[This is the first time I've posted a story on JUB. Feedback appreciated.
The archaic language of the narration has a purpose, which will be revealed as the story progresses.]
I was seated in my favorite armchair in the library of my house, which in itself is not unusual; indeed I have whiled away many a pleasant evening in just that fashion. However, on this occasion the book, a rare first edition, had fallen to the floor, pages askew; the hands that should have been holding it instead gripping the arms of the chair, my eyes locked with those of the exceedingly shabbily-dressed stripling who was currently pointing some sort of large pistol directly at my heart.
Now you may be wondering, Dear Reader, how I could have allowed this appalling circumstance to come to pass. Did I not hear the floorboards creak as he made his way through the front hallway and up the stairs? Yes I did; but old houses make such noises of themselves, particularly on windy nights; and the night was windy and the house old. But surely I must have heard the front door rattle as he entered? Again, I ascribed the rattling door to the forceful wind of this October night. But he must have had to break the lock to get in! Surely I must have heard that! Ah, on that matter I must keep you in suspense a while longer, though I promise I shall address it in due course.
At any rate, we were staring at one another, the callow youth and I. Can you guess which of us was the more frightened? Then I will tell you: I was not the least bit frightened; I had no cause to be. He, on the other hand, was absolutely terrified, but for all the wrong reasons. There was indeed a real dearth of well-justified fear in that room, and what fear there was I was about to dispel. But first I had to exacerbate it a trifle, or the evening really would be entirely wasted.
"How…dare you!" I therefore said, allowing my voice and face to fill with feigned rage. "How dare you come into my house unbidden, dressed as you are, and point your foolish weapon at me? I've half a mind to thrash you, young man." His mouth dropped open in a very comical way. I was hard pressed not to burst into laughter, which would have spoiled everything. So I maintained my studied air of righteous outrage, as he gradually regained control of the apparatus of speech.
"Wha…?" he finally said, demonstrating that the apparatus of thought had lagged behind somewhat. Not a model of articulate wit, this one, but quite a handsome specimen. His thin undershirt was clearly too small for him; it clung to the outline of his every muscle, displaying his torso to good advantage, I had to admit, though his coming to my house in his underwear offended me, in truth more than his drawing a pistol on me. He had somewhat overdeveloped pectoral muscles, which made me, think he must have thrown the discus quite a bit. His shoulders and arms were less exaggerated, but well-defined, as was every muscle in his abdomen.
In short, he appeared to be a youthful member of the working class, and none too successful at that: he was too poor to eat enough to grow even the slightest paunch. Still, he was quite an attractive specimen of his class, though his blue work trousers were as oversized as his undershirt was under-, and I could only evaluate his physical condition from the waist up, or somewhat lower—the trousers hung down around his hips in a shocking and suggestive manner.
Considering these facts, I ought to have been more offended than I was, but in truth I confess that I was quite excited to have such company at this hour. Not, I hasten to add, for exactly the reasons you may suspect, but I shall, as I've said, come to that.
"Well?" I prompted, as he stood there gaping, "Don't just stand there gaping! Account for yourself. Explain why you have come here, in clothing more suited to digging a ditch than to meeting a gentleman in his library, even if one does plan on pointing a weapon at the gentleman in question."
He glanced down at his clothing. "Digging a…?" He looked back at me, even more confused than before; in fact at this point, I am quite certain, I could have walked calmly over to where he stood and plucked the odd-looking pistol from his nerveless fingers; but I did not. The pistol would yet prove useful, and to me, not him. But it wouldn't do to let him think too much, either.
"Or working in a barn," I therefore said, "or perhaps a stable. An undershirt and shabby dungarees are hardly suited for—" but then he surprised me, for the first time that night, by laughing.
"Dungarees?" he said, incredulous. "My grandmother calls them dungarees!"
"Well, what do you call them then?" I asked, impatient.
"Jeans," came the reply, in a tone that suggested that everyone knew that. Insolent pup!
"Don't take that tone with me! Will you add ridicule of my manner of speaking to the list of your discourtesies? After pointing a pistol at me, which pistol, I'd like to add, is still aimed in my direction?"
"I—I'm sorry," he stammered, and surprised me for a second time by lowering the pistol. He did not put it away, however; I expect he thought he could raise it and fire before I could cross the two yards between us. In fact I could have reached him and snapped his neck before he saw me so much as stir; however, since nothing could have been further from my intentions, I remained motionless.
