Lips Are Silent - 1

The train rattled back into its long, low clacking as it pulled clear of yet another prosperous town on the mountainous Budweiss-Linz-Salzburg line, so once more Zoltan kicked up his heels on the seat opposite him. He moved one foot slowly to work across Alexander’s thigh then he rubbed the sole of his boot into Alexander’s groin.

‘Pervert!’ Alexander smacked Zoltan’s leg with a newspaper lying nearby.
‘Whatcha reading, baby?’ Zoltan pouted at Alexander who tried to ignore him by burying his head in a serious looking journal. ‘Any smut, honey?’
‘Well, yes, as it happens.’ Alexander smiled, ‘It’s a comparison of Havelock Ellis’ theory on hereditary inversion of sexual attraction among men and doctor Freud’s recent critique of it, and the Doctor’s own notions, contra Kraft-Ebing and others. Freud seems to think that all children are born polymorphously perverse rather than inherently normal, which is the prevailing orthodoxy. As it happens.’
‘Riveting.’ Zoltan yawned.
‘Nah! But at least it tries to understand why you take a morally corrupt, sexually perverse delight in rubbing my private parts with your bloody great foot.’
‘And why you just love me doing it too, maybe?’

Alexander whacked Zolan’s leg again, only harder and this time with his hand, chastising Zotan as he did it, ‘Careful! You’ll crease my uniform trousers, you brute!’
‘Your boner-tent will soon press out any creases, baby.’
Alexander lifted Zoltan’s ankle and firmly placed it away from him. ‘Read your paper,’ he insisted. ‘The british news looks interesting.’
‘The latest Zulu uprising or the fantastic ideas for that spanking new battleship HMS Dreadnought? Now there’s a nice piece of stuff.’
‘What the Zulu?’ Alexander quipped.
‘Very funny.’ Zoltan looked at the grainy photo of a half-naked African carrying a leather shield and a Mauser. ‘Mmm, nice, but more your type. You like them big, butch and no trousers.’

Alexander threw a newspaper at Zoltan’s head.
Zoltan stuck out his tongue and pulled a face. ‘I think I prefer the sort of cowboy blokes in that American you swoon over, you know all leaves of grass or something.’
‘Awh! Am I your Whitman-esque tan-faced prairie boy?’
‘Well, you were kind of sunburned when we first met, as I recall.’ Another newspaper flew toward Zoltan. ‘And you were a bit on the silent side, nothing much to write home about.’

Alexander cast aside his journal then pounced. In one lithe movement from his curled up pose in the corner of their compartment he flung himself on top of Zoltan’s belly.

Zoltan bent up, expelling air noisily. ‘Your hurting me!’ He sobbed as Alexander pounded him with punches. ‘No! No! Don’t! Please not that!’ he yelped as tickles replaced the pummelling.
Passing merriment raged in the corridor outside. The shades drawn across their windows, gave very little protection. A rattling stagger hit against the door, opening with it a jolt. ‘Fidus?’ A military bark growled into the compartment without at first registering them, but on seeing Alexander on top of Zoltan the swaying medal-strewn uniform clanked into the compartment. ‘No Hugo here, then,’ the high ranker complained as he closed the door behind him.

Zoltan and Alexander had snapped to attention on seeing the glitter of imperial household honours on the man’s breast. They stood in silent reverence, tinged with paranoia.
The few moments in which all three gaped at each other seemed to span into hours, and was broken only when the train juddered over more points. It sent the High and German Master of the Teutonic Order into Zoltan’s arms. Embarrassed, both men disentangled and straightened up.
‘Look,’ the noble pointed at the seats, ‘empty places. I guess we could all sit down.’

Alexander and Zoltan froze. It was one thing to serve the imperial family in their various palaces, or to be no more than a footfall away from them at a parade ground inspection. It was quite another to breach court etiquette, even in this dimly lit, cosy compartment of a royal train.

The Archduke realized the predicament, and his face lightened with genuine empathy. ‘I think we can set the court rules aside here, gentlemen.’ He sat down and motioned them to sit too.
More raucous confusion broke into the compartment from the corridor. A knock came at the door, but it didn’t open without invitation.
‘Come!’ The prince barked, almost as a distraction as he leafed through a magazine that had been tucked in the fold’s of Zoltan’s newspaper.
‘Prince Friedrich Heinrich’s company were asking for you, Highness.’ The extraordinarily good looking secretary spoke to the prince, but sized up Zoltan then Alexander. He pursed his lips.
‘Is Hugo with them?’ The Archduke asked, still scrutinizing the magazine.

‘Herr Hoeppener is, I believe, presently waiting on the Prussian delegation.’ The equerry’s observations turned to the prince for a moment then scoured back over Alexander, who blushed.
‘Very good, Szecheny.’ The prince looked up from the magazine and followed the equerry’s gaze, he smiled at Alexander’s discomfort then gave a thin grimace to the equerry. ‘I’ll be along.’
With a swift click of the heels the prince’s attendant bowed and closed the sliding door. A silence punctuated by the rattles of the railway and laughs from the corridor was soon swallowed up by the Archduke. ‘You are “Individualists”?’ he asked, but didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Der Eigene is an interesting advocate for the notion of self-possession,’ he said tapping Zoltan’s magazine. ‘Of course,’ he almost laughed, ‘it hasn’t been able to carry so much of the male nude graphics since the court case, but it still conveys a very avant garde look.’

