Soren by John Yager
Soren
By John Yager
This is a story about a magical encounter between two young men. It is an erotic story, so if that isn't to your taste, or if you are not of legal age to read such stories in your jurisdiction, please exit now.
This is a work of fiction. If it reminds you of actual people or events it is entirely coincidental. I'm not sure if this statement is required, but for the sake of convention, I have included it. If you suspect the statement's veracity, that is your problem, not mine.
Many thanks to Andrew, who continues to be of great help with editing and proofing. He does wonders but any errors or typos remain mine.
This work is copyrighted by the author and may not be reproduced in any form without specific written permission from the author. It is assigned to the Nifty Archives under the terms of their submission agreement but it may not be copied in any form or archived on any other site without the written permission of the author.
jvoyager@hotmail.com
My Junior Year Abroad had been one of the most amazing experiences of my life. It was summer and I'd finished two terms at the University of London, a program in European Cultural History. Then, thanks to a generous aunt, I'd been traveling before the start of my term. I was on a tight budget, but I did have a Rail Pass and enough money to get by. It had allowed me to see some far-flung corners of Europe, parts of the world I'd previously only dreamed about.
I'd worked my way across France, visiting Paris, northern Italy and Rome, before going on down to Messina and then on across the northern coast of Sicily to Palermo. After three days there, I headed back west, determined to see as much as possible before returning to London for the summer term. I took a train which went across Sicily from northwest to southeast, planning to spend a few days in Syracuse. I wanted to visit the Greek colonial sites along the south coast of Sicily.
On the train I ended up in one of those typical European compartments with opposing seats and a little drop-down table under the window. At least that style of railway carriage was prevalent then. I'm not sure it still is... what a loss.
As luck would have it, the only other passenger in the compartment was a Swedish guy about my own age. His name was Soren. It was easy to remember because he told me he'd been named for Soren Kierkegaard. He was a radio operator on Swedish merchant ships, often out for six or eight months at a time.
I was trying to travel light but had ended up with one big bag and a back pack. Soren had more because he was going to be on the ship for several weeks. After we'd introduced ourselves we began chatting at once, even as we helped each other get our bags up into the overhead storage racks.
Soren had flown into Palermo earlier that day and was going to Syracuse to catch up with a ship which was due there. The ship's radio operator had been ill and had been sent back to Sweden. Soren had been flown out to replace him.
Soren was classically beautiful. He was very blond with skin the color of honey and eyes the color of blue ice.
The train got under way as we talked. As it moved slowly through the scraggy edges of the city, the compartment became increasingly hot. We pulled off jackets and then heavy shirts, leaving us in jeans and T-shirts, the universal student wardrobe. It was clear that Soren had a beautiful body. His hard, well formed arms and chest stretched the fabric of his shirt. His facial structure reminded me of a painting by Caravaggio. We'd boarded the train in the evening and I could hardly help from staring at him as the raking light played across his face. He was a living example of chiaroscuro.
Soren was a little shorter than me, probably about 5`-10". I think he could have been a very successful male model, not only because of his obvious physical beauty, but also because of the way he seemed to move and hold himself. It was as if he had been born with a completely natural sense of sculptural pose. There was nothing contrived or in any effeminate about it. In fact, he seemed to radiate a strong sense of masculinity. All told, he was a stunningly beautiful young man.
Soren's English was excellent and he was easy to talk with. We struck it off at once. We both brought along a little food and we shared it. Before the long trip was over we had not only established that there was a mutual sexual attraction between us, but also a real basis for friendship. We had a lot of the same interests and we talked so long into the night that neither of us got much sleep.
When Soren learned that I intended to visit archaeological sites he immediately wanted to join me if he didn't have to board the ship as soon as we arrived. I think we both eventually slept a little, but not much.
When we woke we were less than an hour from Syracuse and it was raining heavily outside the train. We made it to the dining car for a typical Italian breakfast of coffee and rolls and then got back to our compartment just as the train was arriving at the station.
