Protection

by S A Reid

  “My cock,” he whispered, trying to pull Gabriel’s hand down.

  “No. I took you too fast. Now I’ll build you up slow.” Gabriel caressed Joey’s belly, pressing and stroking until Joey’s back arched with frustrated need. He could have used his own hand – he was dying to use his own hand – but it felt maddeningly good, writhing in Gabriel’s embrace. Rubbing his ass against the other man’s thigh, Joey brought on more waves of pain/pleasure as he waited … waited …

  “Oh,” Joey gasped as Gabriel’s hand finally closed around his cock. Bucking along with the motion, Joey pushed his ass against Gabriel’s thigh. He arched once, twice, three times before he splattered the wall with hot, salt-smelling cum.

  For a long time afterward they lay quietly, Joey luxuriating in the heat of Gabriel’s arms. Gabriel was stroking him again, just a gentle trace of fingertips along his forearm.

  “Gabe, I love you,” Joey whispered, turning to face the other man. “Last night. After the ceremony. Julia and I, we—”

  Gabriel interrupted with a grunt. “No. ’Tis none of my business. I had no right to ask such a thing. If you’d taken a swing, I wouldn’t have come back at you.”

  “—we talked, Gabe. She’s still in love with Frank. That’s why she went so far, got herself into trouble – she loved him. Probably more than she ever loved me. We were childhood sweethearts, you know. What we had was more innocence than real passion. And even though Frank left, she – she won’t heal easily. Not ’til the baby comes.”

  “You mean …?”

  “We did nothing but talk.” Joey rose on one elbow to meet Gabriel’s stare. “She told me about Frank and I told her about you.”

  Gabriel’s eyes widened. “Jesus.”

  “Didn’t I warn you about taking the Lord’s name in vain?” Kissing Gabriel’s lips, Joey lay down again. “Julia’s a terribly honest person. It would have destroyed her to pretend she still loved me. Bad enough she has to go home to my mum and lie to her. But it’s all for the best. My mum’s a soft touch. She’ll imagine she sees my face in the baby’s no matter what. And she’ll be overjoyed, and glad to have the little tyke around, which is all that matters.”

  After that they kissed, talked and dozed without really sleeping. Having now said “I love you” three times, Joey found he couldn’t stop saying it. And every time he did, Gabriel was more inflamed, kissing and stroking him as if they hadn’t fucked only a few hours before. Joey was increasingly aroused by the smell of sweat and cum, the taste of tobacco, the whisper of filthy Gaelic in his ear. Gabriel was half-up despite the fact he usually needed a day’s recovery, but Joey was hard as a crowbar all over again.

  “Gabe. Let me fuck you,” he whispered.

  “Swore I’d never allow that.”

  “You want it.”

  “Oh, aye,” Gabriel said, feeling in the bedclothes for the lubricant.

  Coating two fingers with clear jelly, Joey pressed them between Gabriel’s legs. As he expected, the other man evinced no pain, no matter how insistently Joey fought to loosen him. But as he worked a third finger into the tight, hot space, Gabriel began to tremble, catching his breath. Each time Joey pushed the spongy tissue, Gabriel choked back a moan. And when Joey pulled his fingers away, the moan burst free. Gabriel was panting, eyes wide.

  “Gabe. On your belly.”

  Gabriel obeyed. Taking the other man by the hips, Joey drove his cock down that slick channel, sheathing himself in one thrust. Gabriel shuddered with obvious pleasure; Joey, half out of his body with the sensation, pumped in and out with terrible urgency. Forever wouldn’t have been long enough. When Gabriel seized, Joey left himself entirely, flesh overloaded with pleasure, spirit suspended between life and death.

  “Joey? Are you all right?”

  Drawing a deep breath, Joey opened his eyes. “Never better. You?”

  “’Twas sweet.” Gabriel smiled. “And I was thinking. Now that we’ve both had each other – that’s as good as taking vows, isn’t it?”