"That's better," I said, in mollified tones. "Tell me now, why did you feel it necessary to point the thing at me in the first place?"
"I'm not sure," he said, shaking his finely-boned head. His shiny blond hair waved back and forth as he did so. Dear Reader, when I say "shiny" I mean that his hair glittered in the lamplight like white gold as it moved against his brow. His eyebrows were of a similar hue; I had not yet examined him closely, but I later found that even his eyelashes were that same precious-metal color. The entire package was really nothing short of captivating. But he was still speaking.
"I was just so surprised to see you," he said. "I didn't think anyone lived here." Well, technically, no one did, but saying so would not have helped matters! "And seeing you dressed like that, I guess I—"
"Dressed like that? What do you mean?" Now it was my turn to examine my clothing, with which nothing whatever was wrong; I was dressed quite normally for an evening's leisure: gray woolen trousers; fine white linen shirt, firmly starched; ascot of grey silk; and overall, as was my habit when reading, my favorite green velvet smoking jacket, for which I maintained a fondness, though smoking no longer held any pleasure for me. Some have told me that this is just as well, since smoking is injurious to the health; but I was hardly worried about that at this point!
"It's kind of…old-timey," he said, somewhat lamely.
"I suppose it is at that," I admitted. Dear Reader, I do hope you've not been thinking that I was completely unaware that my style of dress, my expectations for the clothing of visitors, even my way of speaking were somewhat out of fashion! No; far from this, they were simply the habits of my all-too-short lifetime, which I was in no hurry to discard now that that lifetime…now that I was no longer able to live as I had.
"Well," I continued after a moment, "I am prepared to excuse you for the drawing of a pistol, since you did so in startlement and have apologized. You must still account for your entry into my house; but first, please put down the pistol." There was a low table to his left; I gestured toward it. It was bare except for the doily crocheted by my Aunt Flora; after the death of that dear lady and my inheritance of this grand house, I had lost no time in disposing of the profusion of knick-knacks and objets d'art with which her generation insisted on cluttering every conceivable horizontal surface. It quite shocked my relatives. "Dear cousin," I recall one of them saying, "what an ascetic you've become!" Of course shortly thereafter I demonstrated, with a great deal of fine food and drink, not to mention other fleshly pleasures, just how far from ascetic I actually was!
The boy was looking at me doubtfully. "Is that in some sense an unreasonable request?" I inquired.
"No, but…you aren't going to call the co—the police, are you?" He seemed to think I could somehow do so without leaving the room.
"Not if you put down the pistol," I replied. "Let's see if we can come to terms without involving the gendarmes, shall we?"
Still, he hesitated. "I don't want to go to prison," he said. So that was why he was so terrified! And all this time I had been striving to look as harmless as possible—much more harmless, truth be told, than was in fact the case.
"Prison!" I said, with unfeigned surprise. "Dear me, I should hope not! How old are you?"
"Nine—eighteen," he replied.
"Pfft! You're a child. I don't believe children should go to prison, you may be sure!" He flushed and looked at his feet. I felt no remorse for humiliating him in that way; after all, he'd been about to lie about his age—by a single year, which regardless of the ethics of lying to me should have made him ashamed by its outright foolishness. "Now, if you would please…?" I gestured again to the table.
Slowly he set the weapon down on the doily. Then he snatched it up again, which caused me a moment's alarm: were things about to get unbearably tedious? But no, he merely changed the position of a small lever on the side of the pistol, and set it back down. It was a pity that at the time I was quite unaware that that lever disengaged the firing mechanism on that particular weapon; an ingenious device, and a great improvement in firearms. More importantly, it would have been my first indication that this youth was not a complete fool.
"Very good," I said. "Now come sit here." He sat, as instructed, on the ottoman. "What's your name?"
"Jack?" he said, as if unsure that he knew his own name.
"Pleased to meet you, Jack," I said. "My name is Sebastian." We shook hands, awkwardly. "Now tell me, Jack. Why did you come to my house tonight?"
[Next, on Sebastian's Lessons, how Jack came to the house, and he and Sebastian get to know each other.]
The archaic language of the narration has a purpose, which will be revealed as the story progresses.]
