[The story that follows this warning is completely fictional. The characters and situation are entirely imaginary, as are the explicit descriptions of consensual sex between adult males. Nonetheless, if you are too young to read about imagined sex acts or offended by homosexual erotica, please do not read further.
[The story is also long, nearly 30 pages or 13,000 words. If you download it, you can decide where to take a break as you read. I hope you will enjoy it and respect its copyright, held by the author.
[Thank you. Park517@aol.com]
"Let me look at you." Eli Rosenman finished hanging up his guest's heavy, wet overcoat and swiveled his stocky frame back into the front hall. He inspected the tall, smiling, younger man, now in stocking feet, his slush-covered overshoes set on a bath towel in the entryway. "Pat," the verdict was quick, "you look terrific. And it isn't just that pre-cancerous tan. You look like a new man. Are you a new man?"
"You should have been a cheerleader, professor." Patrick Handly stepped forward and gave his old friend a quick, firm hug. "I'm not new, but I am renovated, and I owe it all to you and Walter Raleigh. Thank God for Sir Walter Raleigh!"
"Let me guess. You found a cute queen waiting to cross Duvall Street, waved your cloak to stop traffic and made a night of it."
"That's myth and a bad pun, too. You should know better. You're the historian."
"Social historian. Myths are mother's milk to us."
Patrick chuckled. Eli took him by the elbow and steered him into the cozy living room and over to the bar table. "Bourbon? Rocks?" he asked.
"Yes, please. And a splash of water. For someone so light-minded, you pour with a heavy hand. My debt to Walter Raleigh is the Western world's debt. Tobacco, in a word. These days, smokers have to stick together. Let's just say, I did."
"Let's say that you're not going to get away with the abridged version." Eli handed his guest a short glass, nearly full of liquid the color of roasted chestnuts. "Pat, your slump is gone. You're eyes are bright. You even have a decent haircut. I haven't seen you like this since Spencer got sick. You're out of mourning at last, "
"I'm still a widow, my friend. And I'll always be in mourning for Spence. You don't just file and forget 17 years." He sipped at his bourbon and sat down heavily on the sofa. "Glorious years, Eli." He stared into the cheerful fire. "I miss him every waking minute. Even my dreams are all about loss. Still. And it's been almost six months."
"But you're mending, boy-o. I can see it. And I'm really pleased that Key West helped." He dropped into his favorite spot, an Eames chair next to the sofa, lifted his slippered feet onto the footstool and raised his glass. "Here's to you, Pat, and whatever refreshed you. Or whoever. Spencer was a lucky man."
They drank in silence. "You did like my house?" It wasn't a question from Eli, more a new sluice gate of conversation being opened.
"Like? I loved it. Obviously, you haven't gotten my bread-and-butter letter or the announcement that you've been enrolled in the T-shirt of the Month Club. Life-size silk screens of 12 of Key West's studliest torsos with your name and phone number on the back of each shirt. From the Pecs `n Sex boutique on Simonton."
"You didn't?"
"Nope." Pat grinned. "Almost, though. They were having a sale."
"All those rip-off joints are always having sales. Between the cruise ships and the tourist traps, they're turning the island into a theme park for bad taste. It used to be just casually seedy with redeeming intervals of elegance."
"Like your house, Eli. I knew your taste was impeccable, but the house is more than that. So beautiful and so comfortable at the same time. I don't know how I can ever repay you for letting me use it. I almost wish I'd taken my cameras so that I could show you what you let me see."
"You left the Leicas here? I thought you carried them everywhere. Your suit of armor. Didn't you feel naked without them?"
Pat's eyebrows rose. "What a strange idea. No, not naked, maybe a little handicapped now and then. That's all. I wanted a real vacation and I got one. After the second day, I even stopped thinking about shutter speeds and camera angles. I just admired the beauty indoors and out and blessed you for insisting that I go."
"It would have been a shame to let the place sit empty just because some paying tenants backed out. I kept their deposit after all, and I had the pleasure of putting you in my debt. Your side of the bargain..."
The doorbell interrupted. "Damn," Eli muttered. "Jehovah's Witnesses? Mormon missionaries? Not in a snowstorm. Girl Scouts?" The bell sounded again. Eli pushed himself up from his chair. "Sorry, Pat. I'll be right back. You're not expecting anyone are you? An angry wife?"
Pat smiled and shook his head as his host went out into the hall. He heard voices, but they were indistinct. He longed for a cigarette, but Eli, who tolerated many vices, forbad smoking in his house, his presence, even his personal space. Which stretched to enclose his many friends and sometimes, on the street, the odd teenager from whose astonished fingers the scholar, like a silent, stooping falcon, snatched cigarettes, lit and unlit.
Pat closed his eyes to summon up a vision of another young smoker, the stunning, nearly naked boy-man on the breezy beach in Key West, leaning down to ask for a light, holding an empty pack of matches in wordless, embarrassed explanation. That's how it had begun. The idyll. The resurrection. The story he would only tell Eli in "the abridged version."
"Of course, it's no trouble." Eli's voice came from the hallway. "There's plenty of food, and you'll never get a cab to come back out here in this storm. Besides, it's my mistake." The voice grew louder as a tall figure filled the doorway, obscuring Eli, who was apparently propelling his reluctant guest from behind. "I must be losing it. I expected you on the weekend."
Pat stood up as the two men came all the way in to the room. The new arrival -- mid-twenties? younger? older? Pat couldn't tell -- was broad-shouldered in a tweed jacket, white button-down shirt, lively patterned tie -- Hermes? Ferragamo? -- and jeans. He wore his dark red hair pulled back tight in a pony-tail and had astonishingly dark blue eyes that darted around the room in self-conscious confusion. "Pat," Eli announced, "this is my new research assistant, Kerry. I invited him to come for supper when he got here from New York, and I forgot it was today. Kerry, this is Pat, my youngest old friend."
"Terry, sir, not Kerry," just a trace of upset in his voice as he put his hand out. "Terence Martenson. It's nice to meet you, but I'm sorry to intrude. I should have telephoned."
"You're not intruding, son," Eli pushed him toward the couch as Pat sat back down. "We're almost family, and now so are you. What do you drink?" He waved an expansive hand at the bar.
"Do you have rum, professor? A rum and coke would be great. Otherwise, just a beer."
"One Cuba libre, coming up. The Cokes are in the kitchen. I'll be right back." He bustled out.
"I can't believe Eli is getting to be the absent-minded professor type," Pat smiled at Terry. "If he is, you'll really have your work cut out for you. What is it, anyway, the next project, I mean?"
"The weekend." Eli bustled back in with an open Coke can. "The leisure class at its leisure. Country weekends. Sneaky weekends. It's my publisher's idea, so, of course, it has to be a great one. Guaranteed Oprah. Maybe you could do some of the illustrations, Pat."
"Somehow, I don't think fox hunts would be my thing. Crowds at the beach, maybe. Are you going to give the toiling masses equal time?"
"That's the whole point of the book," Eli crowed. He handed Terry his drink. "How the privilege of the few has become the nightmare of the many, the jammed freeways, the family outings, the frenetic shopping, the do-it-yourself home repair. I know it sounds like pop history, but it should be fairly serious sociology. And Oprah will love it."
"Eli," Pat raised his drink, "to the weekend. I know you'll make it a fascinating book. But," he paused, "what happened to the divine Diana? Your predecessor," he explained to Terry."
"Didn't I tell you last month? As good research assistants go," Eli pouted, "she went. Princess Di kissed a frog, and they're planning to live happily ever after in some squalid suburb of Paris. You don't kiss frogs, do you, Kerry?"
"Terry, sir. No. Never had the pleasure."
