Thomas's Choice Read online

  Curious, he tore it open and pulled out a single sheet of paper. Only a few words were written in a neat, but old fashioned handwriting: You can’t hide forever. One day you’ll have to admit who you are.

  The letter wasn’t signed.

  The paper fell from his trembling hands. They’d finally found him. How, he didn’t know.

  He’d changed his last name, his identity, even moved to another country, careful not to leave any trails. But even he couldn’t hide forever. He’d always known it would happen one day. But it was too soon. He wasn’t prepared to face the truth yet. The truth of what he was, what he would always be no matter how long and hard he fought it.

  He sank to his knees and dropped his head into his palms. How long did he have until they came for him? And when they did, would he then succumb to them and the dark power inside him? Or did he have enough strength left to fight them?

  London, England, Spring 1895

  Thomas sat in the gallery of Old Bailey, the criminal courts of London, carefully watching the proceedings taking place below him. He’d been coming almost every day to attend the trial, not out of morbid curiosity like most of the other spectators, but because he had a stake in its outcome. Even though he didn’t know the accused, Oscar Wilde, personally, his plight mattered to Thomas.

  Oscar Wilde, the famous playwright, was a homosexual and accused of gross indecencies, and whatever happened to a man of his celebrity would have a lasting impact on the homosexual society of London. A society Thomas belonged to, whether he wanted to or not.

  He’d always known he was different, but during his first year at Oxford, it had been confirmed: he loved men, not women. He’d tried to deny it at first, but no matter with which lies he’d tried to trick himself, he’d failed. He was what he was: a homosexual. A queer, a faggot, a fairy. Not a real man, but one who degraded himself and other men by performing acts of buggery.

  Yet, it wasn’t something he could turn off at will. His experiences with a young man at Oxford had opened his eyes to the joys of physical love and shown him the pleasures of the flesh. And once he’d tasted that forbidden fruit, there was no way back, no way to deny what he wanted: the love of a man, no matter how forbidden it was.

  He hid it as best he could, never dressing as flamboyantly as other queers did, always participating in the most masculine of sports and entertainment to compensate for his affliction.

  He even courted women of the aristocratic circles of England and had turned into one of the most eligible bachelors not only because of his breeding and standing in society, but also because of his wit and charm, which he had no qualms about unleashing on any innocent debutante. They were swooning for him. If only they knew that their coquettish smiles, blushing cheeks, and rapidly waving fans left him as cold as a morning bath in an ice-crusted creek in the winter.

  Underneath all the deception, he found time to meet other men of his penchant and give his carnal desires free rein. It was during those hours that he felt most at peace with himself. And most conflicted at the same time. Feelings of guilt and shame were never far away; yet whenever he made love to a man, he knew he couldn’t deny who he was. He had no choice but to continue.

  “May the defendant rise,” a voice came from the courtroom below.

  Thomas leaned forward, eager to hear the court’s decision. Like him, others were doing the same, waiting with bated breath for the judge’s ruling. It came down like a hammer on an anvil, just as loud and as crushing. Wilde hadn’t been prosecuted for sodomy, but it might as well have been the case.

  “Oscar Wilde, you’ve been found guilty of twenty-five counts of gross indecencies and conspiracy to commit gross indecencies.”

  An outcry ran through the crowd. Voices from below and from the gallery echoed against the walls of the courtroom, amplifying the sounds. Despite the judge’s demands for order in the courtroom, the chatter didn’t cease.

  “Shame!” a young man next to Thomas called out, but behind him others voiced their approval of the verdict.

  “Serves the bugger right!” a man proclaimed and shoved the young man to the side. “You’re one of them too, aren’t you?”

  Thomas tried to rise and felt the young man bump into him. When he grabbed the man’s shoulders to steady himself, frightened eyes looked up at him. For a moment, Thomas didn’t move. This was what would happen to all of them: people would call them out for being homosexuals. Both he and the young man looking at him knew it.

  “Yes, both of you!” the man behind them continued his tirade.

