Willie's War Ch. 08

"Why?" Tom murmured suddenly, "Why are you here?"

Willie lost his poise at that moment knowing they were entering into a subject fraught with peril. He knew that whatever reason he gave for being in England would sound weak and fantastic to someone who had known him so well in the past.

The man's voice hissed softly in the poor light. "There's no need to draw pictures for me. You are obviously an agent engaged in some kind of clandestine work here."

"I can't tell you anything other than I'm not here to kill people." Willie replied nervously.

"Of course, I understand that. It's safer that way. But it explains why you're staying with Mortimer Brascombe. He's upper-middle-class, dull, respectable and rich, with excellent connections in the government, and among diplomats. He's not the sort of person you would have associated with in the past. We were both rebels in those days."

Tom grinned broadly and his teeth glimmered in the candlelight. "You don't have to say anything. I understand now. Willie Froehlich is a Secret Agent." The idea seemed to amuse him and he announced it a little too loudly for Willie's comfort. "You know how dangerous it is, what you do? I mean really, it is dangerous, and no clemency is given. They'll hang you if you're found out. But you'll be a Nazi no doubt. They have great daring, and being homosexual isn't a hindrance if you belong to the Party."

Willie sagged as if he'd been stabbed to the heart. "So what happens now? What are you going to do?" he challenged softly.

"You don't have to fear me. I'm not about to turn you in."

"Really? But you are an officer and it should be your duty."

"Maybe so, but actually I'm quite in awe of what you do. It must be a good life. Tense. Living on the edge all the time. I hate my job. I'm more in tune with what you are doing, and you know how much I've always admired Hitler."

"You used to admire him, but war changes people."

A smile didn't quite make it to Tom's eyes. "It doesn't change everyone," came the ominous reply.

The noise of aircraft passing overhead had receded and the siren in the nearby camp sounded an 'all clear'. Switching the main light back on the normally garrulous Tom was suddenly struck by the looks of the boy he had once known. Quite simply he was moved by how pretty he was. With his big eyes and his hair, plaited for the evening and knotted carefully into his neck, he looked like some sort of vision sent to England for the evening, destined to vanish once a clock struck midnight.

He could not remember when he had seen anyone with such colouring; his face seemed to have taken on an extra glow and the elegance with which he moved, the manner of his smile, his sweetly modulated voice, made Willie Froehlich entirely different to the person he had known before. That young Willie was friendly was no surprise to him, because he was accustomed to beautiful boys liking him, even when he gave them no special affection in return.

Willie was watching Tom Soames. When he paced the length of the room and he beheld his tall elegant figure silhouetted against the window, he seemed so strong, warm and commanding, and he evoked in others a natural desire to please him. Sexual magnetism oozed from the man, and he had a maddening aura about him that bombarded everyone with his magnificence. But Willie knew how many masks he could put on. His good looks had always been accompanied with the cruel, languid movements of a cat, expressive with soft hands and a slightly full roman face.

"Why don't you come over here?" Tom said softly, offering one of those lopsided smiles that made Willie's heart catch in his throat. His heart did a backward somersault. But still he hesitated.

Tom fixed him with his gaze, just as he had when they were students together. "Now." he added firmly, white teeth gritted. "Come closer. You are somewhat different to the way I remember you, but the change adds to your sweetness rather than detracts from it. You are exceptionally beautiful."

With some reservation Willie stepped towards him, not seeking to meet his eyes, looking at his shirt, the hollows of his neck, anywhere other than those hypnotic charcoal eyes he could feel burning his skin.

"I know I'm moving fast," Tom murmured as he bent his head to lightly kiss his forehead, "But I'm a man in a hurry."

A surge of heat rushed through Willie's body to flame in his cheeks. With a tiny gasp of embarrassment he focused his gaze on Tom's face only to meet the imperturbable calm the man always generated so cleverly. Swallowing hard, he lifted his chin in a bid for composure. How could he be reacting to him so intensely at a time like this?

Tom's hand was pushing through his hair, securing his head at just the right angle for his mouth to home in, to kiss him and make him wish to return the passion it stirred. Inside Willie, every nerve quivered with tension. There was something in him that responded to his old friend, against his will and against his reason. And that passion was running through him like liquid fire mixed with honey in an instant. Any thought of resisting Tom or of denying himself the pleasure his body craved was forgotten.

