Avril's Ploy

Troy was staring into the Cross Keys Winery shelf of the dimly lit wine cellar in the basement of Professor Hammond’s house, his arms extended and his hands grasping the edge of the shelf, as Brad Baylor, Hammond’s “significant other” rose up from behind him where he’d been knelt, working Troy’s hole with his tongue. The strong hands of the James Madison University assistant football coach grasped Troy by the hips as he came in close behind Troy. Instinctively, feeling Brad’s erection between his bare thighs, Troy widened his stance and moaned. The coach dry fucked the young student between his squeezed thighs.

“We have to be quick about it,” Troy murmured. “Can’t be gone for long.” Dry fucking like this was a frequent “getting it off” technique in the dorms at JMU, and Troy briefly wondered if there would be more than this.

“No problem,” Brad whispered into Troy’s ear as he nuzzled the English Department sophomore’s neck with his scratchy chin. “I’ve been hard for you for the last hour.”

In anticipation of Troy’s reaction, Brad covered they young man’s mouth with one hand to muffle Troy’s cry, moved his cock into position with the other, and gave a little upward thrust with his hips, penetrating Troy’s channel from behind. He moved up into the soft, yielding channel deep before starting to pump him.

No, this wasn’t going to be the typical safe dry fuck of the dormitories, Troy realized. The coach had told him he wanted to fuck him for real, and Troy now believed he hadn’t just been teasing.

Troy looked around wildly at the shelving stretching along in front of him until his eyes focused on a Cross Keys Meritage label and he left it there, his mind going to Aaron, the Staunton men’s clothes store owner who had hired Troy as a clerk and then a model, bedded him, paid for him to start college here at JMU, and who had recently died in an automobile wreck, leaving a wife and two children to inherit—and Troy all alone and penniless. Troy was still devastated. Aaron had taken him like this, like Brad was doing, although he wasn’t as rough about it as Brad was—or as long or thick.

Troy had struggled a bit against Brad’s roughness as first, but when Brad had established a rhythm of the fuck, Troy, ever the submissive, settled down, memories of Aaron and Aaron’s lovemaking sufficing and the very fact that Troy had a man inside him again, giving him a sense of comfort and satisfaction—even though it was while he was supposedly selecting wine for the Thanksgiving dinner party going on over their heads.

Brad was quick about it: in, finished, and out within seven minutes of invasion. He stepped back from Troy to strip off the spent condom with the sound of a snap, and Troy, his knees having gone to rubber and Brad no longer holding him up with a strong arm around his waist, sank to the floor in front of the wine shelf. He turned his head and dully watched as the muscular football coach expertly tossed the spent rubber into a waste basket. Everything was done with efficiency and fluid movement. The coach obviously had done this many times before—just not with Troy. Was Troy just a notch on his belt or would they do it again when there was more time? Brad had played him like he was aching for him.

For a brief minute Troy wondered who would empty that waste basket—Brad or Professor Hammond?—and he felt the sting of guilt. Avril Hammond was one of his professors, the chairman of the English department. Hammond had been good and attentive to him—great to him in his grief over the loss of Aaron, who Hammond had known as he had known about Troy’s relationship to Aaron. So few others knew or cared that Troy was grieving. Brad was living with Hammond, no doubt sleeping with him as well, and this . . . this would be seen as a betrayal, wouldn’t it, if Avril found out about it?

“Give me five minutes to get back into play upstairs before you come up,” Brad said, as he zipped up his trousers.

“Yes,” Troy answered dully.

“You’re a sweet lay. Nice ass and tight gut. We’ll do this again sometime soon.”

“Yes,” Troy murmured. Was he glad Brad said he wanted to lay him again? Yes, Troy hadn’t gotten any full sex since Aaron had died.

When Troy got upstairs, he took his time opening the bottles of wine he’d brought up and then went into the large dining room of the old plantation house that Harrisonburg, Virginia, had swallowed into its outskirts near the campus of James Madison University and poured the wine at the dozen place settings around the table. Brad was in the other room boisterously passing around hors d’oeuvres to the other ten male guests Professor Hammond had gathered for a Thanksgiving Day dinner party.

Brad poked his head into the dining room to see that Troy was back and then returned to the living room to ring a “dinner is served” bell.

As the men moved into the dining room, still chatting among themselves, Avril Hammond stopped beside Troy and said, “And what do we have here?”

For the briefest second, Troy was afraid that there was something revealed in his demeanor or dishevelment of dress that told Hammond that his companion had just been in the basement fucking Troy. He didn’t respond immediately and knew that he looked confused—and, probably, guilty.

“The wine, Troy, my boy. What wine did you choose for us?” Troy lifted the bottle and turned the label toward Hammond. “Ah Cross Keys Meritage. Very discerning selection.” Laughing, he helped his guests find their seats. Troy and Brad exchanged a furtive look and then Troy went to his seat. There were a few other students at the table, but there were some important men there as well. Troy was fortunate to have been invited here for Thanksgiving. Hammond had been so good and understanding to Troy in ways that had gone beyond Hammond being one of Troy’s professors. Troy was sitting near Hammond’s end and Brad was at the other end of the very long table from Hammond. Troy thought that was just as well. He didn’t know if he could do fluffy chit chat with a man who had just ejaculated inside him.

