A Collar and Tie (Ganymede Quartet Book 4) (30 page)

“Do you ever ask him—” here Freddie nodded at Martin “—to do
anything
for you, or is it all equal treatment, all the time?”

Henry blushed, flustered. “Wh-what do you mean? Just because
I don’t share him—”

“Oh, I don’t mean anything by it,” Freddie said. “Just,
don’t you ever make him do anything just because you can? Just because it feels
good to boss him around?”

“I don’t know,” Henry said. “I don’t think so.” That was a
lie, though. It seemed like he was always making Martin do things that Martin
thought were bad ideas, and Martin always turned out to be right.

Freddie looked up at Martin, grinning. “Is that true,
Martin?”

“My master is very kind to me, Sir,” Martin said in a
fond-yet-appropriate tone. “I consider myself quite fortunate.”

Henry hoped this was true, not just something Martin was
saying for the sake of Henry’s public image.

Daniel said, “You know, there are some fellows I don’t
really like sharing with, though. I like them all right as friends, but I don’t
like the way they treat Allen.”

“Like who?” Wendell asked. “No, wait—let me guess! Philip!”
They all fell about laughing, and their slaves all frowned at the mention of
Philip’s name.

“Well, yeah,” Daniel agreed, chuckling. “Mostly just
Philip.”

“What does he do that’s so awful?” Henry asked.

Daniel screwed up his face, thinking. “Well, rough
treatment, for one. Allen always ends up with bruises after Philip’s used him,
and once he ended up with a bloody nose because of how Philip handled him while
he was sucking his cock.”

“He pulls hair,” Wendell said. “Like, he pulls it
out
.”

“He says really obnoxious things,” Freddie added. “Gross
talk.” He lowered his voice, “Like, he’ll say, ‘Eat that cock, you dirty fairy
whore,’ while he’s pulling hair and leaving bruises. It can really knock you
out of your mood to hear that next to you on the couch, you know?”

This was exactly the sort of thing Henry didn’t want Martin
to have to put up with. He laughed, less in amusement than in shock. “Poor
Davey!” he said, thinking of Philip’s hapless slave.

Jeremy shrugged. “Davey must like it. I never hear anything
to the contrary from Ray.” Raymond shook his head in confirmation, and the rest
of the slaves looked around at one another and also shook their heads;
apparently, Davey had no complaints.

Henry supposed it was possible Davey liked this treatment,
or that it was even his idea. After all, it didn’t seem so far off from
Martin’s make-me-suck-your-cock game. It wasn’t even unlikely that Martin might
want to be called a dirty fairy whore. But it didn’t sound as if Philip was
negotiating such treatment with either masters or slaves at swaps. He was just
doing whatever he wanted, and no one liked it, but no one said anything, not
even to protect their own companions.

While the others continued to laugh and gossip about the way
their friends behaved at parties, Henry fretted about the mistreatment of
slaves. As much as Henry liked to hope the Houses would refuse to sell to abusive
masters, he didn’t think even Ganymede held prospective masters to any
particular standard. If Martin were taken away from Henry and sent back to
Ganymede, any sort of person could take him.
Adam
could take him. All
the terrible things that Adam had done to Sam could be done to Martin, and
Henry would be powerless to protect him.

The most important thing was protecting Martin, by whatever
means necessary.

Allen checked his pocket watch and then bent to whisper in
Daniel’s ear.

“We have to go,” Daniel said. “It’s been a good time,
fellows.” As he stood, so did the rest, collecting their schoolbags and
shuffling for the door.

They all went to the streetcar stop together, but Henry
decided to walk a bit more and then catch the familiar omnibus directly home.
He waved goodbye to his friends and crossed the street with Martin at his side.
They walked several minutes in silence before Henry asked, “What were you
talking to Peter about today at lunch?”

“He doesn’t know what happened, Sir. Mr. Briggs hasn’t told
him anything. He said Mr. Briggs specifically told him to stay away from me,
but he wanted me to tell him what was going on. I started to tell him the story
about Mr. Briggs’ brother, Sir, and he believed it, but then Mr. Briggs called
him away and scolded him for talking to me.”

“That’s a good sign, don’t you think, that he hasn’t even
told Peter?”

“I
do
think so, Sir. I don’t believe Mr. Briggs
wishes you ill, Sir. I think he just wants things to be different.”

“I think the James story will hold up,” Henry said. “It’s
also convenient that people think we’re fighting about Abigail, too.”

They rode the omnibus home. Henry stood to give a lady his
seat and stood swaying with Martin in the aisle, surreptitiously smelling his
hair.

At home, Randolph let them in. “Good afternoon, Sir,” he
said. “Mr. Briggs stopped by with some things he said belong to you.”

“Oh.”