I was seated in my favorite armchair in the library of my house, which in itself is not unusual; indeed I have whiled away many a pleasant evening in just that fashion. However, on this occasion the book, a rare first edition, had fallen to the floor, pages askew; the hands that should have been holding it instead gripping the arms of the chair, my eyes locked with those of the exceedingly shabbily-dressed stripling who was currently pointing some sort of large pistol directly at my heart.
Now you may be wondering, Dear Reader, how I could have allowed this appalling circumstance to come to pass. Did I not hear the floorboards creak as he made his way through the front hallway and up the stairs? Yes I did; but old houses make such noises of themselves, particularly on windy nights; and the night was windy and the house old. But surely I must have heard the front door rattle as he entered? Again, I ascribed the rattling door to the forceful wind of this October night. But he must have had to break the lock to get in! Surely I must have heard that! Ah, on that matter I must keep you in suspense a while longer, though I promise I shall address it in due course.
At any rate, we were staring at one another, the callow youth and I. Can you guess which of us was the more frightened? Then I will tell you: I was not the least bit frightened; I had no cause to be. He, on the other hand, was absolutely terrified, but for all the wrong reasons. There was indeed a real dearth of well-justified fear in that room, and what fear there was I was about to dispel. But first I had to exacerbate it a trifle, or the evening really would be entirely wasted.
"How…dare you!" I therefore said, allowing my voice and face to fill with feigned rage. "How dare you come into my house unbidden, dressed as you are, and point your foolish weapon at me? I've half a mind to thrash you, young man." His mouth dropped open in a very comical way. I was hard pressed not to burst into laughter, which would have spoiled everything. So I maintained my studied air of righteous outrage, as he gradually regained control of the apparatus of speech.
"Wha…?" he finally said, demonstrating that the apparatus of thought had lagged behind somewhat. Not a model of articulate wit, this one, but quite a handsome specimen. His thin undershirt was clearly too small for him; it clung to the outline of his every muscle, displaying his torso to good advantage, I had to admit, though his coming to my house in his underwear offended me, in truth more than his drawing a pistol on me. He had somewhat overdeveloped pectoral muscles, which made me, think he must have thrown the discus quite a bit. His shoulders and arms were less exaggerated, but well-defined, as was every muscle in his abdomen.
In short, he appeared to be a youthful member of the working class, and none too successful at that: he was too poor to eat enough to grow even the slightest paunch. Still, he was quite an attractive specimen of his class, though his blue work trousers were as oversized as his undershirt was under-, and I could only evaluate his physical condition from the waist up, or somewhat lower—the trousers hung down around his hips in a shocking and suggestive manner.
Considering these facts, I ought to have been more offended than I was, but in truth I confess that I was quite excited to have such company at this hour. Not, I hasten to add, for exactly the reasons you may suspect, but I shall, as I've said, come to that.
"Well?" I prompted, as he stood there gaping, "Don't just stand there gaping! Account for yourself. Explain why you have come here, in clothing more suited to digging a ditch than to meeting a gentleman in his library, even if one does plan on pointing a weapon at the gentleman in question."
He glanced down at his clothing. "Digging a…?" He looked back at me, even more confused than before; in fact at this point, I am quite certain, I could have walked calmly over to where he stood and plucked the odd-looking pistol from his nerveless fingers; but I did not. The pistol would yet prove useful, and to me, not him. But it wouldn't do to let him think too much, either.
"Or working in a barn," I therefore said, "or perhaps a stable. An undershirt and shabby dungarees are hardly suited for—" but then he surprised me, for the first time that night, by laughing.
"Dungarees?" he said, incredulous. "My grandmother calls them dungarees!"
"Well, what do you call them then?" I asked, impatient.
"Jeans," came the reply, in a tone that suggested that everyone knew that. Insolent pup!
"Don't take that tone with me! Will you add ridicule of my manner of speaking to the list of your discourtesies? After pointing a pistol at me, which pistol, I'd like to add, is still aimed in my direction?"
"I—I'm sorry," he stammered, and surprised me for a second time by lowering the pistol. He did not put it away, however; I expect he thought he could raise it and fire before I could cross the two yards between us. In fact I could have reached him and snapped his neck before he saw me so much as stir; however, since nothing could have been further from my intentions, I remained motionless.
"That's better," I said, in mollified tones. "Tell me now, why did you feel it necessary to point the thing at me in the first place?"
