Big dipper, p.1
Big Dipper, page 1
BIG DIPPER
STEPHEN WYATT
© Stephen Wyatt 2012
Stephen Wyatt has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published 2012 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five
Extract from The Donor by Scott Griffin
CHAPTER ONE
If Julian Bryant had not taken so long deciding about curtain fabrics, it might never have happened. His friends always told him he was a perfectionist when it came to choosing the right colours. He could spend weeks trying to find the correct matching fabric for a single cushion if he felt it was important to the overall effect of a particular room. It had taken him five consecutive Saturdays in different parts of London until he had found exactly the right shade of navy blue for the loose covers on a three-piece suite he'd discovered in an unpromising local junk shop. The long search had only ended two weeks ago so, by his standards, spending an hour or so on trying to choose between a range of black and white designs for bathroom curtains was quite restrained. Especially as he had discovered, in the fabric department of this particular large central London department store, designs with a range of exceptionally attractive classical motifs. The Greek statues of athletes were perhaps a bit camp though undoubtedly striking. The Ionic pillars more obviously tasteful, but a little on the dull side. And the coins with the profiles of Greek gods and goddesses somehow fell between the two stools. To find three designs, all of which could work even by his own exacting standards was a rare event. Besides, after the saga of the navy loose covers, he wasn't ready for another gruelling search round the department stores of London.
It was not unreasonable then for him to take his time. The assistants weren't lurking. There was no long-suffering friend in tow. He was perfectly free to blamelessly indulge himself. All of which, in retrospect, made the final outcome of this modest little shopping expedition particularly cruel.
Julian Bryant was an overweight man in his late forties. But everything else about him was designed to take the sting out of that description. For work, of course, he was compelled to dress carefully in well-cut dark suits with just a splash of bright colour in the necktie. But, even at the weekend, Julian selected elegant but generously cut shirts and trousers which added style but concealed embonpoint. His particular horror was men of his age who still crammed themselves into tight jeans and T-shirts, allowing great rolls of fat to bulge ostentatiously above a tightly buckled leather belt. Julian dyed his hair, of course, but here too he proceeded with discretion. A little reduction of the grey at the sides and temples was his limit. He felt that giving the whole head of hair a uniformly bright, glossy colour, chosen according to the over-optimistic claims of the manufacturers of such things, made men of his age look ludicrous. He could unhesitatingly spot the mismatch between an ageing skin and over-bright hairline, so he assumed others could too. If he had started to go bald, he would have scorned a toupee for similar reasons. Luckily, his hair was still full and, though his features were, he had to admit to his mirror, getting on the pudgy side, he had, by way of compensation, a good healthy colour, clear brown eyes, a smooth, comparatively unblemished complexion and all his own teeth. All in all, he felt he was doing pretty well. So many men of his age, particularly the married ones, were in far worse shape.
He was a partner in a firm of highly-regarded and well-connected solicitors based in the West End. His particular area of expertise was wills and probate. The work was often rather dull but he never doubted that it was worth doing and worth doing well. His position made him very discreet about his lifestyle. He was part of a group of well-heeled and unobtrusive homosexuals, all professionals, who wined and dined together and occasionally joined forces to go to a concert or Covent Garden. (Only in twos, or with female companions, by and large, since the whole group en masse would have presented rather too conspicuous an object to the eyes of the curious). To all his clients, as well as most of his acquaintances and business associates, Julian’s sexuality was a closed book. His widowed mother chose never to display any curiosity on the subject, whether from ignorance or wilful blindness Julian wasn’t sure but he suspected the latter. He had no doubt that some people speculated, some guessed, a few knew for certain, but none of them could ever accuse him of indiscretion or forcing the matter of his sexual preferences on anybody. Or so he prided himself.
In his early twenties he had lived with another man for a couple of years in a flat in Holland Park at a time of life when it was still possible for them to be viewed as 'room-mates' in the American style. But the man had left him for someone else. Once he was over the hurt, Julian, who was a sociable creature, found there was a lot to be said for being free to do what one liked, instead of being caught up in a web of domesticity and 'cosy coupledom'. He rarely admitted to himself that late at night alone in his bed he sometimes felt lonely, even desperate. He got better and better at burying the dark thoughts and, as the years went on, he had become genuinely convinced that his way of life was the best for him. He’d watched quite enough relationships, heterosexual and homosexual, fall apart messily and painfully. He was being spared all that.
He had had men back, of course, because everyone has sexual needs now and then. But he had to feel the men in question were both safe and discreet. He insisted to himself that he would rather have had no sexual encounters at all than become involved, however briefly, with someone he did not believe to be completely trustworthy. Once he’d invited back a very respectably dressed American tourist he’d met in the National Portrait Gallery. He was clearly a cultured man otherwise he wouldn’t have been where he was and he’d also made it clear he was only in London for a few days, which was ideal. To Julian’s horror, it had turned out he knew Julian’s only good friend in New York. Worse, his idea of sexual fun was to be tied up and pissed on. Julian was so angry and upset he was tempted to do what Wayne asked and kick him in the balls while he was about it. Instead, he politely declined to oblige and asked his guest to leave. He often wondered afterwards whether he’d have been tempted to go through with Wayne’s proposal if Wayne had been (one) younger and sexier and (two) not a good friend of Gerard’s in New York.
