Satan's Fury

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Prologue

Justin stood watching as the middle aged woman typed his details into the computer and wondered what she was doing there. In his wildest dreams he hadn't imagined that the first Quoin employee he would deal with would be an ordinary looking woman about the same age as his mother who looked as if she'd be more at home working in an office. She reminded him vaguely of the librarian at his old school. It was hard to figure how she'd come to be working in what amounted to a high class gay brothel.

If he were honest, he would have to admit that he felt as out of place as she seemed to be.

He wondered again why he had allowed himself to be persuaded that this was the appropriate way for him to explore his sexuality. But really, the explanation was all there in that word `appropriate'. It would not be appropriate for Craig Taylor's son, Jeremy Taylor's grandson, to go down to the gay ghetto on Liberty Avenue back home in Pittsburgh and seek out sex partners there. Instead, Craig Taylor's son was expected to date the right sort of girls, select one who would make an appropriate wife and marry. And, of course, provide an heir. If he must give in occasionally to his totally inappropriate true nature, then he should do that discreetly - which meant preferably out of the country, and in establishments such as this, where he could find sexual release with no fear that he would form any sort of lasting attachment. That, his father and grandfather, had drilled into him was the only possible way for him to behave. It was the way required of a son so close to disgracing his family's name by his insistence that he was sexually attracted to men to redeem himself; by presenting at least the appearance of appropriate behaviour. The older Taylors had been outraged when Justin had insisted that he was sexually attracted only to men, but they were also determined to keep their grip on their dreams of a Taylor dynasty in Pittsburgh's financial circles. Which required Justin's participation.

In the same way that they were apparently humoring him over his career choice as an artist, believing that once he had finished college, financial pressures would force him to take his place, however reluctantly, in the family business, they were prepared to allow him at least this much latitude in his sexual relations. So while back in Pittsburgh, his parents were already planning his eventual marriage to his long time friend Daphne Chanders, whose choice of medicine as a career was regarded as fitting perfectly into the family's growing financial interest in the medical research industry beginning to grow up in Pittsburgh, he was permitted, even encouraged to seek an appropriately discreet venue in which to lose his virginity. If his father had any compunction at forcing him into a situation that he believed his romantic son would find abhorrent, and which would likely turn him away from the whole lifestyle, he stifled it with his firm belief that he knew what was best for Justin.

Then the chance of this visit to Liverpool had come his way, and his father had, albeit reluctantly, confessed the existence of an uncle of whom Justin had previously been entirely unaware - his grandfather's younger brother, who was gay, and who lived in the UK - in Chester, not all that far from Liverpool. Craig had contacted him, and it had been all arranged between them, so that now Justin was standing here beside his uncle in this somewhat seedy looking coffee lounge on Stanley Street. The coffee lounge, his uncle assured him, was only the front office and reception area for the Liverpool branch of the Quoin chain of … clubs. Clubs which offered discreet and extremely expensive facilities to their carefully selected clientele.

The woman finished her data entry and printed out the document he'd been told he would need to sign - a form of contract, not only committing him to a non-disclosure agreement, that he was assured was mutual, but also stating that he had recently been tested and was free of any STDs and HIV negative. Which in Justin's case was something of a formality. Waiting for it to print, Justin found himself sighing and shuffling.

The truth was that he had made one abortive visit to Liberty Avenue when he had been around seventeen. He had been almost as horny as he was scared, but he'd found no one there who'd attracted him, and several men had approached him in ways that he'd found quite frankly both repulsive and terrifying. In the end he'd been forced to slink home with no further experience to his name than when he'd sneaked out the door, except the discovery that he didn't think he was quite cut out for trolling for tricks around the gay clubs and bars.

He'd tried the internet, of course, which had led to a couple of jerk off sessions that had left him even more frustrated. And feeling obscurely both embarrassed and ashamed. Ashamed because he was sure only total losers resorted to cyber sex, and embarrassed because he was afraid that his lack of experience must be painfully obvious and incredibly amusing to his cyber partners. He pictured them laughing themselves silly at his awkwardness and naïveté.

There had been one other incident that he didn't want to think about, that he tried never to think about. But despite these feeble and futile attempts, Justin was still, technically at least, a virgin.

As he signed the document, he kept telling himself that this was all for the best. If he could just get past his initial nervousness and inexperience, then he would be better able to find for himself the sort of … companionship … that he dreamed of. But he had the feeling that that was one dream that was simply not destined to come true. That he would forever be forced to find strangers with whom to furtively satisfy his sexual needs, while his emotional longings were doomed to be forever disappointed and unfulfilled.

The woman put the contract down on the desk in front of him. As he was about to sign in, someone came up behind him, and murmured softly, "'Scuse me."

He looked up instinctively into a face that made the artist in him want to reach for his sketch pad. Dark lashes framed eyes whose colour swam between green and golden brown; cheekbones that wouldn't quit led the eyes to an expressive mouth whose red lips made Justin think of things that had his pants suddenly much tighter than they had been only seconds ago. The guy looked to be about his age, although competing with the smooth skin and obvious sexual vigour, there was a slight hardness, a world weary air which might mean that he was older than he looked.

