A little startled, Hugo looked across at a grinning Lucacz. ‘Are you haunting me?’ he asked.
Lucacz crossed to the bed and lay alongside Hugo. ‘Yes. Do I scare you?’
‘No. You’re just being a dick, Dead Boy. Fancy spying on me when I have a wank.’
‘Sorry if I crossed a boundary, Hugo. But you are … what’s the word you modern people use? Sexy. Yes, sexy. When I was a living boy I didn’t wank much.’
‘Really? What did you do for relief?’
‘Umm … I used to fuck the younger boys in the stable. It was the done thing, you realise. Bigger lads had fucked me when I was smaller, so I just graduated to doing it.’
‘So you’re still interested in sex?’
‘Only from curiosity. It’s not easy to do it in this form, you realise.’
‘I was beginning to wonder, Lucacz. What intimate things can you do?’
‘Er … like what?’
‘Kissing?’
‘You’d like to kiss me?’
‘Could I?’
‘This body can be solid enough, so theoretically yes. But it is not made of water, so kissing might be a drier exercise than you’d enjoy.’
‘Oral sex might not work that well either. How about hugging?’
‘Oh yes. Er … can I?’
‘I’d like that.’
So with a happy grin, Lucacz rolled on to Hugo, who found himself enveloped by the embrace of a warm strong body, whose head pressed into the space between shoulder and chin and nuzzled his neck. Hugo even seemed to detect a heartbeat pulsing next to his, though he thought that perhaps might just be just an illusion of expectation.
‘I like this,’ said Lucacz. ‘you’re really comfortable to hug.’
‘And you smell really nice,’ Hugo murmured in Lucacz’s ear.
‘Mmm. It’s the smell of the World Beyond, Hugo. I carry it with me into this one.’
‘It makes me feel good. So will you stay while I sleep, Lucacz?’
The revenant gave a happy grin. ‘I was hoping you’d ask.’
And so Hugo, wrapped in Lucacz’s strong arms, sank into a sleep and dreams more relaxed than he had any reason to expect after the events of that day. He was alone when he woke, but the depression in the mattress next to him was evidence enough that the late Lucacz Marcovic had shared his bed. Hugo concluded not only that the dead boy apparently had romantic feelings for him, but that Lucacz had deliberately planned this unusual seduction to mitigate any trauma the day’s events had left Hugo with. A dead boy was in love with him. And he was not indifferent to the dead boy.
Theo placed a cup of tea on the kitchen table as Hugo stumbled in. ‘You alright? I thought I heard you talking to someone in bed last night. But you didn’t bring anyone home, did you?’
‘No. I was just talking to myself. It’s a bad habit.’ Hugo sipped his tea, meditatively.
Theo raised an eyebrow, but dropped the subject, leaving Hugo to ponder his alarming situation in peace. The only person he could think of talking to about the latest and strangest developments in his life was Martin Tofts. But he was currently somewhere in Neder Husbrau with General Henry von Tarlenheim, collecting intelligence for London and trying to mitigate the disaster of the Bermann raids. At the very least Hugo would have liked to talk to him about the consequences of the Brentheim massacre … though what really could he say?
***
Prince Leopold of Thuringia occupied an unusual niche in the Nazi Reich for someone who was not a party member and had never once issued a statement supporting its aims, other than wearing a token party button at Berlin events. As one of the wealthiest princes of the surviving imperial aristocracy he was conceded a privileged place in the Reich, though he had no ambitions to emulate his cousin Philip of Hesse and be the Nazi-appointed governor of the province that had formerly been his family’s grand duchy. Leo’s extensive interests and influence in Rothenia made him an even more attractive figure to Berlin as the Reich expanded to include Austria, Bohemia and Rothenia.
Ulrich Korngeibel, the former gauleiter of Thuringia, was now Reichsprotektor of Ruritania, and had made much in both posts of his supposed friendship with Prince Leo. As duke of Thuringia Leo had been more popular than any of his predecessors, especially his remorseless and unscrupulous father. Leo had ploughed some of his great wealth into agricultural improvements and investment in depressed areas of the duchy at a time when Germany was in economic decline and crisis. Korngeibel was not above claiming credit for the beneficial results for himself and NSDAP policy in the provincial Landtag.
