Chapter 2 – Chapter 2

Aaron called me back early Saturday afternoon. "I don't know what's going on either, Paul, but it's no scam. After I couldn't see anything wrong with the documents, I called the solicitors in Gloucester, England, listed on the letterhead—after I'd checked with a couple of firms in England I knew of and was told the Gloucester firm was legit. The inheritance is also legit, apparently. You don't know a Peter Townsend, a Brit by that name?"

"No, never heard of him."

"Well, he's left you one third of British pub on the Severn River and one third of an old house in the hills above a town called Newnham. Either one ring a bell?"

"Not a tinkle. I'm thoroughly confused."

"The solicitors are quite anxious to see you. They've schedule a meeting with you at their chambers in Gloucester for 3:00 p.m. Monday. Do you think you can make it, or should I try to schedule later?"

"I don't know. Where in England are Gloucester and the Severn River anyway?"

"I don't know, but the solicitors suggested you fly to Birmingham and rent a car from there. Are you curious enough to break away that soon?"

"You bet I am," I answered.

"In that case, you'd better find out where those places are quickly. Good luck, Paul, and keep me posted on what this is all about. I'm almost curious enough to go with you."

I had no trouble booking a flight from New York that night, although all I could get in the way of a seat was steerage. I'd also booked a subcompact Kia Rio at the Birmingham airport. They tried to get me to upscale in size, but I'm glad I refused. Driving right-hand drive on narrow lanes hemmed in by hedgerows was about as much fright in life as I could endure. The somewhat seedy three-star Station Hotel in Gloucester, just off the AA30 ring road, was the best I could do for booking on such short notice. In the eventuality, that was a good thing. The desk clerk didn't even bat an eye when I came in half drunk on Sunday night and took a man up to my room.

I'd arrived in Birmingham in late morning after an all-night endurance flight, and the drive south, after the hour of getting out of the airport and into a car, took more than two hours. The driving wasn't bad, though. I'd driven on the left both in England and Australia before and the roads were all highways. Working against that was being tired from only dozing during the night in the crowded plane.

I grabbed a bite to eat—I couldn't remember what it was ten minutes after I finished it: some sort of soggy sandwich wrapped in plastic, a piece of sandwich meat and a pimento spread, I think—after I'd check into the hotel and then went upstairs and tried to sleep. But, of course, I couldn't. I kept thinking of this pub I supposedly now owned a piece of.

Since I couldn't sleep, I decided to check the pub out before meeting with the solicitors the next day.

I had picked the hotel from the available choices because it was on the south side of the city. When I asked at the desk where the road along the west side of the Severn toward Cardiff, in Wales, was, the A48, I was pleased to find that it was easy to find from the hotel.

I'd been told the Laughing Lion pub was on the bank of the river on A48 just before I reached the village of Newnham. I had no trouble finding it. I surveyed it as I got out of the car, which had been making rather disturbing noises for the last mile of the drive. The building rambled a bit and looked like it almost, but not quite, was in need of remodeling. Still, it looked inviting and there were a fair number of cars in the car park, so it also looked reasonably prosperous. As indicated on the map, it did, indeed, sit just above the river on a riprap-enforced embankment. The river was fairly broad at this point, but the maps told me it would broaden significantly before entering the Bristol Channel. I could see small container ships moving on the river toward or from Gloucester. And there was considerable car traffic on the A48, even for a Sunday. The pub was well located.

Still, I had already decided to sell out my third as soon as possible. It was still a mystery why I had inherited it.

I entered the pub, the main room of which was divided off in three zones. To the left as I entered at the side of the building, was a large room with continuous windows on three sides looking out on the river. This what first caught my attention, as it was where the light was the brightest. To my right, in a section with a step up and the ceiling lowered, was a long bar, swathed in shadow, with points of light above the bar and on the few tables in this area. Straight ahead, in a separate room, served by a wide entrance, was a smoky pool room. I could see three tables, two of them in use. The river room, as I thought of it, was occupied, but not to overflowing, with the patrons coming and going frequently.

No one was in the bar area except for the bartender taking up position behind the bar. He was young looking, a sportsmen type. Sandy haired, ruddy complexion. A nose that had been broken more than once, the second time seemingly back toward where it originally was. It gave him a somewhat dangerous, thuggish look, but, in fact, added to the attraction of him. He smiled at me, as I entered, so I was drawn to the bar and perched on a stool. I noticed then, in the darkness, that a few of the tables in the bar were occupied too.

