Chapter 2: Birthdays-Liam

The Lesson

Eighth birthdays were important. That was when a boy got to act like a man. Liam had finished third grade and, in the fall, he wouldn’t be one of the little kids anymore. He was going to go to a prep school. He wasn’t exactly certain what he’d be prepped for but he understood that there would only be boys there and he wouldn’t need to put up with any of the girls who were always such a bother. It would all be men.

And this birthday party was special. Liam had attended a public school for the past three years and this was the last party he would have on his birthday that would have girls at it. They weren’t even in his grade, though grandmother had said grades were a thing of the past. Still, they were big hulking giants who towered over the boys. He’d be in school until he learned his lessons and when he’d learned his lessons, he could leave school. Liam figured he would be out of school in a couple of years.

“And now we have a present for our birthday boy,” his mother announced. “Come here, Liam. Open this package and show everyone what you got.” Liam was excited. His parents seldom gave him a present at the party. “It’s gauche,” they would say. “Very lower class.” But this year he was opening a package from his parents, right in front of his six school mates—well, three if you didn’t count the girls—and their parents and a dozen other friends of his parents and grandmother. He could hardly wait. He remembered his manners, though, and instead of grabbing the package and ripping at it, he stood in front of his parents and accepted the gift like the man he felt he was.

“Thank you so much, Mother. Father, thank you for this gift. I’m sure I will like it.” If he hadn’t thanked them first, he was pretty sure they wouldn’t have given him the package. But Mother had handed it right over after he’d thanked them properly.

Liam tore the paper. It wasn’t that he intended to. His hands were shaking a little as he tried to find the places the paper was taped so he wouldn’t look like a poor boy. His parents were quite wealthy and his grandmother was richer still. But with the excited hands, he accidentally tore the paper away from the tape. He looked up sheepishly at his parents but both were smiling at him. He guessed he hadn’t done anything too wrong. His father reached down and took the torn paper handing it to his friend, Mr. Lenova. Liam lost track of it then because he was prying open the long box.

Shoes? No. Some kind of boots. Who got boots for their birthday? They were shiny and long. He hid his disappointment and raised his head to smile at his parents.

“Thank you for these beautiful boots, Mother and Father.”

“You should try those boots on.” Father had motioned to one of the servers who nodded. Probably going to take a picture. Liam slipped off his loafers and pulled the boots up over his feet, ankles, and calves. They were tight around his legs after he’d fastened the closure. He managed to stand up in them but it was awkward. They nearly reached his knees.

“They’re um ... I guess they fit. What... ?” Liam didn’t finish his sentence. Ray, the stable hand, was leading a bay gelding in front of the patio where the guests were partying. He could get in trouble for bringing a horse into the living area. But the bay was beautiful. Liam looked at his father.

“Well? You have your riding boots on. You should go mount your horse.”

“My horse? Father, do you mean that is my horse? Really?”

“We all like to ride a bit and we’ve been talking for some time about getting you fully equipped and onto a horse that suits your age and personality. Come with me. I’ll give you a boost into the saddle. You’ll get the rest of your riding gear a little later in the day.”

Liam followed his father and put his knee properly in his father’s cupped hands. He was nearly launched over the back of the bay, but was able to settle himself in the saddle. His father held the irons for him and he realized his parents and grandmother always wore boots like these when they rode. He’d received instructions and knew how to hold the reins and cue the horse. He’d simply never had tall riding boots before. He couldn’t wait to go flying over some of the jumps set up in the dressage paddock.

“This is Sim.” Ray kept hold of the lead rope even though Liam had the reins in his hands. “That’s short for Persimmon. He’s three years old and well-trained. We’ll talk about the rules for riding when you come out for your first lesson on him. It takes a little time for a horse and rider to get to know each other, so we’ll work mostly in the arena for a month or so. Just until we’re confident that you’ve developed that special bond that any young man should have with his steed.”

“Come on down now, Liam.” His father held his hands out to help him down off the horse. He’d be able to get on and off by himself if he was at the stable mounting block. “Ray will show you Sim’s stall and grooming tack after the party. Let’s go get our guests some refreshments now.”

Liam was trying to get the boys at the party to go out to the stable with him and escape from the girls. Girls! It wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t all bigger than he was. He hadn’t been very kind or welcoming to them. He figured they could entertain each other. What did they have to complain about? They got to come out to Buxton House. They got to eat the good food. They even had unlimited sodas. They surely didn’t need to join the men at the stables.

“Where are we going?” Meredith Sauvage was suddenly standing right beside him. He wasn’t sure where she came from.