"I'm sorry," Eli seemed genuinely remorseful. "Terry, of course. I won't do that again unless you call me sir again. There was a Kerry in the first class I ever taught. Good-looking kid like you." The young man blushed, fidgeted. Eli went on. "He didn't come back from Vietnam, and I guess he's on my conscience. I flunked him. He lost his deferment. Then his life. He was adorable. Not that I ever made a pass at a student."
"Never?" Pat tried to make his tone light.
"Not until after graduation." Eli bounced back. "Then all bets are off. But I am not in confessional mode tonight. What I want is to hear about the Key West life and loves of Mr. Handly. I have reached the age when I have to do most of my living vicariously. I have also reached the time when I turn into your serving person for the evening. Amuse each other while I put the food on the table."
"Can't we help?" Pat asked Eli's retreating back.
"Only by staying out of my way. But don't say anything interesting while I'm gone."
Pat turned to face Terry who was staring at him intently, hopefully. "Are you really Patrick Handly, the photographer?" The look of self-conscious confusion was stronger than before. "I... I thought you'd be a lot older."
"I am older. Every minute. Someday you'll find out that thirty-seven is old. But not for a while, I guess. How long have you got?"
Terry blushed again. "A little over twelve years to go. Sir, Mr., I mean, Pat, I think your work is great. The show you had in New York two years ago. Well, I went five times. I guess I thought you were old because you'd done so much in the nursing home. And you made those old people so... so alive. It was like a miracle.
"I'm sorry. I'm babbling, but I've just never met someone famous that I admired before."
"I'm not famous, but thank you for pretending. I'm not modest either, but I know that most of the people who like what I do are other photographers. Are you?"
"Oh, no. I mean, I wish. I've studied, but I wouldn't dare call myself a photographer. And pictures of people, I don't know why, but mine don't work. I sort of stick to landscapes and still lifes. There I feel I'm more in control."
Pat listened sympathetically. Starting out, he, too, had been afraid of the human face, of emotion, of seeming to pry. "You'll get over that," he assured Terry. "It's mostly a matter of how you feel about yourself. I'd really be interested in seeing what you've done. Have you brought anything with you?"
"Here? Tonight?" Terry was instantly, pathetically eager. Then, assuming that Pat was just being polite, he reversed field. "No, nothing. I'm being stupid. I've really only come out now to hunt for a place to live. All my stuff is still in New York. I'm sorry, I wouldn't dare impose on you like that anyway."
What this kid needs is some confidence, Pat thought. Just like me when I met Spence. Scared of my shadow. He put a hand lightly on Terry's forearm. "Terry, if you're sharp enough to go for the kind of stuff I do, I bet you're good enough to be doing work I'd enjoy seeing. Have you been working with anyone? A teacher?"
"No. Just books. I couldn't afford classes in New York. Not on an internship at a small publisher."
You could afford expensive neckties, Pat nearly said, but Terry saw the photographer's appraising look and corrected the unspoken thought. "This was a Christmas present from a roommate. I thought it might help me make a good first impression on Professor Rosenman. Actually," he confided, "I don't usually wear a necktie."
"Well, that one looks great on you. But I don't understand. You and Eli hadn't met before?"
"Just on the telephone. My roommate works for his publisher and suggested me. And the professor said he was desperate."
"Don't believe anything he says. He probably checked you all the way back to kindergarten before he called you, and he's probably not paying you enough and he'll work your backside off. Abandon hope, all ye ..."
"Patrick, if you're trying to scare Terry away, I'll pour the soup in your lap." Eli had returned. "And the soup is hot and on. Come and get it."
The meal was the kind Eli was famous for producing. Not cooking. He didn't cook, but he allowed caterers on both banks of the Ohio to think that if they measured up to his exacting standards, he would drop their names in well-placed ears. Sometimes, he did. The dinner he provided for Pat and Terry -- a hot-and-sour soup, grilled shrimp on saffron rice, leeks suffused with garlic, lichee over mango and peach sherbert -- was not your ordinary Chinese take-out. It had actually materialized from the newest Asian eclectic restaurant in Cincinnati, Eli admitted as he poured a remarkable white Burgundy into their glasses, "and the manager's daughter is a student," he chortled. "She thinks she'll get a good grade on her paper, and she will. It's an excellent paper."
Most of the dinner-table conversation was about the food, Eli's devious conduct in getting it, other memorable meals he'd conjured up, Terry's apartment-hunting prospects, his need for a car and his timetable for entering Eli's service. Only when the plates had been cleared, and the three had taken their coffee back into the living room did Eli resume his inquisition. "All right, Pat," he said, "it's supper-singing time. You left here two weeks ago looking like a professional pallbearer, and now you're back with a spring in your step and a sparkle in your eye. You got laid. That's obvious. What I'm entitled to know as the man who sent you to Key West is how you did it and with whom. Surely not with my friend, Kurt. He's not your type."
"Not with Kurt," Pat agreed, admitting in effect that he'd been with someone else. He wanted to give Eli the present of his story -- part of it, at least -- but Terry was not only a stranger but quite possibly straight. "Peut-etre pas devant les enfants," he pleaded with Eli. (Not in front of the children.)
"Il y a un enfant ici?" Quizzically Terry shaded his eyes and pretended to scan the room. His French sounded Parisian. It was certainly assured. "I don't see any kids. Pat, I'm not a babe in arms. I won't be offended, and I will keep my mouth shut. Besides, I've never been to Florida. I'd love to hear about it."
"But you've obviously been to France."
"For most of high school. My mother married a Frenchman after my father..." Died? Ran away? Went mad? Whatever had happened, it still hurt Terry to remember.
"Small world," Pat said. "I grew up in Paris, at least till I was twelve. Then my family moved back to the States. Do you go back often?"
"No. The last time was my mother's funeral, and that was nearly two years ago. My life is here now."
"You sound very well-adjusted," Pat smiled. "I went through hell to become an American. Sometimes, I still dream in French."
"Me, too," Terry shook his head. "Sex dreams, specially." He blushed yet again. Pat found the shyness more and more endearing. The small hole in the toe of the young man's left sock stirred him as well. "I'd love to know more about his sex dreams," he thought.
"All in good time," Eli was a mind-reader. "But some other time, Terry. It's Pat's turn tonight, and I'm an impatient man. What happened down there? When? With whom? Are you in love?"
"You're impossible, Eli," Pat protested, "but all right, I guess you're entitled. I kissed two frogs. That's what happened. Actually they kissed me first. And I'm not in love, no, although ... I don't know how to put this ... but, well, I think I could be in love again. When Spence died," Pat's voice choked, "I thought I had lost the only person I could or would love. Now, thanks to you and my frogs, I see ... I see, let's call them possibilities I hadn't imagined."
"Terry," Pat turned to his neighbor on the sofa. "I should explain. For almost seventeen years I lived with one, wonderful, amazing man, Spencer Kendall. He was a lawyer here, and we met when I was a witness for a friend of mine who'd gotten into trouble. Spencer defended him, and we fell in love and then last year he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and in three months he was dead. He was only fifty-two. I went to pieces, and Eli slowly put me back together. He sent me off to stay in his house in Key West to complete the cure, and I guess it worked. I owe him a lot."
"Including an explanation of your misbehavior with the local amphibians. I don't remember seeing any around my house," Eli pressed on. "Just those little lizards."
"Gekkos," Pat said. "My frogs were of the human type, Eli, like Diana's. They were French boys, lovers, and really they were more like adorable puppies than frogs. I met them on the beach, the nice one with the pine trees, the state park. I was the only smoker there, and they had run out of matches." He closed his eyes, and again the picture of the tall, lithe youngster in the almost indecent thong bikini swam into his vision. The long, supple legs, the wavy dark hair coming almost to his shoulders, the outline of his trapped cock against the thin fabric and the ravishing, embarrassed smile miming his request for a light.
