A Most Personal Property (Ganymede Quartet Book 1) (5 page)

Father declared that he was in need of refreshment and so the three of them repaired to Father’s club, four doors down from the auction house. Timothy sat at the table with them, he and Father both sipping thick coffee from demitasse cups while Henry drank a lemon soda and kept sullenly quiet.

“Perhaps we should see what the other Houses are offering,” Father mused, setting his cup back in its saucer.

“If you’d like, Sir,” Timothy said agreeably. “I might go ahead and let them know you’re coming.” He was already pushing back from the table, prepared to leave on the instant.

“Hmm, not just yet,” Father decided. He turned to Henry then, startling him. “What do you say, Henry? Do we need to look any further?”

Henry blushed and looked down at the tabletop. “No, sir. I don’t think it’s necessary.”

“Is that so? You liked the one called Martin,” Father said, not asking. “You didn’t even look at the others, did you?” Again, it was not a question. “Yes, yes…a Ganymede boy.” Father nodded at Timothy, toward the blue House mark framed by Timothy’s collarless shirt. “He would serve you well. You’ll never go wrong with Ganymede.” Timothy flushed with quiet pride.

Henry felt enormous relief—it seemed that Father approved of his choice. He would not be made to go to other Houses or even to consider other Ganymede slaves. He had only a moment’s respite from worry, however, before he became concerned that they might be outbid. He did not know how high Father would be willing to go, and he could not think of a way to ask. Father
could
pay anything, but whether or not he
would
was another matter.

The auction was scheduled for noon. Henry could not begin to think of how he would get through the intervening time and became very restless, shifting in his seat and fiddling with his soda straw. At Timothy’s gentle insistence, he ate a sandwich and a piece of cake. Father made clear his plans to read his papers and smoke cigars in peace until the appointed hour and so effectively dismissed Henry for the rest of the morning.

“Here, Henry,” Father said. “Amuse yourself.” He handed Henry a twenty dollar bill and waved him off.

Slightly wounded by Father’s curt dismissal, Henry left the club, squinting in the bright sun. Avoiding the crowds milling before the auction hall, Henry headed further south, toward the business district and the Blackwell Building. There was a newsstand in the lobby and he thought he might loiter there reading magazines for a bit, hopefully getting his mind off of Martin and the auction, if only for a moment.

A block from the auction hall, Henry saw one of his classmates, Adam Pettibone buying a hot dog from a street vendor. Adam was perhaps the person Henry disliked most in all the world. Having recognized Adam’s porcine visage and blond curls from some distance away, Henry stopped in his tracks but resisted the urge to cross the street to avoid an encounter, being somewhat more inclined to satisfy his curiosity about the boy standing behind Adam, his head bowed, face nearly hidden by the brim of his hat.

Upon catching sight of Henry, Adam broke out in a smug sneer. He had mustard smeared on the corner of his mouth. “Henry! Hello!”

“Hello, Adam,” Henry said reluctantly. He shoved his fists in his pockets so as to avoid shaking Adam’s hand, which had not been offered in any case.

“Oh, you knew, didn’t you? I’ve already had
my
slave for months now.” The boy stood to Adam’s right and slightly behind, eyes lowered, hands clasped behind his back. He was quite a bit smaller than Adam, short and slight, though Henry supposed this wasn’t necessarily a sign of dubious quality. In fact, with his milky skin, black hair and delicate features, he was a pretty little thing, though not really to Henry’s own taste. Henry noted that the slave was empty-handed; Adam had not bought him a hot dog of his own. “I’ve had him since April.”

“I know,” Henry admitted grudgingly. Naturally, Henry had been envious of Adam with his early acquisition, and even more so because of their mutual antipathy. However, Henry had consoled himself with the knowledge that Adam’s slave was not of the first order; Louis and his other friends had assured Henry that the stock made available at the end of August would be of much higher quality.