“What do you care? This is men’s business. You’re a girl. Meri the Savage,” Liam taunted her. “Savages aren’t welcome to...”

Meredith’s fist was a lot bigger and harder than Liam had considered before he started to tease her. When it connected with his nose, he began instantly to bleed. And to cry.

“It’s clear no one has taught you manners. Maybe that will teach you a lesson.”

Liam ran to the house. Only his best friend Lonnie went with him. He could see his grandmother approaching the other kids and his mother met him at the door. She handed a towel to Lonnie and told him to hold it against Liam’s nose. That hurt. Liam tried not to cry but wasn’t successful in holding back the tears. His mother sent him to his room with Lonnie and Erich met him there. Erich recently became Liam’s valet, replacing his old nanny. It took a bit, but before long, Erich had stanched the blood and Liam merely had a clogged nose with a piece of cotton in one nostril.

Eventually, he and Lonnie were allowed to return to the party. To his surprise and perhaps horror, he discovered all the other children near his age had gone. Their parents as well. Only Lonnie remained with him to celebrate the remainder of Liam’s eighth birthday.

A Touch of Class

Liam was horny. He knew plenty of guys who were sixteen and bragged about getting laid regularly. Liam had no opportunities to get lucky. He hadn’t seen or met a girl near his own age in years. The few female teachers at Elenchus Schole were old—at least forty—and were as dowdy and unappealing as the old woman who lived in a shoe. Liam had been at the school eight years now. He was pretty bored with only boys for company. The only women at Buxton House were his mother and grandmother. And a few maids and kitchen help. He hardly noticed them.

It hadn’t taken Liam long at Elenchus before he realized he was indeed a privileged student. It wasn’t obvious at first. His parents often traveled and simply came by the school to pick him up if they were going someplace interesting. It didn’t seem to matter if school was in session or not. If his parents wanted to take him with them, he went. Paris, Tokyo, Athens. Liam had been to all of them. His best friend and roommate, Lonnie Porras, had a far more rigid schedule. If school was in session, he was there. He’d gotten two days off for his grandmother’s funeral, if Liam remembered correctly.

Still, Lonnie had a different kind of privilege. Since he turned fifteen, Lonnie had been permitted to leave the grounds on his own when there were no classes. He could ‘go to town’ almost any weekend he wanted to. And Lonnie’s exploits were legendary. According to him, he’d been getting laid regularly for nearly a year. Since he got his driver’s license, he’d been regularly having sex with a fifteen-year-old girl from St. Agnes Academy he was completely besotted with. Liam had seen her picture and could understand why. She was a knockout.

The flipside of Liam’s privilege was he couldn’t leave campus unless he was in the company of his parents or a member of their staff. Usually, it was Erich who came to pick him up and return to Buxton House, about thirty miles north of Covington where the schools were. Of course, there were never girls at home. Liam spent his time running, riding, or playing tennis. He’d been doing that for a week now since school had a recess from Independence Day to Labor Day. He hadn’t come home during every break over the past few years. Often, he had the opportunity to have independent studies with one or more faculty members. They were his favorite classes.

He’d done fine in classes for math, economics, history, and science. Those were all considered lower level classes. For the past two years, more of his classes were in ethics, politics, legal structure, business management, literature, and Liam’s favorite, philosophy. These classes were much smaller than the lower level classes, sometimes with fewer than five students with a teacher and sometimes one-on-one. He supposed he did well, though the school gave few tests and there were no distinctions between grade levels. He’d been told that when he learned his lessons, he would leave Elenchus and go to college. It was taking longer than the two years he had once imagined. As indicated by its name, the Elenchus Schole taught via the Socratic method and students were expected to learn the method as well as the subjects.

Which brought him to his sixteenth birthday, July tenth. His parents had taken him to England for a week to tour the museums—most notably the British Museum—and they had only returned the previous night. Liam had his own method of combatting jetlag and had masturbated in bed until he fell asleep. When Erich woke him in the morning, he brought orange juice and coffee. Liam rose without a fuss.

“Your grandmother wishes you to join her for breakfast, Liam. She expects you at eight in her breakfast room.”

“Thank you, Erich. Do I have time for a run before I shower?”

“I would suggest the 5k course. Leonard will be waiting for you and you should be back in plenty of time to be refreshed and dressed before meeting with your grandmother.”

What a perfectly stupid name for a dog. Leonard. Especially, a dog that was assigned as his bodyguard. He was a lean Afghan/Setter mix, reddish gold in color. Not what you’d expect as a guard dog. But he’d been devoted to Liam for eight years now. Anytime he left the house, Leonard was at his side. Unless Liam left in the car and the company of one of the family staff. Then Leonard walked with him to the car and stayed there until it drove out of sight. Liam had once decided he was mad at the family and was determined to run away. He started to climb the fence at the property’s border. Leonard prevented it. They had a good relationship and Leonard was a good running companion.

