The Picture In The Attic

Jacques sat on the cot and put on his shirt as quickly as possible. He stole glances out of the corner of his eye as Logan inspected his CS Richmond Musket, bayonet and small pack he always carried. Keeping his eye on Logan after clothing himself, he glanced about the floor for his hairtie.

It had fallen beside the head of the cot, and he slowly reached over to pick it up. He stopped as he heard the sound of metal unsheathing. Looking up as he paused in his movements, Jacques came face to face with 3 shiny blades that seemed to spring out of Logan's right hand. A nervous swallow as he didn't move.

Logan glared at the young man. "Plannin on leavin so soon?" He asked, gruffly. Still hunckered over the pack and gun, Logan extended his right arm so that the bladetips pointed upward, spacing themselves within half an inch of Jacques' nose. The chill in his voice seemed to pass like fog throughout the tent.

Jacques continued his reach and picked up the tie to slowly show him what he was after. "My hair bothers me." He snapped back as he sat up and pulled his hair back into the tie. When he finished, he managed a good look at the man's weapons and held his breath in. "Northern boys call us barbarians, yet you are de most barbaric of de accusers." Narrowing his eyes, he relaxed as he saw changed in Logan's expression.

Pulling his claws back in and lowering his arm, Logan snarled at the young Captain on his cot. "I ain't from the North. South, either. Grant wrote me in Canada to come help round up 'vermin.'" A sly grin appeared as he knew he had gotten to his captive.

Jacques scowled. "De Confederate States were doin just fine wit'out de yankee nuisance. We are wit'in our rights to live as we please, and keep our property as we please."

That did it. Bolting up and grabbing Jacques by the neck, Logan growled and came nose to nose with him. "You think owning someone else is a right? You think it makes you better than anyone else? Life in itself is a privelage, not a right!" His teeth ground as the words hissed at his captive. "But if you think slavery is right and just,...." Logan paused and let go of him to remove a long coil of rope from his own pack and loop one end around Jacques' neck and tie it loosely before wrapping the middle around slender wrists. "then you are now my slave." Forcing Jacques to lay back down on the cot, he pulled Jacques' wrists over his head and tied the end to the bar across the head of the cot.

Struggling and demanding to be released, Jacques spat vile, cruel words at Logan as he calmly stood up and turned away from him. "Least we keep to our own kind!" He managed to say before Logan turned back around and backhanded him across the left cheek. It hurt but he remained turned away from Logan until he heard the man go back and busy himself with Jacques' pack again.

During the half hour silence, Jacques took the time to look about his captor's tent. The shape of it resembled something of a smaller version to a circus' big top tent. A wooden pole stood in the middle and held the whole tent top up as well as a small, square shaving mirror. In the corner across from him, sat an overstuffed knapsack that was open, showing clothes and food and utensils.

Logan took a deep breath and stood up after finishing his searched through Jacques' things and unbuttoned his coat. He removed a cigar from an inside pocket. Turning to go outside, he paused to glance back at Jacques who in turn glared back at him, and continued his stroll outside. Once outside, he stood just in front of the tent flaps and silently laughed to himself as his ears picked up soft grunts and whispered curses of Jacques tugging and squirming in his tight bonds.

He stood outside and casually smoked his cigar, occasionally smiling and laughing as his prisioner remained fantastically tied to the cot with no possible way of escape. Curses, grunts, moans and pants came from the tent behind him and Logan found it quite enjoyable to let the barely clothed captive work his frustrations out on the ropes and cot before asking him anymore questions.

When he finished, he tossed the cigar on the ground and snuffed it out with his foot before going back inside to take a look at how far Jacques had gotten. Lifting the flap and ducking in before letting it drop closed behind him, he smiled at the scene as Jacques had been in a different position.

Jacques had turned to kneel while bending over and trying to bite the knot out of the ropes. The shirtend had been pulled and gathered so that it rest on his hips, letting his firm, thin and pale arse hang out. He hadn't noticed Logan stepped back into the tent, and raised his hips as if the leverage of his body would somehow force the knot out and let him free. He spread his knees apart, widely, and pulled himself into a small ball and he had given up on the end that teathered him to the cot, and now worked on the knot at his neck.

