The Sins of the Father
by N Fourbois
Chapter 27
When Rufus came home after the first day at school, his mother, who had arrived home at her normal time, handed him a cardboard tube.
"Michel Ledivin asked me to give this to you." There was a certain coldness in Veronica's tone of voice.
"Thanks, Mum," Rufus replied cheerily. "I wonder what this is." He took the tube up to his room, unsealed it and found two poster size pictures in it. One was the picture of himself in cut-offs. Out of curiosity he booted up his Mac and displayed the original. The poster had certainly been photoshopped for the cut-offs were brighter than the surrounding area and in sharper focus, as was his face, but no one would have noticed without a comparison with the original. The narcissistic side of Rufus came to the fore as he admired the photograph. He couldn't help admiring his own bulge and it was making him bone up. He then looked at the other poster and completely boned up. It was a full frontal nude pose of Michel with an inscription of his love for Rufus. He rolled the posters up again and returned them to their cardboard tube which he placed in his wardrobe. He might show them to Magnus, but showing them to Hugo would just stir up trouble. He sat down at his desk and e-mailed Michel to say that the posters had safely arrived and to thank him.
For a brief period a modicum of routine returned to the Lindstrom household. Rufus and Michel found it difficult to meet during the week. It was not just that Rufus had homework, but Michel had evening shoots. The vague thought that Veronica might be organising his schedules to keep him away from her youngest son did go through the pair's minds, but all the time Rufus had homework, it was probably a good idea to accept the way things were panning out. The tolerance for their relationship was about to be tested.
The first Saturday of term Rufus had rugby training all day, but he and Michel had arranged to go to the cinema in the evening. Michel had invited him to stay the night and as Veronica was in one of her 'avoiding Carl and Rufus' moods it was easier to obtain his father's permission to stay at the Dwights' overnight. The following weekend might be a greater challenge.
Over breakfast Sunday morning Rufus said
"Mrs Dwight, thank you for letting me stay over. Michel… er… Michael might have told you that things are not too easy at home at the moment."
"Rufus, you are very welcome. I'd much rather see Michael regularly bring home someone we know than a stranger we don't who might beat him up at any moment. And if we're going to get to know one another better, call me Brenda. Everyone did when I was chaperoning Michael when he was younger. 'Mrs Dwight' sounds so strange at home here. Perhaps it's just that Christian names are the usual thing in the modelling world."
"And while we're talking about names," said Michel "call me Mike. I feel more comfortable with that at home and away from the job. Mum will call me Michael whatever and I wouldn't want anything else from her. But you'd better call me Michel in front of the boss. She might become quite frosty otherwise."
"I can imagine that, especially the mood she's going through at the moment."
After breakfast Rufus went with Mike back up to his room. Between them they tidied up.
"I'd better make an appearance at home for lunch," said Rufus. "It would be tactful and I think Dad needs a little support. He's not getting it from anybody else and the twins are just too full of going to university… and of themselves."
"Now that it's properly light, I want to show you something." He closed his bedroom door, took his bath robe off the hook to reveal his copy of the cut-offs poster. "But that's not the only thing." He slid back the mirror door of his walk-in wardrobe and switched on the light. "Come and stand by me in here." He slid the door to which then revealed a copy of the other poster, the Michel Ledivin Nu poster. "And so you can only see it if you are in the closet," and the boys fell about at this living pun. "Look at the bottom here. See that? '© Rufus Lindstrom' So it gives you full credit as the photographer."
"Even though it was your camera?"
"Even though it was my camera. You took the photo. So now if someone uses that, you have to give permission and you get paid any royalties."
"Do you think they would?"
"Don't get your hopes up, but it could get from my folio to the centrefold of GY mag, say, especially if I struck lucky and became famous," said Mike.
"Do you think you will?"
"That's the name of the game. I don't want to be earning peanuts all my life and my professional life could be over at thirty."
"I didn't think of it that way," admitted Rufus.
"And you don't say that to your mother, either. For my age and the stage of my career she pays me very well, but there are fortunes to be made out there and we could live happily ever after."
Rufus gathered all his overnight things together, deep kissed his boyfriend, went down to say thank you and goodbye to Brenda and jauntily made his way to the bus stop. 'And we could live happily ever after,' resounded through his head as he waited for the bus to come. 'Him and his mother I suppose. Now there's a wise old bird if ever there was one,' he thought.
On arriving home, Rufus found Carl in the kitchen cooking Sunday lunch.
"Hi, Dad."
"Hi, son. Good time?"
"The best. Michel and I have really hit it off, and his mother is great. There's a lot there. Don't write her off as an old biddy."
"I'm glad you're back in time for lunch. I'm cooking it because your mother's working. It'll be the last one we'll have together as a family for some time." Carl's words struck Rufus as more prophetic than a statement of fact and they lodged themselves at the back of his mind, but he didn't worry about them any more that day.
Finally at half past one the five Lindstroms were sitting round the dining table eating Sunday lunch. Carl had made a splendid job of roasting a joint of pork complete with crackling. He carved it and handed the plates around to his family. At times like this he felt good. He and his wife had produced three sons. He was proud of all of them. He had fulfilled his duty of providing for them and carving a roast that he himself had cooked seemed to be the ultimate symbol of that success. He was pleased that Veronica had managed to tear herself away from her work for an hour, a genuine thought although it might have come across sarcastically.