All those adolescent times of joy first experienced in Heidelberg returned to refresh him, and even if he didn't wish to acknowledge it, with one searing kiss Tom Soames had shown that, far from being over what he believed had been a period of juvenile silliness the first time he had met him, he was still vulnerable to him now.

He felt hands clutching at his body and he made a small movement, thinking to be free, and then froze with disbelief at the speed with which his flesh reacted to the caress. His face burned with embarrassment and he prayed that Tom could not feel, as he could, the sudden tensing and swelling of his breasts. His nipples were tightening and thrusting against his top as though eager for attention, whilst his stomach clenched and a slow ache possessed the lower part of his body.

A look of uncertainty flickered in his eyes, but Tom was already grabbing his hand and hauling him forward. "I need this," Willie heard him mutter savagely.

Impatiently Willie wound his arms around his neck, pulling him down and kissing him hungrily. Their teeth clashed. "This is lust." he moaned softly.

"Yes. Complete unadulterated lust." agreed his friend. "How much do you want me? Do you want me a lot?" he asked coolly, stroking and a hand over a girlish chest.

Willie gasped heatedly, unable to form a reply, but the man had already made his judgement. One dark eyebrow rose tellingly, and Willie became hotly conscious of a gaze sweeping his face and his body.

"Get out your tits. Let me see them."

Willie squirmed with a refusal on his lips, but even so some masochistic streak made him submit to the imperious demand. He slithered back his blouse and stood with his hands hanging loosely at his sides, and at once he became aware of Tom's fingers dragging at his chemise to expose his chest.

Tom stroked the enlivened nipples fondly, then taking a step back he clicked over a switch among the apparatus on the workbench and smiled as he revealed an insulated length of electric lead in his hand, at the tip of which was a twist of bare copper wire. "Treats for the sweet." he murmured. "No need to be scared, I took a Degree in Electrical Engineering."

The bare wire was stroked lightly against each proud teat in turn, and as it touched a raw sensation tickled and zinged through Willie as a trickle of electric current stimulated and taunted the delicacy of his flesh.

He shuddered and he arched his back, thrusting his breasts forward. His head felt too heavy on his neck and he allowed it to fall back, and then he flinched as the bare wire again caressed his thrusting teats. "Oh, oh, oh!" He moaned fit to burst as his nipples expanded.

Tom's mouth was on his throat. "There's a girl... there's a beautiful girl." encouraged Tom. While one hand played devilish games with the wire he stroked Willie's sleek head as if it were a dog. "Aren't you a beautiful girl?"

Willie nodded at him, jolted by the wire, steadied and soothed by the voice and the touch, he gave up resisting. When Tom put away the taunting wire he placed his hands on his shoulders and allowed him to remove the rest of his clothes, and as the eager man's mouth kissed his body, all he could do was think of how wonderful it was, and exactly like it had been before. He felt like an addict of some kind, desperately looking for a fix.

Tom lifted his arms and put them round him. This time it was his own tongue that probed the line of lips, but it was Tom who drew it deep inside the dark sensuality of his mouth, coaxing it, encouraging it, and then fiercely mating with it. His heart bounced inside him like a child's toy. He could hardly breathe, and not just because of the way Tom was kissing him.

The speed with which Tom moved was very impressive. One moment he was standing against him, the next he was sweeping him up in his arms and swinging him off the floor and onto the bed. Willie felt helpless, swamped by the strength of the man's beautiful body. "What are you going to do?" he whimpered softly. "Are you going to make love to me?"

"Love?" Tom snickered. "Well, while you're here we could have a quickie. But I want much more than just that. A lot more." he brushed his lips against Willie's half-parted mouth, then touched them to each swollen nipple in turn before returning to his mouth with deep ferocity.

"Kneel up and stick out your arse." he ordered when he drew away. In his hand he held another slender, long electrical lead connected to some apparatus on the table, and this time the lead was tipped by a jack-plug the shape and size of a cigar.

His intention was obvious. He was about to stick something into him Willie realised apprehensively, but he fought not to let him know how much he felt intimidated.

