I am here to take you to the party of Ilyich." He smiled then. "I am Pyotr."
We introduced ourselves in turn. Pyotr met the gaze of each of us as he shook our hands, but his gaze kept darting back to me. "Please," he said finally, "follow me to the car. We go now to Selsey Bill." He started towards the station.
Brett reached for my arm as I made to follow the Russian. "Looks like there's a new boy just about dying for some cop dick, Phillip," he said in a voice that didn't carry beyond us. "You going to give him some?"
"My word!" We had just entered the station from the platform and I speeded up my steps to catch the rest of our party. I didn't know what type of game my newly acquired Yank lover might be playing out, but I wanted no part of it.
"He wants you, Phillip," Brett continued, staying up with me. "He couldn't take his eyes off you. So, give him some - break the ice for all of us."
"Just open my flies and say, 'here it is'?" Brett nodded. "Should I do it in the station or wait until we're in the car?"
Brett stopped in the centre of the station. It took me a moment to realise he was no longer immediately beside me, another to turn back to him, and yet another to recover the distance I'd walked. "What did I say?" I asked, wondering just how placating I would have to be to soothe whatever ruffled feathers the American had developed.
"You're a real prude."
"A prude?" I yelped. "Me?" I was in Chichester in the south of England with four men I had shagged during the week just past. I didn't think that I sounded especially prudish. "Why're we here?" he asked.
"To learn if these Russians have anything to do with the flow of heroin into London's gay community."
"And what have we expected all along to be a part of this learning experience, Phillip Goodson?"
"An orgy. Sex."
"Right. So, why are you suddenly so resistant to a little nookie?"
"I-"
"Phillip, we both agreed to put the monogamy part of our relationship on hold until after this weekend. I don't like it, but I expect you to fuck anyone who wants it. I want you to find out if this is the real thing between us or a wild goose chase. Giving that cutie a fuck may open doors for us, so that we do learn something out here. Or it might have you back on top in England as being top dick - with nobody holding you back. All I can say is shag him good, baby." He smiled and began to walk towards the glassed entranceway. I followed, not at all happy at how free he'd just made me.
The others had loaded their knapsacks in the boot of a Cavalier by the time we approached them. Brett slipped his off his shoulder and dropped it on top of the others as he passed by the open boot on his way to the Russian's side. I began to sort knapsacks out to make room for all five of them and still get the boot to latch.
"You want my boyfriend?" I heard Brett ask behind me and didn't dare look back. I was tumescent just at the thought of the Russian.
There was a muffled answer I didn't catch. "You'll have to stop and show us the quietest scenery on the way then. He's worth it. You'll be feeling him for days."
When I turned to face them, Pyotr was gazing at me with a mixture of longing and fear that I found to be embarrassing. The lad was hard and tenting his crutch.
I rode in the front seat with Pyotr. My four companions managed to squeeze themselves into the back seat with Brett being especially squashed, caught as he was between Jesse and a door.
The boys in the back kept up a running and meaningless chatter. Pyotr was silent as he drove us south, but he kept glancing both at me and at my crutch. We passed through the village of Selsey and, a mile beyond the outskirts, he turned us onto a macadamised dual carriageway that led further out onto the penisula.
"What's that?" Doug asked from the window. He had been sitting quietly gazing out at the rolling English countryside since we had left Chicester. The rest of us had just chatted around him.
Jesse leant over his lover's shoulder to be able to see. Doug pointed out the tall dome that dwarfed everything near it. "An observatory, looks like," I suggested.
"It's the Selsey Observatory, boys," Brett told us. "It's part of the Greenwich programme." "Don't tell me they offer tidbits on the English countryside as a course for Yanks at King's College," Jesse grumbled.
"No. But I looked it up," said Brett. "From what I could find on the net, it's about the only claim to fame this one horse town has going for it."
"Was there anything else about this place?" Doug asked quietly.
"As I said, not much. The only other thing I found was that there were several retired navy organisations."
"You will do it to me?" the young Russian beside me asked. I turned to face him, knowing full well what he wanted.
"Is that what you want?"
He grinned and nodded. "You and your friends, we have our private party, yes?"
"If you want that."
"We almost are there," he answered, his voice low. "A quiet place. One we will be alone in - like how your boyfriend tell me it must be."
I watched as the car slowed and he turned onto a dirt track leading toward a copse of trees.