Zoltan and Alexander exchanged glances, then nodded. They knew the command to attend some top nobs at the Klessheim palace was going to be an interesting detail, but they’d had no idea they would be in the midst of it - and so soon.

‘Cousin Ludwig Victor has many Taormina plates from von Plueschow and von Gloeden. I’ll show you around the old goat’s collection.’ The prince handed over the magazine to Zoltan, and said to Alexander, ‘If you both like, that is.’ The Archduke’s manner was unaffected, even friendly, in a shy sort of way. As though a Habsburg prince inviting two imperial servants to view pictures of naked youths was the most natural thing in the world.

‘Your Highness is too kind,’ Alexander croaked out, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. Zoltan sat dumbstruck, too nervous even to let his jaw drop. ‘We’d be delighted, if it isn’t too much trouble.’
The Archduke pouted, ‘Trouble? No,’ he said, moving out to join a gaggle of courtiers waiting for him in the corridor, ‘it’ll be no trouble. I’d look forward to seeing more of you two.’
Zoltan mouthed My God Almighty! to Alexander, then asked, ‘Which one was that?’
‘That, my dear boy, was the Archduke Eugene.’

A small but impressive convoy of vehicles waited outside the station to transport the entourage to the Klessheim palace, so Zoltan and Alexander separated to join their respective units and watch as the dignitaries boarded their glistening automobiles.

While local officials fawned over the carriages, and local residents stood around calmly, amazed by the procession of glitz, the Archduke Eugene stopped. He pointed at Alexander standing to attention in the rows of uniforms and gave instructions to an aide. Before he climbed into his plush car seat he scanned what remained of the accompanying guards to point out Zoltan to the same aide-de-camp, then waving at the crowds he settled down and the motorcade began to inch off amid delighted cheers.

Packed into stocky lorries or bundled among the horse-drawn baggage carts, the imperial servants exchanged stories of the tales they’d heard about Klessheim and the emperor’s odd brother, Archduke Ludwig Victor.

‘Exiled he was,’ a corporal said to Alexander. He worked in the clerical office two doors down from Alexander’s at the Hofburg, so on spotting Alexander he’d snuggled in beside him for reassurance. ‘Sergeant Weissenthal,’ the corporal pointed discretely at the sturdy form of their unit leader in the imperial guards administration division. ‘Well, they say he had it from good authority that old Lutzi Vutzi..’ the corporal bumped closer into Alexander to whisper, ‘that, as you know, is the imperial family’s nickname for the Archduke,’ he smiled, ‘..anyway, it seems LutziVutzi really was slapped across the face in the Centralbad steam rooms when he tried it on with a stuffy officer.’

Alexander had already heard the reports, so he sniffed and said, ‘Had the officer already marked off his card, then?’
The corporal’s thoughts cogged around this novel take on the situation, it seemed to tickle him. With a giggle he whispered, ‘A triste, you mean?’ He screwed his eyelids up, peering at Alexander, then added, ‘a lover’s triangle, perhaps, not a matter of military honour.’

‘The effect was the same, whatever.’ Alexander and the corporal juddered forward as their transport slammed to a halt. ‘Klessheim palace.’
Activity buzzed around them as all the various transports parked at the service entrance to the palace. Orders flew about in chaotic, merry anarchy. Yet, somehow, despite all the efforts to organise them, they fell into neat ranks. They doubled forward to greet the arrival of the imperial party, which had taken a more scenic route and so arrived in less disorder.

As the last stragglers were snarled into place, the doors of a shiny new Daimler car opened. The occupants barely had time to descend from the car when five naked men sped passed them with whoops, yelps and cheers of welcome. The nudists turned and came back, waving their way along the row of uniforms. At the front, a middle aged man ran locked arm in arm with a youth, at the rear a man in his sixties skipped after and tried to grope a beefy-looking Adonis and his twin.
‘Archduke Ludwig Victor,’ the corporal murmured from the side of his mouth.

The ranks held their present-arms position with parade ground accuracy, but the imperial party roared after and saluted the five men, their caps and top hats flung into the air.
Gold and silver, crystal and mirrored glass, silks, damasks and gems hung, nonchalantly, around the public rooms, and vied with the envious beauty of the Salzburg elite, permitted, on this occasion, a strictly limited and closely observed access to Klessheim’s night life.

Almost before the evening had turned to twinkling alpine darkness, the palace had begun glow. Flunkies minced through the echoing service gangways then prowled elegantly along the blaze of corridors linking sitting rooms, private lounges, the dining room, dance floor and staircase, all designed to impress, yet seeming so homely.

