Chapter 7: Damian, Stanton Reach, Malaya

The whitewashing of the house not yet completed, Jim decided one day that it was time for me to begin learning more fundamental aspects of running a rubber tree plantation. He had horses brought around by Bradford Blandin early one morning while it was still dark, and we rode out toward a distant section of rubber trees ready to be tapped.

En route we went through a clearing. In the middle, on a rise of ground, was what looked like an altar, and at each corner there was a sturdy pole topped by thin-triangles of colorful cloth—flags it appeared—that fluttered a bit in the breeze. The altar area was surrounded by a path beaten to bare ground.

“What is that for?” I asked.

“Oh, just something the Malays use in their rituals,” Jim said breezily. “Fahmeed is somewhat of a religious leader around here. It’s how he keeps the Indian workers in hand. I don’t ask about how he does that, and he doesn’t volunteer it to me.”

Tapping the rubber trees and then coming back to collect the dripped latex from the coconut shells positioned to catch it was very hard work. And like all other outdoor work in Malaya, the tapping and the collection the next day had to be completed before the sun hit its zenith.

Both Jim and Bradford were hard, efficient workers, and I wanted to prove I was the same. We worked with the Indians on the tapping for two hours and then collected the latex from other trees for another two. The day was hot, even at the early hour, and all three of us were stripped down to thin shorts.

Tension was building in the air. Whenever I looked at either Bradford or Jim, I saw that they had been eyeing me, even though they looked away when I gazed at them.

Toward noon, Jim called a stop to the work and pointed to buckets of water the workers had left in the shade of rubber trees for us. We each took a bucket and sluiced the water over our bodies. It was warm, but it was cooler than our bodies had gotten. The sluicing made our shorts no better than transparent, and it was apparent to all three of us that we all had raging erections.

“Go on and ride back to the house, Damian,” Jim said in a low, gravelly voice. “I have some more work to do with Bradford. I won’t be in for the midday meal.”

“But—”

“Go on now. Now,” Jim growled.

So, I mounted my horse and started back to the great house. I had wanted to tell Jim something, though. As we had ridden out, I’d been the last one to leave, and Fahmeed had stopped me and asked me to pass a message on to Jim about the anticipated visit of a representative of the export company—a change in date. I’d forgotten to do so until just now as I was leaving. I decided it was important for me to pass the information on to Jim, and I turned my horse back.

I hadn’t reached the place where we had been working before I heard the unmistakable sounds of lust being worked. I dismounted and tied the horse off to a tree and crept forward. Jim had Bradford backed up against a rubber tree. The two were facing each other, Bradford had his legs folded over the top of Jim’s buttocks, and Jim was fucking Bradford hard and deep. Bradford was not being taken advantage of though. His body was in motion as much as Jim’s was, and he was meeting Jim thrust for thrust. They had a dancing rhythm going with their pelvises and their roaming hands and lips, that made me think of a complex machine, going through its movement with precision. It was obvious that they were not new lovers—either to each other or to other men—that they knew just what to do to get the most enjoyment possible out of the body of the other.

When Jim had finished Bradford, causing the overseer to jerk and spill his seed up Jim’s belly, he just let Bradford slide down his body to where he was kneeling on the earth and moving his lips over Jim’s cock to bring him to a completion of his own. Jim turned his face toward me where I stood at the fringe of the stand of trees, with my cock in my hand. I fled, but I know he saw me.

Jim did not return straight to the house. I know where he went, though. He and Bradford rode to the overseer’s bungalow, a miniature version of the great house, and I peeked through lattice work outside of a room at the side of the house and watched Jim fuck Bradford a second time in Bradford’s bed.

Dinner that night was tense and silent, the only sound being the clinking of silver on china and the slapping of Fahmeed’s bare feet as he moved back and forth between kitchen and table. The table sat twelve, and I was at one end and Jim was at the other, as far away as we could get from each other.