Brambleton

“No, of course not, Archie,” Matt answered. The two were sitting in a small pool of candlelight at one end of the massive table in the cavernous dining room of Brambleton. And it was, in fact, fine with Matt—or so he thought at the time. Judge Atherton spent hours alone in his study, working away at who knew what—he supposedly was retired, but he seemed to be putting in a full day’s work with paperwork. And, although they slept together in the same bed, the judge, being content to have a young man to hold in his arms, only asked for anal sex a couple of times a week now. In the last few days, he had been wheezing through that. Other than that, it was mostly hand jobs or blow jobs. Atherton still liked to get it off at least once a day—and Matt had grown used to more often than that. In fact, Matt was getting antsy for more active sex than that, although Brambleton itself was commanding much of his arousal.

Matt was in the burned-out wing testing supports and beams when Emmet, the chauffeur, came back from taking the judge to Dulles airport for a commuter flight to Philadelphia the next day. Emmet appeared at a door from the garage forecourt at the back of the house and cleared his voice to get Matt’s attention.

“The judge’s plane took off a half-hour late, but it’s probably already in Philadelphia now,” Emmet said in a rich, deep voice. In many ways Emmet reminded Matt of Dashad. He was probably in his early thirties, a black man—much darker skinned than Dashad—and handsome as mixed-race men from the Caribbean islands often were. Where he reminded Matt of Dashad the most, though, was a manner that appeared diffident on the surface and at first blush but had a backbone of steel and authority underneath it as well as in having a physique that was big boned and heavily muscled without being fat.

“Thank you, Emmet. Archie says you’ll drive me up on the 27th.”