Peter Cratchit's Christmas Carol

by Drew Marvin Frayne

  I remember that moment more fondly, perhaps, than any other in the whole of my existence. And yet, how odd, how strange and wonderful, to witness it from afar! The spirit and I watched as the brawny Scotsman wrapped his arms around my waist and gently brought his lips to mine. We were all smiles and laughter and happiness as Augie kissed me, and I kissed him. I watched as I grabbed his sailor’s cap off his head and ran down the stony beach with it, merry as a springtime jay. Augie, laughing, was chasing me, and I made sure I was caught, and he wrapped his arms around my waist and kissed me heartily once more.

  Standing there, watching the scene unfold before me, I could almost feel the whipping wind in my hair, almost feel the springtime sun on my face, almost feel the—

  Springtime? “But these are not scenes of Christmases past!” I suddenly realized, turning to the spirit for an explanation.

  “Do you object to reviewing them?” the spirit asked.

  “I—no, of course not, I just thought—”

  “What?” It stared at me with those childlike eyes, and I realized, perhaps for the first time, that it was no child at all, but an ancient being, terrible and innocent and powerful and weak all at once. I said nothing, but nodded my head, and smiled my thanks.

  The scene began to alter once more, and it was night, a sandy beach. I knew this beach. I knew it in my heart better than any place in the world. I could close my eyes and still smell the salty air and the scent of sweet dates and feel the rough spray of the Strait of Gibraltar on my skin, no matter where or when I was in the world. This was Tangier, across the strait from Spain, in the sultanate of Morocco.

  This is where Augie and I first made love.

  There we were, naked as the night, as naked as the winter-earth, as one of Fred’s favorite poems describes such states of being. Standing at a distance, I was able to appreciate Augie in all his resplendent bareness. His hair was the color of carrots, a color only a true Scotsman can possess, or so he often told me. His shoulders were covered with freckles, and I watched as my younger self kissed each and every one, fervently, with the devotion of a true and ardent lover. There was a roundness to Augie’s naked form that I had never quite appreciated before. He was strong, immensely strong, and his muscles were the muscles of workmen, bulbous and dense. Even his stomach had the same propensity for roundness, though there seemed not an ounce of fat on the man. My younger self was a stark contrast to him, lean, lithe, and smooth. From a distance I could see dark thatches at my crotch, and underneath my arms, with the most unruly of all being on top of my head. The rest of me was as pale as an autumn moon, though exposure to the Mediterranean sun had added some color to the more exposed parts of my skin. Augie’s chest, torso, legs, and haunches were covered with a thick pelt of the same red-colored hair that adorned his crown. Clearly, I adored every inch of the man; my hands never ceased their ravishment of his form as I slowly sank to my knees in the cold, wet African sand. Augie stroked my cheek lovingly as I opened my mouth to grant him admittance. The older me smiled to watch it all, remembering how eager I was to please, and remembering how my jaw would ache the next morning as I struggled to accommodate the immense proportions of Augie’s maleness. And Augie stroked my chin and cooed affectionate words of encouragement to me as I gazed lovingly back into his eyes.

  As I watched this tender scene unfold from afar, I felt a sob rise in my throat; I choked it down as best I could. “This does not disgust you, spirit?” I said, turning to the being beside me, needing some momentary diversion from the joy on display. “You do not find such carnal activities betwixt two men perverse?”

  The spirit cocked its wizened head at me. Yes, the being truly was as Scrooge had described—like a child, yet not so like a child as like an old man. There was no wrinkle in its face, and the freshest bloom of cherry in its cheeks; and yet the being’s hair, which I had thought the familiar pale blond of Charlie Baskits, was truly white, the blinding white of noontime sunlight. And the face itself…no one could mistake such an aspect for the look of youth. It bore wisdom, and experience, and the grace of old age, if not the look of it. “What is perverse about love?” the spirit asked, the tenor of its voice innocent and sincere and wise. “And did you not love this man?”

