Free The Low Road by James Lear Page B

buttons and my still-stiff cock bounced free, more eager than it had been for months. Very few strokes brought me off. I came, to my satisfaction, as copiously as my tutor.
    Disgust set in soon afterwards. This was the man, I reminded myself, who was plotting to marry my mother and disinherit me.
This was a priest who soiled himself, who was unfit to live under the same roof as a Gordon. Yes, such were the foolish thoughts of a gloomy youth who was already half in love with a man he professed to despise.
    I consoled myself with the thought that this new information gave me power over Lebecque, that I could use it to oust him from my mother’s affections and rid us of him once and for all. To that end I turned up at breakfast the next morning and cheerfully announced that I required tuition today. ‘I have reached a particularly sticky passage in Plato,’ I said to Lebecque, looking into his brown eyes that had so recently been closed in ecstasy. ‘I need a helping hand, Monsieur Lebecque. Perhaps we could work on it together?’
    â€˜Of course, Charles. The Republic, or...’
    â€˜The Symposium. I need you to show me what it means.’
    My mother, unversed in the classics, was delighted. ‘Oh yes, Charlie, that’s excellent! You are coming along so well.’
    â€˜I feel I could come a lot quicker with a hand from Monsieur.’
    â€˜Of course,’ he said, folding his napkin. ‘Shall we...?’
    I held the door open for him in what I thought was a crushingly sarcastic display of politeness, and followed him up the stairs to the library, where we used to take our lessons. On the way I taunted him with questions.
    â€˜Have I misconstrued the genders in Plato, Father? I mean, it seems to me that Socrates is advocating something that simply doesn’t make sense.’
    â€˜No, Charles, I doubt that.’
    â€˜You see, Father’ - oh, what irony I packed into the word, how pleased I was with myself — ‘a child like me cannot be expected to understand something as illogical as love between men. Is that what it means? You must explain it to me.’
    We had reached the library. This time he held the door open and ushered me inside, then closed the door firmly behind us.

    â€˜Your reading of the Greeks is, as you know, exactly correct, Charles. There can be little doubt in your mind. You have experience, I believe, of the love that can exist between... comrades.’
    This took the wind out of my sails.
    â€˜I told you once before, Charles, that actions are rarely dangerous. What we do, certainly in the field of human relations, is nothing compared to what we think. Or the most dangerous thing of all — what others think of us. Especially when they are ill-informed and prejudiced.’
    â€˜I see.’ He had fallen into my trap. ‘So the vows that you made as a priest are more serious than the things that you might choose to do while bound by those vows.’
    â€˜Perhaps.’ For the first time, Lebecque seemed uncertain of his ground.
    â€˜Priests of the Roman church are celibate, are they not?’ I was the great orator, the prosecutor. I was Cicero, Alcibiades.
    â€˜They are.’
    â€˜And should not pursue wives.’
    â€˜Indeed.’
    â€˜And should renounce impurity, I imagine.’
    There was silence between us.
    â€˜What are you getting at, Charles?’
    â€˜Are you intending to marry my mother?’
    â€˜Your mother? Oh for God’s sake -’
    â€˜What about profanity? Where does the church of Rome stand on that?’
    â€˜Have a care, young man.’
    â€˜And what about pollution of the body?’
    Again, he was speechless. I pressed home my advantage.
    â€˜Last night I watched you. I was outside your window and I watched you.’
    â€˜You watched me.’
    â€˜I did.’

    â€˜I see.’
    Now he would hang his head, admit he was a fraud, pack his bags and leave Gordon Hall