He made a lot of his supposed links with Prince Leo on his arrival with German troops in the Ruritanian Protektorat, though Leo avoided appearing with Korngeibel in public. But Leo wasn’t surprised when in the aftermath of the Brentheim massacre Korngeibel requested he meet him. The Reichsprotektor had fixed his official Rothenian residence in the somewhat faded grandeur of the Strelzen Residenz, but he also frequently used the château of Zenda, which had the advantage in those days of being close to the borders of the Greater Reich, which now included Mittenheim.
Waclaw drove the prince first to Fürstenberg, the palace of the prince of Tarlenheim, Hugo’s father and an old friend of Leo’s. It was within the forest of Zenda and only ten kilometres from the château. He solicited a bed there.
‘I have this reluctance, prince, to be beholden to Herr Korngeibel’s hospitality. Pip and I had such good times at Zenda when Maxim was king.’
The prince conceded the request with a smile, and over dinner Leo was asked to repeat for the family’s benefit his tale of Pip’s adventures during the Fall of France. Philip Underwood von Tarlenheim zu Templerstadt, Prince of Murranberg and Count of Eisendorf, had long been a favourite amongst his relatives at Fürstenberg.
‘So the English have now made him a colonel and sent him off to be a chief of staff in Egypt. Very suitable for a Tarlenheim prince,’ the prince smiled.
‘Perhaps,’ answered Leo. ‘But his main reason for being there is that the British use Cairo as their base for matters relating to the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Pip is expected to be a liaison for the Yugoslav and indeed Rothenian resistance. He has local knowledge and is quite the linguist as you know.’
Prince Franz smiled. ‘It’s good to see how the house of Tarlenheim is finding ways to serve great Rothenia even now in its darkest hour.’
The next morning after an early breakfast, Waclaw drove Leo through the forest to the château, entering now into its russet glory of autumn. Leo wondered if the Protektor took advantage of the forest’s hunting lodges. Leo’s Underwood heritage included a love of field sports in which his grandfather had encouraged him. He maintained a pack of hounds in his forest refuge of Heinrichshof in Thuringia, and rode to hunt with them and his neighbours, who were flattered by the opportunity. He seemed to remember inviting Korngeibel to a shoot there once, but the man had passed up on the opportunity.
The last time Leo had visited Zenda the guard had been mounted by the regiments of the Household Division of King Maxim, resplendent in Ruritanian blue and gold, in plumed Austrian-style shakos. His heart sank to see the black and silver of SS troopers now pacing the terrace, and to have his papers examined by Feldgendarmerie. After the Brentheim incident it seemed that Herr Korngeibel’s security was too much of a priority to confide to the Wehrmacht.
Leo was ushered into one of the rear reception rooms, looking out over the lake to the great keep of the medieval Elphberg castle. He gritted his teeth to see a swastika flag fluttering from the top of its tower. He turned his gaze into the room, and was strangely comforted to find there still a handsome modern portrait of his godfather, King Maxim, in its place above the mantelpiece. For all Zenda was occupied by the brutish power of the Reich, it felt like his home.
Ulrich Korngeibel rose from a sofa, arm extended, and Leo dutifully shook the offered hand. The Protektor had shed his brown Sturm Abteilung dress, and now wore a black uniform and peaked cap, with gilded grey patches, decorations and shoulder boards, though he was not an SS officer. Korngeibel had always been a dressy man, and Leo rather suspected that he had invented a uniform to fit his rank, though that was not the done thing in the Reich. As far as Leo knew, only the Reichsmarschall, Göring, had the favour and the hubris to assume such a privilege to himself, and Korngeibel had never belonged to Hitler’s intimate circle, mostly selected from his street-fighting mates in 1920s Munich.
‘Your royal highness is welcome to Zenda,’ he murmured and offered coffee.
‘As you know, Reichsprotektor, I have many ties to this old place.’
Korngeibel’s gaze flickered to the portrait above the chimney piece. ‘You might still do so had the former king listened to the Führer’s proposals.’
Leo raised his eyebrows. This was the first open allusion he had heard from a senior Nazi figure that Hitler had attempted to negotiate a return to Rothenia of King Maxim under the Reich’s patronage. Leo could guess at how that would have been received at Belsager. He chose not to take the hint to discuss Elphberg matters. ‘My dear Herr Korngeibel, I will want to visit the Thuringian mausoleum in the park. My mother is laid there and I do believe the site is still reckoned as the property of the Thuringian Stiftung, by concession of King Maxim.’