"Hey, guys!" Brett called out loudly. "It's almost shag time." The others hooted.
Pyotr focused on me and shook his head slowly. "I do not understand English idiom, Phillip. I spent ten years learning English in Petrograd and your people don't even speak what I learnt."
"The Americans are even worse," I mumbled. "We don't even understand them and we're their oldest allies." He laughed at that.
Pyotr was still chuckling as he pulled the car into the stand of trees and turned it off. "We are in Brett's quiet place where no one bothers us," he told everyone.
Brett already had his door open and was standing outside the car. "Come on, let's get naked," he called to all of us as he pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on the grass. He had opened his jeans and was wiggling them over his arse as he stepped up to Pyotr's door. "Come on, you all. I don't want to be the only one out here who's naked."
I watched as the Russian quickly worked his way out of his shirt and trainers before climbing out of the car. Pyotr opened his flies and began to slide his trousers over his nicely rounded bum. Holding onto the door for support, he raised a leg to pull his trousers off it. Around the Russian, the others were already in various states of undress. I stepped out of the car and began to undress. Brett stood beside the door and watched the Russian slide his underwear onto his thighs. The American smiled as the equipment package came into view. "Nice one," he told the lad.
Pyotr turned and studied him for a moment, his gaze taking in every aspect of the American. "No. You have the nice package, Brett. You are beautiful. But your cock ... There is something different-"
"Sounds like you need to do a very close inspection of my equipment," Brett told him and grinned.
"Oh, yes. I would like that very much. And your boyfriend. Let us not forget him."
"Come on," Brett told him then and took his hand. He led Pyotr to the front of the Cavalier. "Stand right there while I get situated," said he and lifted himself onto the bonnet of the car. Brett spread his legs after he was settled and smiled. "Come on over here, Pyotr. Now you can get as close and personal as you want."
I placed my discarded clothes on the car seat. In one hand, I held a condom packet; in the other, I carried the small tube of lubricant that Brett had given me as we were leaving my flat in the morning.
Leaning against the boot of the Cavalier, Jesse and Doug were oblivious to everyone. I decided to leave them to their kisses.
The Russian put a hand on each of Brett's knees and licked his lips. Richard was next to them in an instant. He knelt beside Pyotr and the boy took a step backwards to give the Irishman more space in which to play. Richard took the man's dick in his hand guided it to his mouth. The Russian moaned as his cock disappeared inside Richard's throat.
I joined them then, pulling a condom down onto my shaft as I came upon them. Brett laid back on the bonnet as Pyotr began to suck him.
"Do you really want me inside you then?" I asked the Russian. He nodded but never pulled off of Brett. He also wiggled his bottom in a friendly enough greeting.
"Who're we missing, Phillip?" Brett asked as I squeezed a dollop of lube onto the palm of my hand.
"Jesse and Doug," I answered as I began to work the viscous gel into the condom. "They're snogging behind the car."
I spread Pyotr's downy cheeks and placed my prick at his entrance. He pushed his hips back then, impaling himself. He groaned even as he held Brett in his mouth but continued to impale himself on my manhood until he had all of it inside him.
My fingers rode his flanks up to his smooth chest where they detoured onto his pecs in search of his nipples. "Da!" Pyotr mumbled around Brett's dick and ground his bottom against my crutch in appreciation when I tweaked both of his nipples hard.
Brett raised his upper body and smiled at me. "You like it, honey?" I nodded. "Enjoy it while you still have it then, Phillip." Brett's hands moved to the back of the Russian's head and he began to fuck his face slowly.
Richard had moved to sit on his haunches between Pyotr and the grill of the car as he sucked our driver. His hand darted between the blond Russian's legs to cup my bollocks and ride them as my prick began to work its way in and out of Pyotr's hole. His other hand moved from one of Pyotr's nipples to the other, tweaking them. All the while, the Russian's lips rode my lad's pole, and Brett was making gurgling noises like he was loving it.
My strokes were long and gentle. I buried myself in the Russian's arse on the in-stroke and would pull out to where only the flange against the backside of his stretched sphincter ring kept me inside him. Pyotr pushed back to greet each return, the muscles along the walls of his bowel flexing in welcome as my prick reclaimed possession of him.
I was beginning to lose awareness that I was totally naked in a copse of trees and involved in four-way sex. We were four randy boys relieving ourselves to our mutual satisfaction. Pyotr's arse felt good around my dick. My body was nearly succeeding in convincing my mind of that being the only thing that was important. I almost believed it as I rode the waves of pleasure surging ever higher through me.
