Bill Underhill

Little Henry

Little Henry – he suspected that he'd be 'Little' until at least ten years after his daddy, also named 'Henry,' had passed away – admired himself in the full-length mirror on the back of the guest room's door. His big sister's fiance had really done him up right!

Any Porteño boy knew what a gaucho was supposed to look like, and had even done dress-up in gaucho costumes from time to time. Heck, this was Argentina, wasn't it? But very few big-city kids like Henry really got out onto the pampas except on school field trips, and though he had a house in town, Esme's intended owned a real estancia, a huge working cattle ranch a long way from Buenos Aires. Little Henry, his sister and his mother had actually flown out to the estancia – it had its own airstrip, and a hanger and everything! – in a small airplane to 'visit' with the young patrón.

The eleven-year-old blonde boy who looked back at him wasn't wearing a costume, no sir! Baggy beige bombachas de campo, a loose long-sleeved white shirt under a short black jacket, with a black neckerchief. Corrugado riding boots fit his feet, and a broad-brimmed campero hat was perched on his head. Around his middle, a broad leather rastra decorated with old coins held a genuine facón – a big silver-chased knife in a decorated sheath – tucked slantwise in the small of his back.

All of this his brother-in-law-to-be had provided him, none of it new, outgrown by el patron himself or one of the boys in his family, but all of it real, honest-to-God gaucho clothes.

("Don't tell your mother," the young man had said in a confidential voice, "but you can keep the facón. Take it home with you – just don't let her see it!")

Satisfied with himself, Henry stepped out into the hall and made his way through the big house. He'd been told that his new brother-in-law had grown up here, and he thought that such a place – all the way out here in the pampas – would be so incredibly different from what he'd known in the Big Apple. Fun, though, maybe. And riding out here would be really different. Henry got riding lessons back home – all the boys in his boarding school did – but that was on bridle paths and in pastures, under strict supervision. Here, he would be riding with el patrón, out where there were real beef cattle to herd!

He got through the front door and found the man sitting with his mother and sister on the wicker furniture with which the porch was generously equipped.

"Hello, Henry," said the man. "I'm afraid I can't come out riding with you today. Business here, and then I'm taking your mother visiting with the neighbors. But -" He put two fingers to his mouth and whistled piercingly.

There was a call of "Yes, patrón!" and Henry turned to see a youngster, also in full gaucho dress, come a-running from around one side of the house. The boy scraped to a stop in the dust before the porch, doffing his hat and nodding deferentially to el patrón, almost bowing. "Sir?"

"Gustavo," said the man, "this is Henry. I promised him a day's ride, but I can't get away. I want you to take him out and show him as much of the estancia as he likes."

Gustavo gave Henry a long look. The boy was also blonde – not at all uncommon in Argentina, especially among families only a few generations away from immigration – but lean where Henry was not, sunburnt where Henry was merely tanned, his clothes well-worn and obviously everyday garb. He was – what? – maybe Henry's own age. Shorter, though, and certainly not more than a year older, if not younger.

"Gustavo is one of our stableboys," explained el patrón. "He knows the country." A grin. "You were born here on the estancia, weren't you, Gustavo?"

The stableboy grinned back. "Yes, patrón. My father, too."

"And your grandfather taught me to ride, didn't he?" The man chuckled.

"He says you needed no teaching, patrón."

"Ah, flattery will get you everywhere." El patrón smiled at Henry. "Keep that in mind, little brother!"

Henry liked that. His only brother was the squirt, now just three years old and a loud noise on two legs. A big brother was kind of a nice idea.

"All right, Gustavo. Pick him out a mount that won't throw him." He gave the stableboy a stern look. "No joke, You bring him back with a busted tail, and I'll bust yours for it. Got it?"

"Yes, patrón!" There was no devilment in the boy's eye. "I'll put him on Dandy. Or maybe on Sorrento?"

The man nodded. "Either one." He looked at Henry. "You don't want one with high spirits, your first time out on the grasslands. As you get used to it, and when I'm the one taking you out 3; Anyway, on with you. Enjoy yourselves."

"Yes, patrón," said Gustavo, putting his hat back on and turning to Henry. "Come on, city boy." A grin. "Sorrento is the one for you, I think."

