15 September 2007
The Morning After
July, 1856
I awoke the next morning in a daze, not quite sure of where I was or, indeed, who I was.
“Lord Likely,” said a voice beside me. Ah yes, I thought. How could I forget that I was Lord Likely, aristocratic adventurer, gentle-man of action, full-time sexual acrobat and all round glorious bastard, I asked myself. “Lord Likely?” came the voice again, interrupting my internal monologue. I turned to face the speaker, and found it was Mr. Abraham Lincoln, lying naked in the bed beside me.
Suddenly, a hundred different memories came flooding back, raising a thousand different questions.
“Oh! Mr. Lincoln! Um…good morning, I suppose.” I said.
“Good morning, Likely,” Lincoln said. “And how are you?”
“Oh! Fine, fine.” I replied. “And yourself?…”
“Yes, fine.” Lincoln answered, pulling the bed-sheet over himself. We sat in awkward silence, a clock in the corner of the bedroom trying it’s best to fill the quiet with it’s loud ticking. I reached over to a half-full glass of wine sitting on a cabinet next to the bed, and swigged the contents down in one gulp. Feeling the familiar, warm glow of alcohol in my system once more, I felt the courage well up inside me to try and fill in the blanks in my memory.
“So, Mr. Lincoln. Did we…you know? Did we?” I blurted.
“Did we…what, Likely?” Lincoln asked.
“Exactly. Did we ‘what’?” Lincoln’s blank gaze told me I needed to be a little more direct with the man. “Did we…form a union, as it were?”
“Ah,!” Lincoln exclaimed, the penny finally dropping. “Yes, your lordship, we did engage in sexual congress.”
I would like it on record, at this point, that I am not a homosexual man. I prefer to consider myself to be simply an egalitarian lover. Plus, I really do love vaginas.
“But please, let us keep it our little secret, huh?” Lincoln continued. “I’m a married man and a respected political figure. This kind of thing could ruin me.”
“I hope I didn’t ruin you,” I quipped, but Lincoln responded with a scornful frown. I pressed on. “Do not fear, Mr. Lincoln. My complete discretion is assured! I may make a note of our meeting in my journals, but they are for my eyes only, and no-one shall ever read them, I assure you.”
Lincoln seemed relieved, and got up to get dressed. As he did, I suddenly noticed that I was missing something.
“Where in the name of George Washington’s Jizz-bags are my pubic hairs?” I cried, leaping from the bed and rummaging through my clothes, half expecting my precious pubes to be neatly folded up with my suit.
“You shaved them off last night,” Lincoln informed me as he donned his trousers. “You affixed them to my chin, claiming I would look far more fetching in a beard.”
“Oh.” I lit myself a cigarette. “Well, you would, you know.”
“I shall bear that in mind.”
We both continued to dress in silence.
“So…how is your speech coming along, Mr. Lincoln?” I queried, trying to make some conversation.
“It is shaping up rather well,” Lincoln said proudly. “I just hope it is enough to encourage our Southern brethren to cease this awful slave trade.”
“Should all else fail, you could always just go and shoot the ruddy shit out of those bastards,” I suggested, admiring my reflection in a mirror on the dressing table.
“War?” Lincoln seemed aghast. “A civil war?”
“Well, you don’t necessarily have to be civil about it.”
Lincoln laughed. “Thank you, your lordship,” he leant over. “Thank you so much. And good luck finding your errant brother,” he added. He placed a light kiss on my face, then turned and strode out of the door. I watched him leave, then set about packing up my belongings, whistling a jolly little ditty as I did.
- Lord Likely.