The Russian stiffened under me, his hips jerking hard on and off my prick. His orgasm hit then. His arsemuscles clamped down on my prick, milking it. I groaned, unprepared for him to shoot jizz so soon. His orgasm pulled me over. I rammed into Pyotr's arse one more time and began to erupt into my condom.
I took a step back, pulling away slowly and drawing my still hard pole from the well-used Russian hole. I took in the three men still connected together - Brett in Pyotr's throat and the lad from Petrograd still in Richard's. There was something wrong about it but I couldn't place it. There had been something wrong with me in the picture with them too.
"I think Phillip has understood now why we didn't join in," Jesse told Doug.
I turned to face them. "Why's that?"
"You can't feel it?"
"I feel something - it's just I don't have any basis on which to describe it."
Jess smiled. "You don't feel all that great, do you?" He watched me frown. "It was good, I could tell that from here. You had some horny men to play with. But it wasn't as good as you thought it was going to be, was it?"
"No," I admitted.
"We've tried out a lot of things since we've been together, Phillip," Doug told me. "I don't think either of us had ever done anything but one-on-one - those teenaged grope and sex things kids get into-"
"Not till we teamed up, love," Jesse told him. "I don't know if it's just that we were already in love or what - but we could get into all the ambiance about sex as long as it was one-on-one-"
"Or even threeways, Jesse." Doug turned to me. "If we both want a third guy, it's just like he's family when we get going with him. It's just like when it's just the two of us."
"But more than three going at it together makes it hard to sort out arms and legs, dicks and arses. If you can't sort them out, you can't have the closeness between everybody that ought to be there." Jesse smiled. "That fourway stuff you had just now, you didn't even really enjoy that Russian guy, did you?"
I shook my head slowly. "That's a pity," Jesse mumbled. "He's a looker, all right. It's such a shame to waste something that fine."
Doug grinned. "You seemed to have intrigued the lad, maybe you and your lad could have him - just the three of you? Where you can give him some attention too."
"Have you two become Agony Aunts?" I groaned. "I don't remember writing off for advice-"
"Whether you wrote off for it or not, Phillip, you two seem to need some right together now," Jesse told him. "This is your first time being in love too, isn't it?" I nodded numbly. "Thought so. It all ties together, you see?"
I didn't understand. But I still nodded. I doubted that young Jesse Patel saw a connection that was as murky as the one he'd just tried. But I also saw no sense in arguing with these lads.
"Dacha Russikya!" Pyotr announced proudly when we turned into the drive. "Ilyich will be so glad to see all of you."
"Why?" Brett demanded.
"He likes pretty boys," Pyotr explained.
"Just so long as he doesn't think somebody belongs to him simply because he's here," Jesse mumbled.
"What's there to do once you're here, Pyotr," I asked.
"Sex. Boys. Sex." He turned to face me, his smile covering his face. "That is what a weekend at Dacha Russikya is like, Phillip." He grinned. "You and Brett will share yourselves with me? Yes?"
My fingers dropped down to his knee and began to slide up over his jeans. "Do you want that then?" He leant towards me and, smiling, brought his lips to mine.
Pyotr pulled the car up to the main entrance of the manor. "We'll put your bags upstairs before everybody comes out to look at the-" His brow furrowed as he sought the correct word. "The fresh meat?"
"Fresh meat?" I looked at Brett suspiciously as I picked my knapsack and began to follow the young Russian into the house.
"I doubt they mean anything by it, Phillip."
"I certainly hope not."
A large, middle-aged man had appeared at the foot of the stairs when we were returning to the car. "Ilyich," Brett mumbled as we began to descend the stairs.
"So, our little Marlene decided to come after all-" He looked over the rest of us. "And some of her friends as well. How wonderful. They are all versatile, yes?"
I was unsure of what game the man thought he was playing but my understanding had been that Brett and the rest of us had been invited with no commitment of sex being made. "I've not found the man who didn't decide he was versatile," I told Ilyich, "not once he'd seen my equipment. They've all been quite satisfied with the drilling too." I smiled sweetly at him. "Would you like to see what I've got? I don't mind helping an older chap out by filling him up."
The Russian flushed. He studied me for a moment and then laughed. "Our Marlene has very funny friends," he said.