Logan smiled but still said nothing. Quietly removing his jacket, he moved to place himself close behind Jacques and press his body against him as he grabbed Jacques' wrists. "Made a good knot for ya, huh? What's the matter, don't like my company?" He asked as if he hadn't been subjected to the multitude of cursings Jacques spilled out in both French and English. He straddled the cot and subconsciously pressed his groin against Jacques' rear end as he reached around to hold the thin wrists away from the knots.

"Remove dese damn t'ings at once! After de South wins dis tussle, I'll see you front o' a firin squad!" His anger had caused his accent to thicken as he struggled against Logan's stomach, rubbing unconsciously against the firming organ that dug in between his bottom. Jacques gasped and froze in his movements as Logan had pressed flush against him.

"Stop strugglin or the bonds get tighter, and I'll spread ya out like a frog on it's back." Logan growled between teeth as Jacques had started trying to move away from Logan while resuming his fight for freedom of the ropes. He finally managed to overwhelm Jacques and turn him onto his side, facing the left wall. He held him there by sitting on his legs and one big hand around the two slender wrists. "Now, seein as you want to play rough, I'm an expert at doin just that.

Jacques didn't look at him. Instead he fumed and stared at the canvas wall in front of him. He didn't struggle again until Logan moved to unbind the knot at his neck before rolling him onto his back and pulling his hands above his head to tied the other end to the bar. When Logan removed himself from atop him, and moved away to get more rope, Jacques kicked his right leg at him as he turned back.

Calmly, Logan caught his ankle and only managed to tie that one to the cot pole, first. He was being kicked and pushed with the left foot as Jacques started screaming to be released. Grabbing hold of that one, Logan tied the left ankle to the other side of the cot and stood back to admire his work. "Now, try to get out of the that one. If you ask me, that's a compromisin position you don't need Grant, in here, seein."

Jacques halted immediately from struggling. His shirt had been twisted and pulled up so that it no longer covered his weeping erection but stopped only short of his hips. He stared at Logan with a look that demanded not to be touched again. As he looked down, his face flushed to a pale white as he realised just how open he was to Logan. A groan of embarrassment escaped him but, didn't cause him to look away from Logan as he caught the man's stare. "Dis how he teaches you to take care of a prisioner?" He asked letting his anger seep out slowly.

"Nope, just how I like doin things. When the uniform comes off, yer left with just the person." He smiled to himself. "Call it a 'painless torture.' But, if you behave like a good slave should, I'll let you put on yer pants."

Jacques glared at him. The brown of his eyes glittering in the lamplight that hung from the top of the pole in the middle of the room. "I am not your slave." The words were cold and hard like long frozen glaciers. Jacques himself seemed to loathe the term that Logan measured him to but at the same time, he was slightly turned on to be the man's posession.

Placing his left foot on the side of the cot and leaning on it, Logan continued as if he hadn't heard the retort. "How many do ya own?" Laying his right arm across his thigh and pretending to be interested. "If you can't count any higher than ...... oh, say..... 2, it's ok. You could name them, if you knew their names."

"Don't you dare be amused at me." It was said perfectly plainly through closed teeth, though something in his voice was beginning to wear down the anger. He was getting tired of being tied up and restless from lying on a cot for over an hour.

Logan was quiet for a moment and only took calm breaths as his eyes traveled over Jacques' long and slender body. He debated to himself on reaching over to cover the other man's manhood as a humanly gesture but, found the object of his eye, staring rather uncomfortably at him. Clearing the thought from his mind, he stepped back and turned away, thinking. "So, why do you think you need to own someone else? What rewards do you get, other than a power-kick? Does yer food taste like gold? Do birds perch on yer window and play 'Dixieland' for ya? What?" He knew he was treading on a long history of shakey subjects with stone shoes but he felt he had to know.

Jacques didn't answer him at all. He stared very quietly at the canvas until he felt Logan sit down on the cot beside him and lean over him, waiting for the answer. Moving only his eyes to look at the man, he gave a tired sigh and shut his eyes before he spoke. "We own nineteen, an' I can name dem for you. De errand boy, in my unit, is from my family's plantation." He paused as if he had a horrible taste in his mouth. "I have had my fill of two servant girls, in de house. Heard deir cryin in my ears as I filled dem with my seed. One is still pregnant with my child while de other fled to de North." Looking back at the canvas, Jacques couldn't bare to tell Logan the rest of his daily life in Louisiana.