“How about you, Leonard? Ever get set loose on a bitch in heat? I know you’ve still got your balls. I hope they let you use them. Not like me. Might as well cut mine off and hang them in the garden shed with the herbs to dry.” They jogged out to the trail marked 5k, getting warmed up. “Let’s kick it up this morning, fella. I’ve got to meet Grams for breakfast. I don’t want to be late. Ready, set, go!” Liam took off up the trail and a little more than fifteen minutes of hard running later, he and Leonard emerged from the end of the trail and jogged toward the house. Liam glanced at his watch. “Fifteen-forty. I coulda been a contenda!”

The run had done nothing to relieve his horniness. He took care of that in the shower.

“Happy birthday, Liam.”

“Thank you, Grandmother. And thank you for inviting me to breakfast this morning.” She looked him up and down before taking him to the table to sit. He was glad he’d taken Erich’s advice on what to wear. He passed inspection. His grandmother kissed him on the cheek and they sat. Erich had assured Liam that the black on black dragon embroidered on the left panel of his shirt made it unnecessary to wear a jacket.

A server came in with champagne flutes filled with orange juice and his grandmother raised her glass to him. He touched hers with the rim of his own. “To the day my grandson becomes a man,” she said. They took a sip and Liam was surprised to have champagne mixed with the juice.

“Whenever that day comes,” he responded. They laughed. When there were only the two of them at the table, they had an easy relationship, joking with each other and often making up puns or other jokes. Grams was quite formal when other people were at the table and Liam had learned his lesson well.

“Are you so anxious to become a man?”

Liam considered his response carefully. He didn’t feel comfortable about telling his grandmother he was horny. “I guess I’m at an awkward age. There seems to be so much I am missing.” .Not the least of which was girls. Surely, that must be the most important part about growing up.

“Ah, yes. All the equipment has been tested and seems to work but there is nothing to use it for.”

“Grandmother!” Liam could feel the heat in his face. How had an old woman struck so near the heart of the matter?

A server came to the table, cutting their conversation short while he placed plates before each of them. Liam’s was piled high with his favorite breakfast—corned beef hash, three poached eggs, and four thick slices of heavily buttered dark rye toast. Cook must have been up very early to have fresh bread for his birthday. He would need to send a thank you down to the kitchen. His grandmother sat with a single English muffin, Canadian bacon, and a poached egg drizzled with Hollandaise sauce. Liam felt she was truly celebrating his birthday with him by having her own favorite breakfast.

“Do not feel we need to talk while we eat. The food is best hot. Fall to it, my boy.” Liam still waited until his grandmother had taken a bite before he broke one of his runny yolks and scooped it onto his toast. Another server filled coffee cups and Liam paused to savor the deep black liquid. Even though their meals were of significantly different portions, they finished at about the same time, setting their utensils on their plates. One of the servers swept in to remove the dishes while another poured fresh coffee and retreated, leaving them alone in at the table.

“It is time for you to learn the fine arts of being a man as well as a gentleman. It is your sixteenth birthday and I have arranged to have a suitable young woman attend this evening. I believe you will like her.”

“Suitable?” Liam could feel the color and heat rising in his cheeks again. “Grandmother! I recognize that sex and love are very different but I don’t want my first time to be with a whore!” The slap across his face brought tears to his eyes and nearly deafened him.

“Are you calling your grandmother a pimp? Perhaps we should delay this conversation until you are eighteen.”

His grandmother had never struck him and Liam realized the severity of her disappointment in him. That hurt more than the blow.

“Grandmother, I’m sorry. I was moved by teenage hormones and did not consider how my words would be taken. Please forgive my outburst.” He hung his head, mortified. His grandmother dipped her napkin in a glass of water and applied the cold wet cloth to the cheek she had struck.

“There. Now it has been forgotten. Kindly give your grandmother the benefit of the doubt when it comes to preparing good things for you.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Now, as I was saying, I have invited a young woman to your celebration this evening who has always thought fondly of you. She is not hired help in any capacity. Kindly do not treat her as staff. She has both life experience and education that you have not yet had and understands your position—possibly better than you do. She has consented to instruct you on how to behave with a woman, and socially in general. While you have had a great deal of world travel, you have had remarkably limited experience with social interaction. You should listen to her and let her guide you. She has consented to let you court her if you are both amenable to it after you meet.”