In the stables – which were almost as big as those of the riding school in B.A. – Henry was introduced to a big, gentle chestnut mare. "How come she's named Sorrento?"

Gustavo shrugged. "I think someone in the patrón's family came to Argentina from Italy. Naples, maybe. We always have a couple of horses named after towns somewhere around Naples. Salerno is the patrón's favorite 'working' mount. That ugly stallion over there. Stay away from him! Bad temper!" He began saddling Henry's horse, using what the city boy recognized as a recado criollo, a real gaucho saddle very different from the English riding saddles used at the school. Gustavo was almost unbelievably quick and efficient, faster than any of the grooms or students at the riding school, and the recado saddle was anything but uncomplicated.

One of Henry's boarding school classmates was a norteamericano from the province of Texas, who spoke – fluently and fervently – the most barbarous form of Spanish Henry had ever heard, even on television and in the movies. That boy had brought his 'Western' saddle to Argentina with him, a battered, ugly assembly with high gullet and cantle and a well-worn 'saddle horn' which the boy said was essential to competition in calf-roping contests up north. Uncouth, but it fit him.

Gustavo offered Henry a boost into the saddle, and the eleven-year-old didn't balk at being treated like a tenderfoot. He'd tried out the norteamericano's cowboy saddle, and doing that had taught him that a different saddle is 3;well, a different kind of saddle. You had to get used to it. The recado, however, had been adjusted expertly by the stableboy, and Henry took the reins to guide Sorrento out into the yard, keeping her pace measured and even. She was a very sweet-tempered girl. You could tell.

Gustavo emerged not long thereafter, obviously seated on his own favorite animal, a roan gelding with a playful look in his eye.

"We'll take it easy, sir," said Gustavo. "For the first few miles." A smile. "I know a couple of nice places to get good views. The patrón has me take visitors out riding lots of times, and they're always looking for those 'picture postcard' kinds of sights."

"What's that in your saddlebags?" Henry asked.

"Oh, just lunch, sir. Adriana – the cook? – she said we shouldn't go out without something to eat, something to drink." He looked glum. "No beer, though. I tried to sneak a couple of bottles, but 3;"

Henry laughed. "I don't like beer, so that's okay. Wine would be nice, but when I drink too much of it I just get sleepy. You?"

They were at a walk, which seemed to satisfy both horses, and the boys could converse companionably as the estancia's big compound grew small in the distance behind them. "Oh, we have wine all the time, but I never drink more than a glass or two. My mother waters it, and that's all right with me. Straight wine makes me sleepy, too."

"Ever use the agua minerale con gas (soda water) with your wine? That's pretty nice. With ice cubes especially." He remembered the norteamericano. "I know a guy who drinks nothing but Coca-Cola." Henry made a face. "It's like swallowing syrup!"

"Yes, sir," replied Gustavo. "I've tried it. It makes me burp worse than plain soda water. D'you like mate?"

"I've tried it, some," Henry acknowledged. "Honestly, I prefer the English tea."

The stableboy shrugged. "My cousins and my uncles drink just about nothing but mate. El patrón owns a plantation up north where they grow it, so we get it for free. I can take it or leave it." He looked apologetic. "I forgot to bring my bombilla and some yerba, but we can share some mate when we get back to the big house, if you like."

Henry smiled. "That'd be nice, I guess. How old are you, Gustavo?"

"Me? Well, I'm twelve, sir. Uh, almost. In two months. How old are you?"

Henry told him, and Gustavo looked pleased. "Almost the same age? That's nice! There's none of the boys at the estancia who are almost the exact same age as I am. Lots older, lots younger, but I'm the only one who's eleven." He made a face. "The rest born in my year were girls."

"Where do you go to school?" Henry looked around at the grasslands. "Must be miles and miles to the nearest town."

"Oh, we have a school right on the estancia. All the kids in one big room, the older ones helping the younger children. The parish priests take turns with lessons." A smile. "But the littlest ones get their letters and their numbers and their stories from guys my age. The Fathers make sure we do that, and I'm pretty good with the little ones. You go to a regular school, like in the movies?"