A heavy sigh that hinted disgust came from Logan.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Remy sat up with a start, panting heavily and looking around his pre-dawn bedroom. His soft auburn hair had been matted to his forehead from sweat. He couldn't believe what the dream he had told him about his own family. Mouth open, eyes looking around the room for an unknown thing or person, breath still panting as if he'd been running a mile in a wetsuit, Remy quieted as his eyes landed on the darkened painting of Logan at the foot of his bed.

The clock beside him read 6 in the morning, and way too early for a Saturday rise.

His heart pounded in his chest as he lay back down and stared at the ceiling. Giving a sigh, he rolled onto his right side and closed his eyes, easily falling back asleep.

A soft hum as he lulled himself back to sleep, keeping the image of Logan sitting on the side of the cot, still visible in his mind. The coolness of the sheet made him shiver as he pulled it up to his chest, letting it cover his bare top.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Logan stood.

He had been silent for a long while and wouldn't bring himself to look at the young Captain on his cot. Dipping his head and shaking it in slow disbelief, he spoke calmly. "Is that how you get off? You couldn't go out and get yerself a nice girl to love, you have to force a servant to fuck you?" He snarled slightly in full disgust. "Let me guess, it's a stature thing, right? Yer too poor to go out and buy more so you rape 'em in yer bed, and nine months later, you get one or two more. Scum just goes to the deepest part of you, doesn't it?"

Jacques had clearly had enough. He refused anything else but to demand release. "You wouldn't understand our way of life. If you ain't gonna hand me over to Grant, den let me go! Pretty pathetic soldier, usin words to bore your enemies to death 'stead of just right off killin dem!" A metal sound silenced his rude protests as Logan once again showed his true weapons, this time at a closer viewpoint.

"Like I said, I kill if I see fit." He held onto Jacques' shirt collar and let his clawtips rest just above Jacques' face. "You like comin into cryin girls that struggle, huh? Or do you get yer kicks with them tied up? 'Cuz .... uh..... you ain't far off from that position." He looked down at Jacques' uncovered and rapidly growing erection and half smiled. Pulling five of six claws back in, he left the left claw on the right hand out and moved it slowly towards the naked manhood. "Or, I could make sure you won't do that to another human bein' again."

Jacques' eyes became the size of saucers. "No!" He tried to twist himself so that his left thigh would cover his manhood but the bonds were too tight.

Smirking at the reaction, Logan wrapped his hand around the hard appendage and waited, claw still protruding from his hand. "You like having someone squirm at your hands? How do you like squirmin at mine?" Slowly, he leaned over and licked the tip of the erection, smiling fully as he heard a loud gasp from the man beneath.

"Stop that." Jacques hissed, not willing to admit his turn on.

Logan looked up at him. "Yer body is tellin me a different story." Eventhough he wanted to continue, Logan sat back and removed his hand from Jacques' body, letting the single claw slowly slip back into it's sheath. "Let me guess, it's that warm, July chill that's gettin you all hot and bothered, right?" He smiled.

Jacques didn't answer but wasted no time in spatting at him.

Casually, Logan wiped his face with his right hand before smacking Jacques with the back of his left hand, hard across the left cheek. "So, I was right. Wasn't I? You can't get it up unless someone is forced, correct? You must have to lock your wives in a broom closet when you go away."

"Not married." Jacques snapped but didn't look at him.

Logan grinned. "Not yet, huh?"

No answer.

"Bet you got a little woman, right?"

"My Poppa has a woman for me, in Nawlins." Jacques clarified. He shifted slightly, on the cot, and groaned in discomfort. "Ya mind if I go to de bathroom? Last cup o' coffee workin."

Logan thought for a moment. He looked around and found a small, empty coffee can, sitting on the ground beside his overstuffed pack. Picking it up and sitting it beside Jacques, he smiled answered. "Sure, go right ahead."

A disgusted sigh and an angry pout as Jacques looked away. "F'rget it. I'll go on yer bed and you can clean it up, non?" He hadn't been looking at Logan until he felt the ropes being untied at his ankles. The ropes at his wrists were only loosened at the connection to the cot, and brought up, over Logan's shoulders as he was helped up and out of the tent.