Conversation had been bubbling along nicely with topics such as school, getting ready for university, how tasty the food was, when Rufus asked out of the blue
"Mum, why have you got so much extra work lately?" The hum of conversation stopped. There was an anxious silence. Carl, Hugo and Magnus stared at Rufus with looks that ranged from 'You shouldn't have gone there' through 'You don't know what you're asking' to 'bloody idiot'. Rufus was impervious to them. He knew there was something wrong in the family, he was an equal member, he had a right to know what was wrong and he was going to ask the question. Veronica, however, remained unfazed. She gave the standard reply.
"We are just fortunate enough to have a lot of contracts for our services at the moment and we want to maintain our client base."
"Can't you take on extra staff?" asked Rufus.
"That's difficult for two reasons. It's doubtful that we can find trained staff in the provinces, which means we have to train them. That not only means we can't use them yet, but that we have to take staff off their proper jobs, which means we get further behind. Then the second reason. In six months' time when they're trained we may not have the work for them and if they've been on the payroll for more than six months it becomes difficult and expensive to sack them and so we ask everyone to do a bit extra. We pay them a bonus, but that is cheaper than employing new staff." That seemed a reasonable answer to Rufus's question, but Carl knew and Rufus felt it was not the whole truth. Veronica smiled with self-satisfaction since she believed she had been convincing in her reply.
Monday morning and school started in earnest for Rufus. Morning break the walk round the school fields, boywatching. Walking towards them with a group of friends was the little beauty, still smart in his brand new school uniform of white shirt, tie knotted to the neck, royal blue jacket and immaculately pressed and tight fitting light grey trousers set off with an impressive package for a third former, tousled blond hair, wide open blue eyes and agreeable visage. When Rufus looked at him, the boy returned the look. They both smiled; he blushed.
"I must find out his name," said Rufus.
"Babysnatcher," said William.
"Pædo," said Toby.
"Erebo," corrected Rufus. "And don't be such hypocrites, the way you two have been at it like rabbits since the age of thirteen."
"Aren't we the lucky ones," grinned William.
Our three met again over lunch in their customary place in the dining hall.
"Okay, we need to make plans for the weekend," said Rufus.
"The rugby matches are in the morning this week and so we'll be free, say, from one o'clock onwards," said Toby. "Then we're going ten pin bowling."
"You can come along too," added William, "provided you bring the divine hunk with you."
"You'll have to wait for that pleasure until Sunday," replied Rufus. "We've got other things planned and… **pause** while things are a bit chaotic at home, I've got permission for him to sleep over. Mum's out of it at present and Dad's sympathetic anyway. I took that opportunity to slip one under the razor wire. So come round mid morning, say. Mum, Dad and the twins should be gone by then and you can stay for the afternoon. You might have to put up with my cooking 'cos I don't think Mum will have any time to leave any food out."
"You can only die once," quipped William.
"When we're ready we can have the photoshoot and we'll take some of you two, as well." William and Toby looked at one another and grinned. "But be prepared to get your kit off," continued Rufus.
"Always something novel in the Lindstrom house," laughed Toby.
The boys got on with their lunch. Then apropos of nothing Rufus asked
"You know when you two get it on together?"
"Shh!" said William. "We don't want the whole school to know we're gay."
"As if they don't already… ha ha!" retorted Rufus. "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, when you two get it on together, do you use condoms?"
"It depends on the stage in Toby's menstrual cycle," answered William.
"Come on, Will. I'm trying to ask a serious question. Now Michel and I are together, we're wondering whether we need to any more."
"It depends on the state of our inner cleanliness," said Toby.
"The state of our bottoms," clarified William.
"I know, I know!" exclaimed Rufus getting frustrated at their prevarication.
"Because we know that we're disease free, we tend not to. If we know we're going to do it, we make sure we cleanse ourselves properly first. If it's spontaneous, we use a jonnie because there nothing worse after a good shag than to find a lump of shit on your tool," said Toby.
"You choose your moments, Toby," said William in mock disgust. "I'm not sure I can finish this rhubarb crumble now."
"Get on with it and stop making a fuss," answered Toby. "Of course, we use one if we've got a 'guest'."
The boys continued with their lunch until Toby piped up with
"Hey, Rufus, when can we visit your dungeon again? I think that's the correct term." Rufus thought for a moment and then spoke.
"One or two problems there, I'm afraid. First of all, if it happens, I can't take you both on at once. It'll have to be separate sessions. Then it will have to be when my parents are out and so we're talking about half term week. And another argument in favour of half term. If one or both of you turn up at school the next day with cuts and bruises and get spotted, I don't want Social Services on the doorstep."
"Huh, the PC brigade again," scoffed Toby.
"But the biggest problem of all is that most of the equipment belongs to the twins and they want to take it with them to uni. They reckon they can make quite a bit on the side if they turn their room at the hall of residence into a studio. That's the word they're using instead of dungeon. It's more upmarket."
"Hmm, that's put the kibosh on that," groaned William.
"Not necessarily," said Rufus. "Let's see what they leave behind. I'm as keen as you, especially as Michel doesn't want to know, for professional reasons. And I got some new kit while I was in London."
At that moment the first bell rang. The boys put their trays onto the trolley and went off to lessons.
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