Henry told him about his boarding school. Henry only came home every other weekend, or every third, and all his friends were boys with whom he went to school. "We have to speak English there," he said. "In the classes, in the refectory, everywhere. It's supposed to be just like an English boys' school. We even sing in the choir in English."

"I speak a little bit of English. Some German, too," said Gustavo. "Most of my great-grandparents came over from Germany, so you learn a little bit of German even when you're in diapers."

"My mother's mother came over from England." Henry frowned. "She's the reason why I go to my school. She doesn't want me to 'lose touch' with English culture. It's a pain, y'know? How come you learned English?"

"Oh, the visitors. El patrón gets lots of visitors from norteamerica, from England, from places where all they speak is English. I even met a visitor from Hong Kong! He didn't just speak English, but that was the only language he knew besides Chinese."

"You take other visitors out riding like this?"

Gustavo nodded. "Sure. The older boys, the men – they have work to do. Since I was maybe eight years old, el patrón has had me helping with his visitors." He smiled. "I like doing that. The foreign men, the ladies, are mostly very nice. Did you know that most of them will give you little presents for guiding them, for saddling their horses, and fetching them things?"

Henry froze for an instant. "Am I supposed to give you a 'little present' for today?"

"Huh?" The other boy looked surprised. "Oh, no, sir! You're going to be el patrón's brother-in-law. You're family, right? I wouldn't expect anything from you, sir. No more than I'd expect el patrón to give me a present for doing something for him. I'm doing this to please el patrón. I like el patrón! My mother used to do his diapers when he was little; she told me so many times, so we kind of belong to each other. And now that you're becoming his brother 3;"

The city boy blinked. "So you belong to me, too?"

Gustavo nodded. "Kind of. And you belong to me. In a way, sir."

Their horses walked on while Henry gave some thought to this. He switched over to English.

"If I come out here to visit, will I learn to handle the horses the way you do?"

In English, Gustavo replied. "Yes, sir. If you want to. I can teach you." He nodded at the chestnut mare. "You're good with the horses. Sorrento likes you. You don't bother her, with the reins, you know? Some of the visitors 3;" He made a face. "They think they can ride, but they don't know horses. You do."

Back to Spanish: "Thank you. Can we try to go a little faster? Is it safe on this ground?"

Gustavo looked around. "Yes, I think so. Know anything about the cavalry? 'Walk, trot, gallop 3;'?"

Henry grinned. "Yes. Set the pace, Sergeant! I'll try to be a good trooper!"

The stableboy grinned and led the way for a few miles of good galloping, then slowed to a walk and dismounted to cool his mount down, not bothering to tell Henry to do the same, which the visitor rather liked. He got down from Sorrento and patted the pockets of his jacket to find a sugar cube, which he offered the good girl on his open palm, handing another one to Gustavo for the same purpose.

"Thanks, sir. You know horses. I said so."

"I should have brought a little rock salt," said Henry. "Some horses I know like salt even better than sugar, but all I could find on the cart were sugar cubes."

"They can get all the salt they want at home, sir." Gustavo gave a look off to the right. "There's someplace nice to graze them a little. They don't need it, but they like it, and walking over there will be just enough of a cooling-down for them."

"All right." Henry wasn't going to insist on nothing but riding, and the little grove of trees seemed to be a pleasant place. Was there a stream there?

There was. There was even a place where the stream grew wide over a sandy bottom, and it was obvious that it was a place where people came to swim. There was a thick knotted rope hanging down from a branch overhanging the water. Gustavo pulled hobbles out of one saddlebag and dealt with both Sorrento and his gelding, then he unsaddled both horses. He handed Henry a brush, not saying a word as he took another brush and began grooming the roan.

"You don't have to do this," he said, "after such a short ride, but they like it. See how he behaves? It calms him. Sorrento, too."

Henry knew that this was unwarranted pampering – treating the horses almost like pets – but how could he mind? Plainly the stableboy thought that this should be part of the ride for Henry, but in a way, he liked it.

"The other visitors don't treat their horses like this, do they?"