“I’ll just get them for you, Sir.” Randolph left the hall by
the rear door and returned moments later with a cardboard box which he
delivered to Martin.

They went upstairs with the box. Glancing over, it appeared
to be books and a necktie that Henry had loaned Louis over a year ago and had
forgotten all about until now. Henry had Martin put the box on his desk and
picked through its contents. There were various books, forgettable adventure
stories. There were a couple of monogrammed handkerchiefs that he must have
dropped at the Briggs house which had been laundered and pressed at some point
in the past but were now a bit rumpled. The necktie, green with white dots, was
crushed with wrinkles where it had been left tied. There were three baseball
cards in the bottom which Henry suspected had fallen into the box accidentally.
Or maybe Louis had put them there hoping Henry would return them to him? Maybe
Louis wanted to talk, but didn’t want to admit it, and these baseball cards
were his way of getting Henry to come to him. Maybe. It seemed a little too
complicated for Louis, who was much more likely to simply come and ask to talk
if that’s what he wanted to do.

Feeling sad, he looked around his room to see if he had
anything of Louis’ that he should return, but there was nothing he could think
of except perhaps the baseball cards. He stood in the middle of the room,
shoulders slumping, and felt the sting of tears; he angrily swiped at his eyes
with the backs of his hands.

“Henry?” Martin asked, solicitous and worried.

“I’m fine,” Henry insisted, sniffing. Louis had been his
first friend and then best friend for twelve years. He felt so sad and angry,
angry that Louis wouldn’t even try to see things his way. Asking Henry not to
be the kind of person who would fall in love with Martin was like asking Louis
not to be short. It wasn’t as if Henry
wanted
to do everything contrary
to what his parents and society expected of him. Actually, Henry felt as though
he was only doing the bare minimum in terms of what his nature dictated. He was
being very discreet and curtailing his impulses. He wasn’t hurting anyone! Why
should Louis care who Henry loved?

Martin put his arms around Henry anyway and Henry embraced
him gratefully, pushing his face against Martin’s neck.

“It’s going to be all right,” Martin murmured. “Don’t you
think it will all be okay?”

Henry wanted
to think that, more than anything.

Later in bed, Henry stared up at the ceiling worrying while
Martin slept in his arms. Today had gone better than he’d hoped, but Louis
could change his mind at any time. It was not lost on Henry that both his
explanations for their rift—Abigail, James—put the blame squarely on Louis for
being unreasonable, and he doubted Louis would appreciate that.

There were places in the city where no one would look
askance at his affection for Martin, Henry was sure of it, and he’d remembered
something, a detail, that gave him an idea of where they might go. Henry had
promised Reggie he wouldn’t go running off on his own, and he’d meant it at the
time, but these were special circumstances. If it came down to leaving and
keeping Martin versus staying and losing Martin, he knew which he’d choose.

Henry had terrifying dreams of being exposed as queer,
quivering naked before his schoolmates, who jeered and separated him from
Martin, and Henry knew with horrible certainty that Martin would be punished
even though it was all Henry’s fault. James was there, too, and Henry also knew
that James was going to use Martin callously and grew ever-more frantic. Father
was disappointed in him and replaced him with a little sandy-haired boy who had
to be Calvin Murdock. Henry grabbed after Martin and came awake to the clamor
of someone shouting, which turned out to be himself, sounding frightened and
helpless.

“Henry, Henry, it’s all right.” Martin petted and soothed
him and spoke to him in a hushed tone. “Everything’s okay.”

“I had an awful dream,” he said, clinging to Martin. “You
were taken away from me. You were going to be punished.” Hearing this, Martin
winced a little. “I won’t let that happen, Martin. I’ll keep you safe, I
promise.”

“It was just a dream, Henry. We’re both safe.”

It was almost time for Martin to get up anyway, but he
stayed in bed with Henry a little longer, encouraging him to fall back to
sleep.

“You need your rest.” He kissed Henry’s fluttering eyelids.
“Get some sleep, Henry.”

Henry must have slept because he didn’t remember Martin
getting up, yet here was Martin, tidy and dressed, shaking his shoulder and
saying, “Rise and shine.”

He couldn’t shake the niggling feeling that his dream had
been prophetic, that everyone
would
find out, that Martin
would
be taken away, and that Calvin Murdock
would
supplant him in Father’s
affections, such as they were. He was preoccupied and Father took his distance
at breakfast as sullenness and lectured him about gratitude and attitude.

At school in the cloakroom, Henry saw Louis talking to
Gordon and Joshua, and Gordon cut his eyes at Henry and laughed. Henry went
cold and froze in place, his hands shaking, certain he was about to be
denounced. But nothing came of it, and Gordon didn’t look at him again.

