Clouds over Antibes

Wearing only shorts and sandals himself, Diego came over and stood in front of him. "Shush. We will not speak of anything but a future--yours. To throw those pursuing you off, the British will take you to France and then on to northern Africa. There are colonies for such as you and me in Morocco. I hope they will take you there and you can find a lovely young man who--"

"I have a lovely young man here," Juan said.

"Yes, you do," Diego said. He leaned down, took Del Campo's head in his hands and kissed him on the lips. The general unzipped, flared, and pulled the young man's shorts off his hips. He leaned forward and took Diego's cock in his mouth. Diego, hovering over the old man, brushed Juan's towel open, grasped the old man's shaft, and stroked it. The old man could still get hard and did so now.

"Just for now. Forgetting everything else for this moment--"

"Yes, just for this moment," Diego answered, gently pushing the general back onto the bed, climbing up onto the mattress, placing his knees on either side of the old man's hips, holding the general's erection in a hand as he positioned over it, and slowly descending his anal channel onto the shaft. Pinning the general's shoulder blades to the mattress with his palms on the old man's pecs, Diego rode the man's cock to the general's sighing ejaculation one last time.

A banging on the bedroom door prevented Diego from his own climax. A gruff voice said, "The English woman is downstairs, and there is something you need to know, El Hurón."

"Just a moment, Jose," Diego called out. He climbed off Del Campo, pulling up and zipping his shorts and helped Del Campo to the adjoining water closet to clean himself up. At the door he heard the something else he needed to know.

"Franco's men are nearby, Diego. They are looking for you specifically. They were overheard saying your name in the street. Someone must have informed them. They are moving here--armed."

"Thank you, Jose. Say nothing of this to the general until we can send him out by the tunnel to the church with the English woman."

They hurried the general along from there. Introductions to Laura Auclair, from and English mother and French father, were made. She would take him as far as where she now was based, in Antibes, France, on the French Riviera, while transport was arranged somewhere safer. They made it through the tunnel to the church, where an official-looking 1937 Panhard et Levassor sedan with diplomatic plates and a British flag flying was waiting for them. For this run Laura would be the wife of the British consul in Barcelona, if need be. The trunk of the car had been made as comfortable as possible for General Del Campo until they could get across the border.

As they got into the car, they heard the gunfire from down the street. Franco's hit squad had found El Hurón and obviously were not thinking of capturing him alive. Both the general and the British agent understood what the gunfire signified, but neither gave voice to it. It was probably just as well in preserving General Del Campo's dignity that he was locked away in the car's trunk for the journey across the border and did not have to reveal his uncontrollable grief of loss--both of his country and his young lover--to Madame Auclair.

* * * *

Laura and Juan--and a young English woman Laura introduced as Rosemary, who, like Laura, was wearing a robe and slippers--sat at the table in the kitchen in the small apartment above the wine shop Laura ran in Antibes, while the transvestite--in black trousers and a white shirt and no transvestite accruements at the moment--Louis, buzzed around cleaning up from the simple dinner they were eating. Louis helped Laura in the shop and he usually transformed himself for his evening activities in the small room the Spanish general had been occupying for three days, but he had to do that in the storeroom behind the ground-floor shop now. He didn't seem to resent it; he had been very gentle with the old Spaniard, who hadn't come out of his room until this evening.

Finished with the cleanup, Louis went down to the shop, and, having finished her cup of coffee, the young woman, Rosemary, went back to Laura's bedroom, leaving Laura and Juan alone at the table.

"I notice you haven't unpacked any of your bags," Laura said to the Spaniard. "The bureau in the room is empty. You can use any of those drawers."

"Yes, you've told me that," Juan answered.

"I think I told you it would be a while before we could get you on a safe boat over to northern Africa."

"I was thinking of just going back to Spain."

"You know it isn't safe for you to do that. London thinks enough of you that it's doing what it can to make you safe."

"Perhaps they are more concerned than I deserve."

"I've heard what your relationship was to the old king--and to one of Queen Victoria's granddaughters." George V had died in the first year of the Spanish Civil War. The courtesy the British were according General Del Campo stemmed from the new king knowing the high regard his father had held Del Campo in and of his service to the king's cousin, Queen Victoria Eugenie--Ena--in the closing of the monarchy in Spain. "Friendships matter a lot to the British royals."