* * * *

With one exception, the dozen men at Avril Hammond’s Thanksgiving dinner were an understandable group. There was no gender—or basic lifestyle interest—separation here that Troy could figure. This was a gay male gathering—Hammond had told Troy it would be when he invited him here—although some men here seemed more comfortable and active with it than others. There was a near-even divide across them in age group, four being successful men in their fifties, three being in their late twenties or early thirties, four being JMU students, and that one exception who didn’t appear to fit in at the party.

There was a racial divide. Two of the men were black. This included the host himself, Avril Hammond, who was in his fifties and every inch in appearance and demeanor the university English department chairman that he was in life. He was tall, handsome, in a Jamaican mixed-raced background way, slim, and in control. The other black, in his early fifties, was Lawrence Shelton, an art professor at JMU, specializing in photography. Lawrence was neither as distinguished looking nor as handsome as Avril was, but he was formidable enough. He was tall but had a bit of meat on his bones. He wasn’t ugly, but he commanded his environment with penetrating eyes that saw and observed everyone.

One of the men was of Chinese ancestry and it was fairly obvious why he was there—he had brought the food, and quite a spread it was. Chan Tang, another of the men of fifty, was nearly as distinguished as Avril Hammond and was twice as imperial. He was the executive chef for the ritzy Homestead Resort in the mountains southeast of Harrisonburg, in Hot Springs, Virginia. He did a lot of catering and he had become friends with Hammond because of their shared interests in younger men. Chan was of normal height but more than normal girth, as befitted his life preparing rich food. Hammond had warned Troy to beware of the man, that he could be a cruel man. He exuded that image this evening.

Three of the older men were attached for the evening to others there, although Shelton and Chan weren’t as attached as Hammond was trying to be. One of the older men wasn’t, the man sitting between him and Hammond, a quiet novelist, Gideon Grimes, who Hammond had told Troy should be of interest to Troy.

Troy knew that there were strains in Hammond’s relationship with the man living with him, Brad Baylor, who had hooked up with Hammond when he was an undergraduate student at JMU, who had been a football star at the school, and who Hammond had helped secure an assistant football coach position here to keep him in Harrisonburg and in Hammond’s bed, topping the professor. As Troy well knew, though, Baylor had a roving eye. Troy just hoped Hammond didn’t know that and that Baylor’s interest would move on before Hammond found that out. Troy couldn’t resist Baylor. He was grieving and in need and Baylor was a hunk and a half—and he was a dominator, like Aaron had been. Troy went completely submissive for a man who commanded him.

Chan Tang’s relationship with the late twenties’ History department instructor, Cory Kavanagh, and Lawrence Shelton’s relationship with early thirties music department instructor, Marcus Taylor were more loose than Hammond’s fixation on Baylor. Both Chan and Shelton fucked other young men when they had the opportunity. Their “others,” though, were more interested in permanent, monogamous relationships. Chan and Shelton, of course, were dominant and topped in their relationships.

The fourth older man, Gideon Grimes, was someone Troy recognized, as he was a mid-market novelist, who Troy had heard in readings, and was an instructor in creative writing at JMU. Grimes was a tall, well-muscled man, who was handsome in a graying sandy-haired way but who seemed sad, a bit detached, and withdrawn this evening. He gave the impression that perhaps he was ever constructing phrases and weaving plots in his mind and thus wasn’t fully “there” in the present circumstance.

Four of the guests were undergraduate English department students, invited to the party, Troy surmised, to provide eye candy for the older tops there. This group included Troy himself, relatively small of stature, dark and sultry looking, and somehow always quickly picked out for attention by dominant men. His relationship with Aaron had brought stability to his life—and a bit of protection from being hit on by other men. This Thanksgiving dinner party was really the first public gathering he’d attended, feeling bereft and unprotected, since the funeral, and indeed, he hadn’t been here longer than an hour before the host’s boyfriend was humping him in the wine cellar.

One of the students, star running back of the football team Dale Hunter, knew exactly what he was doing here. He was the campus gay male stud. He was there because he was a pet project on the gridiron of Brad Baylor, who had gotten Hammond to invite him and who had come because he knew that fresh meat had been invited to charge the juices of Hammond’s senior guests.

Troy certainly was one of the eye candy invitees, and he knew enough of Dale Hunter to do what he could to avoid him. Dale wasn’t really hitting on him this evening, though, probably, Troy thought and was afraid, because Brad Baylor had told the football star that Troy was off limits.

Not off limits, clearly, were the other three guests. Jacob Bernstein, every inch the good-looking, dark-haired, hirsute Jew, and Tim MacDonald, a somewhat effeminate, androgynous, and beautiful and delicate-looking blond, had both been brought in from the English department. Although if either was cut out of the herd and pinned to the floor by one of the preying tops tonight, it wouldn’t be their first experience, it would be close enough to the first to be a traumatic and memorable experience for them. In recognition of this, the two were almost clinging to each other, at least thus far in the dinner, which, as this was basically a university gathering, was moving along nicely with glib and lively conversation up and down the table.