"We're lovers, just like in the old days." Tom informed him, closing the gap between them.

The thing was a perfect fit. So wonderful he could barely tolerate it. So snug its warmth seemed to suffuse him. And when Tom added electricity it became a perfect intersection of pleasure.

Willie had to grit his teeth to prevent himself from crying out and telling him to stop. His body seemed to have no means of movement of its own. It had become completely obedient to what he was doing, whilst inside him the tension continued to grow to an unbelievable level. He could sense throbs and pulsation. It was as if he were tied to a ribbon of light and the universe was exploding somewhere inside him.

He could hear himself breathing, a laboured rasp when it caught in his throat. There was a tingling sensation. A sparkling. The sort of thing that happened with good sex. He was unaware of anything else other than the regular invidious pulse of the item plugged inside. Tom was using it like a penis, perhaps a subliminal extension of his own penis. In and out, back and forth, opening him up, allowing it to stimulate a myriad of internal nerve endings.

Panic and desperation speared through him. Ignoring the lynx-eyed look Tom was giving him, he took a breath. Lovers! Panic shot through him in company with abhorrence and rejection. Whatever Tom was doing wasn't being done with love, it was being done for some other cranky reason.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, the sound of his voice meek, raw and frantic in his own ears.

Ignoring his anxious question Tom studied him silently, assessing his behaviour, just looking at him, admiring the way consternation sparked his eyes and made his cheeks flush with heat.

Willie was still holding on to those idiotic ideas that they were soul mates, was he? He looked convincingly distressed and he applauded his acting talent. It was all part of the act of innocence he had known him to put on in Heidelberg. He could detect his discomfort and guilt, the two things that gave the sharpest edge to sex, and he knew neither of them would regret what was happening.

"You like that, don't you? You always were sensitive there." Tom's voice was a dark, tormenting whisper as he twisted the object inside. "Enjoy it. Churn your little backside around and make the most of things." he coaxed coldly.

Suddenly the object was removed and shudders ran through Willie's body as hands stroked the skin of his bare back. In a mirror he could see Tom leaning over, his erection straining from the mat of hair surrounding its base. "Is this what you crave?" he whispered dangerously.

And then they were lying on the bed together, and Tom was holding him, lifting him, entering him violently, almost brutally, just in time. "You're still a tight little bitch, Willie. How many men have had you since you were last with me?"

"N-not many."

"I find that hard to believe. You once fucked like a whore with anyone and everyone."

Willie could feel his muscles straining as he willed his aroused body into submission. Tom's need to possess him was savage, but unloving, and on a surging explosion of relief and release a single powerful thrust carried him to completion on a fierce wave of pleasure, racking him again and again whilst he spilled hotly into the waiting, wanting heat of his girlfriends body.

The afterglow for Tom was nonexistent. No words of romance, no act of thoughtfulness. No exchange of emotions or shared joy. A surge of disappointment washed over Willie. What they had just done was just sex and had nothing to do with feelings. It was almost like a stage show. When he'd extracted himself Tom sat on the edge of the bed like an angler contemplating bait, and because of that Willie took to examining his own feelings.

And what were he feeling? Things were no longer as he had once known them, that was for sure. Tom hadn't displayed the tenderness and humour they had once shared; in fact his behaviour verged on callous ridicule. He ought to hate and loathe him. He did hate and loathe him. It was just his body that was weak, that was all.

He rubbed his temples sceptically. For a time in Heidelberg Tom and he had been inseparable. He had adored the Englishman, but somehow the magic of their union had evaporated. There was something unpleasant about his attitude now. There was a basic incompatibility between the two of them that hadn't been there before.

Sensing Willie's eyes on him, Tom stiffened and returned a chilling aloof look that was completely unexpected. "I want you to relay a message across the Channel for me." he said, "It's the kind of information our friends abroad will be grateful for."

Willie rolled onto his back and sat up, pale and lost as blood drained from his head. "Friends abroad! That's impossible. I have no way of contacting people abroad."

Tom looked incredulous. "A Secret Agent without a transmitter! That's preposterous."

"I've been left to my own devises. Radio transmitters are certain proof of spying and I was told I wouldn't need one."