"The truth is I'd spotted them when I walked along the beach," he picked up the story. "They were hard to ignore. They had terrific bodies and bathing suits that just barely covered what you have to cover, and they were constantly touching each other, nuzzling, caressing, massaging. Young love. It was glorious to watch, and I admit it, I set up my beach chair behind them so that I could watch. Then I heard them speaking French and I got even more interested, so when the tall one came to ask for a light, I spoke to him in French. We talked a bit but he went back to his lover and I went back to the book I'd been pretending to read.
"He came back once more for `du feu,' and when I decided I'd had enough sun and saltwater, I took my lighter, one of those throwaways, to give to them, and also, I admit, to have one last close look. That's when they asked me if I knew a dentist in Key West because the shorter boy -- he was built like a wrestler or a fire plug -- had a toothache. Of course, I didn't, but I volunteered to call your friend Kurt, and one thing led to another and I gave them a lift back to the house, phoned Kurt and found a very obliging dentist who agreed to see Jean-Marc, that was the boy's name, that afternoon."
"What was the other's name?" Terry asked.
"Patrice, the French equivalent of mine. He was thrilled by the coincidence, but what really turned them on, Eli, was your pool. They'd never seen a black swimming pool before. Of course, neither had I. They thought it was `vachement cool.'
"Well, it is," Eli declared. "David Hockney can have his translucent blues. I like the mystery of the dark depths. I hope you invited them to skinny dip."
"Not, right away, no. We drank some beer, and I drove them to the dentist, and afterwards I was going to take them to the hostel where they were staying, but Jean-Marc was in a lot of pain, and Patrice seemed worried about him, so I took them back to the house to rest and recuperate." What Pat recalled but didn't describe was the way Jean-Marc had pretended to be brave inside the clinic, but had crawled into Patrice's lap the minute they were in the car to be cuddled and petted like an injured child. The two boys were a little bit ridiculous and totally enchanting in their affection for one another, and without being jealous, Pat had been deeply moved by the way they held one another. Spence used to embrace him like that. Seeing Jean-Marc and Patrice together, Pat had longed to be hugged again, just to be hugged.
"And then you sent them on their way?" Eli clearly guessed that the story did not end so abruptly. "With farewell kisses on both cheeks?"
"Well, no. The truth is I didn't want to lose them. I offered to show them around the next day, to do things you needed a car for. I took them to Sugarloaf Key in the morning and we rented kayaks to explore the mangrove swamps, and we went out to the reef in the afternoon to snorkel off one of those party boats. The diving wasn't that great. It was choppy. But my frogs were a hit. They wore thong bikinis like the day before at the beach, and the tourists couldn't take their eyes off them. Women and men, straight and gay. The skipper of the boat offered us a free trip the next day to make up for the poor visibility he said. But I think he just wanted the boys as bait for more passengers."
"And what did you want them for? Or am I getting too personal?" Eli asked.
"You're always too personal. Terry, be warned. You are not allowed to have secrets around Eli." Pat paused a second. "Eli, I don't think I knew exactly what I wanted them for. I wanted company, but not too much. I wanted their youth which I certainly wasn't going to get. Really, I just wanted to let some of the love they had for each other rub off on me. Not the physical, sexual stuff. But the affection, the joking, the ease with one another and with the world. It was wonderful to be around them and their happiness."
"Medicinal?" Eli asked.
"I'd say tonic. They are the reason I've come back to you feeling so well for the first time in a long time. I owe them a lot."
"How long were they with you?" The question came from Terry who had pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around his legs as he was drawn into Pat's story. "It must have been awful to let them go."
"Well, I hope I'm going to see them again," Pat answered. "They're touring the States until the end of March when they go back to their new jobs. Oh, I didn't tell you. They're cooks. Well, apprentice cooks. And if they don't run out of money, they said they'd come to Cincinnati. I told them that they owed Eli a meal."
"Have you sampled their cooking? Is it up to my standards?"
"Kurt said it was superb. Will that do?"
"They cooked for Kurt? That took guts. Did they know that he's a food critic?"
"No, Eli. I didn't want to make them nervous. They cooked for him and for me and for Dr. Felton, the dentist, and his very nice wife. They wanted to do something to thank all of us, and cooking is what they do. It was a wonderful evening."
"Where did this Lucullan feast take place?" Eli asked.
"In your kitchen. And at your dining room table. I just wish you had been there, too. And I hope you don't mind that I invited them into your house."
"Mi casa..." Eli gave Pat a knowing look. "How far in?"
"Well, the dentist bill had eaten up their cash so I moved them out of the hostel and into the guest room for a couple of nights." Pat tried to seem casual, but a trace of embarrassment crept into his voice. "They were completely honest kids, Eli. You know I wouldn't have let them through your door otherwise."
"And walking around nearly naked, they wouldn't have any way to hide things they might pick up. Not that I own anything worth stealing." Eli sensed that he was being unkind. "I'm sorry, Pat. I'm glad you had them in the house. Obviously, they were very special people. Do you have any photos of these paragons?"
"No," Pat lied. "Remember, I didn't take my cameras, or my armor, as you called them." In fact, he had bought one of those disposable cameras in Key West and he had snapped pictures of Patrice and Jean-Marc lounging by Eli's pool, embracing one another, clowning in the kitchen and, with Mrs. Felton snapping the shutter, sitting on either side of him after the dinner. But those photos were private. Pat meant them to stay that way.
"That's funny," Terry observed. "My roommate says the same thing, that I carry my camera around to make myself invisible. People see the lens but not me."
"It's best if they don't see either," Pat answered. "If you can make them forget that you're there and watching. Not just watching. You're there to capture a moment, to make it stand still. Being invisible would be ideal."
"That's just voyeurism," Eli snapped. "Pat, surely you have to get involved with the people you photograph. Otherwise, how can you know more than superficial things about them? When I interview people, sources I have to trust, I have to get inside their heads and get them to open up to me. You can't do that if you're hiding from them."
"But, professor," it was Terry's turn, "if a photographer becomes a presence, he influences the scene. And that distorts the reality. Pat's right. It's a moment, an instant that you see and freeze. And if you intrude on it, you change it. It's very hard to stay out, but the thing is to keep it to a minimum. That's why invisibility would be so great."
"That kind of photography just shows you bank robbers or shoplifters," Eli retorted. "Pat is so shy that he pretends that he doesn't want to be seen, but he shapes every one of his images. It's his reality, not necessarily the reality."
"If we're going to get into levels of reality, I'll need more wine," Pat said. "But since I have to drive in a snowstorm, I can't have anything more to drink. So, I think a wonderful evening is ending. Unless, Eli, you'll let us help you with the dishes."
"I will not. You're my guest, not a busboy. But I have the feeling that you're holding out on me. About Key West and the undivided Gauls. Did they just cook dinner and wash up and leave?"
"No, they had one more day, and we went back to the beach and a second visit to the dentist. And that night Kurt took us to his favorite restaurant, the Five Dolphins or something."
"Seven Fish," Eli corrected. "It's excellent."
"It was, and he introduced the boys to the chef, and there was a sous-chef there from France, and we all went off to a bar where there was a band and we danced. Even me, Eli, how about that? And I guess I didn't disgrace myself. One of the locals insisted that I let him buy me a drink, and it turned out that he knew my name and my work. He took me to lunch the next day and did an interview for the weekly paper where he works. I haven't seen it yet," Pat smiled, "but I imagine it will be fairly flattering."
"An in-depth interview?" Eli smirked.
"He liked the dark, mysterious depths of your pool," Pat parried. The truth was that the sex with Tony had been passionless athleticism. Not like the night with Patrice and Jean-Marc. That was once in a lifetime. Deft hands, four of them, caressing him, fondling him, guiding his cock or his mouth while the boys murmured endearments and praise using a French vocabulary he had never heard as a language of love. The heat of their strong bodies inflaming his. The complete surrender to intimacy. Pat smiled at the memory, at his secret, at the moment when he had freed himself from grief and begun to live again.