Soren had been given the name of an albergo which he was told was clean, cheap and near the port. It was close to the railroad station, but by the time we got to the albergo we were both wet to the skin. We learned that they not only had rooms but we could check in at once even thought it was still early morning.
After a quick exchange, both verbal and non-verbal, we took a room with a double bed and bath. The bath made the room a little more expensive, but it was worth it. We got out of our wet clothes and, once naked, went directly to bed. We curled up together, so worn out we didn't even consider sex, not then, anyway. All we wanted was some much needed sleep. It was great, though, huddling with Soren under the covers and drifting off to sleep.
When we did wake it was nearly noon, much later than we'd planned and we had to dress and hurry back out into the gray, wet day. Soren had to find the office of the agent who represented the ship line he worked for and find out when the ship he was assigned to was due into port. We both feared that it might have already arrived and he would have to board it that day. As luck would have it, his ship had been delayed in Alexandria and was not expected to reach Syracuse for at least three or four days.
Three or four days, we would spend that much time together. We managed to stay dry, or at least less wet, working our way though a succession of covered arcades and back to our room. Once in our room, we slowly undressed each other. There were no surprises as we'd already "seen the goods" as we'd slept nude together earlier. When we were naked, we snuggled under the sheets and the thick down duvet. Slowly, lovingly, we began to explore one another's body.
Soren was a wonderful lover and I was convinced a Norwegian friend of mine had been right about the uninhibited nature of Scandinavians.
Soren was unlike any other man I had ever been with. He could be gentle and often maddeningly slow. Then in the flash of his ice blue eyes, he would be on me like a cat, biting, pinching, leaving me marked with his passion.
"I don't believe in having sex," Soren said as we held each other, "I believe in making love." So as the cold, wet day went by, we made love in our warm bed, oblivious to the world outside. We played like a couple of little kids pretending the bedding was a make-believe tent. There might be monsters in the dark forests around us but we were safe in each other's arms.
We snuggled and kissed and caressed. Soren rolled over onto me, his full weight pressing me into the soft bed. My legs came up around him, my arms pressed his chest to mine.
"Yes," he whispered as I moved against him.
My lips found his ear and nibbled it, my tongue pressing in to explore its channel.
"Yes," he said again.
He was moving against me, his body pressing against me, the rhythm established, the end in sight. I was at the brink when he slowed and then stopped. His head came up, his lips leaving my shoulder where they'd left a vivid red mark. I was sure I was at the brink, even thought we hadn't yet gotten to real sex. I knew it was too late for me to pull back, to avoid the climax which was so close.
Somehow as he gentled me, calming me like a race horse. His right hand came up to stroke the damp hair from my forehead. His lips moved gently over my cheek and caressed my eyes. To my amazement, my body relaxed just enough for me to avoid the explosion I thought was inevitable.
"We wait, my champion. We don't go so far yet. We save that moment."
A shudder ran through my body and I knew I had staved off the climax. Soren rose up a little more and began to nibble my chest as he's already nibbled my shoulder.
"Yes," he said again. "We are beautiful together. Yes, we make beautiful love."
"Yes," I echoed, not able to bring coherent words together.
He took my hand and fondled it, bringing it to his lips to kiss my fingers and then my wrist. His lips pressed gently against me and parted a little to let his tongue find its way along the tendons and the pulsing vanes.
"I feel your heart beat here," he whispered as his lips moved up my forearm to the soft spot behind my elbow. "And here," he said as his tongue came out again. His tongue moved over my arm, over the relaxed muscles of my upper arm. "Flex the bicep for me. Make it hard." I did as he asked, bending my arm at the elbow, willing my bicep to harden and flex, to reach its maximum hardness.
"Yes," he whispered again as his tongue ran over the hard mound of my muscle. His mouth opened wide as he sucked on it, moaning as he did so, letting his teeth rake over the hard dome, biting it, not so gently now, making me gasp.
"I will consume you, my friend, I will consume you," he chanted.