"But this puts you in danger, doesn't it?" Del Campo responded. "Is it really safe for it to become known that you have maintained links to Britain? I don't understand how you could have been mobilized so quickly to come to Spain for me and are arranging my further travel."

"Oh, you're not my main job here--well, for the British. Running this shop takes considerable effort. The French do love their wine."

"You have other work for the British here?"

"Yes. Come to the window and look out toward the sea--over toward that peninsula there. Do you see that chateau on the water?"

"Yes," Juan said the two of them standing at the window at the back of the building and looking down to the Mediterranean.

"That house is called the Château de la Croë. That's what I'm keeping my eye on to report on activity."

"Someone important lives there."

"Someone who it is important to keep an eye on vacations there. The Duke of Windsor--the former English king, Edward, and his wife, Wallace, rent that chateau. As we move into a greater war, the Windsors' friendships with the fascist world are becoming increasingly bothersome to London. I'm helping keep an eye on them when they are here."

"And how do you keep an eye on what they do over there from here? You can't see into the chateau, can you?"

"Rosemary, who you just met, is a housemaid at the Château de la Croë. She keeps me informed."

She does other service for you too, Del Campo thought, but he said nothing about that. He had no grounds, he knew, to say anything about that.

"The Windsors aren't here now, so I was able to come to Spain for you," Laura continued. "It seems a tragedy that a country would need to spy on its own former monarch, but that's what we've come to in Europe now. We live in a very complex and dangerous world, I'm afraid, General."

"Yes, I think you are right. That is enough reason, I think, that I won't unpack."

"As you wish," Laura said, having no reason to argue with the man. To her, he seemed completely defeated. She could see why he would have wanted just to remain in his own land, Spain, and take whatever happened there. It didn't help, she knew, that he went with men. From all she had heard about the Germans and other fascists, that would be grounds enough for a death sentence--although she also had heard that they had no qualms about engaging in that behavior themselves. It was, certainly, a crazy world the Nazis were trying to create.

"I am glad you came out for dinner, though. Perhaps you would like to sit with me in the parlor this evening and listen to the radio."

"I don't want to impose more than I have to. I don't think you really have the room for me here, and I don't think it is safe for you to be harboring a Spanish general who has backed the wrong side, even when trying not to appear to have done so. Perhaps I should look for a room elsewhere while we wait for this safe ship of yours."

"We shall see," Laura said, as the general rose from the table and moved to the tiny room where he had a bed and a dresser. "Nothing needs to be decided tonight."

Later, in the night, when Louis returned from his evening activities, this time converted into a beautiful young woman, he was intoxicated enough to have come to the room where Juan Del Campo was sleeping. This normally was his room, although now he was sleeping in a cot in the storeroom downstairs.

He looked at the general, just in his underdrawers, lying on his back on the bed, looking sad and despondent. Despite his age he was a handsome man, and Louis knew of his proclivities. On impulse, Louis crawled into bed with him and stretched his body out beside the man. He moved a hand over the man's chest, through his thatch of gray hair, and down to his groin, finding that age didn't prevent the general from hardening up.

Del Campo wasn't completely conscious when they moved into sex and he was inside Louis. The transvestite urged the old man on to complete what had been started, and entwined, and rocking their bodies against each other, both climaxed.

As they were cooling down, their arms entwined, Louis said, "I was with a group tonight of like-minded men over at a place called Oscar's, overlooking the marina in the yacht basin. I think you would like meeting with the men there in the evenings. It would give you something to do with your time."

The general grunted his possible interest. "The innkeeper there, Maurice, is a man, like you, who covers young men like me. He lets rooms there to those he likes. I think you'd like Maurice and he would like you as well."

Another grunt, and, by the end of the week, the Spanish general had moved into a large room at Maurice's inn and was spending the evenings in the company of compatible men of like minds in a separate club area on a second-floor porch overlooking the marina. The private area they met in was named Oscar's.

There, General Del Campo lived for nearly a year from the summer of 1939 to the next summer, waiting for safe transportation across the Mediterranean. All that time, though, he didn't unpack and he never gave up the possibility of just going home--back to Spain.