The barman came around the bar occasionally to serve the table, but then he always came back to me.

I ordered a Guinness Stout, if for no other reason than I assumed that was what one drank in a pub. And, famished, off schedule, and with less-than-fond memories of the soggy sandwich I'd last eaten, I asked him if they were serving food yet.

"It's a bit early, but I think I could have fish and chips served up for you."

"Thank you, that would be great," I answered. And when it came, indeed it was great. Far better than the fish and chips I could get served in New York, not that I ordered it very often.

"Sorry," I said, when it came and when I ordered another Guinness, the barman having been off to clean tables in the river room for several minutes, "I've just gotten off a plane from the States. I don't even know what time you'd be serving here."

"The evening food service won't come on for another hour. We close at 10:30 on Sunday nights, though, so last calls on everything would be at 10:00. I'd be out of here at 10:31." He laughed, and I laughed with him. He had a hearty laugh and a very nice smile. "American or Canadian are you," he asked.

"American. From New York."

"Sweet. You here for pleasure or business? In England, I mean. You'd be here in the pub for pleasure."

That sounded a bit strange, but I answered what I thought was being asked. "Business. I'm staying in Gloucester—at The Station Hotel. Tried to sleep and couldn't. Discovered I was hungry and thirsty and decided to take a short drive down the Severn. I wonder, is the owner of the pub in this evening?"

"Peter died recently. But I guess just having come from across the pond you wouldn't know that. Ralph. Ralph Barnes isn't in tonight. So, you've come because you've heard about the pub? Decided to do a little cruising, have you? Top or bottom? I could give you leads. Might even be interested myself. Might definitely be interested myself, depending."

"Cruising?"

"You're a poofter, aren't you?"

"A poofter?"

"An Oscar?"

That really threw me and I just looked at him, surprise written all over my face, I'm sure.

"Oscar Wilde," he explained, with a laugh. "Queer . . . gay . . . a fag. Look around, sweet thing. What do you see none of here?"

I looked around. It hit me almost immediately. "No women. I just see men."

"That's because this is a men-only pub. For hook ups and just to be comfortable among our own kind."

Our own kind. I turned to him, "So you are—?"

"A power top. Hoping that you might be a bottom."

"As it happens, I am," I answered.

He gave me a big grin—and took my almost-empty glass and filled it with stout again. "Well, then, hallelujah, have a drink on me. And then remember how nice I was to you if you stay till last call. And if you do stay until last call . . ." He didn't finish that sentence. He just gave me a wink and went off into the pool room to collect empty glasses.

I hung around, watching the operation of the pub, and occasionally talking with the barman, whose name was Sean, until last call. He was speaking so free and easy with me, flittering but not getting aggressive or making direct propositions that I didn't want to leave. The hotel room was pretty Spartan—and would be quite lonely.

He didn't stop me from pulling away from the bar and moving rather unsteadily toward the door other than to call out a "You sure you should be driving? Be careful. You could have company on the drive back, of course. Any number of lads in here. Or you could remember how nice I was to you and be nice back. Maybe on your back." He winked at me again and smiled, leaving me in doubt as to how much of it was just friendly banter. It was a real turn on, whatever it was.

I smiled in return, waved to him, and weaved my way out the door and to the Kia . . . which wouldn't crank over. I tried it several times.

Sean appeared at the door of the car. "Here, leave it. Get out and I'll see what I can do."

I exchanged places with him and he cranked at the ignition, not doing any better with it than I had. "Did you fill it with petrol before leaving Birmingham?" he turned his head to me and asked.

"No. Should I have?"

"They would have given you as little petrol as they could and it's a good drive from there to here. What your problem is is that you are out of petrol."

"Shit."

"No problem, though. I could drive you to your Gloucester hotel. It's not far. Less than twenty minutes."

"I have a meeting tomorrow," I said. "I'd have to figure out how to get back here with gas before that."

"I could drive you back in the morning. We could stop on the way back for petrol. Nothing open at this hour."

"Drive me back?"

"It would cost you, though," he said, with a grin. "Are you understanding what I'm suggesting?" He was gripping one of my knees with a strong hand.

He fucked me doggy style on the bed in my hotel room. He took charge as soon as we'd entered the room, using that low growl to tell me what I would do for him, and half drunk, more than half exhausted, and totally lost to the arousal of the situation, I gave him what he wanted.