  * * *

  Julia delivered a girl on March 11, 1937. Joey wasn’t permitted to visit them in the hospital, but she brought the baby – Lily – on the next visitors’ day in June. There was no way for Gabriel to have a look at the child himself – in the visitors’ room, moving from table to table was strictly forbidden. If Gabriel so much as stood up without permission, his visit with Rebecca Eisenberg would be terminated.

  “The key to a new world for women,” Rebecca was saying as Gabriel made one last attempt to get a look at the bundle in Julia’s arms.

  “Hmnh?” Gabriel blinked, realizing he’d lost the thread.

  “Abortion,” Rebecca said in the same firm, unflinching tone she would have said “sunbeam.” “Stella Browne says the legalization of abortion is the key to women having the same freedoms as men.”

  Gabriel frowned. “How did we come to that topic?”

  “You asked what my focus for the summer would be. Since I’ve yet to make any real progress in your world with regards to the birch, the cat-o’-nine tails or even the slop bucket.” Rebecca’s large brown eyes shone with affection. “I don’t have to ask what your focus is.”

  Gabriel passed Rebecca a cigarette. As usual, she reached for the matches; as usual, he stayed her hand, lighting it for her with a smile. “I don’t suppose you found anything?”

  “No. The case was properly tried and defended. None of the evidence is suspect. No hint the witnesses were tampered with. And your friend admitted to writing the confession, albeit dictated. That written confession will be impossible to overcome unless Dr. Pfiser is publicly disgraced.”

  “Is that likely?”

  Rebecca shook her head. “Dr. Pfiser had a stroke just after the new year. Retired from active practice. So there’s no hope he’ll botch another case and throw Dr. Cooper’s conviction into question.”

  Gabriel clenched a fist. “It eats at me, Rebecca. Joey’s a good man. Finest man I know. For him to rot here, mucking about with wheelbarrows and shrubbery when he has a wife …... a child …”

  “I thought you said the marriage was a sham,” Rebecca said, still in the firm, carrying tone.

  Gabriel cleared his throat, glancing around to make sure no one had heard. “’Tis true. But he was meant to wed her before he was stitched up. Before his life was stolen. Seeing Joey with her and the babe …” Gabriel exhaled a plume of smoke. “There must be something that can be done.”

  Rebecca studied him. “You know, in our correspondence, Dr. Cooper seems quite diffident about last-ditch legal ploys. He seems to have accepted his sentence. In fact, he strikes me as more keen to know what might be done for you.”

  Gabriel closed his eyes, shaking his head and holding back a curse because he was in the presence of a lady. “I’ve told him before. I was meant for the gallows. Sparing my life is the most anyone can expect of the Crown. I’ll be here ’til I’m a doddering old man, eating nothing but mush and sh—soiling my uniform like poor old Hansen,” he said, referring to a man convicted in 1888. Too old for work detail and utterly harmless, Hansen now spent his days propped beside a window, dreaming of an outside world long vanished.

  Rebecca looked sad. Realizing he might have sounded ungrateful, Gabriel added, “Then again, who says I’ll live so long? Both my uncles died of the cancer. A nephew, too.”

  “Cancer? Which sort?”

  “Lung. Hard luck. Then again, all three spent the better part of their lives in London. Terrible air off the Thames.” Gabriel took another deep drag from his cigarette. “Rebecca. I don’t mean to badger you on the subject. But, please – if you come across any reform act that might help Joey, let me know. Not him. Me.”

  ***

  As 1937 stretched into 1938, then 1939, Wentworth changed less than it stayed the same. Governor Sanderson announced that A-block, crumbling at its foundations and overrun with rats and rising damp, would be completely renovated by 1941. As usual, Gabriel would oversee a good part of the labor, though w
ith fewer materials than ever before. Rumors of a second world war, inconceivable as it might be after the horrors of the first, had Governor Sanderson scrambling to requisition building materials before the Home Office froze all requests.

  In 1938 Benjamin Stiles went to the infirmary for an infected cut on his great toe and died, prompting several vicious newspaper articles and a lawsuit from British Women for Prison Reform. The official story was, the big man suffered from an enlarged heart that suddenly gave out. True or untrue, the public was moved by the account of Stiles’ mild nature and mental deficiency. A scapegoat was demanded, and Dr. Royal was dismissed from his position at long last.