Henry knew his father already held a low opinion of Adam’s father, but that poor opinion had been solidified when Mr. Pettibone had purchased a slave left over from the previous year’s auction immediately following Adam’s April birthday. Indeed, Hiram Blackwell thought poorly of any father who succumbed to wheedling and supplied his son with a companion ahead of schedule. Tradition dictated that companion slaves be purchased at the end of summer before the start of a boy’s eleventh year of school and not a moment sooner. At the time of Henry’s June birthday, without actually discussing any of the impulses that might make a boy impatient to receive his companion, Father had made it clear that Henry should expect to wait until the end of the summer to have any help satisfying those urges.

“
My
father didn’t make me wait,” Adam said, gloating.

While it might have been true that Adam’s slave had been taken from amongst the dregs, Adam had used the fact that he had one at all to lord it over his peers. He couldn’t do much more than brag, however; he hadn’t yet been allowed to bring his slave to school to attend him, as no accommodation was made for slaves before the eleventh year.

“Do you want to meet him?” He took another oversized bite of his hot dog and began to chew.

Henry shrugged, which was encouragement enough for Adam. He commanded, “Sam, come here,” and the boy stepped promptly forward to stand at Adam’s side with hat in hand, though he seemed somewhat ill at ease. “Introduce yourself,” Adam said around the gob of food in his mouth, poking the boy in the shoulder. “Go on, do it!”

“Good morning, Sir. I-I’m Sam. At your service.” He gave Henry a little bow, then darted a nervous glance at his master. Henry noted that Sam had dark circles beneath his eyes and his lip looked chewed and raw. The black-and-red sigil of House Apollo was tattooed below the hollow of his throat. Henry acknowledged him with a nod.

“He’s not very smart.” Adam gave him another poke and Sam flinched. “Stupid, really. But attractive enough, don’t you think?” Henry shrugged again, unwilling to concede. Adam continued, saying, “My father says I can have another if I want. A better one, smarter.” At this, two bright spots of red bloomed in Sam’s pale cheeks and he ducked his head in shame. “Not some leftover,” Adam jeered, jabbing at Sam again. “I’ll be looking to replace him today when the
good
ones are up for sale. I’ve got one picked out already, and my father says he’ll bid high.”

Adam’s callous indifference in the face of Sam’s obvious misery made Henry extremely uncomfortable. “Well, all right, then. I’d best be going—”

Adam was not willing to let him get away so easily, not when he felt he had an advantage. “You know, I’ve been letting all my
friends
have a go at him, at least until they get their own.”

“Generous of you,” Henry allowed, with an ill-hidden moue of distaste. If this was meant to make him jealous, it was not a good ploy. Henry was not at all comfortable with the idea of sharing slaves, even between friends. The stories he’d heard from Louis’ brother James and other older boys made him shudder. It seemed unsavory to play at extremes with slaves’ bodies; they were, after all, people.

“Damn right about that!” Adam’s fat face was split by an unbecoming smirk. “Now they’ll all have to pay me back! Well, I’ll be seeing you, Blackwell.” He looked back over his shoulder at little Sam. “Come on, you!” He set off down the sidewalk, Sam close on his heels.

After this encounter with Adam and his Sam, Henry stumbled blindly in the direction of his father’s building, all hopes of diversion forgotten. All he could think of was fair Martin standing poised on the dais. By the end of the day, every one of his friends would have an impressive new companion to serve him when they returned to school next week. If Father didn’t win Martin, Henry would have no slave at all, and even Adam with his leftover slave would be in a better position.

Henry recalled there was a soda fountain on the next block and picked up his pace, looking forward to a cool drink. He took a seat at the counter and watched in the mirror behind the bar as three boys a year or two older than himself drank their sodas at a table near the window, their slaves standing attendance. One of the slaves, a blond bearing the lyre mark of House Orpheus, wore gold hoops in his ears, a fashion Henry had not seen on male slaves before, and he wasn’t sure whether or not he liked the look. It didn’t matter, of course; without his own slave to bedizen, his opinions on such matters were irrelevant.

He drank a lemon phosphate and watched the other customers in the mirror, idly wondering what Martin might look like with earrings. The idea of owning Martin, of having the right to pierce his flesh, was overwhelmingly arousing and Henry felt a furious blush bloom on his cheeks. He kept very still, hoping his condition would go unnoticed, and when he glanced furtively around the shop he was relieved to see that no one was paying him any mind.