The odd one out—that one exception to how the rest fit in with each other—was noticeable because he wasn’t engaging in the conversation and wasn’t dressed as nattily as the rest. That one exception was Peter Lambert, a young man who, as good looking as any of the narcissistic men present, had no relation to JMU. He was a clerk at one of the local supermarkets, Krogers. He was there, everyone had been told over drinks in the living room before dinner, because he went to the same gym as Brad Baylor. In mentioning him to Troy, Brad had given a fuller explanation: Lambert had been fucked by Brad and was vetted as of interest for the evening to a few of Hammond’s guests. He was cleanly attired, but his T-shirt, worn jeans, and open-toed sandals were not in keeping with the meticulously preppy and expensive party clothes of the rest. He also was as self-conscious as the undergraduate English majors present, but more aware that he had nothing to contribute to the sophisticated conversation of this gathering and filled in his time with drinking the wine—on top of the beer he’d had during the social hour.

Dinner went on for nearly two hours, with the quality and quantity of food vying with the high-level conversation for accolades. Hammond had seated everyone with a purpose, Troy suspected as the dinner went on. The first clue of this was when Hammond gave a series of toasts at the beginning of the meal. One of them caught Troy in the solar plexus. Hammond actually referred to Troy’s recent loss of his significant other and benefactor, Aaron, who was well known in the region; noted that this was Troy’s first outing since the funeral; hoped that Troy now could find the means to continue his studies; and urged everyone to wish him well. Immediately thereafter, Hammond had launched into a similar toast to Gideon Grimes, noting that the novelist had recently lost his wife, Penny, and was, Hammond had heard, working his feelings about that out in the novel he currently was working on. This, also for him, was the first social outing since his wife’s funeral.

Troy had only a moment to wonder why a heterosexual man had been brought into what clearly was a gay male gathering—and that this possibly might explain why Grimes had been somewhat withdrawn during the social hour, when Hammond added, “Gideon has been of two minds, and I’m looking forward to the possibility that he will come back to us. He and I were very special friends before he found his sainted Penny. Would you say that was fairly stated, Gideon?” Grimes had simply nodded his head in acquiescence.

And that’s when Troy began to observe the possible method behind the seating chart. Grimes had been seated to Hammond’s right, in the guest of honor spot, and Troy had been seated on the other side of Grimes. Perhaps Hammond was trying to rekindle something with the novelist, Troy first thought. But that didn’t meld with his obvious devotion to Brad Baylor, sitting at the other end of the table.

The longer the dinner progressed, though, the more it became apparent that Hammond was trying to get Grimes and Troy to converse with each other—which they did, in fact, do, getting into deeper areas of their separate griefs than went with the general level of conviviality across the table. On top of this, the Krogers clerk, Peter Lambert, had been seated to the left of Troy. Although Troy exchanged a few civilities with Lambert, it was obvious that the clerk was out of his element and didn’t want to try to talk much. He wanted to drink more. This seating seemed to be contrived by Hammond to throw Troy and the novelist together, Troy thought. And then when he saw Brad seated at the other end of the table from him, too far away to exchange any conversation in private, Troy began to worry about what Hammond might be trying to do. Did Hammond have an inkling after all that Brad had been hitting on Troy?

All of this speculating was wiped away, though, eventually, when Hammond rose from the table, raised his empty glass, and declared, “I think we need to check out the drink cart in the living room. Could you do the honors behind the bar, Brad, at least until everyone has been set up with a drink? And as for the rest of us, I think we need to move on to the dancing?”

Dancing? Troy thought. He’d never before been to one of these, but . . .

Hammond obviously was serious, though, Brad had preceded them into the large living room and slow, dreamy dance music already was coming out of the living room. Troy had wondered how an evening like this—purposely gay—would go. Slow dancing. Of course. And later, maybe . . .

* * * *

The living room was large, running the full depth of the original house, and, with a couple of sofas pulled back, there was plenty of room for dancing. Couples could even drift out into the even larger, all-glass, stone-floored conservatory, stuffed with large plants, that opened off the rear of the living room through an open double-door French door. The lights had been turned down low in the living room. Hammond obviously wanted the atmosphere to be romantic. He also wanted to maximize the possibilities. He continuously urged couples to mix and match—and to dance close together. He told them there were bedrooms available upstairs.

The dancing started at an overall level of comfort, established couples dancing together. Lawrence Shelton, the art professor, was dancing with his live-in, Marcus Taylor, the music department instructor. Chan Tang, the chef, was dancing with Cory Kavanagh, the history department instructor. The two English department undergraduates were huddled together. Troy was sitting with them and the three were chatting, ever conscious that someone might ask them to dance, thereby expressing an interest that would have to be considered. Brad, in fact, had headed for Troy to ask him to dance, but had been intercepted and taken onto the floor by Hammond. The novelist, Grimes, was sitting across the room from Troy, nursing a brandy and gazing into the distance, beyond the walls. The overly confident football player, Dale Hunter, had latched onto the Krogers clerk, Peter Lambert, and was squeezing the life out of the poor young man while they danced. They were kissing as much as dancing

After a couple of dances, the couplings changed. Lawrence Shelton pulled Troy up to the floor, Brad was dancing with the Krogers clerk, Chan Tang had Tim MacDonald in his clutches, Dale Hunter was mauling Jacob Bernstein, and the rest were standing around, talking university affairs, and ogling and, no doubt, rating the younger guests obviously brought there to interest the older guests.

Lawrence Shelton wasted no time at all expressing an interest in Troy while he held him close, just swaying in place, and squeezed one of Troy’s butt cheeks with his hand.

“You modeled clothes for Aaron Bainbridge, didn’t you?” he asked.

“Yes. For his catalog.”

“So, you have experience as a photographer’s model.”

“A bit. There wasn’t much catalog work involved.”