  “Yes, I did,” I replied, my voice barely a whisper. I longed to turn my head again, to gaze at the two figures on the sand, but I refrained from doing so. “But that is not how the world thinks of such love, or such acts.” Now I could not hide the bitterness in my voice. “They spit upon such things, decry them as obscene, and evil.”

  “Do you?” the spirit asked me.

  “I am uncertain of your meaning, spirit.”

  “Do you spit upon such acts? Do you decry them as obscene and evil?”

  I shook my head. “No. No, of course not.”

  “Then, truly, it cannot be said that the world feels that way, for you are part of the world, Peter Cratchit. It can only be said that certain men think this to be so. And in my experience, certain men are almost always wrong in how they think, and in how they feel.”

  I took comfort in the spirit’s words, and even more comfort in the fact that it had brought me to this moment. Leaving it in the distance, I finally walked toward the two lovers on the sand. I watched as Augie settled me on my knees and hands, striding behind me on one knee, ready to penetrate my very soul. Flowery language, I know. Truly, though, it was how I felt then and, to be honest, how I feel now. I had made love before, yes, and had fornicated somewhat more often than I cared to consider. But I had never experienced such congress as I was about to do so with Augie, never experienced such a profound joining of body and soul, and I fervently wished for nothing more in this wide world than to be one with him.

  There would be many nights like this with him, and in all different manner and style of lovemaking. But here, on the soft, yielding Moroccan sand, it made most sense for Augie to enter me from behind. I was pained not to see his face as I yielded to him. I heard his expressions of love in my ear, but I could not read them for myself in his eyes. And yet as he entered me, I felt the most holy aspect of our union come into being. The immensity of the man may have threatened to rend me in twain, but he was gentle and tender, and I as accommodating as young love can be. He entered slowly, hesitantly, for fear of hurting me. But we both burned for this moment, wanted it more than anything our hearts had ever desired. I felt as if I were to be reborn this night, on this sand. I watched as tears sprang from the eyes of my younger self and smiled as I remembered hiding them from Augie, lest he think they be the result of pain, and not of love.

  He was in me now, completely. And for the first time in my life, I finally felt complete. One of his mighty hands wrapped around my chest, slowly drawing my back toward his burly stomach. Another fell to my crotch, wrapping his thick fingers around the base of my erect cock. I arched my back against him, my slim shoulders nestled into his brawny, hairy chest. I reached one arm high, craned it around his neck. I felt his hot breath against the skin of my neck, a warming sensation compared to the cool night sand on my lower limbs. Augie braced himself, thrust out slowly, and then in again; I gasped, clutched at his hair, and kissed whatever parts of him I could reach with my lips. He thrust again, out and in, in and out, quickly building to a steady pace. This was love, love as I never thought to experience it in this world, and I knew in my lifetime I would never feel its like again. Augie’s hand worked its ministrations on my erect young flesh, and soon we were an orchestrated movement of maleness and ecstasy. Again and again he penetrated me. Again and again I yielded as much of the landscape of my body to him as I could offer. “My little prince,” he whispered in my ear, his nickname for me. “My love,” I uttered in reply. My epithet for him was perhaps not as expressive, but it accurately summed up the way I felt.

  Augie quickened the pace of both his hips and his hands; we were moments from culmination. I surrendered myself wholly to his authority and his sway.

  He spilled in me, and at almost the
same moment, I spilled all over the wet Moroccan sand. His hands released me, and I collapsed into the surf, panting and elated. Augie eyed me with a devilish grin. “Not bad, huh, right, lad?” he said, and we both laughed. And then he scooped me up and carried me higher on the beach, to the warmer sands farther away from the lapping water’s edge.

  I had no desire to leave this place—then, or now. Augie lay on the sands, and I lay next to him, my head pillowed in the crook of his arm, my hand dandling the hair on his chest. The older me crept ever closer. I knew what words we spoke that night; I’ve had them embossed upon my soul ever since. I have often heard it said that, when life’s journey reaches its end, the entirety of one’s being flashes before one’s eyes; and yet, I believe that, for me, my journey’s end will take me here, to this moment, to Augie, and to the cold sand of Tangiers. Even moments after our first act of love concluded, I longed to return to it, to fix myself forever in that moment, as best as I could.