"Do you think I'll ever get it right?" David Trell asked the American working the barbed hook out of his shirt. He shuddered at how close the thing had come to his cheek. His eye even.
Shep Simon chuckled. "You almost had it this time. You just don't rear back and let go like you did. Otherwise, you may be taking off somebody's toupee."
"I don't have a toupee," David grumbled. "Neither do you."
Shep grinned. "Look, David, the idea is to keep the fish hook clear of you and any other guys who may be around. Think of it this way - the hook and the line need to be the closest things to the water ... Because that's where they're going, right?"
"But you were snapping it around like it was a whip. I watched you."
"But far enough away that it's not going to come back and get caught in my jeans or shirt - or even my skin."
"Show me again, Shep," Trell grumbled resignedly. He was damned if a bloody Yank could do something he couldn't do, even if the Yank was Shep and one of the nicest Americans in London.
If this standing in the middle of a stream in rubbers up to your waist was supposed to be so masculine, Trell wished someone had shown him how to make it fun too. Instead, the hook on the end of his fly line had so far caught in his shirt twice - his shoulder this time and his back the last, and the tree limb next to him before that. Having Shep work the bloody hook out of his back had hurt as the barb had nipped his shoulder blade.
After all, it was his - Trell's - education that had been so woefully perceived. He could barely swim and he was proving that he couldn't fly cast. He wished he could remember what his Dad was doing those weekends he was showing his young son the beauties of an English boyhood. He was beginning to suspect his Dad had laid out by the stream and drank himself into a stupour whilst he was watching him. He seemed to remember that was why Mum had sent the old man on his way in the first place.
But, now he stood in the middle of a river deep in the wooded hills of Wales - where mountain met water and gave definition to sky - with three mates from a leatherman club in London. He stood where fish swam and birds flew and men were supposed to hunt them. There were three gay men with him and they'd taken it upon themselves to show him how to be a man. How to fish, to hunt.
He stood apart from the others among the boulders in the river. "Like this," he told himself softly as he pointed the tip of his fishing pole directly in front of him. He dropped several feet of line. Eyeing the fly riding the surface in front of him, he decided he had done everything Shep had shown him to do up to this point.
He unreeled about six feet of line before lifting the pole to point nearly straight up. He cringed expecting the sting of the barb, even though he could see the fly ahead of him eight or so feet. Everyone of the guys had insisted he needed the business end of the line behind him to give it enough arc, but David Trell didn't think so. He wanted the fly and hook where he could see them, not somewhere that they could catch him again.
With his wrist he tried to get the flying arc going with the leader and fly. The line spread out from the pole like a whip. Trell flicked his wrist and the fly swirled out from the pole and landed on the water twenty feet ahead of him as gently as a Mayfly. Trell watched spellbound as his cast became the perfect release. A trout struck at the barb before it had set down properly on the water.
"My god," he groaned and instinctively tightened his grip against the pull he expected from the trout. He began to reel the fish in.
"Way to go, Trell!" Shep called out to him. "Need some help?"
"No, I've got it!" he called back. He was so bloody proud of himself that he had hooked the thing by himself. He brought his net under the fish as it broke water.
He wanted to take the fish around to show the other men. It was a brawny one, now he was looking at it close. He wanted to go splashing up to each of the men on this trip - like a young lad with his first fish - but he knew that was the way to lose the slippery damned thing fast. And why should a lad let his pride get in the way of his sense. Safely in his creel box, the trout would be there for anyone to look at later.
He looked back to where Shep was standing and hoped he'd made the right decision. Trell had to admit that it had been his curiosity at first. Wondering what it would be like with another man - with anyone. David Trell was a bloody virgin!
He and Shep had talked about it. Several times this week in fact. What it'd be like. Would he be a jessy boy the first time. He had come to trust Shep Simon with his cherry.
Of course, Shep wasn't in love with him. Trell knew that. But the Yank was the best friend David Trell could remember ever having. It was for that one reason that Trell was willing to let Shep do it.
Actually, he wasn't sure exactly what was going to happen between them. He'd promised Shep that he'd sleep with him the coming night. That he would be his to direct however he wanted to then. He had to wait until darkness to find out exactly what the Yank was going to do to him in the night ahead. But Trell wasn't concerned. He trusted Shep. He knew he was his friend. But he did find himself wondering what it would be like to have Shep rogering him up the arse.