“You have a very nice body. And you have the looks of a movie star.”

“Umm, thanks,” Troy said. He looked around the room to see if there might be rescue in sight. Shelton was not his type at all. And he had the hands of an octopus. The room had thinned out a bit. He saw Hammond pry Brad away from Peter Lambert and send him on an errand. Dale Hunter immediately took up Lambert and moved their dancing out into the conservatory. Chan wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and Cory Kavanagh didn’t look too pleased about that. The delicate blond student, Tim MacDonald, also was missing. Hammond was pulling Jacob Bernstein around the room, but they weren’t dancing. Gideon Grimes was sitting where he’d been before.

“I do photography,” Shelton whispered into Troy’s ear.

“And teach a class in it too,” Troy responded.

“I do some special photography, for special clients. Hammond said at the table that you may have trouble coming up with tuition money. Maybe I can help. Do you have any tattoos? Any birthmarks or other blemishes on your body?”

Troy didn’t answer and after a moment, Shelton went on. “Have you done any all-male porn films? There’s good money in that.”

“Time to mix and match again,” Hammond said, cheerily as he gently pried Shelton off of Troy. Troy wasn’t sure if Hammond had heard the proposition and intervened because of that or not, but Troy was relieved he’d shown up.

“It’s time to get Gideon out on the floor, and you’re the one to do it, Troy,” Hammond said.

Troy wasn’t as relieved anymore. He’d enjoyed the table conversation with the novelist—if one can enjoy exchanging griefs about missing partners—but he’d gotten the clear impression that the man didn’t want to be here. And he didn’t see it as his, Troy’s, responsibility to jolly the man up. Of everyone here, Troy was the one who could understand why Grimes wouldn’t be in a party mood.

It took Hammond to get the two dancing, but Grimes was polite enough about it. “I have clumsy feet,” Grimes said. “Maybe it would be best if we went out in the conservatory.”

They did and Troy found that Grimes didn’t have clumsy feet at all—that he was a great dancer. Troy fit comfortably in his arms. There was a nice scent about the man—something pine and clean—and they resumed their conversation of how difficult life was for them now and how hard it was to fight loneliness. “And to make up for what the other did all of those years,” Grimes said. “I’m a klutz at anything technical. I haven’t bothered to look for the thermostat in my house since my wife died, and it’s getting colder. I wouldn’t know what to do with it if I did find it.”

“I know what you mean,” Troy responded. “Aaron was always saying the same thing—that he’d be lost without me. But I found that it’s I who am lost. My apartment is spick and span from top to bottom but I miss what he brought to the relationship. I wish he was there, making his little messes that he didn’t clean up and screwing up his home maintenance projects.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start on a home maintenance project,” Grimes said.

They were dancing closer together, swaying with the music. Troy felt the heat coming off the man—the sexual heat. And were they close enough together that he could feel arousal in Gideon as well? Yes he thought so. But then, Grimes suddenly stopped and his hold loosened on Troy. He lowered his hand hold, although he didn’t let go of Troy’s hand. Rather he was squeezing it tighter. Troy looked up into Gideon’s face, to see that the man was looking beyond him, and his eyes were big. Then Troy saw it too.

There was a space amid the tall tropical plants where a chaise lounge had been placed. The lighting was dim, but Troy was able to pick out three figures—all naked. He immediately knew why the Krogers clerk, Peter Lambert, had been invited to the party. He was stretched out on his back on the lounge bed, his legs raised and spread. Dale Hunter was crouched between his legs and over his body and was fucking him. Brad, naked, was standing beside them, stroking his cock and watching them fuck. Lambert was grabbing Dale’s shoulders in his hands and was moving his pelvis in counter thrust to Dale’s cock, fully participating in the fuck and taking Dale deep and hard. Brad moved closer to Lambert’s face and the clerk opened his mouth to take in Brad’s shaft.

Troy felt Gideon suck in breath, but he didn’t move. He had his eyes glued to the sex scene. He was squeezing Troy’s hand hard, but Troy couldn’t feel the pain. He was equally glued to the spot at the surprise and shock of what he saw. As they watched, Hunter ejaculated and pulled himself off Lambert. As he pulled away, Brad was turning Lambert and raising the young man on his knees. He was holding Lambert from behind just as he had held Troy earlier in the wine cellar. Lambert was allowing himself to be manipulated into any position Brad wanted him in. Brad covered the young man’s mouth with one hand, used the other to position his cock, and then snaked his arm around Lambert’s belly. The clutching and release of his bulbous butt cheeks and movement of his pelvis were evidence that he was fucking the grocery store clerk with deep strokes. He was fucking Lambert just like he had fucked Troy earlier. Hunter stood by, working his cock.

Troy heard the rumbling in Grimes’s throat and turned his face up to the novelists, only, surprisingly, to feel Grimes’s lips on his. Troy instinctively opened his mouth to Grimes, and they kissed, hungrily, as Grimes pulled Troy close into his body. There was no mistaking feeling the urgency of the need of the novelist’s body this time. Troy melted in the novelist’s grasp.

But then Grimes released him, growled a “Sorry, so sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . sorry,” and he fled the conservatory. Troy stayed on for a few more minutes, watching Brad fucking the young man who obviously had been invited here to provide just this service for Hammond’s guests. But he wasn’t really seeing the sex scene. He was fixated on the urgency and neediness of Grimes’s kiss.