After lunch, loitering in the yard with his friends, Henry
noted Martin and Tom sitting together on the ground, shoulder to shoulder,
their backs to the bricks, having an animated discussion. If they went
somewhere else, Martin would miss Tom, he knew, but Henry liked to think that
he’d miss Henry more if he was separated from
him
.

Later, while Mr. Brasenose was making a list of the capitals
of South American countries on the chalkboard, a note made its way across the
room into Henry’s hand. Henry looked at Louis, who was not looking back at him.
With one eye on Mr. Brasenose’s back, Henry unfolded the note and read.

Stop telling people we’re fighting about James or Abigail. I
said I wouldn’t tell, but that doesn’t mean you can make up whatever you want.
You don’t have to tell people anything, dummy. Stop telling lies—
or else
!
If you keep lying, I’ll start telling the truth.

This is not
my
fault, Henry, it’s
yours
.

I think I accidentally put some baseball cards in that box and
I want them back.

Henry blushed and crumpled the note in his fist.

Mr. Brasenose witnessed the color change. “Mr. Blackwell,”
he said. “Are you having some difficulty?”

“N-no, sir.”

Or else
.

Henry’s classmates tittered, always amused by Henry’s easy
embarrassment. Henry dared glance at Louis, who was still not looking back at
him. Henry felt a little frantic. He hadn’t actually told anyone the fight was
about Abigail, but that’s what everyone thought, and Louis might well decide
this universal assumption counted as a lie of Henry’s and start telling the
others what he knew.

At the break between geography and sciences, Henry stayed in
his seat, keeping still in hopes of avoiding notice. In his peripheral vision,
Philip van Houten was leaning with his elbows on Louis’ desk, their heads close
together, Louis murmuring into his ear. Philip’s head suddenly snapped around
and he looked at Henry and sneered. Henry recoiled as if struck and felt his
whole body awash in prickling heat. He hurriedly stared down at the cover of
his geography book as if it required his full attention. He heard Philip’s
distinctive braying laugh, and then Philip said, “Ha! That doesn’t surprise me
at all!” as he returned to his seat.

Had Louis told Philip about Henry? Louis didn’t even really
like Philip, neither of them did, so why would he tell Philip anything? Henry
had almost convinced himself that he was imagining things, but then he
remembered Philip’s jeering expression and was certain he was not.

If Philip knew, he’d tell everyone, Henry had no doubt. He’d
never liked Henry (he’d never liked Louis, either, for that matter) and had
always looked down on him for being from new money. Henry was sure Philip would
delight in the opportunity to disparage Henry as an unfit, upstart,
slave-loving fairy. He’d definitely tell his best friend David Maxwell, and
then they’d tell everyone else, and within minutes Henry would be ruined.

With a sense of dawning horror, Henry realized that of
course Adam Pettibone would find out, too, and he would make the most of it.
Not only would he do his best to humiliate Henry at school, he’d tell his
father, and Mr. Pettibone would use it against Father. What if Father
revoked
Martin as he had threatened to do? His fears of Martin ending up in Adam’s
possession felt that much more immediate and urgent.

Thinking of Adam, it occurred to him that he might have to
fight. Some of these fellows were very hostile towards fairies and queers. He
might have to protect Martin, and it would be just him against all of them.
What if they really wanted to hurt him? What if they held him back and took
turns with Martin? Henry shifted restlessly in his chair, wanting more than
anything to run, to go to Martin and take him far away.

This was all his fault. He had to find a way to fix it.

In the last class of the day, Dr. Foster made Henry stand and
decline
dominus
, meaning master, which reminded Henry of the game he and
Martin had played the morning of the ball, and he flushed a miserable,
conspicuous red.

Dr. Foster frowned, expecting little from him. “Begin with
the nominative singular, Mr. Blackwell.”

Henry knew this, he did. “
Dominus
, sir” he said,
flooded with relief when Dr. Foster gave him a curt nod.

“And the nominative plural, Mr. Blackwell?”

“
Dominī
, sir.”

“And now the vocative singular?”

Henry thought a moment. He knew this; he just needed to stay
calm and it would come to him.

It did not.

Henry stood with his mouth open while his friends—possibly
his
former
friends—snickered and cut amused looks at one another, and he
felt terribly persecuted. They took such pleasure in the evidence of his
failings and insecurities. Maybe none of them except Louis had ever really
liked him anyway, and now Louis hated him, too.

“Do you care to hazard a guess, Mr. Blackwell?” Dr. Foster
asked.

Henry shook his head and cast his eyes down at his scarred
desktop. “No, sir.”

Dr. Foster sighed as if Henry were a particular trial, and
then allowed him to take his seat, moving along to Gordon Lovejoy, who got to
show off his superior understanding with an irregular declension.