  To Thomas’s shock, others next to him joined in, pointing their fingers at him and the man, whose shoulders he was still clutching. Their eyes were filled with disgust, their mouths pulled up in sneers.

  Thomas let go of the other man’s shoulders and pushed him back. But it was too late. They’d all seen the flash of compassion that he’d felt for the young queer who’d expressed his opinion about the verdict. They’d all seen that Thomas felt the same. Because he was the same. He was no better than Oscar Wilde or the countless others who somewhere engaged in sodomy every night. The only difference was that he’d been more careful about his assignations, and hidden away his true nature from society better than others.

  Thomas ran for the exit, desperate to escape the crowd’s scrutiny. Had anybody recognized him? He glanced around, looking at the unfamiliar faces that he ran past. No, nobody from the aristocracy would have been in the courtroom. They found such events distasteful. It was his only consolation.

  As he rushed outside, shouts followed him on his heels. He couldn’t block them out.

  “Faggot!”

  “Poof!”

  His lungs burned from exertion as he hurried down the broad staircase and crossed the foyer of the courthouse. He sprinted past the marble columns that flanked the entrance, and exited.

  Night had already fallen, and he was grateful for it. He would be able to disappear in the crowd that hung around the steps in front of the building, waiting for news of the verdict.

  He kept his head down, not wanting to draw any further attention to himself. Unfamiliar faces passed him, and voices drifted past his ears. But he kept walking without engaging in any conversation, without breaking his stride. He pretended to be unconcerned about the goings-on around him. Even though he wasn’t. The verdict had changed everything. From now on, homosexuals like him would be treated with less tolerance than before. People wouldn’t look the other way anymore if they suspected a man of having an intimate relationship with another man.

  From now on he had to be even more careful or he would end up like Wilde—in prison.

  “Wait up!” somebody called behind him, but Thomas kept walking without turning around.

  Just a few more steps and he’d be able to cross Fleet Street and disappear into one of the many dark alleys in London. Then he could hire a hackney and get back to his rooms at St.

  James’s Park. And nobody would be the wiser and know what had happened today.

  “Young man!” a strangely insistent voice followed him.

  He felt compelled to turn his head, but couldn’t distinguish who had spoken. Nobody looked at him directly. Shaking his head in confusion, he turned back and bumped into somebody.

  Strong hands gripped his shoulders. Thomas’s gaze whipped to the person who’d stopped him. Panic surged and made itself known in form of a gasp. Penetrating brown eyes looked at him. The clean-shaven face of a man took on more definition as he pulled his head back by a fraction.

  “There, there,” the well-dressed stranger said in a surprisingly soothing voice, a voice that seeped into Thomas’s body like rich wine or the comforting smell of a pipe.

  The tension in his body eased as the stranger’s hands smoothed over Thomas’s shoulders, almost stroking him as if he were trying to massage the anxiety from his body. A pleasant tingling ran down his arms, spreading warmth in his body despite the cool spring evening.

  “No need to be afraid of the mob ba
ck there,” the man continued, tossing a look over Thomas’s shoulder.

  All the while, his hands caressed him, and Thomas allowed it even though he should push him away. They were in public, although the stranger now drew him into the entrance of a shop that had long closed. They stood in the shadows; still any passerby would be able to see them if he looked more closely. Yet Thomas didn’t have the strength to resist the man’s touch. Nor the press of his thighs as he now moved closer.

  “So pretty,” he cooed, his eyes perusing Thomas’s face and body. “It would be a shame if they locked you up for what you are.”

  Thomas’s breath hitched. Was this man taunting him? Was he a Charley? A policeman disguised as a gentleman so he could ferret out the queers in the society? Had the witch hunt already started?

  Thomas straightened, making an attempt to push off the man’s hands. “Sir, I must ask you to let go of me. You have me mistaken.”

  The man’s face came closer, his eyes drawing him in. “No mistake.” His lips parted and the scent of pure masculinity blew against Thomas’s face, making his legs weak.

  His gut clenched, and farther south, his cock twitched in anticipation. The stranger confirmed with a knowing smile that he was fully aware of Thomas’s growing arousal.

