Page 6 of King's Man

“Maybe I want to?” He licked a lascivious line from Sam’s balls to the tip of his cock. “I reckon you want it, too.”

A slight shake of his head, but the denial was weak. He did want it. He yearned for it. “Just your hand.”

“I ain’t your whore,” said the man, and took him to the hilt with an expertise that drove Sam’s eyes shut.

“God,” he rasped, helpless as the memories surged forward.

It was night, the cicadas sang in the grass, and the Pawtuxet carved a molten line of silver beneath the low-hanging moon. Nate reached the riverbank first, laughing as he stripped off his shirt and breeches, his skin pale and his sharp-boned face eldritch in the moonlight. “Come on!” he shouted and dived into the silver water.

Sam wasn’t far behind, slipping into the river with more decorum — there were no neighbors for miles, but you never knew. You never knew.

And then Nate was there, his slender body slippery and irresistible as he wound himself into Sam’s arms. “Fuck me,” he whispered in his ear. “Right here in the river.”

Sam clenched his fingers into the meat of the stranger’s shoulder, helpless against the way his hips bucked up into that hot, anonymous mouth — helpless against the memories brewing like a storm. The man groaned, and the wet noise of his mouth was now supplemented by the flesh-on-flesh whisper of his hand as he pleasured himself. Forcing his eyes open, Sam tried to stay in the present, tried to stay in the humid room that stank of sweat and gin. But his body betrayed him, its cresting desire knocking down all his fragile defenses as it always did…

“God, Nate —” Sam arched up off the chair and came with a despairing sob, a wracking heave of emotion, and there was nothing beyond it but suffocating terror and darkness.

In the raw silence that followed, he dared not look at the man kneeling between his feet, though he could hear him catching his breath. “Oi,” the stranger said, not ungently. “Who the bloody hell’s Nate?”

Sam shook his head. What a pitiful sight he must make, sprawled on the chair, tears leaking from behind his eyelids like a child. “I’m sorry. Just go.” And then, more wretchedly, “Please.”

He heard the man stand, fabric rustling as he readjusted his clothing. “The room’s yours another ten minutes,” he said — a kindness — and left Sam alone.

With shaking hands, he wiped his face and fastened his breeches, reaching for the gin. He downed the rest of his glass in one go and poured another, swirling it around his mouth as if the taste could scour away the memories. But as the fleeting illusion of pleasure receded, it laid bare what skulked beneath — darker memories, best left buried. The terrifying fury of the mob, the suffocating horror of Simsbury Mine, and, worse, the agony of betrayal and loss that never abated.

For that reason, Sam rarely indulged his physical desires. Yet another thing the war had stripped from him. Another thing Nate Tanner had stripped from him, the coldblooded bastard.

Sometime later, a light rap on the door roused him. Knocking back the rest of his drink, Sam slipped out of the room, avoiding the men laughing and making love with a freedom that still shocked and amazed him. There were dangers, of course, but until he’d come to London, he’d never seen anything like a molly house — not even in New York. It was this kind of old-world licentiousness, he supposed, that had disgusted the pious old Puritans who’d first founded his country. Well, they could keep it. Sam liked it better here in this roiling, tumultuous city of sin and enlightenment. A man could disappear in London, forget his past and drink away his future.

What was left to do when all else was lost?

Slipping out of the White Horse through a discreet side entrance, Sam emerged into a cool London evening. Summer had been a sketchy affair, and, despite everything, he missed the languid heat of home.

But enough of home and grieving. That was in the past and the past must keep it. He had a new life now.

Covent Garden’s arcades were no place to be walking alone on a dark night, so he stepped lively and kept one hand on his knife as he headed back to the St Giles Bowl. Crouching on the edge of the infamous slum, the Bowl boasted the dubious distinction of being London’s most disreputable drinking hole.

And the place Sam now called home.

Once, not many years earlier, the condemned of Newgate Gaol had stopped at the Bowl for a final drink on their way to the gallows, and its patrons had not improved a great deal since. The detritus of humanity found their way to the St Giles Bowl, the discarded, the despised and the dispossessed.

People like Samuel Hutchinson, who had nowhere else to go.

He paused in the doorway to study the ratty clientele — rogues and ruffians all. A few eyes turned in his direction, men lifting their attention from their cups or dice, their scrutiny curious but not hostile. They knew him here, now. His once fine clothes, increasingly shabby, still raised an eyebrow or two but for most he was yesterday’s news. Him and the thousands of other American refugees sloshing around London. Nobody cared about them anymore.

The man who ran the Bowl, a bright-eyed black man by the name of Moses Adams, stood behind the makeshift bar, gossiping with another of Sam’s friends: Elias Cole. Like Sam, Moses had been evacuated out of New York when the British fleet left America for good. Unlike Sam, Moses had once been enslaved by a Virginia planter and had fought for the British in exchange for his freedom. Now, they were both equally poor and equally abandoned by the British government, who had little interest in those who’d given everything in their service.

But he and Moses had become friends in London and Sam lifted a hand in greeting as he wound his way between the rough tables to the small door at the back of the tap room. Unlocking it with a sense of relief, he stepped into the den beyond and lit the oil lamp on his workbench. Light bloomed, catching on a treasure trove of odds and ends — silver-plate, candlesticks, jewelry, pistols, linens, silks, and everything between.

People in St Giles, with their almost incomprehensible slang, called this place a ‘fencing ken’. For Sam, it was a place of refuge. Here, it was possible to forget the reality of his life and immerse himself in the fine pieces of jewelry and art that came his way. All of it stolen, of course. But what did he care about that? If the past five years had taught him nothing else, it had taught him that the law was worthless. What was the point of it when a petty demagogue with a mob at his back could tear it all down and call it liberty?

No, the war had made Sam an outlaw and so that was how he lived, valuing stolen property in exchange for a safe place to lay his head and hot food in his belly.

Making his way behind his work bench, Sam pulled up his stool and bent to examine the fine pocket watch that had arrived this morning. It had been brought in by the man who called himself ‘Wessex’, purloined on Hampstead Heath from one Robert Milligan, a wealthy Scottish merchant. Wessex made a habit of targeting men like Milligan, whose money was stained by their abhorrent trade in African people. It was one of the reasons Sam enjoyed doing business with him. That and his exceptional taste — the watch would fetch a good price. Which was lucky because Wessex appeared perpetually in need of ready money.

Someone tapped on the door and Sam looked up. “Come in.”

Moses slipped inside, closing the door behind him. He was a tall man, shabbily but neatly dressed, hair receding at the front and pulled into a tidy queue at the nape of his neck. “Any luck?” he said.

---