Brazilian Cattle Baron (Siren Publishing Ménage and More ManLove)

by Roland Graeme

  But what immediately caught Sebastien’s attention was the bed, which looked like something out of a Jacobean palace. It was set on a sort of low dais, and the mattress in turn was set on an unusually high platform. There was, in fact, a long, narrow bench, with a tapestry-upholstered seat, placed beside the bed—obviously to facilitate the process of climbing up into it. It was a canopy bed. In addition to the massive, elaborately carved headboard and footboard, four thick pillars, one at each corner, supported the roof, which was a weighty architectural statement in itself.

  Fascinated, Sebastien strode across the vast expanse of carpet to take a closer look at the bed. He now saw that it, too, was provided with two sets of drapes—inner ones of fine mosquito netting, and heavier, opaque outer bed curtains of dark brocaded silk fabric that could be closed to block out the light. Standing beside the dais and looking up, Sebastien saw that the roof of the bed had a deeply three-dimensional coffered ceiling, a quite extraordinary example of woodworking art. In the center of the headboard, a griffin with a crown on his head clutched a shield with his talons and spread his wings far out to either side. On the wall behind the bed was a big polychrome wooden crucifix, three feet tall, with the beautifully carved and naturalistically painted image of Jesus in a somewhat incongruously graceful twisting pose, more balletic than agonized.

  The king-sized mattress was covered by a dark red velvet bedspread, with a flowers-and-leaves design worked into it in faded gold thread.

  “My uncle…actually slept in this thing?” Sebastien asked.

  “Of course.”

  “It looks like it belongs in a museum.”

  “It is an antique. It dates from the colonial days, when the Portuguese ruled here.”

  Sebastien studied the crucifix. “Was my uncle a practicing Catholic?”

  “He did not often attend Mass.” Again, Sebastien caught the subtext. He did not think it was necessary. “He received the last rites. He was not—” Estevao seemed to be searching for the right word. “He was not, perhaps, as demonstrative in his beliefs as some men are. Do you understand what I mean? My English is not very good.”

  “On the contrary, it’s excellent. You’re going to have to help me brush up on my Portuguese.”

  Sebastien now saw that his luggage had been placed on the floor, in front of one of those gigantic armoires.

  “This is going to be my room?” he asked.

  “All of the rooms in the house are now your rooms, and are at your disposal,” Estevao replied, with an unassailable logic. “This is the master bedroom. You are the master, now. It is the largest and the most comfortable bedroom in the house. It is next door to the study, as you have seen. Those doors”—He pointed to the far wall, opposite the bed—“lead to the bathroom, and to the dressing room. Everything here is just as the senhor left it, except that I have taken the liberty of taking away some of his clothes and toiletries, to make room for your own. Of course, if you would prefer to see the other bedrooms in this wing, which have not been used in some time?” Estevao shrugged, most eloquently. Once again the unspoken subtext was that for Sebastien to choose to sleep in any bedroom other than this one would somehow be an almost shocking faux pas.

  “I’m sure I’ll be very comfortable here,” Sebastien said quickly, although he was in fact half-convinced that he’d be stifled the first time he tried to sleep in that monstrosity of a bed, under its massive, self-contained ceiling, surrounded by those heavy curtains. Well, he wouldn’t have to draw the opaque silk curtains, surely—just the inner ones, the mosquito netting. It might work. Assuming he didn’t roll over in the middle of the night, fall over the edge of that high mattress, and injure himself by making a hard landing on the dais!

  He deposited the bunch of keys and the bouquet of flowers on a nearby table.

  “Would you like to see more of the house now, senhor, or would you prefer to rest first?”

  “I have to admit I am very tired from my trip. To say nothing of incredibly hot, sweaty, and dirty.”

  “Then you should have a bath, and a rest. There is time for both, before lunch.”

  “Lunch?” Sebastien replied, automatically. He hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  “Ignacia, the cook, is preparing it. The kitchen has been busy all morning, in anticipation of your arrival. I believe Ignacia hopes to impress you.”

  “It won’t take much to satisfy me today. I am beginning to feel a little hungry.”

  “I will run your bath, and then I will see exactly how long it will be before lunch will be ready.”

  “That sounds like a plan—as we say in the United States. Thank you, Estevao.”