  “Yes, no mistake at all.” One hand separated from his shoulder and, painstakingly slowly, slid down Thomas’s torso.

  He knew only too well where the stranger’s hand was heading, but he couldn’t stop him. No, not couldn’t: didn’t want to. For some perverse reason, Thomas craved his touch. He needed to affirm what he was, a man who loved men, and that it felt good, no matter what the mob in front of the courthouse thought.

  When a hot palm slid over his now fully erect cock, Thomas groaned and pressed into it.

  “Christ!”

  The man chuckled softly. “Not my name, but I’ll take it any day.” Then he squeezed harder.

  Thomas’s heart raced, his chest labored to bring much needed air to his body, and his hands clutched the lapels of the stranger’s coat, pulling him closer. With every stroke, he panted more uncontrollably. And with every second his control slipped further.

  “But I haven’t even started yet.”

  As if to prove his words, the stranger unbuttoned the flap of Thomas’s trousers, pushed aside his undergarments, and took his shaft into his hand. The firm grip, the contact of flesh on flesh, nearly undid him. His head fell against the wall behind him. He closed his eyes and surrendered to the alluring touch, knowing that fighting his own desire was impossible now.

  Tender words drifted to his ears, giving him the illusion of floating. He’d never felt anything like it, not even during his most powerful orgasms. But the way this stranger stroked his cock and whispered sweet words into his ear while he kissed Thomas’s neck, made him toss caution to the wind.

  Forgotten was the fact that anybody passing by could see them engage in this indecent act, an act that could get them both thrown in jail. Forgotten was the fact that he didn’t even know the man’s name. Nothing mattered. Nothing but the immediate pleasure that this man was promising without asking anything in return.

  “More,” Thomas begged. “Harder!”

  His companion complied without protest, stroking him more firmly, squeezing him harder and faster, bringing him ever closer to completion.

  “Yes, yes, that’s it.”

  Lips licked at the crook of his neck, teeth scraped gently against Thomas’s heated skin. From somewhere a voice penetrated.

  “Yes, come, my young friend. Spend for me. Surrender.”

  Surrender. Yes, it was all he wanted. Surrender to the touch of this man, give himself up to the pleasure, bathe in the lust of the moment. Without thinking, without regrets. Simply feel.

  His balls tightened, and his cock jerked. Then he felt the rush of his semen as it traveled through his shaft as if shot from a pistol. Waves of pleasure washed over him and lifted him up as if he were floating. At the same time, a stinging pain shot through his neck. It was fleeting— too fleeting for it to be real. He had to be hallucinating, because the pleasure this stranger was giving him was making him drunk—drunk on lust, on desire, on sex. Drunk on the sensation of this man’s lips locking on his neck, kissing him in a way that felt surreal.

  As if the kiss were a bite.

  3

  Thomas opened his eyes and looked around. Startled, he sat up on a divan. He wasn’t in the alley anymore. Instead he found himself in an opulently furnished salon. And he wasn’t alone.

  Far from it.

  He tried to take in what he saw, but his mind took a few seconds to process the scene in front of his eyes. There were close to a dozen people in the room—partially dressed people, mostly men, but there were several women among them too. If he were prudish, he would have found the entire scenario scandalous, but he couldn’t quite conjure up such a feeling. Instead, he looked around with interest. A man had his trousers pushed down to his knees, his bare ass exposed as he was gripping the hips of another man, thrusting back and forth. Thomas didn’t have to get any closer to realize that he was buggering the other man.

  Nobody seemed to take any notice of the two, clearly too busy performing similar carnal acts. Thomas’s gaze was drawn to a young man who lay on several pillows strewn on the floor in front of the fireplace. His shirt was open and an older man kissed his chest and tweaked his nipples while he rubbed his loins against the younger man. As Thomas continued watching, he felt his own cock rise at the erotic sight. He grew even harder when he saw the young man opening his trousers and pushing them down over his hips, letting his hard prick jut out. The man above him groaned and dropped his head to the man’s cock, sucking it into his mouth.