  So if I could not do so in their time, then perhaps I could do so now.

  If I have reached my end, then let it begin here.

  We were devouring an orange I had secreted from the ship, the sharp, sour kind we had picked up in Spain. We were kissing and playfully bantering with one another. Yes, the spirit was right. Who in this world could ever object to a love as pure as this one?

  “Aye,” Augie said, “ye see that wee island, out yonder?” He was pointing at a minute piece of land some small distance from the shore.

  I smiled and took another bite of the sour fruit. “What of it, my love?”

  “Someday,” he said, speaking with great seriousness, “ye and I will live on that island. Just the two of us. And everyday will be like this.”

  I laughed. I could not help it! My big, brawny Scotsman had ever the soul of a poet. “And what would we do for food, my love? Even you might not be able to keep me fed after so many weeks,” I added saucily, grabbing his flaccid cock in my hands. We had already made love twice that night, but back then, with him, I was ever ready for more. I began to kiss my way across his chest, first sweetly, but then with more intent and earnestness.

  “I am serious, my little prince,” he said as I made my way down his round, hairy belly. “We can fish for our food. I grew up on an island in the Northern Hebrides. I’m a clansman, born and bred! I think a bitty speck in the Mediterranean should be easy living by comparison.”

  By now, I had made my way to his quickly engorging cock. “Shall we just stay here, then?” I asked, twirling my tongue against the swollen head of his maleness. I popped it momentarily into my warm mouth and was rewarded with a soft moan from Augie’s lips. “Perhaps we can tell our shipmates we have been devoured by lions?”

  “My little prince—my little prince!” Augie said, a bit more forceful this time, trying to raise my attention away from his swiftly stiffening cock. But I was not to be deterred, and he gave up trying to persuade me otherwise, and instead buried his fingers in my hair in order to control the rhythm of our love, to make it more to his liking. “I am serious. Someday—ooh, that is good, my little prince, ye got a right mouth on ye—I should like to be with ye, alone, where no one could ever harm us.”

  I slipped his cock out of my mouth, but only to provide a quick reply. “And who would want to harm us, my love?” I asked. “We who harm no one should seek no harm in this world.” And so saying I plunged my face back into his hairy crotch, lolling first one of his bollocks, and then the other, between my boyish lips.

  “Oh, that is good,” he hissed again, fully giving in to the pleasure I so desperately wished to provide him. I shifted from his ponderous, hairy bollocks and back to his cock. It was oozing a pearlescent liquid, and I used Augie’s own lubrications and my wet, hot mouth to enhance his pleasure. My head bobbed up and down, rapidly, swiftly, awaiting the sweetest of prizes. “It cannot always be this way between men like us,” Augie whispered as his breath came in shorter, happier gasps. “My little prince, ye do not know much of this world—Oh! Oh! Oh!”

  Augie’s cock burst white ejaculate deep into my throat. I took every drop before releasing him, but my ebullient mood had been spoiled by his words. “I know something of this world, Augie,” I replied, sullen and hurt. “I am not some mere boy.”

  “But ye are, my little prince,” he said, gently placing his arms around me. “And I wish it would be so forever.”

  I had heard this before—from Roger, from other men. All who thought they knew better than me. And none who were here now, none who had earned their commission as I had, at so young an age as I had, none who would make their mark on this world as I would. Even the way my own family had reacted to my great news… I turned my back to Augie and sat, hunch-shouldered on the sand, with my knees drawn to my chin. “I know something of how the world works, Augie,” I replied crossly. “I’m the one who earned this commission. I’m the one bargaining and dealing in each port. I’m the merchant on this ship. Why does everyone keep acting as if this were not so? The captain, the crew—even you!”

  “The crew likes ye a lot, Peter,” he said gently, using my name to demonstrate the sincerity of his words. “They just know ye’re a bit green, that’s all. As for the captain—I’d keep a sharp eye on him. That’s all I’ll say about that.”