When Troy entered the living room, he sought out Hammond and mumbled, still feeling numb. “Sorry, Avril, I need to leave. It’s late and I have studying to do.”

“Oh, what a shame.” He made no effort to dissuade Troy. “Did you drive over?” Avril asked.

“Yes, yes I did.”

“Then can you do a favor? Gideon says he has to go home now too, but I brought him over from his house. His car is in the shop. Would you be a dear and give him a ride home? He’s upstairs retrieving his coat.”

“Sure, I’d be happy to,” Troy said. His insides were doing flip-flops. Did Avril set all of this up? Was Gideon Grimes in on this? Was this just something the two of them hatched up to get Troy hooked up with Grimes? No, that couldn’t be. At least he couldn’t imagine the novelist being in on the planning. He’d opened up so slowly and then he’d have to have been a great actor to have feigned the surprise at seeing Brad and Dale fucking the Krogers clerk.

Would taking Grimes up and ending up in his bed be a bad thing, though? Troy couldn’t think of a single reason why it would be.

Grimes was coming down the stairs with his coat as Troy was going up the stairs to retrieve his. The man still looked like he was in shock and moved like a zombie.

“Avril has asked me to drive you home, Mr. Grimes,” Troy said. “I’ll just be a minute. I’ll get my coat.”

“Gideon. Call me Gideon. No mister.” His tone was a monotone and the words came out stilted. But then he stopped and put a hand on Troy’s forearm and whispered, “Sorry” again.

Troy said “Sure thing,” as he went past Grimes on the stairs. He was embarrassed that Grimes repeated the apology. The kiss had aroused him. It wasn’t anything to be sorry for as far as he was concerned. Was Grimes sorry he’d kissed Troy? He’d found the kiss wanting? Should Troy be insulted? Damned if he knew.

When he got to the top of the stairs, he saw why the man still seemed to be in shock. One of the bedroom doors was open to the hall—not the bedroom the coats were in but another one—and he could see Chan Tang, naked, straddling Tim MacDonald, also naked, on the bed. Tim was on his belly on the bed, his pelvis elevated on pillows, and his arms were stretched above his head, his hands clutching the rungs of the headboard overhead. The bed was rocking against the wall and Chan was riding Tim’s ass hard. There was a wide-eyed expression on Tim’s face and tears in his eyes. The man Chan had brought to the party, the history instructor, Cory Kavanagh, was sitting, knees folded into his chest, against the wall beside the bed, rocking back and forth and watching his partner hard fuck the young student.

* * * *

“Can you come in?” It came out as almost a plea. Troy had pulled up to the front of a substantial-looking old, wooden house, although one that needed attention. None of the leaves had been raked in the yard yet and a shutter was hanging askew on a window on the second story. He hesitated in answering. He felt he’d been in a marathon as he drove across town, into the countryside, and to the Civil War battle town of Port Republic, where two branches of the Shenandoah River met. Grimes had spoken the entire time about his wife Penny, what a saint she was, and how much of a loss she was to him. The man was throwing out conflicting—and, it seemed, conflicted—vibes. The kiss at Hammond’s house had been genuine—needy—and Hammond had good as said that he and Grimes had been fuck buddies before Grimes met his wife.

But he’d repeatedly said he was sorry he’d kissed Troy. Was all of this talk about his perfect wife a barrier he was raising against Troy thinking he would now be interested in another man sexually? Troy was ready to move on but it certainly didn’t seem like this guy was.

“Please,” Grimes repeated, “do come in. It was good for me to talk about this. I’ve had it bottled up inside. And it’s good that you listened. I’d like to return the favor, if you want to talk about Aaron.” He touched Troy’s arm as Troy gripped the wheel of the car with both hands, but immediately drew his fingers away as if Troy’s arm was hot or he thought better of the gesture.

There was a pause, in which each man focused on the breathing of the other. “OK, for a few minutes,” Troy answered. Who was he kidding? He’d stay long enough for Grimes to fuck him, if the guy could decide he was up to it. He knew that. He just didn’t know if Grimes realized that yet. Something had happened between them. A surge of electric want had gone through them both in that kiss and in the shared observance of three men fucking that neither had pulled themselves away from immediately. A fuck was what they both needed. Troy wouldn’t have said yes to coming in if he wasn’t hoping for a fuck. There was something about this guy—he was special—if he could just decide what he wanted.

They walked up onto the front porch, close to each other, but not touching—purposely, Troy wondered, confused by the mixed signals. Grimes had trouble opening the front door—first because he seemed to be trembling too much to get the key in the slot and then because the door stuck a bit and he had to apply force to open it.

“It’s stuck like this for a couple of weeks,” Grimes said. “It must be the weather.”

“I think it’s more a loose hinge,” Troy said, reaching up to touch the upper hinge. “I could fix that for you, I’m sure.”

“You could?” Grimes asked, moving his hand up to cover Troy’s, and looking down into the young man’s face. They exchanged looks of raw need, but then Grimes looked and moved away and swung the door open. Once inside, though, and the door shut, Troy pulled Grimes around and close, reached up and cupped the back of the head of the older man, and pulled his face down to where their eyes met again. “Kiss me,” he murmured. “I know you want to.”

Without seeking agreement, Troy pulled Gideon’s face down to his and took his lips in a tentative kiss. A growl came up from deep in Gideon’s chest and he grabbed Troy by the waist and lifted and slammed the back of the smaller man against the wall by the door. He took over the kiss, hungrily pushing Troy’s lips open with his and giving him tongue. Troy moaned.