  Involuntarily, Thomas’s hand went to the bulge that had formed under his trousers.

  “Ah, you’re awake.”

  At the sound of the voice, Thomas’s head snapped to the side. It only took him a split second to find the man who’d obviously brought him here: the stranger who’d stroked his cock with such skill that Thomas must have fainted when he’d climaxed.

  With wide eyes, Thomas stared at him. He sat in a large armchair, his shirt open, exposing his strong chest and dark hair, his trousers missing. Between his legs a half-naked woman kneeled, her head bobbing up and down in his lap, sucking him.

  He laid his hand on the back of her head, pulling her up by her hair, then issued his command from between clenched teeth. “Do it like you mean it!” Then his gaze swept back to Thomas, and his hand waved him to approach.

  Mesmerized, Thomas got up and crossed to join him.

  “I’m Kasper,” the man introduced himself.

  “Thomas.” He stared down at the woman. Why had he assumed that Kasper was queer like him? Clearly, the man liked women.

  Maybe his facial expression had given him away, because Kasper chuckled. “Oh that?” He pointed to the woman who was working him hard. “I don’t discriminate, nor do I judge.

  Whatever gives me pleasure.” He paused and dropped his gaze to Thomas’s crotch. “Earlier, you gave me pleasure, my young friend. I may call you friend, may I not?”

  Thomas nodded automatically.

  “And it also gives me pleasure to watch others.” He waved his hand to indicate the other couples who were engaging in similar acts. Men cavorting with men, even two women touching each other, sliding their naked bodies against each other.

  “Who are you?” Thomas asked. “And where are we?” He’d never been to a place like this, where people behaved without inhibitions, without fear of being detected. It seemed like an oasis. Like paradise.

  “Safe,” Kasper said. “Nobody will find us here. We can do as we please. Act out our wildest fantasies. Isn’t that what you want? What you’ve always dreamed of?”

  Kasper’s penetrating gaze captured him. Thomas felt imprisoned by his eyes, as if they were shackles that chained him to a fence from which he was forced to watch what was going on around him.

&
nbsp; Suspicion coursed through him. “How would you know?”

  “I can see it in your eyes. Everybody can see it, if only they bothered to look. I’ve been watching you for a few days now. There’s something about you that fascinates me. So much passion, so much pain buried inside you, wanting to burst to the surface. Just like it did earlier tonight.”

  Kasper groaned and shoved his cock deeper into the woman’s mouth. “When I had you in my hand I could sense your need. So pure, so unspoiled.” He tossed a glance around the room. “Not like the men here. They lost that innocence long ago. But you still have it. It’s very endearing.”

  He pushed his hips upwards, thrusting harder. “And more than just a little arousing. What man wouldn’t want to taste that?”

  His suggestive look sent a bolt of desire through Thomas’s body. His initial suspicion faded.

  He had to admit that he was flattered. As well as turned on, not just by his surroundings, but also by Kasper’s words. To be desired by a man with his obvious power and standing was exciting.

  He licked his lips, eager for a taste of what this man promised.

  “There’s a lot I can give you, if only you want it,” Kasper offered and lowered his gaze to his own crotch. “I can give you some of it right now.” There was no doubt as to what he meant by that.

  And hell, if Thomas didn’t want exactly that. Without hesitation he put his hand on the woman’s shoulder and pulled her back. “Take a break. I’ll take care of this.”

  Kasper smiled at him as the woman scrambled away and Thomas took her place.

  “I’m not going to suck you like a woman. It will be much better than that,” Thomas promised, running his hands from Kasper’s knees up to the apex of his thighs, where a magnificent cock stood erect, glistening with moisture. It twitched as if acknowledging the words.

  “Oh, I don’t doubt that.”

  Thomas bent over Kasper’s groin and licked over the head of his erection. A shudder went through his companion, and he smiled to himself. He would reduce this man to putty in his hands. A sensation akin to power jolted through him. It was new to him; yet he liked the feeling of knowing he could bring this man to his knees. It was a challenge he wouldn’t shirk.