He released my arm, letting it fall limply at my side, as his all consuming mouth moved down to bite my chest and plunder my nipples. Everywhere he went, he left marks, the marks of his teeth, red where he sucked. For weeks my body bore the marks of his passion.
The course he was taking led inevitably to my pulsing cock. In one sudden movement he consumed it, driving it deep into his throat, making me gasp with the suddenness of it. I was able to turn him around by a combination of pushes and pulls, until I could do for him what he was already doing for me. It was oral and manual and touching and probing all at the same time and it didn't last long at all. That kind of passion cannot be prolonged. We both came with such abandon and such outcrys, that anyone in the little hotel on that rainy afternoon must have heard our joy.
Every time we "made love" over the next few days it was the same, always totally consuming.
When we finally got out of bed late in the afternoon of that first day together, the rain had moved on north and we were due to have a succession of beautiful clear days, the kind of days post cards of the Mediterranean always portray. We were starved, of course, and went off to find a restaurant recommended by the elderly lady who ran the albergo.
We had huge bowls of wonderful pasta with an assortment of seafood and we split a bottle of wine. The wine was some local white which was somewhat like a Sauvignon Blanc but with a little rougher edge. I guess it was probably a regional variation of the white Chiantis found further north in Italy. We ordered a second bottle and took it back to our room.
From time to time when I've had a Sauvignon Blancs which was just a little too edgy, such wines always remind me of those wonderful few days in with Soren in Sicily.
The memories of the wines of our youth, like the loves of our youth, stay with us. I think it was King Edward VII who said, "We don't just drink wine, we smell, observe, taste and talk about wine. Then we savor it and afterward we remember the great ones." Not unlike love.
Soren told me about his girl, whom he sometimes referred to as his wife. When I asked if they were married, he said, no, not legally but they had lived together for over two years and in Sweden that was accepted as being equivalent to marriage. They had no children and didn't want any. She taught pre-school children in a state school and they lived together in a small one bedroom apartment. I asked what she did when he was away. He looked at me rather oddly as if he thought it was a strange question and then said, "whatever she wants."
The delay of Soren's ship gave us time to visit archaeological sites together each day and return every evening to our snug room. We slept late every morning, then took trains or buses to the sites. Over those few days we visited Agrigento and the sites along the south coast and then went up along the east coast to Taormina.
We spent one short day seeing the sunken gardens on the outskirts of Syracuse itself and the church in the city center which is built around an ancient Greek temple. It got hot and we found a beach. In the afternoon the town went to sleep for two or three hours and we went back to our room and made love.
Soren's ship was delayed again so when I had to leave, he went with me as far as Paestum. We got a room in a strange little hotel by the railroad station and bummed a ride to the archaeological site. There, just above the beach, are three of the most perfectly preserved Greek temples anyplace in the classical world. Their roofs are gone but otherwise they are intact.
It is like stepping back six hundred years before the time of Christ. The sun on the stone structures and on the beach was as brilliant as I have ever seen. We hadn't brought our bathing suits so we walked along the beach until we found a series of pine covered dunes where we could swim nude and then lie together in the shaded sand until we were dry.
That night, which we knew would be our last together, we had dinner in the grim little dining room of the hotel and then retreated to our room. We hadn't been able to get a double bed so we ended up together in one of the two narrow singles.
After nearly three hours of slow, deliberate lovemaking, we abandoned the first bed for the second, leaving the first one wet and disheveled, and slept a few hours in each other's arms.
The next morning I took the train north toward Rome. Soren saw me off but we had said our good-byes in the room before walking over to the station. Soren had a return ticket on a train back to Syracuse which was due to head south an hour after my train headed north.
We had exchanged addresses but he warned me that he was not a writer. I never saw him again and never had any news of him. But those few days are among the times I treasure most. I remember them as being like a sort of enchantment "out of time," out of the normal progression of life.
So, Soren, if you should ever read this, know that I remember you.
The end.