[Mod Note: I'm posting this fic for bokof, who's also having computer problems this week. I take no credit for anything here.]


Challenge: 213 Amnesty
Fandom: Baffles (Raffles, Hornung)
Rating: E
Length: 2295
Content notes: epistolary, first time, allusion to rape/non-con, allusion to underage sex, internalised homophobia
Author notes: a Christmas present for Esbe.
Summary: I'm with a rent boy, but it's hard to let go of my daydreams
about my school crush-now-pen pal.



My dear Raffles,
I daresay this letter follows too closely on the heels of my
last, as I have yet to receive your response. I shall wait until I
have two letters of yours in return, else we'll keep crossing each
other in the post. After so many years waiting for your letters to
wend their way from the farthest reach of the globe, I am not used to
the speed at which your letters arrive from the country.
I wouldn't write, but I've only gone and had a fall, and
broken my wrist. You can see from my handwriting that everything is
difficult. It's a silly thing, but I remember you once telling me
about a fellow you met at the baths. You said he reminded you of old
Perry at school and he'd come and stayed with you a bit at the Albany
when you had a sprain.
I don't suppose you know anyone like that to come and give me
a hand? I couldn't stick a nurse.
Yours,
Bunny

Sent round a johnnie, he's there on my word, so be a good
chap. Write and tell me all about it. A. J. R.

Here's the second note. Never dreamt you had such stuff in
you! I had no idea you were a chap of that sort. Be sure you write. A.
J. R.

My dear Raffles,
You have been laughing at me. To tell you the truth, at first,
I almost mistook Alex for you. I wonder, would I know you in the
street if our paths were to cross? This fellow wore a moustache. He
combs his hair back, heavily pomaded, and you never did.
I realise that when I knew you at school I played an unwitting
part in a dark play. All the while I imagined I was Damon to your
Pythias, only to see now that I was opening the door for you to slip
in and out of a life of dissipation. Why did you never tell me? I
would not have given you away. I've followed you through that door,
now.
If you turn from me in disgust, then you may burn this now and
that will be the end of it. But you asked me to write to 'tell you all
about it.' In fact, I think you meant for these things to happen. In
this matter, I have no one else to tell.
You must have sent Alex the day you received my letter, for he
was here like an arrow. I was so taken aback when I met him that I
could scarcely speak. I suppose I stuttered out polite enough of a
greeting, for he passed a quiet morning in my rooms before we agreed
he would stay on a week and see me settled.
He has your pale eye, but unlike you he is a quiet man of the
exquisite type. When he wasn't helping me, he was curled up in a
chair, reading, filling the air with the strong thick sweetness of his
Turkish tobacco. I remember you as always in motion. Having kept up
your cricket, I think you would find the inactivity of my rooms
stifling. I picture you pacing the carpets, the air full of
conversation. When I knew you, you were not yet grown into your long
limbs and large hands. Today, you must be broad-shouldered and tall,
with the bronzed skin and calloused hands of an athlete and the ready
wit with which you charmed us all at school.
You tell me to be a good chap. Perhaps Alex wrote to you
already and told you if I was. Perhaps he is with you now! Well, I can
give you my side of it, at least.
Oh, it was beastly of you, A. J.! You really should have given
me a hint, at least. I hadn't the faintest idea that first evening
that anything was expected of me. It was only the next day, a
marvelous day, for Alex is tolerably good company for all he is short
on conversation, that I suspected that I had not behaved as he
anticipated. This much he confirmed.
My rooms are well-appointed, and I have my own bath. It is a
slipper tub, with lion's paws to allow a warming pan beneath. He
helped me out of my clothes, he helped me into the bath, and then he
helped me to damnation.
For the sake of old times,
Bunny

Somebody told me C. fagged for you, or I would have sent a
girl. Truth, now. You were always scribbling at school, so you can
write a full account. I did specifically ask you to tell me all about
it. How's the wrist? A. J. R.

