Angus looked for a late-night solace in the Morganwg estate’s kitchen. A commoner would find looking for a snack there was like trying to find a healthy fixing in a mall food court. But Angus grew up in Morganwg, knew the redesigned 19th Century cupboards and cold storage places like an archeologist in Giza. And he was looking for something familiar, cozy, and comfortable because he was about to do something new, strange, and frightening. He was about to marry his BFF - a man from his childhood - and Angus Reese, the 12th Earl of Glamorgan was not gay.
Ciara Mac Innes – the sister of his betrothed - was the familiar with the kitchen as well, as she was a ward to the Earl’s great aunt, Lady Nora. Finding Ciara busily moving about in the kitchen offered Angus the familiar part – she was always there or at her cottage, Redrow, not far from the estate, just past the Druidic gardens where he and her brother played as children and talked into the late night as young teens. “What has you up this late?” she asked, not startled by his presence. “I was about to put the kettle on.”
Angus nodded and pulled a stool up to the island butchery table. Spread over it was a wide variety of dried and freshly picked herbs. Ciara, renowned throughout the countryside surrounding Cardiff as a veterinarian and quietly referred to as the “2nd witch of Morganwg” (his aunt was the 1st), often used herbs instead of Western drugs to heal her patients and was not adverse to offering a healthy cupper or two for ailing humans. The assortment tickled the nose with an array of smells from richly sweet to plain bark. But the frown on Angus’s face, long auburn hair uncharacteristically tied in a haphazard man bun, shirtless with a pair of pizza stained sweat pants meant he hadn’t anticipated her being there and had likely just been awakened by a nightmare.
After grabbing two large mugs and putting dried herbs in a brown bag to make room on the table, Ciara started putting some already prepared herbs in an infuser. “Oi! You hardly look like a man about to be happily married.”
Angus raised his eyes, his long lashes fluttering a bit as if he had to refocus himself. If she hadn’t always assumed there would be a relationship between him and her brother, she would have found Angus handsome, like one does the men on the cover of the latest pirate-themed bodice-ripper. Like her brother, he was well-built and tattooed, particularly on his arms and legs – a collection of druidic symbols and designs. Usually, he was smiling, easy going, and light hearted but this continuance was more like her brooding philosopher brother. “I am happy,” Angus sighed.
“But?”
“But what?”
She cocked her head to the right then asked, “Why are you looking like this upcoming Saturday is your date of execution?” Ciara did not have her brother’s psychic abilities but wished she did as pulling things out of people was annoying – animals were much more forthcoming with their feelings.
“I’m just confused, I guess,” he said initially but upon rethinking, corrected himself, “No, concerned, that’s all.” She gave him an “out with it” look. “Do you find Deetz . . . domineering?”
Ciara chuckled, “Are you kidding?” She got the hot water and poured it in the mugs then set one mug in front of him. “You find him different than when we were kids?”
“Well, yeah,” Angus said before taking a cautious sip. “When we were kids, he was bookish and timid. He followed me around like a lost puppy.”
“And now?”
“He’s, he’s . . . ,“stuttered Angus, “he’s awful, masculine. He takes over everything!”
Ciara sighed again, putting down her mug after enjoying a nice long sip of the sweet, tart liquid. Isn’t his masculinity some of what attracted him?, she thought to herself. Angus and her brother Desmond, called Deetz, had had many arguments since their sexual relationship began several months back. At first, it was Deetz fears of intimacy – not an uncommon reaction in sex abuse survivors. Then, it was Angus’s reluctance to see that reconfiguring himself as gay was an unnecessary absorption of a social convention only helpful to demographers. Ciara had been on the sidelines each time to make sure these two knuckleheads didn’t screw up a destiny simply due to stupidity and foolishness. Lady Nora felt it was a task better left to a younger person but Ciara was now more concerned about her own love life. Still, these two getting married had wider implications for both families, whether they knew it now or not. She returned her attention to Angus, “Deetz’s therapy and martial arts training allowed him to find an inner strength that heretofore lay dormant.”