"I suppose you expect me to take that silly grin as your last word on the subject." Eli's clairvoyance was not total.
"Until I write my memoirs. Yes. Sorry, Eli, but you're better off with your active imagination. And I'm better off hitching up the sled dogs and mushing home before the drifts block the roads. Terry, can I give you a lift?"
"That would be great," the young man replied. "As long as the hotel isn't out of your way."
It was, but Pat pretended otherwise. He looked forward to being alone with Terry, to learning more about his years in France and his interests as a photographer, to finding out how much they shared. He had liked Terry's defense of the invisible cameraman, not just what he said but the way he said it. Thoughtful but heated, too. They said their good-byes and their thanks in Eli's hallway and opened his front door to discover that the snowstorm had ended and the sky had cleared. "Look at it," Terry breathed in delight. "It's so still and so clean like this, before cars and people track it up. It turns the city back into country. I love it."
"You're right," Pat agreed as they walked gingerly to the sidewalk. "It's perfect, but I hope you won't mind if I spoil it with a cigarette. I love Eli, but going cold turkey in his house is hard on an addict like me."
"Could I have one, too? I don't carry. I just bum, but I could really use one. If you've got enough, that is?"
"Full pack." Pat extended it to Terry. "Was your first exposure to Eli so unsettling?"
"A little bit, I guess. Is he always so relentless and so... well, prying? I mean, I admire him enormously. It's a terrific privilege to work for him. But I'm kind of a private person. I hope he isn't going to want to live his life through me, that's all."
They had reached Pat's car, a Honda that had seen better days. Pat unlocked the passenger side door and opened it for Terry. "You'd better tell him early on, then," he advised the young man. "It's not that Eli is always nosy, but he likes to be in charge. And that can seem manipulative."
Pat let himself in on the other side, got behind the wheel and turned the ignition key. Nothing. Not even a click. He tried again. "Shit!" he cursed. "Pardon my French. The battery's dead, I bet. My stupid fault. I didn't charge it long enough. The power must have drained down while I was in Key West. It had just enough to turn over once so I could get here and no more."
"Would you like me to check under the hood?" Terry asked.
"Do you know anything about motors?"
"Nope. But I suppose if a wire was loose I'd notice it."
"And neither of us would know what to do with the loose end." Pat gave a bark of a laugh. "We flunk the all-American male test." He stubbed out his cigarette and looked at Terry. "We have two choices. Go back inside and pray for a cab. Eli doesn't drive. Or walk to my house. I've got another car there. It's about a mile and a half."
"It's a beautiful night," Terry beamed. "Let's walk. We can smoke to stay warm."
Hatless and wearing a light raincoat, Terry was miserably cold before they had gone more than halfway. Pat tried to get a conversation going about France or Terry's life in New York, but his companion fell silent as his loafers filled up with snow and his teeth began to chatter. His feet were blocks of ice by the time Pat opened his front door on a leaping, barking, joyous Irish setter. "Down, McGonigle, sit, dammit," Pat roared at his jubilant pet. "Sorry, Terry, he's more greeter than watchdog. Come on in. Get warm." Turning on the hall light, he suddenly saw the younger man's trembling blue lips and the desperate way he was hugging himself to control his shaking.
"Jesus," Pat said. "I didn't realize..." He rushed Terry into the kitchen. "Get your shoes and socks off," he ordered as he filled a roasting pan with warm water and plunked his shivering guest into a chair and his feet into the improvised bath. Pat disappeared but returned almost immediately with a heavy wool cape. "This was Spence's. His one bit of flamboyance," he explained, removing Terry's raincoat and wrapping the cloak around him like a blanket. "I'm going to get you some brandy, too. We're out of rum."
"B-br-brandy's f-f-fine," Terry stuttered. "I'm s-s-sorry to be a n-n-nuisance."
Pat didn't answer, but as soon as he came back to the kitchen and succeeded in pouring most of a tumbler of Courvoisier down Terry's throat, he took the young man's hands one by one and began to chafe the numbness out of them. "You're not a nuisance," he said. "I was thoughtless not to realize that you weren't dressed for Napoleon's retreat from Moscow."
"Oh, it wasn't that cold. Or that far. It just seemed that way." Terry smiled.
Still holding one hand, Pat knelt. "How are your feet?"
"Tingling. I think I'll be able to walk again, but my dancing career may be over." He was no longer just smiling. He was grinning. "Pat, I'll be fine. Thank you. But I have a question. I don't know Cincinnati, but it seems to me that downtown, where I'm staying, is on the opposite side of Eli's from your place. But you said my hotel was on your way home."
"You've got a pretty good sense of direction," Pat conceded, lifting one of Terry's feet out of the pan and rubbing it vigorously.
"Then...?"
"Why did I offer you a ride? Because no cab would have ever come to get you, and Eli's not set up for guests." He lifted the other foot clear of the water and began to massage it. Then he looked up. "And, Terry, to tell you the whole truth, because you remind me of me when I was first given the full Eli treatment. He didn't approve. He thought Spence had flipped and that sooner or later I'd run out on him and take the heirloom silver with me. He called me `the BYT' even to my face."
Terry looked puzzled.
"`BYT,'" Pat explained, "Beautiful Young Thing. It really hurt not to be taken seriously, and I was -- am -- shy anyway. Like you. Maybe that's why we go for photography. Maybe Eli's right and we do hide behind our cameras." He put Terry's foot down and slid the pan of water away. "Stay put for another minute or two." Pat stood up. "I'll go get some dry socks and shoes that may fit you, and then, if the other car starts, I'll run you downtown."
"No, please." Terry shucked off the cape and stood up. "Pat, I don't want you to drive all that way on roads as slick as the ones we just saw. You're right about me. I am shy, but could I... I mean ... are you set up for guests ... and could I spend the night and could I please," the words came in a rush, "haveanothercigarette?" His lips were no longer blue. His cheeks, instead, were almost crimson from blushing.
"Yes, yes and sure." Pat took the pack from his pocket and shook a cigarette free. "There's a guest room upstairs. With its own bath. You probably ought to take a shower, warm and then hot, just to finish the frostbite treatment. Would you like some more brandy? Or maybe tea?"
"Will you have some?"
"Tea? Yeah, not a bad idea. And a cigarette of my own. You put the water on, and I'll go get something for your feet."
With McGonigle at his heels, Pat went up to his bedroom, found a pair of heavy wool hiking socks, decided that slippers wouldn't fit over them and hurried back to the kitchen. The kettle was on, and Terry was at the sink scrubbing out the roasting pan.
"You don't have to do that," Pat protested. "At any rate, stop it and put these socks on." Terry complied. Pat lit a cigarette, and the kettle soon began to steam. He made two mugs of herbal tea and put a bag of cookies on the kitchen table. "You should probably eat something," he told Terry. "I've got some rat cheese if you'd like that."
"No, these are fine. Milanos are my favorite. I am a little woozy, but I think it's your brandy. It's a great cure for bashfulness. I've never invited myself to stay the night anywhere before."
"I'm glad you did. I was kind of dreading the drive. And this way, you can help me retrieve Kati tomorrow."
"Katie?"
"My wreck. For Katishaw, the character in the Mikado.' She's a ruin that's romantic.'" He saw Terry's look of incomprehension. "Gilbert and Sullivan." A shrug of ignorance. "Oh, God, the youth of today." Pat pretended to be appalled. "It's all right. I'll play you the operetta sometime or, better, take you to see it. Right now, though, if you're ready, I think it's bed time."