  Sebastien began to unbutton his shirt. Estevao walked toward the bathroom door, but when he reached it, he turned around and paused. Sebastien realized that Estevao was lingering in the bathroom doorway, and had in fact watched him slip off his shirt.

  “Ah…was there something else, Estevao?” Sebastien asked.

  “I only wished to know how you would like your bath. Hot, cold, lukewarm…?”

  “Oh, anywhere between room temperature and a little on the warm side, Estevao. I can’t imagine taking a hot bath in this heat.”

  As he spoke, Sebastien reached down and pulled the tab of his zipper to the bottom of his fly. Estevao, with no further reason to loiter, turned around, pushed open the door, and disappeared into the bathroom. A moment later, Sebastien heard a faucet running. Sebastien shed his loose-fitting, light-colored trousers, which were stained in places from his journey. It was a relief to be freed of the garment.

  When he was naked, with his discarded clothes strewn across the floor at his feet, Sebastien hesitated for a moment, then went over to one of the windows, pushed aside the gauzy curtain, and looked out. It was unlikely that one of the fazenda’s female employees would be passing by the terrace at the moment and might get a glimpse of him in the nude. Sebastien was willing to risk it. As for whether any of the male workers, who were in the majority, might see him standing there bare-assed—well, that was another matter. They seemed to be down-to-earth types, and Sebastien had a feeling that few of them were likely to be embarrassed by the sight of another man’s dick and ass.

  He jumped when he suddenly heard Estevao’s voice, close behind him.

  “The bath is ready, senhor.”

  Jesus! The guy moves as quietly as a cat, Sebastien thought.

  Estevao was indeed standing right behind him. He was holding up a bathrobe, but it was unlike any man’s bathrobe Sebastien had ever seen. It was made from a soft cotton fabric, a dusty yellowish-orange in color, that was so sheer it looked almost transparent.

  “That’s a very nice robe, Estevao,” Sebastien blurted out.

  Estevao was careful to keep his eyes on Sebastien’s face, not on his bare butt.

  “It’s suitable for the hot afternoons and evenings, senhor. There are heavier ones, for cooler weather, in the dressing room closets.”

  “Still, I’m not sure I need to put it on, just to go from here into the bathroom. Why don’t you leave it here, and I’ll put in on later.”

  “As you wish.” Estevao carefully laid the robe over the foot of the bed. “Unless there is anything else you need…I will see about lunch now.”

  “Very good, Estevao.”

  Alone at last, Sebastien went to investigate the bathroom. It was large, with a tiled floor and the same kind of tall windows as the other rooms. Outside, on the terrace, a little waist-high brick wall, topped by red and orange geraniums in pots, served as a screen and protected the modesty of anyone occupying the bathroom. There was a glass-doored shower stall as well as a free-standing tub—the latter an old-fashioned footed affair, with oversized taps, and at the moment it was filled with water, tinged bluish-gray by some sort of bath salts, which sent up a fragrance of light musk. Noting, with satisfaction, the nearby stack of large fluffy towels, Sebastien eased himself down into the tub, allowing the tepid scented water to envelop him up to his chin.


  As he relaxed and soaked, he compiled a quick inventory of his experiences and impressions. The house seemed quite luxurious. It was obviously isolated. Sebastien wondered just how far away the nearest neighboring spread was located. The staff seemed not only highly competent and self-reliant, but friendly and eager to please. Of course, he had detected some initial wariness, a combination of curiosity and suspicion, in the employees’ initial reaction to him. That was only to be expected. Sebastien was the intruder on their turf, so to speak, and they were understandably anxious about what changes in their way of life his arrival might bring about. But so far, there had been none of the thinly veiled hostility and resentment that might also have been expected. If anyone felt that Sebastien was an unworthy successor to his uncle, they were too polite to show it. And this Estevao Prazeres, who was obviously the take-charge type, was a bit of a character. Sebastien hadn’t quite decided, yet, whether he liked the other young man and was grateful for his efficiency—or whether he was intimated by him!

  There was a light knock on the bathroom’s door, which Sebastien had left ajar.

  “Is that you, Estevao?”

