A Month in the Heart of the Country Ch. 02
After I'd had breakfast, I sat back and wiped my mouth and looked up.
The other guys were all at the table, either still sipping tea or coffee or nibbling things. None of us had left the breakfast area. I looked at them all, and one by one they all looked up and returned my gaze.
"So," I said softly, "I guess we're going to have to figure out how this is . . . you know. Going to work."
Pete nodded seriously. The other guys looked mostly a bit embarrassed, except for Chris, who was sitting on a reversed chair and grinning.
"I mean," I said, blushing, "last night, was . . . it was like nothing else that's ever happened to me. When I came down here I was a virgin, and now, well, basically all of you . . . "
Ray looked faintly irritated. I glanced at him.
"More or less," I added. I felt irritated too; jerking off all over your friend's face was hardly not intimacy. I looked at them all; they were waiting for me to go on, waiting for me to set the agenda.
"But every night can't be a total orgy," I said. "I'm not gonna have the stamina, guys."
"You seemed like you were into it," said Ray.
"I was," I said. "But I mean . . . this is all new for me. Totally new. I came down here expecting to cook meals and play the guitar and now I'm like your sex toy, or something."
Chris chuckled. Pete gazed at me thoughtfully. The others laughed a bit and looked more or less slightly uncomfortable.
"I'm not making a big protest," I said. "I already said, I liked it. It's just that I thought I was into girls and now it turns out that . . . apparently, I am one."
The guys grinned, except for Pete, who kept watching me thoughtfully; he smiled slightly.
"So how do you want to do this?" I said.
"Isn't it really about how you want to do it?" Pete said.
"No," I said. "I lost the game. I pay the forfeit, and the forfeit is that I have to do what you say. And what you want me to do is be your . . . whatever."
I shrugged.
"I think 'sex toy' isn't quite fair," said Pete.
"Booty call," said Chris.
"Whatever," I said, smiling. "Like I said, I'm willing to do it. I liked it. And you've been considerate about it."
"Meaning that we've made you get off on it," said Chris gleefully. I blushed again.
"Yeah," I admitted. "Apparently, I really like to be fucked." I flushed crimson as I said so and the others smied.
"Okay," I added. "That's obvious. I just want us to work out how that's going to work for everyone. I can't be running from bed to bed all night."
"With a bit of luck," Steve murmured, "we'll meet some girls at some point and then we won't need Alex for this."
"But in the meantime," said Chris, grinning evilly, "I really think we should make the most of the opportunity that we have."
"Perhaps," said Ray, "we should vote on what sort of role Alex should have."
"What do you mean?" said Pete.
"Like, is he our official girl? Do we dress him up like a girl and pretend that he is one? Or do we not pretend anything? I just don't really know what we're thinking."
"Hang on," I said, "what about me?"
They looked at me.
"You accepted the forfeit," said Chris matter-of-factly. "You don't get a vote. You have to go with whatever we want."
I felt myself going crimson again, not with humiliation but with anger. Pete caught my eye and he nodded at me and held up a hand.
"Hang on, though," he said. "Fair enough, Alex is meant to go along with what we want, but we have to set some limits, no?"
There was a pause, and only Chris and Steve looked vaguely miffed. Danny and Ray glanced at me and nodded.
"I mean," Pete added, "we can't in all decency ask him to do anything illegal or dangerous, right? Apart from anything else, there's nothing to stop him from walking out of here and getting the bus home."
I threw Pete a mute look of gratitude. Chris stared at the table for a moment.
"Okay," he said at last, and not for the first time, I wondered at the tendency of the others to yield to whatever Chris wanted to do. He just assumed that he had the highest status, probably because his parents had the most money, and so that's how it worked out. "We can't tell Alex to do anything illegal or dangerous. I still think that if he wants to do something illegal or dangerous, the only thing we have to do is remind him that we're not forcing him to do it."
"Like what that's illegal or dangerous?" I asked.
"There's a lot of dogs around here," Chris said, leering at me. It took me a moment to figure out what he meant by it. Then I blushed furiously.
"I'm not fucking doing that," I said, my mind filled with an image that made my skin crawl.
"So you've made clear," Chris said. "So what else?"
"Why do we all have to do things together?" said Steve. Of all of us, he seemed the one who was in the least good humour about last night. I remembered that he'd been the most brusque, the least excited. I glanced at him and he looked at me with a cool, slightly distant look.
"What do you mean?" asked Chris.
"I don't necessarily want to do with Alex what you want to do," he said to Chris.
"So what do you want to do with him?" asked Danny, curious. Steve looked at me, flushed slightly and spoke.
"Okay. We all agreed on this but it was on the understanding that we couldn't get girls. I came down here to get laid and I still plan to get a girl for that, but if I can't have one I'm prepared to settle for Alex."
I blushed, annoyed by the suggestion that I was nothing but a substitute.
"So with that in mind," he said, "I . . ."
He tailed off. Then he looked at me and said "Can we talk about it later?"
"Sure," I said quietly. I had no idea what he had in mind.
"Steve's right," said Ray thoughtfully. "I don't see why we have to decide on what role Alex should have. Surely we all want different things."
"That's it!" said Chris. "We do a contract!"
We all stared at him. I was beginning to wonder what I had let myself in for. I had been expecting some loose, metrosexual arrangement and here we were talking about contracts. What was next? A collar?
"We do a joint contract," said Chris, grabbing a piece of paper and scribbling on it. "We sign it collectively, affirming that Alex is bound by the terms of the contract until such time as whenever, but also stating that the individual arrangements of the forfeit are to be worked out between each of us and Alex individually, so he has a different arrangement, in writing, with each of us."
"I like it," said Danny. Steve was nodding thoughtfully. Pete looked . . . sceptical. Ray was rubbing his chin in the way he had of making himself look deep.
"Right," said Chris, "I'll draft it. You all need to write down notes to Alex, telling him what you have in mind. Alex, take fifteen, okay?" He handed out paper to the others, and they all retired to different corners of the room. Pete gave me a wry smile as he passed me.
I felt weirdly bargained-over. It was unnerving, but also exciting. Since they were all so busy, I went into the kitchen and went out the back, into the cool sunny morning.
I walked up and down, hugging myself in my t-shirt and jeans, regretting that I hadn't brought a jacket.
What was I doing here? Letting them decide among themselves how they were going to share out my young body, which was now chilly inside thin clothes in a field in the middle of the countryside?
Did I trust them? Last night, nobody had harmed me. Chris and Danny had successfully and beautifully dominated me, showing me how much I liked it. Ray had humiliated me, but I'd found it secretly arousing; Steve's businesslike attitude had not made me feel cheap. Well, a little cheap, but then, 48 hours previously I'd been a virgin. By the time Steve had decided that he just wanted to fuck me, I was fine with that.
And Pete? Pete had just rolled with it, had played it as though he and I had been waiting to get together all along, and he'd made me feel good about it. Of all of them, Pete was the only one who I thought was genuinely, long-term attracted to guys. I was clearly attracted to the idea that guys were attracted to me, and I craved more attention, but did I fancy Pete?
I wasn't sure. I just knew that I liked the attention he gave me. I liked that he made me feel that kissing and having sex with another guy was perfectly normal.
I reflected that, after this month, I would never again make snap judgements about anyone based solely on who they wanted to go to bed with. If only because, at this point, I wanted to go to bed with everyone.
My body shivered inside my thin clothes, and the thought that over the next few days I'd be taking my clothes off again, and letting the guys look on me and take their pleasure in my body, gave me a hard-on. I cursed silently to myself and tried to think of unsexy things, but given what we were doing, it was impossible.