“I have a lot to learn in that regard. I don’t recall having ever had any interaction with women near my own age.”

“Sadly, that was intentional. I’m sure you realized that. It was dangerous to you and to the family for you to become involved with a random girl who might not be of an acceptable class or conditioning.”

“Grandmother, are you saying I should only develop a relationship with someone who is wealthy? Are not all men created equal?”

“Do you truly believe that? Are you in the same class as your good friend Lonnie, even though his family is wealthy? Or of the same social standing as Erich, your valet? Oh, I agree, they are equally as valuable in our society as anyone else and class structure does not imply hierarchy. We should treat everyone with friendship and respect. We treat everyone as equals. But in the sadly misrepresented words of a bygone era, you are equal but separate.” Liam stared into his coffee cup trying to comprehend the strange words of his grandmother. “Tell me, Liam, what is your ambition in life?”

“I’m not sure that I have a personal ambition, Grandmother. I deduce from my education that you would like me to go into politics. I think Lonnie is far more ambitious in that arena.”

“Oh, heavens no! Do you think we would want our family exposed to the public through the eye of the media? Politicians must live in the muck. In fact, they wallow in it like pigs. Even the upright and honest. Do you wish to live in the muck?”

“No, Grandmother. But ... I’m afraid I still don’t understand.”

“Take your friend, Lonnie. He is a natural born politician. Think of the times he has come to your aid. Do you not owe him something—some loyalty or favors? He charmed the panties off that little girl he’s dating on their second date. Nor was she the first. If he manages his career with the same finesse as he has managed her, he might be governor by the time he is thirty. It will not involve compromising his principles. That is a myth. He has no principles—no goal in life other than advancement. I would guess that in the coming year or two, he will meet a woman who is truly his match. No, I am not arranging this, merely predicting. She will be older, mature, confident. At that point, he may forget entirely the fifteen-year-old treasure he has plundered and devote all his energy to winning the affection—or at least the vagina—of the older woman. It is his nature.”

“I feel bad for poor Susan.”

“Don’t feel too bad. Susan has also shown signs of being a politico. She has accumulated a huge debt from Lonnie and she may prevail as the long-term winner. If they are smart, they will form an alliance that goes much deeper than his penetration. I do not mean they would marry and become faithful to each other. That is unlikely. But they need to plan their futures and their pleasures to support each other rather than compete with each other. They are only fifteen and sixteen years old. Anything may come in the future.”

“Are all relationships between the sexes so cold and calculating?” Liam was no longer horny. He was becoming depressed as his grandmother predicted the future of his friends.

“What you are really asking, I believe, is whether love ever enters the equation. Of course it does. But, as William Thackeray once said, ‘It is as easy to marry a rich woman as a poor woman.’ He stole that line from a woman who published it in Graham’s Magazine four years before The History of Pendennis was published.”

“That was almost two hundred years ago, Grandmother. Has nothing changed?”

“Yes. Money is no longer the primary issue. Nor is public status. Yet it is rare today for true love to overcome the divisions of class.”

“So, I must date within my class and only fall in love within its bounds?”

“It is slightly different for our class.”

“What is our class, Grandmother?”

“We are, to be blunt, royalty.”

“You are the queen?”

“One of them. Sadly, royalty all but died out in favor of the politicians and merchants nearly a thousand years ago. Yet we are still a necessity. It is not so much hereditary rule as that there must be a class that is incorruptible,” she said. Liam thought of some of his father’s business dealings. He’d made quite a bit of money that wasn’t thoought of as entirely clean.

“My father...”

“ ... is not royalty.” She rang a bell and a staff member came to refill their coffee cups. Each sipped as Liam waited for her to continue. “Class in our society is not hereditary, Liam. There is some influence of parents or grandparents on children but class is based on the character of the individual. Sometimes, as in the case of your father, the children of royals are a completely separate class or are simply breeding stock. You, my grandson, were not only bred to royalty, you have been educated and conditioned to take on the mantle of royalty. You must begin now to show your true nature and fitness for confirmation.”

“How did I miss learning this in school?”

“Elenchus is not like other schools. Most schools teach about the classes by the time a child is ten or twelve. Teachers are trained in identifying a child’s class as he grows up. Many are identified as one class or another at a young age. Some strive to become members of a class and may be successful, but devotion to becoming something is, itself, a factor in determining the outcome. Elenchus is far more devoted to bringing out a student’s inner potential and provides studies that enhance that character. Class is not discussed at school, and you should not mention it when you return in the fall.”

“I will do my best, Grandmother.”

“That is exactly what is expected. Now let us get back to the source of this conversation and talk about Meredith.”