Henry sipped the last of his soda while fretting about the likelihood that Father would be willing to bid high. Henry was not really the sort of person who could
be
spoiled, being neither acquisitive nor mercenary, but he had always been given the things he wanted; still, he worried that Father would not indulge him in this one terribly important thing.

Henry ordered another soda, chocolate this time. The trio of older boys left with their slaves. Watching them go, Henry did not think he would pierce a slave’s ears after all. He wondered how Martin would feel about it, whether he might want earrings, though of course Henry wouldn’t have to take Martin’s feelings about anything into account.

In thinking of Martin’s feelings, he did worry about the impression he might have made on him. What if Martin hadn’t liked him? Henry had felt so shy and tongue-tied that he had barely spoken to him; he couldn’t have made
much
of an impression, but it might easily have been a negative one. It would have been wise to muster the nerve to actually converse a little with the person he hoped to have at his side for the rest of his life. Possibly Henry had made his decision recklessly; forever was a very long time to spend with the wrong boy.

Henry was not in the habit of considering his future, however. He would do as his father directed; he had no alternate plan. He had dreams, but they were impractical. What Henry wanted out of life was to share something tender with another young man, to reveal his secret self and act out all his shameful fantasies with this precious friend, and he wanted to be able to do this without censure or reproof.

Although Henry would never be allowed to have this sort of relationship with another free boy, he could have some of what he wanted with a slave; he would be encouraged to have it, even. It was widely understood that the solitary vice of masturbation warped the character of a boy, debilitating his mental faculties and encouraging sexual inversion, but the use of a slave’s body for physical release was sanctioned by all authorities—spiritual, medical and parental—as a wholesome outlet. However, there were limitations on what a gentleman could do with a slave and still remain a gentleman, and everyone understood what they were. What Henry wanted went far beyond, and it would never be acceptable for him to fully indulge in all that he dreamed of with a slave or any free boy, either. There could be no kissing, no caressing, no tender words, no mutuality; such things were the province of fairies and queers, and Henry would not be allowed to become an invert.

Still, he thought he might be one anyway. Henry had known for some years now that he wasn’t normal, and he had done everything in his power to hide it from those around him. He wasn’t willing to concede that he was a fairy, but he might well be queer. According to Louis’ older brother James, a fairy was a woman in a man’s body, so there was nothing wrong with a real man consorting with such a person, provided he didn’t service the fairy’s needs in anything more than an incidental manner. You could spot a fairy easily by means of his face paint and outlandish dress. They were harmless, fairies.

A queer was a more problematic creature, an insidious presence undifferentiated from a normal man on the surface, but behaving sexually in some ways like a man, in others like a woman, seemingly from perverse whim. James was hostile toward queers, believing them to be wolves in sheep’s clothing. Henry had long felt he was quite in love with James, so made sure to share all James’ opinions regarding loathsome queers and their distasteful habits. He held onto the hope that perhaps someday James would make an exception for Henry, that Henry would be the queer who wasn’t so bad after all, that they might kiss, and that James would let Henry put his mouth other places, as well.

Imagining the possibility of some intimacy with James, Henry felt an aroused tingle but then remembered where he was and froze in place, queasy with guilty shame. Mortified, and with a furious heat in his cheeks, Henry kept his head down and once again darted glances to either side to see if anyone had noticed his embarrassment.

The only other patron left in the shop, a young man who was probably a clerk in a nearby office, sipped his soda and paid him no mind, and the boy behind the counter was busy polishing glasses with a dreamy expression on his face.

Louis would have been Henry’s best friend in any case, but it was a most happy circumstance for Henry that Louis’ brother was James. James was the star in Henry’s firmament. Tawny-haired, hazel-eyed James was bright, handsome, fearless and amoral. He was, on occasion, quite mean. He frightened Henry, but he was powerfully drawn to him all the same.

Being four years older, James had always lorded it over Louis and Henry, and Henry liked that James did so, liked everything James did. Every time James teased him, Henry experienced a delicious burning inside that translated into flushed cheeks, which brought about more teasing, and plunged him into a hectic, confused state of quivering anticipation. When he was very young, Henry hadn’t even been sure what he wanted from James, but he had understood enough to be certain that whatever he wanted wasn’t allowed.