The guy was wearing an apron, and Justin realised to his amazement that he was a waiter and must have been here all along. He couldn't believe that he'd missed seeing him, but figured that he must have been even more deeply absorbed in his troubles than usual.

Dazed, he found himself moving aside so that the guy could get past him to the area behind the desk. Once there, Justin saw him exchange a look with the woman. As Justin tried not to stare at him, and to concentrate on reading the contract he'd been handed, he heard the woman say softly, " Don't worry. Not a peep all night."

At that, they young man gave a quick nod and disappeared through the curtained archway behind the counter.

Justin signed his name and looked up to find his uncle - well, his great uncle, really - smiling at him understandingly.

"An extraordinarily attractive young man," Martin commented, in his disconcertingly British accent.

Justin shrugged awkwardly.

The demands placed on him by his family to constantly live a lie had made him guarded. He'd never had, to the best of his knowledge, any gay friends. He'd never had the freedom to talk openly about his feelings for other men. To casually comment on who he found hot or who he might want to fuck was an experience he'd never known, until fate had brought him to England and he'd met his grandfather's youngest brother, Martin.

Martin had met him at the airport in London, and had immediately taken him under his wing. Justin wasn't sure what he'd expected, but it wasn't this quietly funny, gentle man, whom he'd liked on sight, and with whom he felt comfortable in a surprisingly short space of time. Justin wasn't to know how much of himself Martin saw in Justin, and if Justin's domineering relatives had had the slightest notion of how much Martin had changed from the timid young man whom they had managed to bully into removing himself from his family and hiding himself away in a comparatively remote corner of the UK, they would never have allowed Justin anywhere near him.

They believed that Martin would teach Justin to do just as he had done - to find ways to discreetly get his needs met, while outwardly maintaining all the appearance of a `respectable' member of society.

But their decision to have as little as possible to do with this reprobate member of the family meant that they had no idea how much he'd changed. He'd come to understand himself and his nature a lot more clearly than he had back in those days, and in the UK he'd found himself able to develop a network of friends and acquaintances for whom his sexuality was not an issue, whether because they shared it, or because they simply accepted him as he was.

However he had vivid memories of the pain that he'd gone through, the agonising loneliness and self doubt. There were times that he'd been desperate, verging on suicidal, and he had no intention of allowing this beautiful young relative of his to go through the same thing if there was anything he could possibly do to prevent it.

Martin had been pondering just what he could do ever since his brother's phone call. Now, standing beside Justin, he found himself once more hoping that he'd done the right thing in bringing him here to the Quoin. True, it was a place where Justin could explore his sexuality in safety. He would not be forced, or coerced; he wouldn't be exposed to brutality or exploitation. But it was hardly the most romantic way to lose his virginity. If, indeed, he was still a virgin. Craig had certainly indicated that he was, but Martin wasn't sure. Something in Justin's responses seemed to Martin to indicate not so much complete innocence, as innocence betrayed. He wondered if Justin had experimented at some point, and it had gone badly.

All too well Martin could imagine the sort of trouble that a beautiful boy could get into if he went looking in all the wrong places for his first sexual experiences. The more so if he had no one to warn him, to help him find the right places. If he'd been forced, it might well have been so painful or frightening that it had deterred him from ever trying again. And, of course, no matter how painful or scary it might have been, there was no one to whom he could take that pain and fear. No one to help him.

Not for the first time, Martin felt a wash of intense anger flood through him at the thought of how callous Jeremy and that snotty son of his were towards this wonderful young man.

He sighed. While he would have loved to see Justin to have the sort of first love experience that he clearly dreamed of, he was all too aware of how rare that was. And how unlikely it was that Justin would find anyone who combined the romantic tenderness he dreamed of with the sexual skills that he needed.

At least here at the Quoin he would find those skills. Whether he was a virgin, or whether he'd just been badly hurt and scared, here he would find someone with the skills and patience to help him through the initial pain, towards the world of pleasure that lay just the other side of that barrier.

Yes, Martin decided, I am doing the right thing.

He put his arm round Justin's shoulders.

"Remember, Justin. This is about your pleasure. Here, you don't have to accept anything, just to be polite. Here you are free to say what you need, what you desire."

Justin took a deep breath and nodded.

The woman smiled at them and, standing handed Justin a sealed envelope, containing the personal identification document that, as a first time visitor, he was required to leave at the desk during his visit as some sort of surety. "Could you just sign the back please, Mr. Taylor. Right across the seal, please."

Justin did as she asked, and she smiled again. "Your driver's licence will be kept in the envelope and locked in the safe. When you collect it, please feel free to check that the seal has not been disturbed."

Justin nodded a little numbly.

"Welcome to the Quoin, Mr Taylor," she went on. "We hope you enjoy your visit. Now that you're on our data base, you will be welcome at any of our facilities world wide."

She handed him a small golden key, and then another to Martin. "Welcome back, Mr Taylor. It's always a pleasure to have you visit."

"It's always a pleasure to come here, Marjorie," Martin responded.

Then, with Justin's heart pounding hard in his chest, they made their way through the curtain to the lift that would take them to the upper floors and into the world of the Quoin.

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