When they came out of the kiss, Gideon’s body relaxed and he set Troy’s feet back down on the floor. He started to say something, a look in his eyes that Troy didn’t want to see, but the student raised the fingers of a hand to Gideon’s lips, and said, “Don’t. Don’t say you’re sorry. Don’t say it again. Don’t be sorry for something we both want—that we both need.”

Gideon gave him a wan smile and took a step away from him. “I’ll go put the coffee on and then I want to listen to you talk of your life and circumstance. I’ve said enough tonight.”

“Better that you turn the heat up,” Troy said. “It’s colder than a witch’s tit in here.”

“If I only knew where the thermostat was,” Gideon said, showing that wan smile again. “It was something that Penny—”

“Shhh,” Troy countered. “It’s right here, on the wall beside my head. But I don’t think that’s the problem. Have you turned the system on yet for the season?”

“Turned the system on? That would have been something Penny would have done. And she—”

“Where’s your heater?”

“In the basement . . . I think.”

“You think? Jesus, you need a handyman here.”

They both tensed and their eyes met. It was Troy who broke the awkwardness. He stripped off his coat and said, “I’ll go exploring, starting with the basement. If the system’s working at all, I’ll get it turned on for you.”

It took a while. The basement of the old house, which Gideon said had been standing here while a Civil War battle was being fought around it, was a rat’s warren. No one had been down here and tidied up for some time. He eventually found the heating system, turned it on, and waited until it kicked in, which it did. When he came upstairs into the kitchen, the first thing he saw was a sink full of dirty dishes. The second thing was Gideon, standing over by a perking coffee pot. He had changed—stripped down. He was wearing a knee-length silk robe. And nothing else. His sash was loosely bound around his waist. It was open down to his navel, showing good muscle tone—excellent for a man his age—and a matting of salt-and-pepper hair that curled around his nipples and descended in a thin line to the sash. The lower part of the robe flared enough for Troy to see a trimmed bush and a jutting cock. The man was hung and was aroused.

Confused again by the mixed signals, Troy mumbled, “I got the heater started,” and walked straight to the sink, searched in the cabinet beneath and found dish detergent, and started filling the sink with soapy water.

“I heard,” Gideon said in a low, hoarse voice. “But I don’t think we need any extra heat for a while.”

He came in close behind Troy, who turned the water off and braced himself on arms stretched out to the side, hands gripping the edges of the counter. He moaned and turned his head to Gideon’s possessing kiss. As they kissed, Gideon stripped Troy all the way down, unbuttoning his shirt and pulling it off the young man’s back, unbuckling and unzipping his trousers and slipping those and Troy’s briefs to the floor. Troy stepped out of them as Gideon’s hand cupped and weighed and measured Troy’s balls and engorging cock with a hand.

“Nice,” he murmured. “You have a beautiful body. So smooth, like marble.”

Gideon took Troy’s lips into another kiss. When he released them, he buried his face in the hollow of Troy’s throat and repeated the compliment. “You’re so nice, so young and beautiful. It’s been so long. Can I? Will you let me? I need this so bad.”

“Yes, oh yes,” Troy murmured. He felt the insistence of the man at the small of his back and then lower, between his thighs. He squeezed his thighs on the long, thick shaft, and Gideon was dry humping him, similarly to, but more arousingly than Brad had done earlier, the side of the cock rubbing back and forth on Troy’s hole. Troy felt himself blossoming open.

Heavy breathing took over anything they might have said. There was nothing to be said, really, and Gideon required no instruction or further permission. He was dominating Troy now—just as Aaron had dominated Troy. In matters of sex, Aaron had always dominated. That’s how Troy had wanted it then. That’s how Troy wanted it now.

He didn’t want Gideon to ask for permission for anything again. He wanted Gideon to take whatever he wanted.

Gideon knelt behind him and grasped his hips, digging his thumbs into Troy’s butt cheeks and spreading them open. With a moan, Troy widened his stance and Gideon buried his face in Troy’s crack and ate out his ass. It was all smooth, deliberate . . . effective.

Gideon came back up close behind Troy and Troy saw, out of the corner of his eye, the split condom packet—Trojan Magnum Ribbed—flutter to the countertop. Grasping Troy’s hips again, Gideon lifted the young man’s feet off the floor. He was being lowered on the cock, which penetrated, penetrated, penetrated him, as Gideon wrapped an arm around his waist, Troy arched his torso back and grasped the back of Gideon’s head in both his hands. He opened his mouth in a big O and blew bubbles, shuddered, panted hard, and came close to hyperventilating as the thick cock relentlessly invaded up his channel into the soft, vulnerable core of him, stretching him in its progress. The muscles of his passage walls began to ripple over the corkscrew effect of the ribbed condom sheathing a throbbing, steel-hard conquering weapon.

The cock in deep, and Troy fully vanquished, quivering and moaning, Gideon snaked his free hand around, grasped Troy’s cock and balls, and began to stroke him off in the same slow, slightly off-beat rhythm of the deep fuck.