  “And you, Augie?” I said, turning back to face him.

  “I love ye more than any man has ever loved another, lad,” he said. He kissed my forehead, my nose, and then my lips. “My little prince.” He put his forehead to mine.

  “I do not wish to have cross words with you, my love,” I said. “I never wish to be cross with you ever in this world.”

  “Then we shan’t,” he said. “Let us stay here and speak only words of love.”

  I smiled ruefully. “We cannot stay here,” I replied. “Though we may wish it so. But yes, let us only speak to each other in love. And wherever I go in this world, Augie, you will go with me. Let us never be parted.” I kissed him, and he kissed me, and we wrapped our arms around the other once more.

  There were more scenes like this, though whether the images were conjured from the sand or from my own mind, I could not say. Augie and me on a distant African shore; stolen nights secreted in my cabin on the ship; Augie and me standing on the deck of the Belisama, staring out at the vast watery desert of the ocean, simply talking. “Tell me some story, Peter,” he’d say to me, whether we were gazing at the sea or simply lying in bed, and I’d tell him a tale from my reading, or something my father had once told me, or just make something up on the spot. Many in the crew took pleasure in my ability to weave a good tale; sea voyages can become quite dull, and any entertainment, any means to pass the time, was always appreciated. So I told them tales from classical history and mythology, and embellished the fairy tales I remembered from my youth, or made up stories of life in Camden Town. But my favorites were always the stories I shared with Augie alone, stories of love and adventure and two men making their way in this world. And if he could, Augie would hold me while he listened; and if he could not, I would still feel our special link, whether we were separated by inches or staring at one another from across a room. These were our special moments, and as far as I was concerned, every story I told was for him.

  The older me sighed, and stood, and watched as the two figures on the sand faded in and out of the picture frame. But the tender swell in my heart was swiftly being replaced with feelings of trepidation and terror. I knew what part of my past was coming next. It was as inevitable as the tide. I had been dreading it ever since the spirit first announced its presence. “Please, spirit,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “Please, if you have mercy, or pity, do not show me what I know you feel you must…” But the images before me dissolved again, and I found myself transported yet once more.

  We were in Tangiers again. The location had not changed, only the time. It was daytime. And it was Christmas Eve, exactly one year after I first left London.

  The trip had proved a smashing success.
I had bartered wisely, and well, and the cargo was bursting with amber from Arabia, spices from India, precious ebonwood, indigo and rich silks from farther East, and all manner of valuable goods. I had made valuable connections and contacts in India and all along the route, all in preparation for my next journey. I had proven a greater success than old Whitby or any in my family might have ever imagined. The journey had been long, and difficult, and not without hardships along the way, but now the shores of Europe were firmly in sight. Whitby would earn a fair pile from the journey, and I would reap my own lavish reward—enough to secure my family for a good while, and enough to earn me further, even richer commissions. Soon, soon, I would triumphantly return home, like Caesar marching into Rome after defeating the Gauls.

  If only Augie would let me.

  I watched as the two forms reappeared on the beach. There was no tender lovemaking this time. Augie was imploring my younger self and pointing to a small rowboat. And I was pulling away from him.

  “Augie, you must be mad!” I was saying to him, half laughing, half incredulous. “The ship is to depart soon. We don’t have time for side jaunts!”

  I peered closely at the face I once possessed. The jaw line was sharper than when I had last stood on these shores; the cheekbones drew higher. The bright light in my eyes had dimmed, just a bit. The form of my face had grown harder. Harder. I supposed I had similar features now, in my current manifestation, only sickly, and pale, and past all hope.

  “Go with him,” I whispered to my former self. But these were echoes of what once had been, and the past, once set, could not be forestalled.

  “Please, lad, my little prince, please.” Augie had fallen out of the custom of calling me his “little prince” these last few months. Perhaps I had changed. Perhaps I was no longer his “little” prince. Yet my feelings for him had not. Those never wavered, not in the least.