You devil!
I believe you mean it. I cannot sign this, for obvious
reasons. I worry that the very sending of this missive implicates you
in my crimes. Perhaps I am still dazzled by my own daring, for I can
hardly think on the week A. was here without a fever seizing my
imagination and burning away every thought but the most perverse.
Oh A. J., I've sunk so low. Surely you know already. If you
want nothing more to do with me, I wouldn't blame you.
My inclinations were watered and put down roots at our school.
I look back on those years as the best years of my life. You were the
best friend I had, though you took little notice of me beyond tasking
me with oiling your bat, cribbing your latin, and keeping watch for
you some nights. Despite this thin acquaintance, your friendship
sheltered me from bullying. The nights that I waited for your signal
at the west window of the boot-room, were nights away from the japes
and stifled crying of the fourth form dormitory. When it was my turn
to head a house, I chose the least liked boy, thinking I could shield
him by my attention. You must have done more for me than I realised at
the time, however, for C. was sent down along with one of the eleven
my last Christmas. The chief called me in, but nothing I could say
made any difference. I took six of the best for nothing. It seemed
hard, for C. would not have done such a thing unless led to it.
I am still considered pretty, by the standards set at school.
By keeping to my own set, I'm a member of a club where there is no
remonstrance against hair that reaches my collar. I never have
anything to do with the back rooms, and I've never wanted to. Your
matches were the only thing that has stirred my blood and caused me to
shout.
When I opened the door upon A., I was certain for a brief
moment he was you. I would have blushed, I would have cried out, I
would have clasped your hand, but for the certainty that nothing so
wonderful could ever happen to me. Nothing could be more unlikely than
that my most cherished dream would come true on a Monday afternoon in
the winter, at the door of my Cliveden Chambers rooms. I split in two:
I watched myself invite A. in. I took his coat. I mixed him a whiskey
and soda. Deep within me, I half knew what he wanted when his eyes
followed me. My body continued unaware, carrying on a conversation I
have no memory of, whilst my heart squeezed painfully small on the
realisation that it was not you on the settee, but some stranger.
You were never so unassuming, you never sipped gingerly from a
glass, nor tucked your feet under you on the sofa. When I was a boy,
my hair under your palm, my whole body alive to your arm across my
shoulders, your laugh was the only hammer that could make my body ring
with the joy of being young -- in my mind I ached for the sensation of
being near you once more.
For a whole day and a night, I was a good chap to your
johnnie. I watched myself play the host as I lost myself in my
memories of how you sounded, the acrid, lusty smell of your study
after a match. I only came to myself as A. began to undress me for the
bath he had requested for my rooms. The glass in my good hand was
sweating in the steam of the bath. Had I asked for a second, a third
drink? All was hot, lazy, and natural. Naturally, A. removed his shirt
so as not to get it wet when he washed my hair. Agreeably, he laughed
at the lack of hair on my chest.
"Manders, I'll never get a lather going here," he said. He
read my thoughts for I never said a word as I knelt up and he swiped
the sandalwood bar lower, and lower still. I came painfully back to
myself, a rush of apprehension sharpening my awareness.
"I say Manders, however did you hide such a tremendous
tosser!" His eyes sparkled, dredging up memories of the past, when I
helped you from the rope in through the window, smelling of tobacco
and beer and perfume.
His hand had come to where the hairs grew thicker, and the
soap slipped away as he spread his fingers into the thatch of darker
hair that framed my manhood.
"Alright, Manders?" His moustache tickled my ear. The past and
the present collided in my mind. Your laugh rang in my ears as the
blood roared in my veins and my prick rose to half standing.
"Alright," I said, "--tighter--" and then I gasped to hear
myself say such a thing, and then I couldn't think at all as he did as
I bid, my mouth commanding him and he obeying, one arm around my back
and steadying my hip, his hand pumping away.
"Oh, you're a fine size, I can scarcely close my hand around
you." as he spoke he pressed his head into my neck, and nosed beneath
my ear. "Put your hand above mine, now, show me the way of it."
The curve of his smile, the curl in his hair in the steam, it
all served bring back the pain and confusion of fifteen. I tugged at
myself, furious for relief, my blood boiling with shame. I was ashamed
for myself, naked and panting before a fellow I hardly knew, ashamed
for him as he was more at ease with his bare chest pressed to my back
and his hand on my prick than he'd been at previous moment in my
company, and ashamed for you, for the libertine young rake of
seventeen that would make any number of girls in town and fags at
school except the one who waited to rope for you as the hours ticked
on in the loneliest room of the school.
I had two hands on myself as his fingers cradled my balls. He
pressed behind my sac, pulling me to his chest. I was wild at that
point. My red-hot cockhead rubbed against him until I spent with a
howl. I have never felt anything more sublime than the delicious
sensation of my swollen head pushing against his taut stomach in the
slick of my spend. I nearly wept, the enormity of what I had done
rushing into my mind like an icy flood.
For all I did not know A., he read me like a book. He held me,
murmuring soothing nonsense, as my body jerked and trembled in his
arms. That night, he followed me into my bed. We passed a ridiculous
three days making such a mess of my sheets that I burnt them rather
than send them out to be washed.
We never again reached the height of that first night, for I
felt sick and anxious by turns, but he taught me to treat him as he
treated me. I learned how to kiss a fellow until he is drunk from it,
and how to laugh as if we we were not locked out of paradise, but in
it. Nothing mattered more than his flesh joined to mine and his love
kiss on my lips. The shock of self knowledge only increased my
anxiety.
I gained a taste for Sullivan cigarettes, whiskey from the
bottle, and meals on a tray in bed. The tender rawness of my aching
muscles contrasted with the soothing gentleness of his embrace; by
these, I was newborn to a life I had not suspected existed.
That your arms had perhaps held him in just the same manner,
and he that was passing this comfort to me, consoled me as I faced my
own eyes in the mirror to shave the scant hairs on my lip.
Whilst A. was with me, a creeping unease kept me indoors.
Since he left me, a sickening tide has risen in my heart. I am sure it
will overtake me and drag me into ruin.
Do you think I corrupted C.? I swear to you, I never played
those games at school. When A.'s hands were on me, I only thought of
you. You sent your angel to lead me to mortal sin, and I am so far
gone that I rue not this, but that you didn't care to do it in person.
I remind you, you asked for the truth.
If you want me, I remain,
Your friend.

I'm in London next week. I'll stand you a dinner at my
club, the Savile. I'm there until my rooms at the Albany are ready for
me. A. J. R.
P.S. I left my moustache in Australia.