They rinsed out the mugs, turned out the lights and climbed the stairs. In the upper hallway, Pat led the way. "This is it," he announced, pushing open a door and snapping a light switch on the wall inside, "our presidential sui... oh, Christ, oh, Christ!" He seemed to crumple in the doorway, tottering back against Terry who could see that the room was filled with cardboard boxes and that the bed was covered by piles of clothes.
Pat straightened up and turned to his guest. His face was ashen, and he looked as though he were about to cry. "I forgot," he whispered. "How could I forget? That's where I put all of Spence's stuff. From his office. From his closets. There are even boxes of papers in the tub. I couldn't go through them. I couldn't face it." He slumped against the wall and brought his hands up to his face. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking." He wiped some moisture from his eyes. "I'm so ashamed."
Terry stood in the hallway, almost paralyzed by Pat's display of grief until, timidly, he touched the other man's raised forearm. "It's all right, Pat. It doesn't matter. Isn't there a couch downstairs I could use? Or the floor. I've slept on floors before."
"You'd have to fight McGonigle for the sofa." Pat tried to smile but couldn't quite manage it. For a prolonged moment, he seemed completely at a loss, but then he squared his shoulders and looked at Terry. "We," he started, paused, composed himself again, "I mean I... I have a big bed, king-size. I do snore. I'm sorry, but shaking me by the shoulder will make me stop. There's plenty of room, and I won't make any improper advances." He managed a weak smile.
"Oh, I couldn't do that. That's too much of an imposition on you. Why don't I just call a cab and wait downstairs however long it takes? Then you can get some sleep."
"I couldn't sleep with you on my conscience. Terry, please, it's late. This is the only solution that makes sense. And I'd really like your help with the car tomorrow morning. So, as a favor to me..." He gestured toward an open door farther down the hallway on the other side and, taking Terry by the elbow, led him into the spacious master bedroom.
"Wow!" Terry took in the elegance of the furniture, the enormous television screen, the fireplace and the wood stacked by it as proof that it was functional, the display of Pat's photographs of wheelchair athletes from his "Challenge" portfolio and the imposing bed on its slightly raised platform. "Pat, this is an incredible room. It's so beautiful I don't see why you'd ever want to go anywhere else. Are you sure you want me...?"
"I'm sure. End of discussion. The bathroom is through that door," he pointed. "I'll get some towels." Pat was being curt, almost brusque, for two reasons. He was still shaken by his purposeful amnesia, stashing Spence and their past away in the guestroom, out of sight, out of mind. But he was also suddenly uncomfortable with the idea of sharing his bed with Terry. He was attracted to the kid. When he had crouched to rub his chilled feet in the kitchen, he had found himself eyeing Terry's crotch, wondering. But to bring a stranger into the bed he'd shared with Spence and only with Spence -- what kind of loyalty would that show?
The bathroom door was closed when he came back with the towels, but Terry opened it to his knock. "Sorry," the young man said, "I had to take a leak. Pat, this bathroom is fabulous. Two sinks, and that shower is huge. Vachement cool, like your French friend said."
"Well, I'll just brush my teeth and the joint's all yours. So are these." He put the towels on a chrome rack and opened a medicine chest over one of the sinks. "Aha. I knew there was a toothbrush somewhere. Compliments of Finnair. The one time I got to fly Business Class. An Aalto catologue."
"Thanks. I won't say I'm sorry anymore about inviting myself, because I'm not, not now. If I hadn't, I never would have seen this great place. But, Pat, I am grateful. You're really nice to take in a stranger this way."
"Not a stranger. Eli says you're family. I only hope you still feel grateful when my snoring wakes you. I won't be long."
Terry left the bathroom, and when Pat returned to the bedroom, his bladder empty and gums tingling, the young man had hung his jacket, jeans, shirt and tie over a chair back and was standing rapt, in baggy briefs and Pat's wool socks, in front of one of the photographs. It showed a legless, sweat-drenched man, arms raised in triumph off the wheels of his lightweight chair, crossing a finish line. Behind him an empty roadway stretched to the picture's vanishing point.
"It's fabulous, Pat," Terry, hugging his arms across his bare chest, turned back into the room. Pat struggled and just managed to keep his eyes above his guest's trim waist. "But there's something about it, something I should remember and don't."
"Look again."
Terry swiveled. "Of course. Now, I see it," he exclaimed. "He's not the winner. He finished last. And still he's delirious."
"The point is that he finished. I love that shot. It sneaks up on you. I hung it and the others in here when Spence... when he got sick. To encourage him. I should probably take them down."
"Oh, no. Don't. I mean, it's none of my business, but they're magnificent. And you don't have to be sick to need encouragement, do you?"
"No." Pat was surprised. Hinting at some unhappy memory, Terry's remark revealed an unexpected thoughtfulness. "I'll think about it. Right now, I'd encourage you to use the bathroom and come to bed. If you shower, use the handles on the left. The other head is sort of shot."
Terry nodded and disappeared. Pat hung up his jacket and slacks, tossed his shirt, boxers and socks on a chair and headed for the bed. Halfway there, he stopped, irresolute. "Maybe I should wear something to bed. Don't want to shock the kid." He retrieved the shorts and started to put them on. Then he dropped them to the floor. "I sleep in the raw," he said to himself. "Always have. I'm too old to start pretending."
He climbed into the bed, turned on his reading light and picked up the book he had been reading -- but not really reading -- on the beach in Key West. The memory of the beach triggered memories of Patrice and Jean-Marc. Their near-nakedness in the glaring sunlight. Their unself-conscious embraces on the sand. How they had appeared at his bedroom door after the extraordinary dinner -- to say goodnight, he thought. But they came into his room. Patrice sat on the edge of the bed. Jean-Marc stood at the end. Patrice leaned down and kissed him, called him beautiful, asked if they could sleep with him and didn't wait for an answer. He pulled back the sheet and put his lips on Pat's cock. And Pat didn't resist. He put his arms around the boy and pulled their bodies together. He had wanted them so badly, wanted them to want him. And they did.
He remembered every detail. Patrice's tight foreskin and the thin film of sweat on his hairless chest, his moans when Pat's tongue worked his nipples. Jean-Marc stripping slowly and sliding onto the bed next to him, taking Pat's free hand and guiding it onto his thick erection. Then, while Patrice was shedding his clothes, Jean-Marc straddled Pat's chest, gently pinioned his wrists to the pillow and presented his balls to be licked. That was what had been so special. The boys had taken complete charge of him, making him a part of their own love-making, making his body an instrument for their own pleasure but doing their loving, ingenious utmost to take him on a journey of pleasure with them.
When Jean-Marc lifted Pat's legs in the air, Pat expected a finger to enter his anus, to stretch and lubricate it. Instead, Patrice's tongue had begun a leisurely but electrifying journey up and down the cleft between his buttocks until, as Pat writhed in noisy ecstasy, it entered him just as Jean-Marc captured his swollen cockhead between a pair of warm, pillowy lips. Pat thought he would explode then and there. The boys held him back. They calibrated their amorous assault on him so perfectly that he didn't give himself over that first time, not until Patrice, mounted on him like a rutting dog, was stroking powerfully back and forth inside him and he and Jean Marc were locked in intense, mutual sucking.
Then came that sweet, overpowering agony of heedless release. As Pat bucked and spewed, Patrice, shouting, began to come inside him and finally Jean-Marc erupted in orgasm, spurting his seed in Pat's mouth and then over his face and chest. Patrice collapsed on the bed, and Pat would have done the same except that Jean-Marc, lying below him, pulled his buttocks down so that he could lap up his lover's semen as it slowly escaped from Pat's body.
With his eyes tightly closed, Pat summoned up more images. Entering Jean-Marc and the youngster's grunt of pleased surprise at Pat's thickness. How Patrice pretended to be jealous, standing on the bed and pulling Pat's face into his crotch, into the deliciously crinkly swirl of pubic hair where Pat could smell faint traces of his own body as he worshipped Patrice's. And the touch of Jean-Marc's hands, so delicate for such a sturdy kid, opening Pat's fingers and closing them again on Jean-Marc's more-than-sturdy cock.