Henry did not relish approaching Louis, anticipating a very
hostile reception, but he needed to tell him that he wouldn’t say anything to
anyone. He needed to tell him that he wouldn’t say anything about Abigail or
James from now on, and he’d even deny that they had anything to do with the disagreement,
but Louis couldn’t expect him to be able to do anything about what people
thought. Everyone just assumed they were fighting about Abigail without Henry
saying a word, which wasn’t Henry’s fault, and Louis shouldn’t punish him for
it. Surely Louis would see the sense of this.

When the final bell rang, Henry gathered his books and
steeled himself to confront his oldest friend. In the hall, heading for the
cloakroom, Louis was a few strides ahead, and Henry picked up his pace.

“Louis.” His voice came out tiny and tentative, and he
cleared his throat self-consciously before trying again. “Louis.”

Louis whirled and glared at him. “What?”

“C-can we talk a minute?”

“Are you going to make that change we talked about? It
doesn’t seem like it.”

“Louis, please—” Already this wasn’t going at all as Henry
had hoped.

Louis rolled his eyes, looking disgusted. “No, Henry. You
know what you have to do, so just do it.
Or else
.”

“But I want to talk about your note,” Henry tried, but Louis
remained unreceptive.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Louis said flatly. Then,
with rising belligerence, he said, “I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want
anything to do with you. I just want my baseball cards, all right?”

Unable to meet Louis’ eyes any longer, Henry looked down at
his books in his arms. “Sure. Of course.” He stayed where he was and let Louis
go on ahead into the cloakroom.

Or else.
The blood pounded in his ears. Louis could
expose him at any time.

Freddie slowed to a stop at Henry’s side, Wendell right
behind him. “What was
that
all about?” Freddie asked.

“We’re not getting along,” Henry managed.

Or else
.

“He’s really mad at you, I guess.” Freddie seemed impressed
by Louis’ rancor.

Henry shrugged unhappily. “I guess so.”

“Are you just going to stand out here until he’s gone?”
Freddie’s tone implied he wouldn’t respect Henry for this behavior.

Henry shrugged again, but reluctantly picked up his feet and
began moving. Inside the cloakroom, Henry was relieved to see that Louis had
already hurried out. The remaining boys were chattering excitedly, though all
stopped talking as soon as they saw Henry. Red-faced, Henry crossed the room to
collect his hat from Martin.

“Are you all right, Sir?” Martin asked in a low voice.

Or else
.

Oh god, he was terrified.

Henry took a deep, shuddering breath. “Actually, no,” he
admitted. “I don’t think I can do this, Martin.”

“Sir? What do you mean?”

Henry put his books in his schoolbag. “Let’s go home.”

Freddie, Wendell, Jeremy and Daniel were waiting for him
outside the front doors.

“Whatever’s going on, you seem to be taking it pretty hard,”
Freddie said. “We just want you to know you’ve still got friends, all right?”

Henry managed a smile. “Thanks,” he said. “I appreciate it.”

“Do you want to come with us for milkshakes?”

“I can’t today,” he told them. “Another time?”

“Of course,” Freddie said, smiling warmly.

“See you later,” Daniel said.

If they knew why he was fighting with Louis, they would
never talk to him again, unless it was to call him names. No one would be on
his side.

Henry took his time walking to the omnibus stop. He said
nothing; he was thinking. Martin walked quietly at his side, letting him
concentrate.

Martin had said he didn’t want to leave home, but surely
he’d rather leave than be returned to Ganymede to be sold to the likes of Adam
Pettibone. Surely he’d rather leave than stay to be whipped and maimed. It
would be good to have a plan, a real plan beyond the idea of flight, but simply
leaving was better than doing nothing. It was better than staying put and
getting caught. It was better than being separated forever.

He just wanted to find a place where he could be himself,
where he could love Martin and no one would concern themselves with Martin’s
sex or status. The problem of being in love with a slave who was also a man was
far worse than the sum of its parts. He would never be able to hide the fact
that Martin was male, but it occurred to him that he could disguise Martin’s
slave status quite simply with a wardrobe change. Perhaps Martin’s hair could
be tucked under his hat. If he could make Martin look like a free man, that was
one less obstacle they’d have to overcome.

The idea of leaving was frightening, but Henry was a little
hopeful, too. Leaving meant freedom: freedom from rules and constraints,
freedom from judgments, freedom from expectations. He and Martin could walk out
of his father’s house into a life of their own choosing and simply never look
back.

As Henry began to form a plan, he felt a sense of relief, a
lightness and buoyancy, that gave him some measure of confidence that he was
making the right decision. It was possible that his best chance to protect
Martin was also his best chance for happiness.

Henry kept quiet throughout their ride home, the short walk
to the house, the distance from the front door to his bedroom.

Martin opened the door, but Henry paused on the threshold.