‘Of course, your royal highness. Shall I have the domestic staff create an appropriate floral tribute for you?’
The delicacy of the gesture added to the mystery of Ulrich Korngeibel for Leo. He was a former college lecturer from Ernsthof, who had climbed very early on to the NSDAP bandwagon, and came to party prominence in Thuringia after the more thuggish cadre of the SA had been eliminated in the Night of the Long Knives. As a young man Korngeibel had served as a lieutenant in Galicia in Leo’s late father’s army corps. Leo believed that for some unaccountable reason — maybe a kind word of praise from his father — the young Korngeibel had acquired and not lost a veneration for the house of Thuringia. He appeared to have transferred that pro-Thuringian sentiment to King Albrecht’s son. But sometimes Leo felt that there was more to his appearance of friendship. The man’s intellectual abstraction made him very difficult to read.
Rather to Leo’s irritation, Korngeibel asked to accompany him to the mausoleum. He was too polite a prince to deny the man, so they walked in silence along the woodland path. Leaves were beginning to flutter down through the branches as autumn progressed. There was a chill in the air that indicated winter was soon to come to Rothenia. The green copper domes of the building loomed above the treetops.
Something of a chill gripped Leo’s heart as he entered the great doorway and the vast empty space beyond. But he rallied.
‘It’s in very good repair,’ Leo commented.
‘I believe your Stiftung’s agent in Zenden City inspects it annually, your royal highness,’ came the reply. ‘The grounds are maintained by the castle’s gardeners for no fee.’
Leo had been to the mausoleum a few times in the past since attending his mother’s funeral, so he did not need the tour that Korngeibel favoured him with, though it did confirm for him that the man was something of an obsessive about the Thuringian dynasty: a ‘fan’. A word Martin had smugly explained to Leo when the subject of the American film industry and the Hollywood star machine came up over dinner at Belsager. Ivor Novello had been a guest that night, en route to taking the new RMS Queen Mary from Southampton to New York the next day. Leo had acknowledged he was something of a Novello fan.
Three very grand Thuringian table monuments were situated directly under the central dome of the mausoleum. The central one was Leo’s grandfather, King Wilhelm Heinrich, the second Thuringian king of Ruritania. His father, the third king, was not here, but laid in the ducal Grüft below the Matthiaskirche in Ernsthof. It was his mother’s tomb that was the only object of emotional attachment to him in the place. His other grandfather, Augustus Underwood, had asked King Maxim that his daughter be buried at Zenda. He never said why, but Leo had come to realise that Gus expected Leo would in his turn want to be laid to rest in the Thuringian royal burial ground in Rothenia.
Leo had come around to the same conclusion, but it occurred to him that he would want to make more of an Underwood presence in the mausoleum, and for that another monument would be needed.
‘Herr Protektor,’ he commenced. ‘I am approaching my forties and am thinking, as one should, about arrangements for my burial. I intend to be buried here, but first I would like to transfer my grandfather’s — my other grandfather’s — remains to Zenda. Can you see any legal obstacle to that move?’
Korngeibel raised an eyebrow, but after a short consideration said he thought not. ‘You are one of his heirs and his closest living relative I believe, and so the decision is entirely yours, royal highness. The only problem I can foresee might be if the count of Eisendorf had named Pietersburg as his resting place in his last will and testament.’
Leo said he thought not, though the old man had made clear to Leo and Pip that he expected to be laid in the lakeside sarcophagus which his lover, Anton, Baron Dönitz, had constructed and where he had been buried.
Of course this did not settle the question of where Leo’s own descendants would choose to be buried. This was no longer an academic question, for his wife, the young Archduchess Flavia Helena, had confided that as a result of an experiment they had made to find if Leo could ‘get it up’ with her, she believed herself to be pregnant. He had yet to tell the news to Martin Tofts. Leo moved to the eastern end of the mausoleum, and there he inspected the ledger stone that announced that in this place lay Antonia Underwood, Countess of Rechtenberg, with her date of death and the sculpted and painted arms of the Underwoods, Baronets of Haddesley Hall, co. Suffolk., differenced for her father Augustus Underwood with a five pointed star and crested with the coronet of a countess. Grandfather could easily fit in beside his daughter and, casting his eyes around, Leo thought the adjacent apse would suit him and yes, Martin Tofts too.