After a few minutes, Gideon pulled Troy away from the sink, laid him down on his side on the kitchen table, and slung Troy’s right leg up his torso. Troy’s left leg was hung over the back of a chair pulled up to the table. His left hand was clutching the edge of the table, holding him steady under the hard, long, quickening thrusts of Gideon’s cock. He was squeezing Gideon’s right bicep with his right hand. Gideon was stroking him off with his left hand. Gideon was taking him hard, deep, and vigorously, the rapidity of the thrusts increasing, becoming more frenzied, more demanding. It was all Gideon now, taking the younger man fully, mercilessly, and Troy loved it this way. No mixed signals or indecision now.

“Come for me,” Gideon growled as he felt Troy tense up, and Troy responded as demanded. Then it was Gideon’s turn to ejaculate, which he did in the condom deep inside Troy’s ass.

Afterward, they sat next to each other on a leather sofa in the living room, coffee finally served. Gideon was in his silk robe, flared open, hiding nothing, half hard. Troy was just in his briefs. Gideon put his coffee cup down—Troy hadn’t lifted his from the coffee table yet—and leaned over into Troy for a kiss, during which he ran his hand over Troy’s chest, paying attention to the young man’s taut nipples.

“I am sorry, if—” Gideon said, coming out of the kiss.

Once more Troy put his fingers to the man’s mouth, and said, “No more ‘sorry,’ I told you. All sorrow and guilt are banished here. Neither one of us is sorry. There is no guilt in seizing what we want, no loved ones to betray.” Then, “Are you going to fuck me again now?” he asked, “because you certainly can. I want you to.”

“Eventually, I hope . . . if you want,” Gideon answered. “It will take time, though. I’m an old man.”

“You don’t fuck like an old man. You don’t feel like an old man.” He had his hand encasing Gideon’s long cock. The man was half hard and hardening more at Troy’s touch. But Gideon pulled away and settled back in the sofa. Troy continued slow-stroking his shaft.

“I spilled my gut to you about my departed wife. Tell me about your Aaron.”

“What is there to tell?” Troy said. “He was good to me—in all ways. He was good to me sexually like you just were.”

“Your relationship. Were you yin and yang like I said Penny and I were. Were you different people, with different interests, but fit together perfectly when joined?”

“When you fucked me in the kitchen, I felt like we were one, synchronized machine, yes. And that’s the way it was with Aaron and me too.”

“Yes, but in other aspects of your relationship. I’m a drone. There’s one thing I do well. I write well—and profitably. And I think I teach well—about writing, about nothing else. I’m technically clueless, and I don’t keep schedules. That was all Penny. But she enjoyed it and she was content with me the way I am. Did you and Aaron fit like that—yin and yang, completing a perfect circle?”

“Yes,” Troy answered after a bit of thought, “that was Aaron and me too, except we were reversed. Aaron was great with clothes and with clothes buying, but he was messy as hell about everything else and all thumbs with anything involving handyman work. I did that for him. I even came to his house and did it for him and his family without his wife knowing he was fucking me—until he unexpectedly died and tried to leave stuff to me.”

“It’s rare for couples to meld like that,” Gideon said.

“Yes, I think you’re right. And what about you and Avril Hammond? Was he right—that you two were a couple before you married your wife? Did you and Hammond fit together like that?”

“Alas, no. Yes, we were lovers, but it was volatile, and we switched back and forth on what we wanted and needed, never being on the same page at once. I think that’s why I escaped so radically—why I went with a woman, with Penny. I wanted stability and monogamy and Avril was sleeping around. And then when I married Penny and was initially interested in going with them both, Avril demanded sole possession. By the time he came around to sharing me with Penny, I no longer wanted to be shared—by then it was just Penny. And has been until just now. I can’t tell you how happy you’ve made me tonight. I struggled with it but I’m so happy I gave in. I hope you are too.”

“Yes, I am. I think I wanted it before you did. That worries me. You keep trying to say you’re sorry. Are you sorry you’ve done it with me? Not quite sure still, or what?”

Gideon laughed, which hit Troy wrong. The young man took his hand off Gideon’s now-rock hard cock, and leaned away from him into the corner of the sofa, turning his back slightly to the sofa arm.

“No, don’t mistake the laugh,” Gideon said. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want you. I wanted you when we were talking at dinner. It’s because of Hammond. He gave me the impression that he was throwing the two of us together, and I didn’t want it to be that easy for him. I didn’t want to fall into something just because he had pity on me and was throwing me a bone. It was the sort of thing he’d done when we were together to show his dominance when I wanted to dominate in a relationship. But maybe you didn’t get the impression from the Thanksgiving dinner—that it was all set up to get us together.”

It was Troy’s turn to laugh. “No, that’s exactly what I thought he was doing—that he was pitying me and trying to set me up with another sugar daddy.”

“Cheeky of him, but I still worry about Avril,” Gideon said. “I think he’s chosen wrong this time. I think he now wants permanence and a life mate. I don’t think that Brad Baylor is going to give that to him. You saw what Brad was doing at the party—fucking that rent-boy Hammond had brought in. I don’t see Baylor being faithful to Avril. Do you?”

“No, I don’t,” Troy agreed, looking away so that Gideon didn’t see Troy’s own contribution to Brad’s betrayal of Hammond in his face. His hand went back to Gideon’s cock, finding it in full erection. “I think we’ve talked enough for now, though,” he murmured. “You seem to be ready again.”