"Oh, no, sir." Gustavo's attentions were on his animal. "They don't know horses the way you do. They don't like horses. You do. I can tell." He nodded at how Henry was grooming Sorrento. "She'll know it, too, after you brush her down a little more. Then she'll like you. She ought to be your horse when you come to visit. She's the right one for you, I think."

"We'll only have to do this again after we get them back to the stable."

"Sure." Gustavo looked at him, a little puzzled. "But if you and I are going for a swim, we don't want them shivering from the sweat while we have our fun, right?"

"A swim?" Henry looked at the water. "But I don't have a bathing suit."

The country mouse blinked, surprised. "You wear a suit to swim, sir? Here? This isn't Buenos Aires, sir. Or the beach at El Tigre." A pause. "I've seen pictured of how people dress at the beaches along the Rio Paraná. I guess you have to, if you go swimming with ladies around."

The swimming at Henry's school was all-boys, but still they wore bathing trunks, so this was the first time Henry had ever gone in 'skinny' (he'd learned that expression from the norteamericano boy), and he'd enjoyed it. As if the stream were just a bathtub, right? But big and cool and lots more fun. Gustavo showed him the parts where boys from the estancia had widened the stream, dug the swimming area deeper, even changed the flow to keep the water clear.

"My uncles told me that their uncles had used wagons to haul in pea gravel and sand and even some of these big stones. El patrón's father had come here with trucks for that, when he had been a teenager. There are several other places on the estancia like this, just about as far from the big house, but this one is my favorite."

"It's no good for a diving board," Henry observed, "but that rope swing works pretty well, doesn't it?"

"I'd like to try the diving," said Gustavo, "but I've never been in a real swimming pool, the way you have them in the city."

Henry thought about this. "So why not come and visit me in B.A.? I could take you to the tennis club, and they've got a huge swimming pool. Olympic-sized. Divers practice there all the time, but us kids can use the low platforms and boards."

Shaking the water out of his eyes, Gustavo looked away. "Oh, I couldn't go to such a fancy place." Henry could see him blush. "I'm just a gaucho boy. Not cultivated, like you, sir."

Henry climbed up onto the stream's bank and sat down, trying to 'brush' some of the water off his arms, and then his legs. "Did you bring a towel?"

"Huh?" Gustavo looked at him. "No, sir. You need a towel? For what, sir?"

"To dry off."

"Oh." Gustavo got out of the water, too, and he went over to his saddle bags, rummaging and pulling out – of all things – an old olive-drab army blanket. "Here, sir." He spread it out in a patch of sun, eyeing the trees overhead as he did so. "Just lay down here, and you'll be dry in no time."

Bemused, Henry came over and got down on the blanket, surprised when Gustavo got right down beside him and cuddled up against him.

"Here, sir! I'll keep you warm."

"Hunh!" grunted Henry. "More like I'll keep you warm! You're freezing cold, boy!"

Gustavo giggled and snuggled. "Yes, sir! You're nice and warm, sir. Is that what they mean by a hot-blooded Porteño?"

Henry wanted to push him away, but even though Gustavo was older – almost twelve – he was smaller than Henry, and Henry had been brought up to hate bullies. "You're just a little tart, aren't you, boy?"

"Sir?" Gustavo blinked confusion. "I'm a pastry?" He smiled. "That's silly, sir!"

Henry had used the literal translation of 'tart' – an English word his grandmother had taught him when she'd scolded him for behaving in a 'girly' manner a few years ago – and the slang didn't really come across in Spanish.

"You're flirting with me," he explained, not thinking much about it as he drew the older, smaller boy's head down onto his shoulder and fingertipped the wet darkblonde hair back from Gustavo's eyebrows. "Do gaucho boys flirt?"

"With girls, sir? All the time." Gustavo grinned. "We have a reputation to uphold!"

"With other boys?"

Gustavo shrugged, but he didn't try to move away. "Sometimes. Why not? We like the girls, but the girls have to hold themselves for marriage, and the young men – like you and me, sir -must do something about it when we get like this 3;"

Henry gasped as he felt a cool, wet hand wrap fingers and thumb around his tightly-erect penis, but he didn't do more than flinch a little.