  “Yes.” The valet stepped into the doorway and smiled down at Sebastien. “Lunch will be ready in an hour, or a little longer. That will give you time for a nap.” Sebastien noticed that, predictably, Estevao didn’t ask whether he wanted to take a nap. “You will be refreshed. Perhaps you would like to drink this? It should be relaxing.”

  Estevao was carrying a glass filled with some tawny-colored liquid, on a little silver tray. Sebastien was so surprised that the other man actually had said, perhaps you would like to drink this?, as opposed to an imperious, drink this!, that he automatically reached for the glass when Estevao stepped forward and held out the tray.

  “What is it?” he asked after he had tasted the thick, sweet liquid and realized that it was alcoholic in nature—and high proof, judging by the way it tingled on his tongue.

  “It is port.”

  “It’s very good.”

  “Senhor Gilberto maintained an extensive wine cellar. It is well stocked with wines and liquors, not only from here in South America, but from all over the world.”

  Estevao glanced down at Sebastien’s bare shoulders and chest, which were above the water line as Sebastien sat up in the tub to drink.

  “Do you need anything else at the moment, senhor?”

  “No, everything’s perfect.”

  “When you are ready to have your back scrubbed—you need only to stand up, and I will do it, with that sponge.”

  Sebastien was taken aback. “Ah…is that part of a valet’s duties?”

  “A valet’s duty is to do whatever is required of him to make his master’s life more convenient and pleasurable. I will dry you off after your bath, too, and help you to dress.”

  “I have to admit that I’m accustomed to dressing—and undressing—myself, Estevao.”

  “But now you have me to assist you. You need not exert yourself, when it is a matter of such mundane things. You will quickly become accustomed to it.”

  “Did you perform these services for my uncle, Estevao?”

  “Of course. I also shaved him, and gave him his haircuts. I am an excellent barber.” Again, there was that distinctive lack of false modesty, but also of any hint of arrogance, in the way Estevao made the claim. “The senhor sent me to a professional barber in Belém, to learn.”

  “Really.”

  “And during the senhor’s final illness, when he had nurses here to attend to him, the nurses showed me what to do.”

  Sebastien felt a slight sense of unease at the turn the conversation had taken. “My uncle died here at the fazenda, didn’t he?”

  “Yes. When he knew that the doctors in the hospital, in the city, could no nothing more for him—he came back here. And he carried on as though nothing had changed, for as long as he could.”

  “Did he…did he die out there, in his bedroom? In that bed?”

  “No, senhor. You need have no concerns on that score. About sleeping in that bed, I mean. During those last few weeks, when the senhor began to weaken, we had a hospital bed brought in, to make it easier for the nursing. We called in nurses to stay here, three of them, two men and a woman, so that they could attend to him in shifts, day and night. And we rented a wheelchair, as well, so that the senhor could still be taken around the fazenda, when he was strong enough. In the end, he asked me to open the bedroom windows, and push him out onto the terrace, so that he could look out over the fields for the last time. It was a beautiful cool morning, and the sun was just rising. It was very peaceful. Afterward, as you see, we removed everything from the bedroom that had turned it into a sickroom. It is just as it was before.”

  Estevao fell silent, as though lost in his memories, and Sebastien, unable to think of anything to say, drank the rest of his port. The valet silently took the empty glass from him.

  “How long have you worked here, Estevao?” Sebastien finally asked.

  “All my life. I was born here. Even when I was a little boy, I would follow the cowboys around and do whatever I could, to try to help out. I wanted to be just like them. Then the senhor began to let me do little chores for him, here inside the house. When I got bigger, he would often ask me to accompany him, when he went on his rounds—to inspect the fields and the herds, and to see what was going on. And then, one day, he told me, ‘Ah, Estevao, you are a clever young man. You will be my personal assistant from now on, although we will call you my valet. You must have your own room, here in the house, and take your orders directly from me, not from the foreman. You must study hard, and improve yourself.’ And that is what I have done—with the senhor’s help. I owe him a great deal.”

  “You must miss my uncle terribly.”

  “I cried and cried, on that morning when he died, and even the priest, who was here with us, could not comfort me. It was a great loss. For all of us here, it was though the sun had gone out, and left us in darkness. But now perhaps it is time for the senhor’s nap?”