"You do have a recognised codename I take it. All agents have one. I have some information to pass and I can build a Morse transmitter, but without a recognisable codename no one will trust what I say."

Willie shot him a look, a startled, anguished look. Was it the war that was responsible for the unloving change in Tom Soames? "You wish to betray your country?"

Tom's eyes glowed with an eerie inner light, and his face became a pinkish colour... a matte pink, the colour of a pig that had been freshly slaughtered.

"I might have known you'd end up saying something stupid like that, Willie. Do you know what your problem is? No sense of purpose. No direction. Your conscience as always got in the way of doing what is necessary."

With a jolt Willie realised that Tom had jammed his face only inches in front of him. It wasn't a nice face at that moment but he found it impossible to twist away from him. Why was he being so cruel?

Tom's mouth smiled, but not his eyes. "I am not betraying my country, you silly cow; I'm going to save it. We live in an old, worn-out democracy here, and you know what Plato thought of democracies. The democratic process condemned his friend Socrates to death, so he reckoned that politics should be judged like medicine: we shouldn't judge a doctor by how popular he is, but by whether he can cure anyone.

"Plato said we shouldn't be governed by someone simply because they got the most votes. Instead, the position should go to the people most skilled... just like any other job. He called his ideal ruler the Philosopher King, and right now it should be as plain as daylight to everyone in the world that Adolph Hitler is such a king."

Now Willie began to understand Tom Soames more clearly than he had ever understood him before. He was a rogue male, a force of nature who refused to be compromised by the wishes of society and who had never lost the adolescent wish to disrupt. In an earlier generation he would have been an anarchist. A hundred years previously he would have been strutting behind the barricades of the Paris communes. He was a man without patriotism who would forever kick against the status quo.

But he was even more complex than that. Few people had heard of the words sociopath or psychotic in 1941, but Willie knew of the word, smug. And when Tom grinned he looked smug.

Tom shuffled his feet and began to pace up and down the room. On his solemn face was an expression of contempt that was aimed at many things.

"Know what the real difference is between you and me, little Willie? I know what I want from life and I go for it, while you just saunter along taking in the scenery. Sooner or later the resistance in this country will have its neck rung like that of a chicken and Germany will have control, and when that happened I intend to be on the winning side."

Evidently sensing some innate resistance to what he was saying he added, "I need a codename to send a message, Willie. I don't have one, so I must use the one given to you."

"I don't wish to be involved in espionage, that's not why I'm here." Willie protested, "And I was told never to reveal my codename to anyone."

The warmth died in Tom's expression, leaving it dark and guarded and banishing the intimacy they had shared earlier. "I don't need you for anything more than that. I can't afford to fool around with my W/T set; people listen to all the frequencies and they will have a fix on me pretty quick if I repeat myself too often. Now, tell me what it is."

"And what I want doesn't count?" challenged Willie.

"That's right." Tom's curt words were unequivocal, his voiced clipped and incisive, and he served a look that was coldly demanding. Walking over to his workbench he twisted a dial and raised up the lead with the exposed wire.

"Try to be wise, sweetie. There's enough electricity going through this now to make a lamp shine. Enough to make your balls jump out of their bag if I touched you with it."

Willie gave him a frightened glance. Frightened? Yes, he was frightened of Tom now. "Oh no, please. You don't have to do that. You don't have to hurt me. You can have my silly codename. It... it's Eintracht." he whispered hesitantly.

Tom chuckled irreverently, which seemed to imply his satisfaction. "Eintracht... Harmony! I'd never have guessed it. What a fine name for a spy."

He looked out of the window and relayed in a grim whisper. "I'm going to put that information to good use. I have an idea that will assist Germany in this war." He paused for a moment as a butterfly of curiosity flitted through his mind. "Do you wish to help me Willie?"

Willie stood, suddenly dizzy, swaying on his feet. His mouth was a little open but he was quite unable to think of a single word to say, although he hoped the expression in his eyes could communicate what he felt but was unable to put into words. Savage pain followed by equally savage anger spiked his heart. Illogically he felt as though somehow Tom had betrayed him by not recognising the person he was, by misjudging him, not caring enough to recognise what had happened to him.