"The visitors, sir, are many of them young men. Big teenagers, students at the university, even young officers in the army. When they come out with me to ride, sometimes they like to stop and rest 3;and do things. Very nice things." Lifting up his head a little, Gustavo kissed Henry on the cheek.

"I could tell that you would like such things, sir. The way you are with the horses, you know?"

"I, uh, I shouldn't," Henry havered. "It's a mortal sin, isn't it?"

Gustavo shrugged again. "How can it be, sir? We are men, young men, but men. We have needs. Even the good Fathers have needs. And like the good Fathers, we cannot take women or girls into our beds. I haven't the money to go to a prostitute – and, besides, my mother would never allow me to leave the estancia for that purpose, even if I could get a ride. You?"

Henry thought for an instant about hiring a prostitute. Many of the wealthy grown-ups – even the married men – had mistresses. For a schoolboy, though, that was impossible. He thought about the boys at school, the 'special friendships' between the older boys and the younger ones, the big boys who had teased him, tried to entice him, looking at him when you could tell they were getting hard-ons in their trousers.

But when you saw those teenagers in the showers, with their big, hairy bodies, and those big, thick dark-skinned 'dongs' and the balls hanging down underneath 3; Why, those guys were scary! Almost men. They could make the sperms, and he'd heard that some of them had actually done it with girls and gotten them pregnant. Even though he got hard-ons thinking about them, Henry thought of himself as just a pale little worm of a thing next to those teenagers. They were just too intimidating.

But Gustavo, here 3; Henry glanced down at his companion's little penis, maybe even smaller than Henry's own, though both were stiffies now. He reached for it, taking it gently into his hand, wanting to warm it up, too. It was a nice little penis, like the dickies of his classmates. You couldn't do this with those classmates, of course; they guys who sat next to you in school, who slept in your same dormitory, who heard you grunting out your poop in what his grandmother called 'the loo.' Too embarrassing! And if you thought about them that way in class, or while you were doing your homework, how could you concentrate? No, you didn't want to do stuff like this with the boys in school.

"Isn't it, uh, intimidating to do things like this with grown-ups?"

Gustavo blinked at Henry in surprise. "Intimidating, sir? Why, no, sir. None of the visitors has ever been as big down there as some of the men who work on the estancia. Reynardo, for one." The boy grinned. "He's bigger down there than Salerno, almost! The other men like to have him along when they go to town for the prostitutes. The ladies charge him extra, sir! I don't think there's anybody in the province bigger than him, and we get to see him in the showers at the stable any time. The little boys follow him in there to get a look at him, when they get big enough to shower on their own. Just to see him, sir. He's not very good-looking otherwise, you know."

"And he puts up with this?"

"Reynardo? He says it's his burden, sir. From God. The Fathers told him to bear it, and to offer up his suffering – because it is kind of embarrassing for him, isn't it, sir? – in humility and silence to the good Lord above. The ladies at the estancia are trying to get him married, you know. So he shouldn't have to go to town anymore, and can take up the proper vocation of marriage."

"But the visitors make you play with their things like this?"

Gustavo nodded. "Yes, sir. And they play with mine, too. Almost all of them are nice like that." He smiled. Lots of them put my thing in their mouths, and they suck me. I think some of them are disappointed that I don't make the milk yet. When they do that, you're supposed to suck their things in return. Fair is fair, right, sir? Sometimes they put the milk in my mouth – it's not really milk, you know that, right, sir? – and sometimes they pull out at the last minute and squirt it on me, over my chest and belly and penis. Lots of the time on my face, but that's not as nasty as it sounds, because, of course, it isn't pee, either. Have you ever seen a man make the milk that way?"

Henry allowed as how he hadn't. Though, to think on it, he realized that he might like to see it. Particularly a big grown-up man spurting his sperms onto Gustavo's face.

"That' not 3;disgusting?"

"Hm? Oh, not really, sir." The boy nodded toward the stream. "A quick dunk in there and everybody's nice and clean. Might be messy if you did it in bed. I still can't figure how people are supposed to have the sex in bed. I mean, you have to sleep in your bed, sir."

