Maurice and Alec in America

      A decision had been urged by Maurice months ago to leave England, not in flight, but in search of a place where their love could stand a chance.  A memory of erotic bliss stood at the center of such determination. He thrilled again and again when he recalled the boldness with which Alex had seized upon the most unexpected of occasions to accomplish their first bonding. “How did a country lad like that know so much about me?" Maurice marveled at the bravado of a common worker accosting a gentleman in all confidence, somehow knowing that Maurice''s heart surged with an overpowering desire that their flesh be united.  Alec had without guile or coarseness, without a word or move that when fully understood could be construed as anything but the purest of motives, demolished in one daring swoop the scaffolding of morality and fear which had plagued and paralyzed Maurice for twenty-four years of his life. While the whole scaffolding did not disappear in the tumbling, it was in such ruin that it could never effectively be put together again, for the rightness of that erotic encounter was commanding. Maurice''s vivid memory tested that night''s fulfillment endless times, measuring its thrilling awakening of flesh and affirming its directive. He pleaded with Alec, for he came to realize that Alec, too, was impelled by powerful desire, that they not let the moment escape them.

            “Let us set sail for a life together in America.”

            It was not the first time Maurice had turned his back on the conservatism of England. When he left the protective walls of ancient Cambridge, aborting the path to a career among the elite, he had entirely by intuition opted for a more rebellious attitude, and so he had made the first turn. Though not a rebel by any convictions political or moral, his sexuality inclined him toward a masculine world where he expected honesty of emotions amidst friends bound by the same passions. In that alone was he a rebel.           Nor was Alec merely a compliant companion in this journey. He had his own sense of adventure. The truth was he reveled in bravado at the easy conquest of a lovely gentleman''s body and heart. These were strong inducements to set out for an America that offered him economic opportunity as well as romance. He more than Maurice stood to benefit from leaving an England dominated by an imperious aristocracy. Touting their mission to promote civilization the length of an empire that stretched from Africa to India, they basked in privileges that subordinated inferior races, mirrored in a submissive domestic order of English and Irish workers who, as it were, formed an inferior breed at their service. 

            Such was the order of men that included his former employers, the Durhams, who relegated Alec, a worker who was an Irishman in his heart, to serve in subservience as long as he stayed in England. His strong hands were assigned to carry out the will of those who controlled the property of England

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