Ironically, a couple of nights before he did leave, Laura having told him she had arranged a cabin on an oil freighter being guarded by two British destroyers through the Suez Canal to take vitally needed oil to England, nothing safer ever having materialized, a beautiful young blond American male prostitute, Brent Danforth, moored his cabin cruiser in the marina and was welcomed into the group at Oscar's.

In celebration of his leaving, Maurice paid for a night for the general with the American in the general's room. The sex was so satisfying that Del Campo could have enjoyed just staying there, with the blond American, in his room. But the die was cast and the general felt he had overstayed the hospitality of Antibes, the group at Oscar's, and Laura Auclair. The political clouds over Antibes were darkening. It was time to leave.

So, Spanish general Juan del Campo left, letting himself be rowed out to the oil freighter, with the plans being that he would be dropped off in Tangier, Morocco, which was welcoming of refugees fleeing the Nazis and of men in his chosen lifestyle.

In parting, Laura reasoned that "Tangier is just across the water from Spain. You will be closer to going home there than you are here."

Within the week he was even closer than that. As the freighter was preparing to dock for its stop in Tangier and most of those aboard were standing at the port side of the ship, taking in the sights of the Moroccan shore, General Del Campo was on the starboard side, staring off toward Spain. It broke his heart that he was that close to his home country but still could not go there.

And then it literally broke his heart and, clutching his chest, he sank to his knees at the rail.

The British rewarded his service to them to the end. They had his body taken across the water to Gibraltar, never putting him on Moroccan soil, and, as they were able, they managed to get him back into Spain and to his family burial plot, where he was quietly interred and never hassled by the forces of Francisco Franco again.

General Juan del Campo had made it home.

Chapter Three: Race to the Border: Gunter Achten

Laura, General Del Campo, and Tristian Alarie, the young waiter, from Maurice's inn and bar over at the yacht basin were standing at the cash register desk near the back of the Antibes wine shop Laura managed, speaking in low tones--and not about wine, but about the occurrences recently of families--mainly Jewish families--disappearing in the night. Some, they knew, were voluntarily leaving, being wary of the weakness of the Vichy government presence here in southern France by the spring of 1940. But some, Tristian believed, from his connections in the French Resistance, had not left willingly. They had just disappeared.

Laura's assistant, the transvestite Louis, was standing at the window overlooking the square. Laura noticed he was waving his hand and looking excited.

"What is it, Louis? What do you see out there?"

"The bus from Paris has discharged its passengers in the square," Louis answered. "And the most divine man has gotten off the bus. He sees me. He's waving back. Oh, glorious days, I think he's walking this way."

"Here, let me see," Laura said and she moved over to the window. Suddenly, she said, "General, I think it best you go up to the apartment--right now. This doesn't look good."

"What doesn't look good?" Tristian said. For his part, the Spanish general did as Laura asked without question. She had brought him out of Spain and she had protected him ever since. If she said he should hide, he would hide.

"He's blond. Nordic blond," Laura said. "He could be German. He looks German. Whether or not he is, we need to be wary. Louis. Yes, yes, he's a hunk. Put your tongue back in your head. Go back to the storeroom and unpack the Bordeaux that just came in. If he's coming in the shop, we don't want him here any longer than is necessary without raising his suspicions."

Reluctantly, Louis went to the back, as the young blond man entered the shop. He looked around, thinking he'd see the young, androgynous man who had waved at him from the window, but there was just a woman at the cash register and Tristian, standing off in one of the aisles, pretending to be reading the label from a wine bottle. The newcomer became wary--he'd learned to be vigilant in recent months.

"May I help you, Monsieur?" Laura asked coolly. She had to admit that the man was gorgeous, and the smile he gave her was dazzling. She didn't lose the impression that he was German, though, so she remained vigilant.

"Yes, perhaps you can?" he said in a rich, melodious voice. "I have just come from Paris. I was given a contact name, but no address. Could you perhaps tell me if you know a rabbi by the name of Hershel and whether or not he still is here in Antibes?"

"Most of our Jewish population has departed from here," Laura said.

"I realize that, Mademoiselle. I understand. I am a refugee now from Paris myself. I have only this name in Antibes. I hoped I might find him still here--to help me move further, out of France, if I can."