  Early in 1939 Hess caught Lonnie fellating his cellmate and reported the incident to the lieutenant governor. The next day, Lonnie, crying and pleading, was tied to a rectangular frame and given fifteen lashes with the cat-o’-nine tails. All the prisoners were assembled to watch. Joey pushed toward the front to provide moral support. Gabriel remained in the very back, arms tight across his chest, eyes on floor.

  After his recovery, Lonnie was transferred to F-block. Arriving whey-faced and scrawny as a stray dog, he perked up only when one of the inmates whispered something in his ear.

  “Is it true? Hess is dead?” Lonnie asked Joey, incredulous.

  Joey nodded. Buckland and McCrory were out of earshot, embroiled as usual in a card game with Gabriel. Still, Joey drew Lonnie all the way into his unlocked cell before explaining, “Hess slipped in the showers.”

  “And died?”

  “Well, the rumor is, he fell on his face. There’s a bone here,” Joey said, touching the bridge of Lonnie’s nose, right at the top. “A sharp, shift blow will send it into the brain. Hess was unlucky, that’s all.”

  It took Lonnie some time to digest that. Then he started to shake all over, half-crying and half-laughing. “Dirty bastard had it coming. Joey – you and Gabe are the best friends a man could have.”

  “Lonnie, I never said – we didn’t—” Joey began, alarmed.

  “I know,” Lonnie said, wiping his nose on his sleeve like a schoolboy. “I’m slow, but I’m no dunce. Hess fell down. Good riddance. And if I can ever pay either of you back, I will.”

  * * *

  It was a snowy morning in November 1939 when Buckland showed Gabriel an op-ed piece called “Must Only The Innocent Be Sacrificed?” Written by a minor politician, the article suggested that since Prime Minister Chamberlain had committed Great Britain’s young men to fight and die on foreign soil, those less valuable to society should be expected to do the same.

  For years we law-abiding citizens have paid to feed, clothe, even entertain the criminal population. Perhaps it’s time the malcontents and misfits currently lounging about at His Majesty’s pleasure in the warmth and safety of institutions like Wentworth be compelled to take up arms? To redeem themselves in the eyes of their fellow man?

  “See? Don’t let me hear you complain,” Buckland laughed. “You’re warm and safe when you could be out fighting the Nazis.”

  Gabriel thought about the article all day. Even while playing poker, his mind drifted back to it. Before he knew it, McCrory had bluffed him out of everything but the cigarettes in his left breast pocket.

  “I should never have given you that lesson at cards,” Gabriel said as they exited the common room. “When you see me smoking Bolsheviks from now on, I hope it gives your conscience a nasty turn.”

  McCrory chuckled. It had taken months for him and Gabriel to rekindle their old friendliness. Lately, McCrory had been smiling a lot, telling lame jokes and overlooking minor infractions. Now he hummed tunelessly to himself as the three men walked down the hall, prompting Buckland to elbow Gabriel.

  “Imagining a Christmas cuppa with the lovely Pat, no doubt. That’s why Bill’s all sweetness and light these days.”

  McCrory chuckled, shaking his head. He looked so pleased at the ribbing, Gabriel felt compelled to keep it up after Buckland veered away.

  “Is that why you took all a poor man’s Pall Malls? Your girl smokes ’em out of a long black holder?”

  “I never said that.” McCrory’s gaze flicked up to meet Gabriel’s.

  “Too much of a lady for the filthy habit?”

  “No. I never said Pat was a girl. Everyone’s assumed it.” McCrory began to redden. “It’s been easy to get away with, easier than I ever dreamed. We bought an old duplex and cut a door in the center wall. Our neighbors think nothing of us.”

  The pleasure in McCrory’s eyes left Gabriel uncharacteristically at a loss for words. About to clap the other man on the back and send him on his way, Gabriel suddenly realized why McCrory had confided him. Out of all the men in Wentworth, Gabriel was the only one McCrory could talk to about Pat. And he was bursting at the seams to tell someone.