But it wasn't the French boy's fingers on his. Pat's eyes snapped open. Terry was leaning over him, trying gently to remove the book that had dropped onto his chest. "Oh," Pat said, "I guess I dozed off."
"You looked so happy and peaceful," Terry apologized. "I'm sorry. I should have just left you alone."
"It's okay, thanks." Pat saw that his guest's pony tail was gone and, his hair, covering his ears, falling almost to his shoulders, gleamed a lighter shade of red than before. "Are you ready for bed? Or," he smiled, "would you like a good book?"
Terry shook his head. "I'm bushed. I won't have trouble getting to sleep." He walked around the end of the bed, his briefs sagging just enough to disguise the shape of his butt and size of his genitals, pulled back the covers on his side and sat down. "Pat," he looked over his shoulder, "is it okay if I don't wear anything to bed? I usually don't," he was blushing, "but maybe you..."
"That's kind of funny," Pat answered. "I sleep in the nude, too, but I just had a little debate with myself about not shocking you."
"Who won?" Terry raised his hips from the bed and pulled his underwear off. Gracefully, but quickly, he got under the covers and lay down, smiling at Pat.
"Let's put it this way. I hope you're not easily shocked."
"I was in a pretty raunchy fraternity at college. I'll be okay."
"Good. Sleep well then." Pat put his book on the bedside table and switched off the reading light. "And remember, if my snoring wakes you up, shake me hard and I'll stop."
"Will do. Good night, Pat. Thanks for taking me in."
"De nada. I'm glad to have company." In the dark, the silence lasted several minutes. Terry broke it.
"Pat, why did you say that you wouldn't try anything with me?"
"Because I won't. I didn't want you to worry about sharing a bed with me."
"What if I'd like to be molested a little?"
"By me?"
"Yes, please." Seconds ticked away while Pat tried to digest what he'd heard and Terry tried to understand his own boldness. "I'm sorry," the younger man finally said, "but you turned me on when I first saw you. Then, when I found out who you are, well, I tried to take care of myself just now in the shower, but I'd rather have the real thing. I'm not very good at it, but I'd like to make love to you, Pat."
"What about your roommate? The necktie. Aren't you ... you know ... involved?"
"With Jen?" Terry chuckled. "No, we've been friends for ever, but she got me the job with Eli so that she could move her boyfriend in."
"And you don't have anybody? A great looking guy like you?"
"I'm shy. At least, I'm shy with everybody but you." Terry stretched his hand out toward Pat's side of the bed. "Pat, I can't say I love you because I've only known you a few hours, but I'd love to have you hold me. I'd love to try to make you happy." He groped along the bedcovers and found Pat's hand, touched it, took it in his own. And Pat did not pull away. Instead, he turned on his side toward Terry and laid his free hand on the younger man's arm. Slowly, he stroked it.
"Terry," he said at last, "I'd like to hold you. No, I'd love to hold you. I can't believe you want me anywhere near as much as I want you. You're so young, so fresh, and I'm used up. I've had love."
"I haven't. I haven't even had much sex. But, Pat," he pulled the blanket back and even in the darkness, Pat could make out the elegance of Terry's long, lean, naked frame, "I want to learn about love and about making love. You could teach me. I'd like you to teach me."
"Come here then, you beautiful, shy kid. Lesson number one requires body contact, and I'd really like to contact your body. For starters." Pat tugged at Terry's hand and drew the more-than-willing youth into his arms. Their lips met, and as they kissed, Pat's hands roamed down Terry's back to his buttocks, cupping them and kneading their firm flesh. Terry whimpered as his cock stiffened and tried to drill a hole in Pat's belly.
"Am I hurting you?" Pat worried that he'd been too fierce.
"Oh, no. Oh, no. It's just wonderful. You're so strong. God, your arms. I can't believe how good they feel."
"So does your ass. Your whole body." Pat's lips went exploring along Terry's jawbone, back to the lobe of his ear, down to his throat. "And you smell so good. You used the Floris shampoo, didn't you?"
"Yes. Was that wrong?"
"No. It was Spence's favorite. I love the tang of it. And I love your hair. You're gorgeous, Terry, gorgeous. But I've got to see all of you." He reached back to the bedside table and found the light switch. The reading lamp was not strong, but its light danced on Terry's skin, changing its pale milkiness to diluted gold and leaving valleys of shadow in the crook of an elbow, along one side of his neck. It also showed the wet sparkle of Terry's eyes and one tear that had not quite run all the way down his cheek. Pat put a finger to the spot, captured the drop and brought it to his lips.
"Do you cry because you're happy?"
Terry nodded. More tears were coming. He did not trust his voice not to crack.
"Oh, baby," Pat caressed Terry's arm. "So do I. So do I. Isn't that wonderful? That we're alike that way?"
Terry pushed his head against Pat's chest. Cautiously, inexpertly, he tried to imprison a nipple between his lips.
Pat combed his fingers through the mane of hair. "Use your tongue first, honey," he advised. "Just the tip. That'll raise me up and give you something to work on."
Terry renewed his nuzzling but, as instructed, more delicately and with more satisfying results. Not only did Pat's nipple rise, swell and harden, Pat arched his back and gave a quick gasp. "Bingo!" he blurted. "That feels so good. So damn good."
Using the tip of an index finger in a light, swirling motion on the moistened, erect pap, Terry moved his mouth to the other side of Pat's chest, pausing to tug at the thick growth of black hair on the breastbone. And as he licked around the second aureole, he let his fingers slide down the silky trail along Pat's stomach, through the pubic thatch and onto the cock that was straining up and out of Pat's groin.
It was Terry's turn to gasp. "You're so big, Pat! Jesus!" His fingers just managed to circle the shaft. "You're awesome."
Pat drew himself up into a sitting position and clasped Terry to him. "I'm kind of thick, I know. I hope it doesn't turn you off. I'm not really any longer than average."
"Oh, you don't turn me off. It's just..." he took Pat's hand and guided it onto his own stiff penis. "See? I'm so skinny down there. And I've never been with anybody hung like you. The truth is, Pat, I've only been with two men ... and the sex was only sucking them... and, and I want so much to please you and I..."
"And you're scared," Pat cut him off, forced his mouth onto Terry's and kissed him hard, caressing the back of his head and fondling his cock at the same time. "Don't be scared, kiddo," Pat finally ended the kiss. "I wouldn't hurt you for the world. And it doesn't matter if the sex isn't perfect the first time or even the tenth. The important part is to love each other while we're making love, and I know I can love you. You're adorable, Terry, and sweet and strong, and you've got nothing to be ashamed of." He stroked the other's erection gently. "It's elegant, just like you are. I'd like to feel it inside me. I'd like you to make love to me that way."
"You... you would? You'd let me...?"
"Fuck my ass? I'd love it. I'd love to wrap my legs around you and feel you pumping into me. Would you do that for me?"
"I never have. I feel like such a loser, but I've never done that. There are so many things I've never done, because, yes, because I was scared. Pat, I don't want to hurt you. Can we do it so that you're in control?"
"I'll have to check the manual," Pat was grinning, and Terry, sensing that his inexperience was a source of amusement, bristled a little. "No, baby," Pat kissed him again, "don't get your back up. I was just teasing, but I do have to get some things from the bathroom." He swung his feet over the side of the bed. "I'll be right back. Don't start without me."
When Pat returned with a packet of condoms and a tube of lubricant, the only souvenirs he was glad to keep of Tony's sexual performance in Key West, Terry was sitting on the edge of the bed. He lifted his arms and encircled Pat's neck. "Pat," he looked up, "before we do the other thing, could I suck you? Or at least try? I want ... Oh, Pat, I don't really know what I want, but I want to do something that shows you how much I'd like to belong you. If you'd have me."