“But don’t you find him sometimes . . . overbearing?”
“Angus, he is leading the group of us through a muddle of international espionage involving the Russians, the Americans, aliens, and MI-6 to find out who murdered our fathers. Forgive him if he has trouble turning off his protectiveness, as I think he’s always wondering when and from where the next attack on your life is going to come.” Angus was kind, likely the kindest person she had ever know but he was not a “big picture” thinker like Deetz. It meant that sometimes the obvious drifted past Angus like pollen in the wind.
“I get that,” he protested. He knew he wasn’t the genius of the group, that his talents were limited to linguistics, charm, and riches.
Ciara realized she had insulted him, all the while he had only asked her advice. She recalled an oft-quoted Jewish proverb her rabbi repeated just last week during services, “A bird that you set free may be caught again, but a word that escapes your lips will not return.” She closed her eyes a moment and thought deeper about what Angus was really asking. “You’re wondering what your role is in this relationship.”
“Something like that.” He scratched the back of his head then continued, “You know, I read all the histories. For the others, the previous Earls and their valets who were lovers did not worry about being married and building a family. Casual fucking doesn’t demand you balance the check book. This, this thing that Deetz and I have will require a better ‘balance of power’.”
Configuring his words from that vantage point, she could see his anxieties. Deetz had a strong personality, often stampeding ahead of others without even realizing it, especially if he knew he was right or what action was required. It was the foundation of his leadership within the crew and not something he spontaneously controlled. And she wasn’t sure she wanted him to. But she could see how it would be a problem in an intimate relationship where the balance of power is much more delicate. “Well, I fear you must have some method of taking what is yours by right, eh? You are the Earl, are you not Your Grace?”
“Yeah, but what does that . . .?” It was coming to him but he wasn’t sure.
She helped him along, “There are many subcultures that encourage playful, creative sexual roles that, by their nature, remain a secret, something that only the couple knows.” She smiled demurely, looking down at her nearly finished mug, “I’m sure that you two can agree on something.”
Angus’s eyes widened as the picture became clearer for him and an idea surfaced. He recalled a relationship he had with an older woman who made tight leather taste like home cooking. Although brief, he played the willing subservient. He had always wondered about the power that came from standing above and commanding another to satisfy the other’s every need at any time – he imagined that it smelled like the 17th Century and he realized he wanted to play his own version of the “The Tudors”. His memories of time with “Ms. Robertson” mixed with the current possibilities and stirred distinctly in his sweats. Suddenly realizing the inappropriateness of having a recognizable hard on in the presence of your fiancé’s sister, he pulled his stool closer to the counter and deflected with a question. “Do you think he’d agree to it?’
Ciara waved him off, “Pshaw! Seriously? He would walk water for you Angus Reese. Anyway, he knows that he can be a bit of a beast – I’ve told him enough times!”
Angus reached over abruptly and pressed a nearby button calling for Simms, who appeared still dressed in his butler attire as if anticipating his master’s needs. “Your Grace?”
Angus stood up now that his penis was less visibly swollen, “Simms, get the car ready. I’m taking a quick drive to London.”
“This late?” Ciara asked.
“I’ll get there by the time my jeweler’s open in the morning,” he said as he pulled out his mobile and swiped. Whoever he was calling answered nearly immediately. “Bartock? I need additional provisions added to that prenup. I’ll text the particulars to you and be to your office by mid-morning to pick it up.” He disconnected the call and happened to see the astonishment on Ciara’s face. “What can I say? I am rich after all!” He turned on his heel and left the kitchen with a determinative smile.
A few days later, the night before the wedding, he presented Deetz with a prenuptial agreement, a tungsten Celtic Cross necklace, and a slave contract.
- From “The Musings of Deetz Mac Innes”, 10/1/2016
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