Still, if all else failed and Julian’s sexual needs could no longer be satisfied alone, there were reliable and discreet escort agencies, which could send along a reasonably attractive and well-built young man of any race desired for a not outrageous sum of money simply by lifting the phone. Over the years, in fact, he had met some really stunning young men this way without fuss and without worries about future unpleasantness. Some of them were actually quite intelligent and Julian had enjoyed surprisingly well-informed conversations with them once the deed was done. The stupider ones sometimes brought a brutal take-it-or-leave-it approach to sex which was also on occasion stimulating. Above all, there was security and discretion, which was fair compensation for the rather unreal, clinical nature of the transaction.
In all probability Julian would have rounded off the entire emotional excitement of this particular afternoon by finally settling on the fabric with the coin motif. It was, he knew, the sort of discreet middle-of-the road choice that he usually ended up making. But, while he was allowing himself the luxury of his last five minutes of hesitation, he looked up.
The young man was standing some ten yards away, looking through a pattern book laid out on one of the waist-high desks. He looked up as Julian looked up and their eyes met.
Very much what the doctor ordered, Julian mused, during an intense moment of appraisal before his staring became too obvious.
The young man was Chinese, well, certainly Oriental, and certainly not Japanese. Not dark enough for that. In his early twenties, Julian further guessed. Chiselled features, delicate brow, sensual mouth. Very good-looking, in fact. And, since he was casually dressed, it was possible to deduce that he had a good figure, slim but muscular. None of that heavy bodybuilders' musculature, which Julian did not really respond to. Indeed, he had always been attracted towards young Oriental men with their gentle manners and smooth, firm, hairless bodies.
Then the young man smiled. Julian responded. The smiles were not held but they served their purpose. Around him, Julian was vaguely aware of the other shoppers, manhandling the rolls of fabric and quietly discussing the suitability of the colours and the texture with their nearest and / or dearest. One married couple, however, were at screaming point. But Julian no longer cared. He couldn’t really believe that the young man had felt quite the same chemical surge of attraction as he experienced, but at least he was acknowledging Julian's admiration in a charming and unthreatening manner. It made it possible for Julian to continue to study him without inhibition. The more he looked, the more Julian realised that he was looking at somebody who was close to his sexual ideal.
Julian Bryant was not conceited about his own appearance. He knew that he was perfectly presentable but no object of desire for such a person. He expected that, in all probability, the young man would in a few moments give him another of those charming smiles of acceptance, enjoy Julian’s admiration and simply move away, leaving just the memory of himself behind.
But the young man did not go away. He smiled again, very deliberately this time. Then, closing the pattern book, walked in Julian’s direction. At first, Julian thought he was mistaken and the young man was simply making his way towards some other department, the lighting department perhaps, which Julian knew was on the same floor. All the same, he felt his heart pounding in anticipation. He was too agitated to maintain the least scrap of pretence of looking for fabric. He expected his agitation to be all too apparent to the shoppers around him but, in fact, no one was paying the blindest bit of attention to him.
The young man was within a few feet of him now and their eyes met once again. Julian cleared his throat, ready to commence the conversation with whatever banality came to mind. He knew that if the interest was there, against all the odds, it would not matter what he said first of all. A remark about the weather or even, "Do you come here often?' would do. And if, as he still suspected, the young man was simply coming over to be polite then no amount of Wildean epigrams would woo him to anything beyond that.
His heart fluttering, his throat dry, Julian opened his mouth to speak, forming in his head an observation about never being able to find exactly the pattern you wanted, banal but at least to the point. However, the words died on his lips. The young man was very close now and as he came up, he winked conspiratorially. He then brushed past Julian, their shoulders touching as he did so. As the startled Julian felt the physical contact, light but unmistakeable, he looked up at the young man's face and the smile on it, as he passed by, was unambiguous now. It was a smile of sexual invitation.
Like most men, and indeed women, in such circumstances, Julian could still not believe his luck. A fantasy was being made flesh but he was convinced that, as in all fantasies, reality would cruelly intervene. It would not have altogether surprised him if the young man had revealed himself as a store detective. Though the smile suggested otherwise.
Instinctively, Julian touched the right shoulder where the young man had brushed against him. He stood there for a moment in a daze, then started to look around frantically for where the oriental boy had gone. To lose him at this stage would be unthinkable.