He pondered for a moment. "The Fathers do it in bed. My cousins told me about it. They figure that Father Rodolfo will be wanting me to come with him pretty soon, for doing it in my bottom. I've never had anybody do me in my bottom yet, but my cousins say that Father Rodolfo isn't very big down there, and he's very gentle. That figures, doesn't it, sir? He's a Father, after all, and he's more patient with me in school than Father Ignacio." A grimace. "My cousins tell me that Father Ignacio likes to spank you before he does it in your bottom, but somehow that's supposed to make it more sexy for a boy. I don't understand how getting a man's thing in your bottom is supposed to be sexy in the first place, but the Fathers have their needs like other men, and they can't be with the ladies or the girls, so us boys are supposed to be good for them. Patient, you know, sir?"

"Uh, do you talk like this with the other visitors?"

"Oh, no, sir!" Gustavo squirmed a little, rubbing his hard-on against Henry's hip. "You have to be most respectful with el patrón's visitors. But you're a boy, like me. Same age, almost. And you're from the city. You know lots more about this kind of thing than I do, don't you, sir?" He sighed. "You go to a real fancy school, not like me. But it's nice to be with you like this, sir. I'd be too shy to talk to a grown-up – any grown-up – like this, and I'm afraid that the big boys at the estancia might just laugh at me. My cousins do, all the time."

"They're mean to you?" Suddenly Henry imagined himself confronting bigger boys, who'd been bullying Gustavo – his friend.

"Well, not 'mean,' sir. They just tease me a lot. I beat one of them up just last week for it." He smiled. "I'm smaller than any of my older cousins, but I'm strong! You don't get to be a stableboy for as long as I've been without getting strong, sir!"

Henry leaned over and kissed the smaller boy, right on the lips. Which was odd, because Henry had never been what you'd call a 'kissy' child, but he had become very fond of this open, outgoing, friendly gaucho boy.

"If your cousins give you trouble while I'm visiting," he said, "you let me know, and we'll both beat them up!"

Gustavo smiled at Henry and gave him a mighty hug. "Yes, sir!" he said. "The two of us together. I'll be your servant when you come out to live with el patrón and his lady, your sister. He should have a boy to raise, and until she gives him sons, he can have you, can't he?"

Henry laughed. "My father and my mother would give him an argument about that. They're unhappy enough about him taking Esme away from them."

"But you can't stay in the city forever, sir," Gustavo continued, his expression serious. "You know horses. I can have you riding like a gaucho in three weeks. Two, maybe. You only talk like a Porteño. I can tell you were born for the pampas." He tightened his embrace, warm now and very cuddlesome. "For the summer, sir? Until the wedding, you can stay here at the estancia and see how you like it, and I can tell that el patrón will like having you. He should have had a little brother, but his mother went to be with the Blessed Jesus and the angels when he was just a boy himself. And then you can be my friend. My mother likes you already, you know!"

Henry thought for a long moment. "If I suck your penis, does that mean you'll have to suck mine?"

The smaller boy lifted his head a little. "Of course, sir. Fair is fair, yes?" It was his turn to consider. "But you've never done that before, have you?"

"You can tell?"

A nod. "Oh, I can tell a lot about you, sir. They don't do the penis-sucking in your boarding school?" He shook his head. "All those boys living together? How can that be?"

Henry explained his conclusion about how 'distracting' it would be to do anything sexual with your classmates, and Gustavo visibly gave it some thought.

"Yes," he agreed, "that sounds about right. But don't the Fathers – there are Fathers there? – take some of the boys to their beds for their urges, sir?"

"Ah, it's not a Catholic school. It's Anglican. We have priests, but they are Reverend Ministers. They can get married and have children and everything. There are two boys in our school whose fathers are Reverend Ministers."

"Married priests?" Gustavo looked bemused. "Isn't that kind of 3;odd, sir? I can't imagine Father Ignacio having a wife!" He got a thoughtful look in his eyes. "Oh, my. He barely gets along with the housekeeper at the rectory, sir. And most of the ladies at the estancia gossip about his temper. Do you think he would spank his wife, if he had one? Some men do that, I've heard 3;"

"Well, I want to try sucking your penis, Gustavo." He smiled, giving it a friendly little squeeze. "You're not in school with me, and we're almost the same age, and I don't have to worry about you squirting the sperms, do I?"