Leo tried out his scheme for the mausoleum on Waclaw as he was being driven back to Fürstenburg that evening. His chauffeur approved. ‘It’s never too early to think these things through, sir. After all, my brother Carol whose name Herr Tov-utz is now borrowing, died of the consumption at only fourteen. But my mum was paying her pence to the St Anthony’s Church Friendly Society and Prayer Guild. So young Carol’s coffin, funeral masses and grave were already paid for. It was one less thing we had to worry about. Mum’s carried on the payments, and I’m covered still. We paid extra in the end for a brick burial shaft in the Sankt Anton Friedhof in the Neuvemesten, so I’ll be slotted in there on top of my parents and siblings.’ He pondered a moment then added. ‘Herr Tov-utz made his living digging up dead people, sir. I’d imagine he has spent more time considering the fate of his own body than most people do.’
Leo smiled and thanked Waclaw, saying it was about time he and Martin had a serious conversation about that subject. He added the observation that in that case he’d be staying on in Strelzen longer than he had planned. ‘Which is good news for young Gottleib,’ he said with a smile. Waclaw was still chuckling a few miles later when turned on to the drive up to the limestone bulk of the palace of Fürstenburg.
***
‘So you’re fine with me sharing your bed?’ Lucacz asked, a little plaintively.
Hugo chuckled. ‘You like doing it? But you don’t sleep.’
‘But I lie really quiet, and I never fart unlike those bastards I had to sleep with when I worked in the Tarlenheim stables. And yes, lying in a bed with a warm breathing human is fun. It takes me back in so many ways. But I wouldn’t want to creep you out.’
‘You don’t. But I have to admit that there is something weird about it, mostly the fact that when I’m in bed with an attractive, good-looking boy I usually have sex on my mind. And so I think do you, but what can we do about it?’
Lucacz grinned. ‘You read my mind, human. I can certainly wank you I think, and I’d like to think my oral talents have survived death. But the problem is that my mouth isn’t wet and let’s just not talk about my asshole.’
Hugo thought for a while. ‘But your fucking me is a possibility?’
‘Er … I suppose. My cock stays up at will in this form, and my phantom balls generate … er … jizz of a sort. In the old days, when I was alive, you didn’t butt fuck much because your cock was too dry and you could tear other boys’ asses if you got too rough. Well, unless you could get hold of a grease pot from the kitchens.’
‘Mmm. In 1941 you can readily get lubricants from pharmacies, and me and Theo have enough of it available. So could I slick up your phantom cock and get you to do me?’
Lucacz grinned and kissed Hugo’s cheek. ‘I think so. You’d be happy to be fucked by a ghost?’
‘You’re not a ghost, Lucacz. Whatever you are you come over as alive, funny and sexy. I think the proper word for what you are may be an “incubus”, or possibly a “succubus”. Not quite sure which is which.’
‘Incubus,’ said Lucacz slowly. ‘Sounds better than “dead bumfucker”.’
‘We’ll stick with it, Lucacz. So … er … shall I get the lubricant?’
***
Waclaw drove Leo to the Rodolferplaz and to the Second Empire frontage of the Hotel König Heinrich II, which had established itself as Strelzen’s finest since the late nineteenth century. The Thuringian Stiftung had properties in Strelzen but did not maintain a private residence for the prince. Having settled his employer and parked up his car in the hotel’s new underground car park, Waclaw walked briskly along the south of the square and on to the Wejg, walking half its length before entering the scruffy court where Martin Tofts had made his headquarters.
He did not knock but entered unannounced. There was a very familiar rhythmic knocking sound from upstairs. Waclaw’s eyebrow raised as he considered what sort of coupling was going on. Theo? Martin? Surely not his Gottleib! He raced up the stairs and barged through the closed door of the lower back room, and then he stood stunned. A naked boy was alone on all fours on the bed, apparently miming copulation, and that very skilfully. He could see the boy’s rear entrance, and it was wide open and much dilated as if being pounded by an imaginary lover.