Both Alexander and Zoltan drank in the whole show. Either glued to a window pane high up in the servants’ quarters, or peeping down briefly into the all consuming mouth of the palace entrance, or wandering from the kitchens into the grounds to stare in at the surging waltz of men tucked into tight uniforms or stuffed into their evening-dress starched shirts, and close beside them in swirls, their gloriously padded, rigged, corseted and pinned-up ladies.
‘Have you noticed how beautiful everything is?’ Zoltan almost sighed.
‘Money can make them beautiful.’ Alexander did sigh.
‘No, not them,’ Zoltan pointed at the open ballroom windows, ‘or not just them.’ He opened his arms to the whole of Klessheim, ‘I mean everything here.’ Leaning into Alexander he ran a kissing breath over his ear, ‘you included.’

The luscious soar of Lehar’s latest waltzes flooded out of the windows. In the cool air it descended on them, caught them up, and swept Alexander and Zoltan away. Turned in the swaying spinning motion, they linked arms and bodies to the rhythm, and were carried far away from their snooping on others, off into a private world.

Washed up amid the spidery, early spring shadows of an enclosed garden they fell back to walking side by side. Their fingers, however, still linked one hand to another, but with no more obvious intimacy than that.
‘I envy you.’
A voice in the darkest recess of the garden made them jump. The Archduke Ludwig Victor stepped forward into the dim gleam breaking in from the palace.
‘Is that really so wrong of me?’ The emperor’s brother asked, his eyes darting like a hunted animal’s. ‘I can’t play truant, even here.’ He strode over to them, stopped, nearly toe to toe, then pleaded, ‘do walk with me for a while before I go in and face the music!’
They laughed at the notion, not least because an impromptu chorus of imperial guards lazing around outside the gardens took up the strains of a tune from the Merry Widow.
‘Each touch of the hand
speaks plain to me...
Clearly it says, ‘s true, ‘s true,
You love me!’
Alexander confided, ‘Now that really is like an operetta stage.’

Zoltan turned to the Archduke and asked, ‘Do you think everyone is made for waltzing, like the lyrics go on to say?’
‘So dances the soul,’ the prince tittered with insane self-absorption. ‘There’ he started to sing softly to himself, almost as comforting words, ‘a tender heart skips small beats.’ In drink sozzled steps he pirouetted away from them slightly. ‘It knocks, it pounds,’ he beat his breast, stopping once more before them, ‘It’s mine! It’s mine!’
‘Sir,’ Alexander reached out to steady the prince, then withdrew his touch as company approached them, ‘I believe you are required.’
‘Vienna has telegraphed, Highness,’ a stern , tense-buttoned uniform proclaimed.

The Archduke Eugene sauntered up, squeezed passed the little party of retainers, and linked arms with Ludwig Victor, ‘You’re missing the party, dear cousin.’ Eugene acknowledged Zoltan and Alexander. Patting his cousin’s arm, gently as any tender nurse, he lead the way back.

Plainly a frightened, institutionalised, old man, Ludwig Victor looked round at Alexander and Zoltan and waggled his fingers in parting. He giggled too, because Archduke Eugene shared some secret with him.
Left to themselves Alexander and Zoltan ambled quietly until a servant was sent to round up all stragglers, their evening meal was nearly ready.
Gradually the lights of the palace were being extinguished, as Alexander took a bedtime walk, the festivity now having drawn out to an extended close. Reaching out before him a long line of glowing carriages neighed, tooted and erupted with glee while disappearing down the driveway, then out along the slow, scintillating road.

The procession was watched closely by Alexander from his distant vantage point beside a cluster of trees. He shivered against the early morning chill and the scrunch of footsteps on gravel.
‘They seem to have enjoyed themselves,’ Zoltan said, joining him.

‘Come here,’ Alexander insisted, stepping further into the shade. He breathed in Zoltan’s skin, it was still glowing with the scent of army-issue carbolic soap. Kissing deep into Zoltan’s mouth, Alexander reached down to feel his cock. It was growing hard, and so was his.

Zoltan pressed one hand into Alexander’s tunic. He rubbed his fingers across his breast and along the muscular outline of his newly toned body. ‘You smell nice,’ he sighed. Sweetly, he moaned under the feel of Alexander’s hand massaging his groin.

‘We got Lutzi Vutzi’s perfumed bathing salts,’ Alexander almost laughed between kisses. He loved the way Zoltan groaned, his body seeming to gyrate with each breath. The shaft of Zoltan’s hard cock poked against him, so Alexander ground up against it. Breaking free of Zoltan’s mouth, he licked down the centre of his throat, over his tunic breast, and crouching before him, Alexander bit down through the soft warmth of Zoltan’s uniform trousers.

Zoltan continued to moan and gasp as Alexander gnawed at the base of his throbbing meat. Anticipating Alexander’s next move, he spread his legs apart. He laid one hand lightly on the top of Alexander’s head, combing through his hair, at the same time pushing him in toward his powerful, straining cock.

Continued in : Lips Are Silent 2 ...