But the boy had not gone far. He had paused by a display of brightly coloured cushions on special offer. However, he was making no pretence of looking through them. (A wise decision, Julian could not stop himself thinking, since they were uniformly hideous) Instead, he was looking back at Julian, smiling, and watching for him to follow.
There could be no mistake now. Julian was almost relieved to realise the game was beginning to operate on rules he understood. The backward glance, the stopping and starting, the bogus interest in some display or other to gain time for the other to catch up, a coy little game of follow my leader that brings two male strangers together. Julian knew the rules well enough but never, he thought, with so lovely a leader to follow. He could go into action now he had grasped what was going on. Something inside him still told him that what was happening was not real but just then nothing seemed real so what did it matter?
Julian followed and the young man led, looking back now and then to make sure Julian had not lost sight of him in the crowds.
Julian was ruthless now, possessed with a frenzy to follow that led him to ignore his usual meticulous rules of courtesy and barge past his fellow shoppers with apology or consideration. He was just about aware, as he bustled on, that he had left an elderly lady rubbing her ankle in ostentatious pain and grumbling to her husband, but he could not have stopped if she had been the mother of his senior partner. He was starting to sweat but could not tell whether it was the crowds or the excitement that bathed his brow in moisture. He wiped the worst off perfunctorily with his handkerchief.
He saw the Chinese boy ahead of him through the crowds. Then the boy headed for one of the side entrances that served the seventh floor. He pushed open a door labelled 'EMERGENCY STAIRS' and then it swung back closed behind him. Julian hurried to follow. Beyond the door, he emerged on to a bright empty landing, with a flight of anonymous steps leading down to the ground floor. The young man was nowhere in sight.
Had he walked off down the stairs never to be seen again? Or was he perhaps waiting somewhere for Julian to find him? Was it some crazy game of sexual hide and seek? Julian felt almost angry with himself for succumbing so easily to panic. He told himself to be calm and breathe deeply. The young man had not really had time to disappear down the flight of stairs and, anyway, it was foolish to rush off in pursuit downstairs without examining other possibilities. There was a fire door to the left that led off down some side corridor. He should try that first.
He pushed open the door. And there was the young man waiting, some twenty feet away, leaning nonchalantly against the wall. Julian smiled and the young man smiled back with his perfect white teeth. The sexual invitation was clearer than ever. Again Julian started to assemble the verbal banalities he would employ to establish contact. A remark about the garish cushions perhaps.
But then the young man straightened up gracefully. As Julian approached, he turned and went a little further down the corridor and through the door at the end. It was, of course, marked 'GENTLEMEN'.
Julian hesitated. It would have been hypocritical to pretend that he had never 'cottaged'. In an earlier period of his life he had made sexual contact that way on a number of occasions, nearly becoming seriously addicted to its exciting blend of darkness, degradation and danger. But now he regarded it as 'a phase'. He was too old for such ventures and was all too aware of their hazards. An acquaintance of his, a gentle, dedicated, but emotionally inadequate schoolteacher, had been arrested in a public lavatory some years ago, charged with gross indecency, his career ruined.
Julian had no intention of jeopardising his own career by some passing foolishness, the young man might, after all, really be a store detective. Or perhaps part of some racket. It was not unknown for men like Julian to be enticed into compromising situations by some lovely young man. Then, out of nowhere, the young man's mates would materialise, and the blackmail would begin. Another gay acquaintance, a character actor with a featured role in a long-running television 'soap' and terrified of the publicity, had once sought out Julian's legal advice in a case of just that nature. So he stood there, fighting an internal battle between his innate caution and the thrill of the chase.
Another man, about his own age, brushed past him, laden with carrier bags. He eyed Julian slightly oddly as he passed him and went into the convenience. He held the door open for an older man, who emerged, buttoning his coat.
This gave Julian the jolt he needed. After all, so long as he didn't actually do anything in there, how could he be trapped in any way? There would be other people around and the more he thought about it, the more absurd seemed the idea of anybody trying to set up some elaborate trap for the unwary in the busy public conveniences of a large and well-established department store. The risks would be great and the chances of successfully wrenching money out of a victim correspondingly small. Indeed, the greatest risks to both parties would be from the store's own surveillance, which these days was far stricter than it used to be. He was being absurdly over-cautious.
Julian headed towards the door marked 'GENTLEMEN'. He was determined now that he was not going to lose sight of this delicious boy at this stage. The hunt was on and the urges behind it were primitive. And, of course, all the more powerful because of that.
The boy was waiting at the urinal, but there were several highly respectable-looking gentlemen present too, washing their hands and combing their thinning hair. Julian joined the boy at the familiar white porcelain urinal. He caught a brief glimpse of the boy’s dangling cock. As he zipped up his trousers, the boy acknowledged his presence with a brief smile, then left the urinal and went over to the washbasin. A few moments later, Julian joined him there. Their eyes met in the mirror and Julian thought how attractive the boy's questioning liquid brown eyes were.