  Sebastien was so preoccupied by thoughts of his uncle that he now thought nothing of standing up in the tub and allowing Estevao to set to work on his nude body with a bar of soap and a sea sponge. As briskly and efficiently as though he were grooming a horse in its stall, the valet scrubbed not only Sebastien’s back, but his buttocks, crotch, chest, and armpits, as well. Then, after using the wetted sponge again to rinse Sebastien off, Estevao attacked him with one of the towels, rubbing him dry.

  Sebastien soon found himself lying between cool, crisply starched sheets in the center of the huge bed, staring up at the coffered ceiling of the bed frame. His discarded clothes, which he had thrown on the floor, had disappeared—no doubt the appallingly efficient Estevao had taken charge of them, while Sebastien was in the tub.

  “I will call you when lunch is almost ready,” Estevao promised. “And then we will decide what the senhor will wear, this afternoon.”

  As he began to drift off into a lazy semi-consciousness, Sebastien began to wonder whether having a valet might not be advantageous, after all.

  Chapter Nine:

  Life on Marajó

  It seemed as though Sebastien had been asleep for only a few minutes when he felt a warm hand on his bare shoulder, gently rousing him. It was Estevao, of course, who had pushed aside the bed curtains and was leaning over the broad expanse of the mattress, to wake Sebastien up.

  “Estevao,” Sebastien said, groggily. “How long have I been asleep?”

  “Only an hour, senhor. Your lunch is ready to be served. I let you rest for as long as possible. I have taken the liberty of unpacking for you, and laying out a change of clothes.”

  So Estevao had been busying himself, right there in the bedroom and, no doubt, also in the adjacent dressing room, the whole time Sebastien had been napping. Sebastien suspected that his strapping valet was a take-charge type to the point of excess, and was in the habit of taking all sorts of liberties. Still, it was
oddly pleasant, in a way, to be bossed around by such an efficient servant, and not to have to make minor decisions for himself.

  Gingerly, Sebastien made his nude descent from the bed to the safety of the floor. Estevao had laid out for him, on the upholstered bench set parallel to the side of the bed, underwear, socks, and one each of the new shirts and trousers that Sebastien had purchased in Belém.

  “Do you think these clothes are suitable—to wear not just indoors, I mean, but outside as well, here on the fazenda?” Sebastien asked as he put them on. He allowed Estevao to hand him his shirt, but he made a point of turning slightly away and buttoning it himself, before Estevao could volunteer to button it for him.

  “Oh yes, senhor Sebastien. They are suited to the climate, and I can see they are of very good quality,” Estevao replied.

  The valet sounded sincere. With Paolo’s help, Sebastien may have scored a point with him.

  Sebastien sat down on a slipper chair near the bed and looked around for shoes. Estevao had a pair of Sebastien’s casual leather slip-ons near at hand, and he matter-of-factly knelt down in front of his master and put the shoes on Sebastien’s feet—with the help of a long-handled shoehorn, which Estevao suddenly produced, seemingly out of nowhere, like a magician performing a sleight of hand trick. Looking down, Sebastien realized that the shoes had been newly polished and buffed. Glancing back up, he caught sight of the bouquet he’d been given. The flowers had been arranged in a vase, no doubt filled with water, on the table where Sebastien had left them. Estevao had obviously not been idle for so much as a second, while Sebastien had slept.

  “Thank you, Estevao. Ah…my comb and hairbrush…?”

  “In the dressing room, senhor.”

  Sebastien went into the dressing room, which turned out to be a large space, larger than most bedrooms. The sliding doors of closets lined the walls. There were tall chests of drawers, and a huge free-standing, three-paneled mirror—the sort of thing one would find in a men’s clothing store or a professional tailor’s shop. The dressing table was, for all practical purposes, a desk, large and masculine-looking, in the same ornately carved dark wood characteristic of so much of the house’s furniture. Some of Sebastien’s personal grooming things, including his comb and hairbrush, had indeed been set out on top of it. Among the other objects on the table was a very old-fashioned swivel shaving mirror, with an ornate pedestal. Nearby was a watch display case, with a transparent glass lid, containing wristwatches—seven of them, with empty spaces that could hold three more. There was also a box in burled wood, with a hinged lid and a lock with the key inserted in it.