"I'm not sure," he said, shaking his finely-boned head. His shiny blond hair waved back and forth as he did so. Dear Reader, when I say "shiny" I mean that his hair glittered in the lamplight like white gold as it moved against his brow. His eyebrows were of a similar hue; I had not yet examined him closely, but I later found that even his eyelashes were that same precious-metal color. The entire package was really nothing short of captivating. But he was still speaking.
"I was just so surprised to see you," he said. "I didn't think anyone lived here." Well, technically, no one did, but saying so would not have helped matters! "And seeing you dressed like that, I guess I—"
"Dressed like that? What do you mean?" Now it was my turn to examine my clothing, with which nothing whatever was wrong; I was dressed quite normally for an evening's leisure: gray woolen trousers; fine white linen shirt, firmly starched; ascot of grey silk; and overall, as was my habit when reading, my favorite green velvet smoking jacket, for which I maintained a fondness, though smoking no longer held any pleasure for me. Some have told me that this is just as well, since smoking is injurious to the health; but I was hardly worried about that at this point!
"It's kind of…old-timey," he said, somewhat lamely.
"I suppose it is at that," I admitted. Dear Reader, I do hope you've not been thinking that I was completely unaware that my style of dress, my expectations for the clothing of visitors, even my way of speaking were somewhat out of fashion! No; far from this, they were simply the habits of my all-too-short lifetime, which I was in no hurry to discard now that that lifetime…now that I was no longer able to live as I had.
"Well," I continued after a moment, "I am prepared to excuse you for the drawing of a pistol, since you did so in startlement and have apologized. You must still account for your entry into my house; but first, please put down the pistol." There was a low table to his left; I gestured toward it. It was bare except for the doily crocheted by my Aunt Flora; after the death of that dear lady and my inheritance of this grand house, I had lost no time in disposing of the profusion of knick-knacks and objets d'art with which her generation insisted on cluttering every conceivable horizontal surface. It quite shocked my relatives. "Dear cousin," I recall one of them saying, "what an ascetic you've become!" Of course shortly thereafter I demonstrated, with a great deal of fine food and drink, not to mention other fleshly pleasures, just how far from ascetic I actually was!
The boy was looking at me doubtfully. "Is that in some sense an unreasonable request?" I inquired.
"No, but…you aren't going to call the co—the police, are you?" He seemed to think I could somehow do so without leaving the room.
"Not if you put down the pistol," I replied. "Let's see if we can come to terms without involving the gendarmes, shall we?"
Still, he hesitated. "I don't want to go to prison," he said. So that was why he was so terrified! And all this time I had been striving to look as harmless as possible—much more harmless, truth be told, than was in fact the case.
"Prison!" I said, with unfeigned surprise. "Dear me, I should hope not! How old are you?"
"Nine—eighteen," he replied.
"Pfft! You're a child. I don't believe children should go to prison, you may be sure!" He flushed and looked at his feet. I felt no remorse for humiliating him in that way; after all, he'd been about to lie about his age—by a single year, which regardless of the ethics of lying to me should have made him ashamed by its outright foolishness. "Now, if you would please…?" I gestured again to the table.
Slowly he set the weapon down on the doily. Then he snatched it up again, which caused me a moment's alarm: were things about to get unbearably tedious? But no, he merely changed the position of a small lever on the side of the pistol, and set it back down. It was a pity that at the time I was quite unaware that that lever disengaged the firing mechanism on that particular weapon; an ingenious device, and a great improvement in firearms. More importantly, it would have been my first indication that this youth was not a complete fool.
"Very good," I said. "Now come sit here." He sat, as instructed, on the ottoman. "What's your name?"
"Jack?" he said, as if unsure that he knew his own name.
"Pleased to meet you, Jack," I said. "My name is Sebastian." We shook hands, awkwardly. "Now tell me, Jack. Why did you come to my house tonight?"
[Next, on Sebastian's Lessons, how Jack came to the house, and he and Sebastian get to know each other.]
! although this is killing me too; talk about a brutal cliffhanger! what is to become of Jack in that house??? ahhh 
. instead of just jumping straight into a no-holds-bare fuck-a-thathon.... your letting the simmering heat build and these characters slowly evolve. the verbal play is wicked too. just right in terms of navigating innocence with lustful curiosity. thank you so much for continuing this suspenseful tale; i'm so intrigued as to where this will end up... i have idea don't get me wrong
... but you MUST CONTINUE!
!!!