Gustavo shook his head. "I, I wish I could for you, sir." He shifted, doubt in his expression. "You don't want me to make the milk, sir? I thought everybody wanted to see the milk when they made a boy have the little death."

Henry went blank for moment before he remembered that 'the little death' was how the French described the moment of orgasm. "Well, I don't make the sperms when I cum. Why should I expect you to do so? Even though you're older than I am, I'm taller."

"That's true, sir. Still, I'd like it better if I sucked your penis first." The smaller boy shifted up on one elbow. "If you've never done it before, it's good to have someone show you how. You have to watch it with your teeth, you know, and you don't really suck it all that much 3;"

"Look," said Henry reasonably, "why don't we suck each other at the same time. You flip around like this, yes 3;"

They made the arrangement, and Henry looked down as the smiling gaucho boy pillowed his head on the Henry's thigh. "I've done this with a few of the visitors, sir. It's not bad, but when a handsome man sucks your penis, it's nice to see him doing it. Do you want to watch for a minute before you try sucking on mine? Yes?"

And he got Henry's hard-on in his mouth, giving the city boy the most thrilling sensation he'd ever experienced.

"Oh, my!" gasped Henry. "That's nice! You do that so nice!" The sight of the blonde boy doing the sucking to him was almost as good as the feeling, and Henry knew that he should do the same thing in return, turning his attention to the pretty little penis, taking it between thumb and fingertips to draw it away from Gustavo's belly and guide it into his mouth, remembering to use his tongue, like the way you did when you put a candy cane in your mouth, but this cane was warm and pulsant and alive, and Henry discovered that he loved the way Gustavo's whole smooth, clean young body responded to what he was doing.

Moaning softly, Henry used his mouth to make Gustavo give up the orgasm, really liking the way the older boy lifted to him, again and again and again, whimpering with the feelings, and then working hungrily on Henry's penis, and for the first time Henry really understood why the French call it 'the little death.'

They cuddled for a while after that, and then they got dressed before sitting down on the blanket together to eat their lunch, exchanging stories about life at boarding school and on the estancia, Henry telling Gustavo about his sister ('a pain in the neck, most of the time!') and learning about Gustavo's family and the horses in el patrón's big stable.

"He owns other estancias," Gustavo informed him. "One, down to the south, is where they breed horses for the racetracks. Good thoroughbreds, but not always winners. El patrón isn't as interested in horse racing as his father had been. One of my cousins rides at the big hipódromo in the city for him. I don't know those horses very well at all."

"When you come to B.A.," said Henry, "maybe we could go to the hipódromo together. It's right on Libertador, not far from our house. Heck, el patrón has a house on Libertador, too. I visited him there for dinner when he started courting Esme."

"Wouldn't I have to wear nice clothes in the city, sir?" Gustavo looked doubtful.

"Maybe," Henry admitted, "but we wouldn't be going to the hipódromo for the restaurants or the betting or that fancy stuff." He grinned. "We show up like this – in bombachas and boots and maybe ponchos, smelling of horse sweat, and we could probably go right in the back and see the stables. I could tell them we came from el patrón's estancia, and I bet nobody would stop us. We both know horses, right?"

Gustavo lightened up. "Yeah, you're right. But could I go around the rest of Buenos Aires like this?"

"Oh, I've got stuff that would probably fit you. My last year's good suit is still in the back of my bedroom closet. It's kinda too tight for me, but I bet it'd be okay on you."

"Good!" Then Gustavo glanced at the sun. "I think we have to get back to the house, sir. El patrón has started doing the 'tea' thing since he began courting your sister. Very English, isn't that, sir?"

Henry nodded glumly. High tea wasn't exactly his favorite ritual. "Still, the cakes are pretty good," he admitted. "Back to the estancia?"

Gustavo grinned and shook his head, hauling the saddle and tack over to where Sorrento was grazing. "Sir, you're on the estancia, right now. You could ride for days and you'd still be on the estancia. We're just going back to the house."

Henry didn't need to be helped up onto the chestnut mare, and together the boys rode an easy pace back to el patrón's home.

The End