  Over the next two weeks Gabriel learned everything there was to know about Patrick Horton, including his favorite foods, his tendency to snore and his rising prominence in the War Office. This last bit interested Gabriel most of all, though he forced himself to wait a day before showing McCrory the op-ed article about convicts joining the war effort.

  Tucking the newspaper under his arm, McCrory promised to ask Pat about it that very evening. Next day, he greeted Gabriel with a shake of the head.

  “Pat says it’s all politics. Never happen. And to be honest, I think it’s a terrible idea.” McCrory looked apologetic. “Most of these blighters aren’t like you, Gabe. They’d be shot for desertion or banged up all over again for insubordination. Sorry. Do you want out so bad that you’d let the PM ship you away as cannon fodder?”

  “Not me. Joey. He’s a fully qualified doctor. Surely the Army could use one?”

  McCrory sighed. “No offense, but Cooper was convicted for killing two of his patients. Not sure even the Army wants a doctor like that. Hell, I think they’d rather have a master carpenter.”

  Much later that night, as Joey lay in his arms, Gabriel floated the notion for the first time. The other man’s swift, contemptuous dismissal astonished him.

  “Bill’s right. Getting shipped off to die is worse than serving my time here. Wentworth is lovely – no bullets, no bombs and no country that wadded me up and tossed me in the rubbish bin expecting me to die for her. Besides,” Joey lifted himself to stare into Gabriel’s face. “We’d be separated forever. Why would I choose that?”

  “I know it’s a gamble. But keep your head down, finish your tour and you can start over. Go home to Julia, give her another baby, live your goddamn life.”

  “And forget you even exist?” Joey’s gray eyes were sharp in the torch’s muted glow. “You have a martyr complex, you know that?”

  “’Course I do. I’m Catholic,” Gabriel laughed. He kissed Joey until the other man smiled. “I know you don’t like to think on the future. But see reason. If you serve your full sentence, by the time you’re out, Julia will be too old to give you more children. You’ll be so out of practice as a physician, it might be impossible to take up again. And you and I will still be separated forever. You won’t even be able to send me love letters without the censors cutting them to ribbons.”

  “Gabe. You’re a persuasive devil. But you’ll never win this one.” Joey settled back into Gabriel’s arms with a yawn. “The only way I’ll leave Wentworth early is if you do, too.”

  * * *

  At first Rebecca was energized by the possibility. One of her solicitor friends had it on good authority that if Winston Churchill became prime minister in the next election, MI6 and at least two other government agencies would be combined to fight the Axis on unconventional terms.

  “This isn’t a scheme to round up cannon fodder for the front lines,” Rebecca said. “MI6 is only interested in people with special skills. An Oxford-educated physician certainly fits the bill. But there’s no reason they shouldn’t consider you, too. This Office of Special Operations, or whatever they finally call it, will need engineers, plumbers and carpenters, too. It isn’t just a brain trust.” />
  “Thanks for that,” Gabriel said dryly. But inside he was light as a feather. That night he and Joey stayed up most of the night, whispering and laughing softly like boys on a sleepover as they planned what they would do after the war.

  “No,” Gabriel said firmly. “I’ll not have you divorce the poor woman on account of me.”

  “I never said divorce. Julia and I can live apart. There’s a fine old English tradition of remaining married on paper whilst buggering off for greener pastures, old chap,” Joey said, putting on the posh tones that always amused Gabriel. “We’ll take a flat in the city, tell everyone we’re brothers. I’ll work on my Irish brogue. I already have Jay-sus down pat.”

  Over the next three weeks the plans grew more detailed. The flat became a duplex, à la McCrory and Pat. Gabriel would construct a passage between the two living spaces. The bedroom on his side would be for show; the bedroom on Joey’s side would be theirs. The idea of making love or even just sleeping whenever he fancied it was particularly tantalizing. As was the notion of using his skills however he wished, not just for construction but for his own pleasure.

  “A master carpenter is an artisan, too,” he told Joey. “I can carve us a bedstead. A highboy. A sideboard for our kitchen.”

  “Kitchen?” Joey looked worried. “One of us will have to learn to cook.”

  They regarded each other, each turning the unfamiliar notion over in his head.