"You don't have to prove anything to me." Pat sat down and put his arms around Terry's waist. "It's not as if I can have you without you having me. And it's enough for me that you want to be with me at all. I'm not exactly every boy's dream."
"The French boys, you turned them on, didn't you? You didn't say so at Eli's, but it was pretty obvious."
"Well," Pat admitted, "we did have a good time together."
"You made love to both of them?"
"And both of them to me. We did pretty much everything three guys can do together."
"So why would you doubt that you could turn me on, too? You're a really handsome man, Pat, and you have a really amazing cock and I'd really like to suck it. Okay?"
"More than okay. But you have to let me out of your mouth before I come. I'm a one-man man, and for 17 years Spence was that man. Patrice and Jean-Marc said they'd only slept with each other, so we didn't use protection. Still, you can never be sure. I'll get my blood tested, but until then, I don't want you taking any risks."
"But I want to taste you. I'm not scared about that."
"Not scared, but maybe foolish. There'll be other times. At least, I hope this isn't going to be a one-night stand."
Terry buried his face in Pat's shoulder. "That's what I hope, too." His voice was choked. "That's why I'm scared. I want everything to be perfect, and I'm frightened that I'll screw it up." He took his arms from around Pat's neck and slipped out of Pat's embrace so that he knelt by the side of the bed between the older man's knees. "Please," he gave Pat an imploring look, "help me be your lover."
Moved by the mixture of wantonness and fear and longing in Terry's voice and posture, Pat hesitated for an instant. He wanted most of all to kneel by the boy and hold him and caress him and reassure him that he was desirable, lovable, loved. But he also wanted to give himself to Terry, to show both his trust and the sexual excitement that the youth stirred in him. Pat leaned back, bracing himself easily on his forearms and raising his pelvis. "Please," he whispered, his voice gone husky, "please, Terry, love me, suck me, be my love."
The words were just right. Terry responded by lowering his head into Pat's groin, flicking his tongue out to swab the length of the partly engorged penis and softly scooping the heavy testicles into the palm of one hand. Tilting his head and bending it further, he lapped wetly, noisily at Pat's scrotum until it was slick and shiny with saliva. As his fingers stroked lightly up and down Pat's cock, Terry's lips surrounded first one nut and then the other, pulling the firm mass of each into the moist heat of his mouth as Pat's breathing grew faster and louder.
Quickly, the sweet torture became more than Pat could take. "Stop, Terry, please stop!" he begged. "You're too much, baby. Too much for an old man like me. Time out, please."
Terry instantly released the ball he had been sucking and raised a worried pair of eyes to meet Pat's. "I wasn't hurting you was I? I get carried away."
"More like you were blowing me away." Pat put a hand out to caress the boy's cheek. "Terry, that was wonderful, but it was almost too wonderful. You promised to take care of my prick, and if you'd gone on much longer with my nuts, there wouldn't have been any cock left to work on." He reached his hand behind Terry's neck and drew the young man's head up toward him. "Can I kiss you again before you do me in completely?"
Terry responded by kissing his way up Pat's body from crotch to chin, never taking his fingers off Pat's penis, until the two sat side by side. Pat put his hands on Terry's head and attacked his mouth as though he planned to take Terry's tongue prisoner and ravish it. The assault only ended when the two paused to breathe. Still clutching his lover's skull, Pat stared deep into the dark blue pools of Terry's eyes. "What I don't understand," he said at last, "is how something as wonderful as you can be happening to me. Are you real, Terry? Will you be here when I wake up?"
"I don't see how I can escape," Terry smiled. "Apparently, cabs won't come to this neighborhood. Besides, I like it here. I've met this incredibly sexy man, and he's promised to teach me how to make love."
"I don't think you really need instruction, but before you yank my pride and joy off, we could go on to the next lesson. Open your textbook, please, to page 47."
Terry laughed and relaxed his grip on Pat's penis. "Should I take notes?"
"Not now. When we show the training film, if you want." Pat was laughing, too. He hugged Terry to him. "Oh, baby," he exclaimed. "Do you know how long it's been since I laughed in this bed? Since I laughed at all? This is better than sex."
"How do you know?" Terry giggled. "We haven't had sex yet. Unless this is all that you Midwesterners do."
"Just for that, I'm going to show you what we do. Lie down on your back and open real wide."
Terry stretched out on the bed and allowed Pat to straddle him so that the older man's knees locked into his armpits. Pat put a pillow under Terry's head, raised himself and bent forward so that his cock, barely erect, drooped onto Terry's lips. "Go ahead, baby," he whispered, "take it. It's yours. I'm yours."
Terry's tongue flashed out and sought the pink tip of the dangling penis. It coaxed a bead of clear fluid from the slit and, as the organ stiffened and stretched, Terry captured it between his tongue and upper lip, putting subtle but increasing pressure on the ridge of the glans and coating the whole reddening mass with his spit. Tongue strokes against the underside of the corona brought gasps of delight from Pat but also brought his cock to its full, imposing thickness. Terry's lips wrapped around the top of the shaft, but he couldn't do much more than make the front of his mouth a moist, heated sheath. Pat understood his partner's difficulty and accommodated it with short, slow strokes that allowed Terry to apply sweet, wet friction mostly to the cockhead, only now and then to the veined stem.
Pat also twisted slightly and reached backwards to find and ensnare Terry's dick. Gripping it lightly, he fondled and stroked it, bringing stifled moans from Terry. Pat yearned to take the slim, rigid sex in his own mouth, but that would mean stopping everything to rearrange their bodies in new positions, and he was too close to orgasm to want to delay it. He looked down at Terry's face, distorted by the effort of sucking but still beautiful, and felt not only the mounting pressure of his trapped semen but a different, nobler impulse to cherish the youngster. He longed to possess him in spirit as in flesh, to embrace him so closely that their souls merged.
With Patrice and Jean-Marc, he had felt only animal delight, even when the two took turns kissing and caressing him the morning after their orgy. They had woken him with their giggling, woken him to discover that they had tied his wrists and ankles loosely to the brass bedstead and were using a feather to tickle his cock into erection. Pat didn't protest. He liked the idea of being their captive, their plaything, and liked it even more when Patrice mounted him, as he was now mounted on Terry, and instructed him to eat his "petit dejeuner," serving him for "breakfast" first a hairless ballsac and then a formidable prick. And while Pat feasted blissfully on Patrice's genitals, Jean-Marc began licking Pat's nuts, stroking Pat's cock and, with a lubricated finger slipped into Pat's anus, bringing him to a wrenching, wondrous orgasm that Patrice noisily, exultantly matched by coming in Pat's mouth.
They had untied him afterwards, led him to the shower, bathed him and shaved his morning beard. But they had not let him dress, and in the kitchen, as Patrice prepared their real breakfast, Jean-Marc had bent Pat over the butcher-block table, applied a soft pat of butter to his hole and then casually, cheerfully fucked him. Pat loved every minute of it, even the quick, sharp pain of Jean-Marc's entry. He loved the make-believe role of their "boy toy," one of the few English phrases they seemed to know, but what he loved best was that they treated him as though he were sexually alluring. Even as Spence's lover, Pat had not thought of himself as particularly attractive. When Eli nicknamed him the BYT, the label seemed cruel on several levels. But Patrice and Jean-Marc had actually stood him naked in front of a full-length mirror and catalogued his good points -- his firm buttocks, flat belly, substantial cock and balls, broad chest, full lips and warm eyes. They stroked him as they praised him until not only was he fully erect but also half-convinced that he was as handsome as they claimed.