‘What the fuck!’ Waclaw gasped. The boy turned his head, and he recognised the face of Count Hugo von Tarlenheim, his eyes heavy with lust and his jaw slack with ecstasy. As Waclaw looked, the boy’s buttocks and slim belly clenched, his taut perineum pulsed, his rigid penis swelled and spattered streams of sperm on the bedclothes beneath him. And as Waclaw stood staring and stunned, he was barged aside, as a very solid but quite invisible body pushed him peremptorily to one side.
When he had spun back from the push he found Hugo sitting on the side of the bed looking up at him not nearly as embarrassed as Waclaw had expected. ‘What the hell is going on, kid?’ he demanded. ‘That was not sex done in any way I’ve ever seen. You’ve found a way to fuck yourself?’
Hugo shrugged, as he reached for his white vest. ‘Let’s just say I’ve found a new and superior way to wank, and that’s all I can say. When did you get back Waclaw?’
‘I just dropped the prince off at his hotel. Where’s my Gottleib?’
‘No idea. I’ve been … er … busy this afternoon.’
‘I can imagine. I’ll go down and make a tea and wait. Want one?’
Waclaw left the room with some relief. He did not think he imagined Hugo engaged in a conversation up in his room as he bustled round the kitchen downstairs.
***
‘It would have been better if you’d stayed visible when Waclaw walked in, Lucacz.’
The revenant boy shrugged. ‘He took me by surprise. You were strangely cool to be found taking your pleasure like that.’ Lucacz was lying next to Hugo, up on one elbow and looking down at him.
‘Hmm. It’s not so unusual for me. There’s a backroom in the White Tree where you can get it on with any randy boy who wants it, and sometimes with a whole gang of them. Men come in to watch us go at it. I found that sort of public sex gets me hot. Odd, because usually I’m choosy about which boy I fuck, and even choosier about boys who I let fuck me.’
Lucacz gave the idea some thought. ‘It’s a bit beyond my experiences while I was human. My earliest fucks were with another servant boy at Tarlenheim, Moricz his name was. One time the bigger boys in the stables found us two doing it in a loft, and they had their fun with us, whether we wanted to or not. After that me and Moricz found ourselves being regularly done by the big boys. Some of their cocks were really big too. Bad if you couldn’t grease your asshole before they grabbed you. Bastards even dressed me up as a girl when they partied in the stable court after sunset. I hated that.
‘But then I got big myself, and it was different when you could pick your own pretty little lads to fuck. I was more in control I guess. Moricz lost interest in me when I got hairier. He did like the younger ones more, and then he managed to fuck one of the kitchen girls and got her pregnant. He was discharged and sent back to his dad, a blacksmith in the town. I think he may have married the girl in the end. But by then I’d lost touch with him, and when I was seventeen I got the fever and now here I am …’.
‘So you did experience ejaculation sometimes when you were a real live kid?’ Hugo asked. ‘But you can’t produce sperm now, can you? So how do you get any sexual satisfaction out of our coupling?’
Lucacz frowned. ‘That’s a difficult one to answer. Your passion and orgasm somehow leaks back into my mind. So when you come, my body generates a complementary orgasm. Then there is the sensuality of your naked flesh against mine. I think the way I feel your warmth and the satin sheen of your skin may be far more intense than what you experience from the touch of other boys. And your feelings for me excite me too. Maybe it’s not human sexuality, but it is an intense sensuality that may actually be more powerful.’
‘Can you appear to the likes of Waclaw and Theo?’
‘I suppose I can, but you’ll have noticed that I never look quite like a living boy. They’ll find me odd and possibly frightening, especially my eyes.’
‘I don’t. To me you look beautiful.’
‘That’ll be because you do have intense feelings for me. It adds to my reality. Do you want me to move about the world and be seen?’
‘If you had, Waclaw wouldn’t have been so disconcerted by walking in on us in the throes of sex. How I can ever explain it is beyond me, unless I tell him the truth, which is wild enough.’
Lucacz chuckled. ‘I’d better talk to Karl Wollherz. He has far more experience with the living world than I do, and I really should get his permission. Will that do?’
‘Yes. Now come here and hug me. Kissing may be out of order, and when I tried it earlier, it was like kissing a sculpture. But I really do like to be in your arms.’
Posted 25 December 2024