They stood behind a tree, fifteen steps from the tent and leaned against it. The night was so dark compared to being inside the tent. With the moon as the only light, and the sound of distant canon fire, they became two shadows in the woods.

Jacques held up his wrists to Logan as the older man lit a cigar.

Shaking out the match, Logan shook his head. "Yer hands ain't on backwards." He took another puff and then held it in his teeth while turning Jacques around and casually snaking his arm around the thin waist, holding the Captain's manhood.

Jacques gasped and reached out to grab hold of the treebark, in front of him. Never had another man taken such ease in touching him like that. It was not rough, or choking, but almost as if he were doing it himself. He gasped again as Logan pressed himself against him. "You Canadians like de feel of young men, hehn?" He smirked as he couldn't hold the coffee in any longer, and went as if he were alone.

"Nope. Used ta take care of my dad after his stroke, a couple of years ago."

Jacques was silent for a moment. Something had touched him about Logan. He wasn't a vicious monster like Jacques had originally thought. "Done." He said, and turned around, looping his arms around Logan's neck, again. "Den why did you do dat, in de tent?" Looking into the man's eyes as he waited for an answer.

"Do what in the tent?" A serious tone struck Logan's voice as he stared coolly back.

Jacques stammered. "De thing dat you.... when I was..... you know!" He demanded.

Logan raised an eyebrow. "Fatigue gettin to ya, kid?" Gently pulling the arms back over his head and turning the young man around, he nudged him back towards the tent. "Come on, let's get ya outta the moonlight 'fore yer brain explodes." Managing to get back inside the tent, he was shocked as Jacques stopped and spun back around, pressing their lips together.

It was a kiss like the kind a man would give a woman. Soft, caressing, and sensual as it lasted well over a minute. Jacques pressed himself against Logan and teased him as he had been teased. He could hear moans and soft mewls as the kiss continued. He was now fully erect and pressing hard against Logan's leg.

Grabbing Jacques' hips, Logan gently pushed the slender body away from him, lips and all. "I'm gonna start wonderin what they're teachin you in the south."

"What deir teachin me?" Jacques pouted, angrily. "How we live has nothin to do wit' dis! You're de one dat started dis! An' after dis tussle wit' de North, you can go to Hell!" Removing his arms from around Logan's neck, he gave a wry attempt at pushing the man aside so that he could leave.

Logan grabbed him by the arms and held him as he struggled. "Listen to me, you little bitch! I could care less what goes on in your country. But, I've been following the war and have read the Bible all the way through, twice! Nowhere does it say that one person is better than the other because of their skin colour! Nowhere does it say you can rape a servant girl and it'll mean high stature! That doesn't make you better than anyone. That just makes you a sadistic asshole. And nowhere does it say you can behave like an ass when you don't get what you want! Don't blame the North for something you have just as much fault in. You all behave like spoiled children when nothing goes your way. So, to Hell with me? To Hell with you!" His temper flared one last time as he pushed Jacques back down on the cot and stared at him.

Tears welled up in Jacques' eyes that were wide with fear as the tone in Logan's voice hit him. Looking towards the canvas, to avoid letting the enemy see the weakness, Jacques was released and rolled away. Covering his face with his right hand, Jacques curled into a ball on his right side and sobbed quietly, wishing he were somewhere else.

~~~~~~~~~~

Remy lay in the same pose as Jacques had, in his dream. Tears dampened the spot on the pillow where his head lay. Opening his eyes and taking a ragged, deep breath, he half expected to see the wall of Logan's tent. Instead, he saw only the sun peak through the curtains to his lonely bedroom.

Sighing again, he rolled onto his back and turned his head to face the alarm clock to his left. Nine-thirty that had just turned from Nine-twenty-nine. He stared up at the ceiling for a moment before finally sitting up and staring at the painting. Shaking his head, he decided to get up and go down to the cafe for a cup of coffee and breakfast.

Getting himself dressed and ready, out of the house with Jacques' journal in hand, and down to the cafe that was right around the corner from his house, Remy was ready for a change in scenery. He sat down to the left of the door, and about 2 booths away, facing the entrance and looked over the menu.