And now Terry called him "incredibly sexy," not from playfulness but in earnest. Good sex is not just a matter of massaging the right nerve ends in the right tempo. It is an invasion of the mind, even momentarily, by the miracle of love. Patrice and Jean-Marc had treasured Pat as a playmate. Terry, whose fingers now pressed on the base of Pat's cock, spoke and acted as though he wanted a sheltered and sheltering place in Pat's life. That possibility, as much as the determined sucking and massage, was pushing Pat not just toward orgasm but toward a more lasting emotional release.
"Here it comes," he groaned. "Let me go. Oh, god, let me go!" He freed Terry's organ and arched backwards, wrenching his own penis from the young man's mouth but not from his fingers. As they pumped him fiercely, implacably, Pat lost control and won deliverance. Pointed toward the ceiling, his cock fired several ropy bursts of semen, some of them falling on his chest and belly and some on Terry's face, his chin and forehead. Spent, Pat fell sideways onto the bed, not quite unconscious but so overwhelmed physically and emotionally that he could only whimper.
"Are you okay?" Terry's concerned, smeared face loomed over him. "Pat, Pat, did I hurt you?"
Pat tried to raise his arm to embrace the young man but lacked the muscle control. He managed a lopsided grin. "I'll live," he whispered. "At least, I think I'll live. That was out of this world, sweetheart. You took me out of this world."
Terry looked relieved. He bent to kiss Pat tenderly, and as their lips touched, some of Pat's spunk dripped off Terry's face onto his lover's. Pat was blissfully unaware of the messy exchange and only partly aware of Terry's leaving the bed for the bathroom where he washed and dried his face and returned with a damp cloth to clean Pat's torso.
"That's nice," Pat murmured as he was washed. "That's even nicer," he said, as Terry's arms went around him and Terry's body spooned against his. "Let me just take a little nap, baby," Pat entreated. "Then it's your turn. I promise. I love you." And he was asleep. Terry nuzzled him, kissed his neck, stroked his limbs and, sexually unsatisfied but overflowing with another kind of happiness, dropped off as well.
Pat's "little nap" lasted until well past sunrise. When he woke, the presence of another body in his bed startled him at first. Quickly, though, the feelings of the night before flooded back. The miracle of Terry, of their mutual passion, of the possibility of love left Pat amazed, exultant and terrified. What if it had been just a one-night stand? The boy was so young for his age.
"Why would he give his life to me?" Pat wondered, "to used-up, worn-down Patrick Handly? Last night was a miracle, but miracles don't have second acts," the silent monologue continued. Terry would be a joyful memory to store away, Pat decided, like the boys in Key West, "my snowman and my beach bunnies."
Braced to see the end of what he pretended had never begun, Pat inched his way out of the bed, tiptoed into the bathroom, brushed his teeth and washed just his hands and face. Fearing that running water would wake Terry, he skipped his usual shower, wrapped himself in a terrycloth bathrobe and crept back through the bedroom. When he left the bed, its other occupant was sleeping on his side, one haunch raised and an arm extended. Now, though, Terry lay on his back with his hands over his crotch and his hair a glorious red fan on the pillow. A tiny drop of saliva at the corner of his mouth made him an innocent man-child, a portrait of dreamy youth Pat needed no camera to capture forever.
Downstairs he used the guest bathroom to piss, fed McGonigle his morning ration of kibble, put on a pot of coffee and suddenly, bleakly, realized that there was nothing in the refrigerator to convert into a decent breakfast for a young appetite. Juice, yes. Some milk if the boy liked oat bran cereal. And that was about it. He'd have to go back upstairs, dress and drive to the supermarket through snow that was already melting in bright morning sunshine. But what would Terry want for breakfast? Eggs? Bacon? Donuts? He'd eaten enthusiastically at Eli's but his slim, toned body could be a tribute to routine asceticism or to a metabolism that fiercely consumed food at all hours of the day. "I don't know him at all," Pat's inner voice wailed in his ear, "I love him, and I don't know him. And I'll never get to know him."
Defeated, he leaned on the counter and stared dejectedly at the refrigerator he had not bothered to stock. Just as the coffee began to percolate, calling him back to reality, the wall telephone rang. Pat lunged for it, to silence it before the instrument in the bedroom woke Terry. "Hello," he said.
"Well?" a familiar voice asked.
"Eli?"
"Good morning, Pat. Well?"
"Well, what?"
"Well, has my enticing research assistant solved his logistical problems?"
"What are you talking about, Eli? I just woke up. I don't follow you."
"Pat, your wreck of a car is still sitting in front of my house, lowering property values in the neighborhood by the minute. Terry is not in his hotel. The desk clerk doesn't think he came in last night. Therefore, my keen deductive mind assumes that the two of you are together, and my question is a simple one: will he be living with you from now on, which I think would be ideal all around?"
"He spent the night, Eli. That's all." Pat walked over to the stove and turned the heat off under the coffee. "He's still asleep, I think. When we've had breakfast, we'll come get my car. The battery's dead."
"I assumed as much. I also assumed from the way he was devouring you with his eyes and hanging on every word you said last night that something might have sparked between the two of you. I sort of thought you might find each other kindred spirits."
Pat's brain clicked into gear. "Wait a minute, Eli, wait a minute. You knew all along that he'd be coming for dinner last night, didn't you? And you insisted I come, even with the storm, so that we'd meet. You dreamed all this up, didn't you?"
Silence on the other end of the line. "Eli, Eli," Pat's voice rose, "I'm going to come over there with the jump cables for my car and after I get it started, I'm going to wrap them around your match-making neck. You are the most devious, underhanded, deceitful..." he began to stammer, "wonderful friend I've ever had. Eli, I love you." He hung up, and turned to see Terry standing, grinning bashfully in the doorway.
"I love him, too," the young man said, advancing into the kitchen in bare feet. He wore only his blue jeans and a growing smile, "but not as much as I love you. I couldn't love anyone else that much." He stopped in front of Pat and twined his arms around him. "I've brushed my teeth. Can I kiss you good morning?"
The miracle that Pat couldn't credit as a miracle was going to have a second act. Their lips met and locked, and Pat's hands locked over Terry's spine. Then they drifted under the waistband of his jeans onto bare flesh. Wherever Terry's droopy briefs were, they weren't on his body. Pat broke the kiss.
"Good morning, lover," he said. "Good morning, my beloved." He lowered his head to kiss Terry's throat and brought his hands up to comb through the blaze of Terry's hair. "I haven't been so happy in a long time," he whispered. "Terry, Terry, you make me so happy that I want to cry."
"I am crying," Terry said, and he was. "Let's not strangle Eli. Let's take him to lunch and buy a bottle of champagne."
"His fee? Okay, that's a wonderful, generous idea. Terry, you're wonderful and generous, and I adore you. Even though I don't know you. I don't even know what to make you for breakfast. What do you want for breakfast?"
"You," Terry said, "just you." He undid the belt on Pat's robe and opened it to gaze on his lover's body. "You're all I ever want." He reached into the pocket of his jeans and brought out the condoms they had not used the night before. "See. I came prepared. Do you remember what you said me to last night just before you passed out?"
Pat thought. "I said that I love you, and I do. I do. I do." He unsnapped the catch at Terry's waist.
"You also said that it would be my turn next. And now it is." He pulled the robe off Pat's arms and let it drop to the floor. "Here. Now. Pat, I want you."
Pat had unzipped the jeans and Terry's cock sprang out through the opening. "I want you, too," Pat said, "Now and afterwards and always." He stepped, naked to the kitchen table and started to lower his chest onto it.
"Wait," Terry said. "I forgot the lubricant. I'll just run ..."
"No, baby, don't go away. Don't ever go away." Pat stood up. "Take a look in the refrigerator. Something tells me there's butter there, and I can tell you," the memory of Jean-Marc made him smile and stiffen, "in an emergency, butter will do very nicely."