Telling me to lose my shirt as soon as we entered the room, he stripped his off as well, pulling me into an embrace and a kiss. Taller than he was, I had to dip my face down for the kiss. As we kissed, he worked both of our belts open, pushed our trousers and briefs down to our knees, and worked our cocks together. We were both uncut and not yet fully hard, and I took my breath in as he docked the cocks, putting them together, bulb to bulb, pushing the foreskin of his over the foreskin of mine, and slowly stroked them together, making the piss slits kiss.

With a moan, I arched my back away from him and he worked my nipples with his teeth.

"Give me some head," he growled, and, as he sat down on the end of the bed, he forced me down between his spread thighs on my knees, and I sucked his cock hard, as he demanded.

Growling again, he moved me in position on the bed, on elbows and knees, cheek to bedspread, left arm stretched out over the bedspread, fist grasping at the bedding, and right hand stroking my cock, as he crouched over my hips, grabbed the sides of my chest and power fucked my ass.

When he was done, he just pushed me over on my side, and landed behind me. Totally exhausted and totally fucked, I zoned out into sleep immediately. I was only half conscious when he took me in a side-split again in the dark of the night, with me only aware enough to respond as he wished to whatever commands he was growling at me. Well, also being aware that I was loving what he was doing to me and spouted great globs of cum on the hotel sheets.

Imagine my surprise the next afternoon when, sitting across from the other two owners of the pub and the house in the solicitor's offices, I saw not only the unfamiliar face of a tall, almost gaunt dark-haired man several years older than I was, but also . . . Sean, who was introduced to me as Sean Anderson. The other man I'd already had a name for, Ralph Barnes.

That still didn't mean much to me and I was showing my confusion to the solicitors while trying not to look at the grinning Sean Anderson until Barnes asked the solicitor to step out of the office for a moment.

When he had, Barnes spoke, "You know me by another name, just as I know you by another name. I know you as Todd. You know me as Rigger. The man who died and left you his share of the pub and house you knew as Phil."

"Oh," I said. So much clearer now. My English pen pals. The men I'd fantasized about concerning sex—rough and kinky sex. And threesomes. And then it sank in. These were men I had fantasized with concerning what my secret desires were—things I'd never actually done, though.

"And Sean here," Barnes continued. "We never included him in our on-line chats, but he's been with Peter and me for a while. We enjoyed our threesomes with you so much that we brought him in to help us act on what we chatted about."

They'd actually done what we chatted about over the Internet. I felt myself beginning to hyperventilate, but Barnes called the solicitor back in before I could melt down and then we became busy discussing the terms of Peter's will and the implications of triple ownership.

"We can discuss that," the solicitor said when I noted that I wanted to sell my third immediately.

"You haven't seen the properties yet," Barnes said.

"He's seen the pub," Sean chipped in.

Barnes turned to me. "Yes, I've already visited the Laughing Lion," I said.

"But you haven't seen the house."

"No, he hasn't," Sean answered for me, with a smile on his face. "He's staying at The Station Hotel in Gloucester."

"Ah, so, you've already—" Barnes turned to a grinning Sean with this comment.

"Yes, I have, as a matter of fact," Sean answered, the grin plastered on his face. "I sussed him out within minutes of coming into the pub. An American just arrived, staying at a Gloucester hotel but just happening to come to our pub—and asking for the owner."

"And so, you didn't come home last night because—"

"Yes, he was very nice. Very nice indeed."

As they bantered back and forth, both the solicitor and I followed the exchange like the volleying of a yellow ball in a tennis match. The solicitor was just confused. I was getting red as a beet. Discussing like that right in front of me. And all of what we'd already laid out in months and months of dirty e-mail exchanges. What could they be thinking I was into sexually? Well, I knew what they were thinking, now didn't I? It was both frightening and arousing at the same time.

The e-mail chats, after all, had represented fantasies of what I really would like to do.

Barnes turned to me. "You can't possibly make a decision on what you want to do with the properties if you haven't seen them all. The house is large—there are Peter's rooms just sitting there unused. They are far better than that hotel you're staying in."

"The Station Hotel," Sean interjected. "The beds are lumpy; the box springs screech; the brass headboards thump against the wall." He was grinning from ear to ear.

"I got that," Barnes said. He turned back to me. "You must see the house before you decide what you want to do. We'll move you from the hotel right after this meeting."

It wasn't a request. If Sean had said it, I guess it would be with a little growl, and I would have given in immediately. Barnes didn't growl, but I still gave in immediately. It was, after all, a reasonable point. At least that's what I kept telling myself on why I'd agreed to the move.