"Rabbi Hershel was at the Beth 'Habad synagogue the last I knew. Over on Avenue Admiral Courbet. I don't know if he's still there."

Tristian spoke up at this point. "I know the rabbi. He's still here. I could guide you to the synagogue."

"I wouldn't want to put you to any trouble," the man, Gunter Achten, said. "If you could just point me in the direction of the synagogue, I would be grateful." He had carried a duffel bag into the shop, which he hefted without difficulty. And he looked quite fit, as if he could walk all over the city looking for the right street if need be.

"It's no trouble," Tristian said. "Do you have anything else needing to be carried?" He took the duffel bag up himself to indicate that his help was going to be utilized. He hefted it as if to gauge its weight--perhaps whether or not it contained a weapon. His offer of help wasn't so much for being polite, as he too thought the man looked German, and he was a friend of Rabbi Hershel's. He had no wish to send a man who might do the rabbi harm to him alone.

"The streets around here can be confusing," Laura chimed in, understanding Tristian's purpose. "Best you take Tristian up on his offer."

When they had left the shop, Louis came out from the back and watched them exit the square. "What a beautiful man. And did you hear him speak? Honey tones."

"Yes, he is a handsome man," Laura said. Her voice had contained worry, though. She was well aware what Louis would do for a handsome man. But she also knew Tristian's interests in that direction too. And he had reacted in similar fashion to Louis in interacting with the man. She hoped Tristian would keep his wits about him. They all needed to keep their wits about them in the current environment.

Tristian returned in not much more than a half hour. "I think it will be OK," he said. "The man indeed is German. He tried to say he was Swiss, but that ruse didn't last long. But Rabbi Hershel is convinced he is Jewish too and that he's left Paris, where he'd gone from Munich, because it became too dangerous for him there. He's a stage actor, and one known well enough to not be able to just blend in because he looks so Nordic. He had some stage bills to show he was who he said. Abram Monteux, the tailor, was at the synagogue. I think he is going to offer Achten--his name is Gunter Achten; it was on the stage bills--a job until Achten can move on from here."

"I saw how you looked at him, Tristian," Laura said in a low voice, perhaps so that Louis didn't hear her, but Louis did hear her. "I hope you won't be smitten by him. If he is as he claims, he is as much danger to the rest of us as he is too himself--if he truly is Jewish. And especially if he is--"

"Queer? Queer, like me?" Tristian said, filling in the word. "Queer like you, but in a different way? I think he is, Laura. And I think I might be interested. I've invited him to Oscar's at Maurice's inn."

"Oscar's? The gorgeous hunk might be joining the group at Oscar's?" Louis said. "Oh, how delicious."

"Apparently so," Laura said, with a sigh, not at all sure this was shaping up as a good idea. "Perhaps he doesn't understand the nature of Oscar's," Laura said. "His French was serviceable, but maybe--"

"Oh, he understood all right," Tristian said, with a grin.

If Tristian hadn't been gone for such a short time, Laura might have thought that he'd already had a sexual encounter with the German. And in the world as it now existed, she wouldn't deny him that fleeting pleasure.

* * * *

Louis's face was turned toward the open door of the armoire in the small bedroom on the third floor of Maurice's inn overlooking the Antibes yacht basin. He was flat on his back, looking into the mirror on the inner surface of the open armoire door, his back arched to shove his concept of breasts upward into the searching lips of the German actor, Gunter Achten. The small, slim transvestite was holding his legs raised and spread, the toes in the red high heels he was wearing pointed daintily at the ceiling, as Gunter hovered between his black-mesh stockinged legs and fucked him in long slides.

Before now Gunter hadn't been this passionate with Louis, who had been following him around like a lovesick puppy ever since Tristian had brought the German to the group of like-minded men at Oscar's, the private bar on the second-floor porch of the inn. Louis didn't care why this was so, but he quite likely would not have been pleased to know that the passion had been aroused in Gunter by speculation about the new man who had been added to the group a few evenings earlier, at the behest of the Italian businessman, Mateo Paoli. The new arrival was a college-age young and handsome American, Brent Danforth, who had sailed in on a small yacht and was moored in the yacht basin marina.