“Yes, I’m ready again,” Gideon answered in a low, hoarse voice. He twisted toward Troy in the sofa, turning Troy too so that his back was fully pressed to the sofa arm. He grasped Troy’s legs after stripping off his briefs, and bent them and pressed them up into Troy’s chest, Troy’s knees going into his armpits. At the same time, he spread Troy’s thighs and lowered his face to Troy’s crotch. Troy grasped the wavy hair at the back of Gideon’s head, arched his back, and moaned, as Gideon prepared the young man for mounting again with his mouth working Troy’s cock, balls, and hole.

He rose up and crouched over Troy, teasing the young man’s hole with his cock head and deep kissing Troy on the mouth. He was taking his time preparing Troy, just as he had in the kitchen, and he was putting the young man into high heat. Troy broke away from the kiss and cried out, “Fuck me. Fuck me now. Put it in me. Pound me!”

The cock head was pressing at his hole, and Troy was willing his muscles down there to grasp it and pull it inside. He didn’t care that it was unsheathed. He didn’t care if Gideon barebacked him. He wanted the cock inside him, and he wanted it now.

Once again, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the slit Trojan Magnum packet hit the coffee table top, and he gave a great sigh as the cock sank inside him, this time meeting little resistance on its journey into the quick of him. Gideon was holding him close from above, completely controlling and dominating him, rocking him back and forth against the arm of the sofa. Troy grasped the man’s shoulder blades with his hands, dug his nails into the flesh, and cried out, “Yes, yes. Fuck me to heaven!”

Gideon moved a strong hand around to the V where Troy’s tailbone descended to between his butt cheeks and gave Troy’s lower back a strong pull, impaling the young man’s passage in one swift movement on the cock to the soft core of his gut. Troy cried out in pain-passion-pleasure and Gideon commenced pumping him deep.

* * * *

Avril stood at the door, watching what he assumed were the last of the Thanksgiving dinner guests, the art professor, Lawrence Shelton, and music instructor, Cory Kavanagh, off. He turned and looked around the living room. Brad certainly had his work cut out for him getting this straightened up tomorrow, he thought. Good thing Brad was neat. It was always important that one of a couple be good that way.

He looked up in surprise as he saw the rent-boy, Peter Lambert, nearly stumble into the living room from the conservatory. He was wearing his jeans, but his T-shirt was hanging on his bare shoulder—and were those his briefs tucked under his arm? He was looking good—very sexy. If Avril had any interest in topping . . . but he didn’t. Avril had forgotten the young man, although he had his fee for the evening in his pocket. His hand went to his pocket to ensure the wad of money was still there. He wondered if the young man had earned his keep. It had been Brad’s idea to bring him in for the party.

“Peter,” he said. “You’re still here.”

“Yes, but I’m leaving now,” Lambert answered. Over the course of the evening, he’d taken four of the five tops who had attended the party, only missing out on the novelist, who Peter had been most interested in shagging. He’d even been given an address card by that big photographer guy, There was a possibly to be paid bigger bucks for it—to appear in a movie or two. “I just needed . . . I wondered . . .”

“Yes, I can pay you now, while you’re here.” Avril took the bills out of his pocket and handed them over. “Have you seen Brad? I haven’t seen him in a while.”

“No, I’ve been busy,” Lambert said, resisting the urge to turn and look back into the conservatory. “It’s been interesting. If you ever need me again—”

“Yes, yes, thank you. Brad will know how to get in touch with you, I’m sure.”

He walked the young man to the front door.

In the conservatory, crouched between the spread thighs of the Jewish student in the English department, Jacob Bernstein, who was on his back on the chaise lounge, moaning softly, Brad Baylor stopped in mid thrust to listen to the conversation between Avril and Peter in the living room. As Avril was walking the rent-boy to the front door, Brad finished Bernstein, his hand held over the young man’s mouth to muffle his reaction to being stroked off hard and deep.

Pulling off Bernstein’s body and reaching down for his trousers, Brad hissed, “Leave quietly by the door out into the garden. When I want you again, I’ll find you.”

“Yes, please,” Bernstein whimpered, his eyes full of worship.

There was an entrance from the conservatory into the kitchen, and Brad, fully dressed, was there, working over a sink of pots and pans, when Avril found him.

“Well, I think that went well, don’t you?” Hammond asked, coming up behind Brad and kissing him on the back of the neck. He wrapped his hands around Brad, one hand descending to the man’s crotch.

“Yes, very well indeed,” Baylor answered.

“I’m tired, but not too tired,” Hammond whispered. “Leave this for tomorrow and I’ll meet you in bed.”

When Hammond was finished in the bathroom and padded out into the bedroom, naked, he found that Brad was already in bed, turned to the wall on his side, and snoring up a storm.

Oh, well, Avril thought, he enjoyed morning sex as much as nighttime sex. He lay there, feeling very smug with himself. As far as he could see, his ploy was working. He’d seen Brad with Troy. He could tell that Brad wanted to stick it to Troy. It had been hell trying to keep Brad in line, but Avril would do everything he could do accomplish that. He wanted to settle down in a monogamous relationship at this time of his life—and he knew that Brad was the one he wanted to settle down with. Troy was vulnerable, just coming out of a grieving situation. Avril had thought hard about how to shunt Brad off from going after Troy. Avril’s old friend, Gideon, also had needed a new relationship. All in all, Avril thought that putting Troy and Gideon together would settle Brad down. He went to sleep masturbating himself and thinking of what Gideon and Troy might be doing at the moment. It was a godsend that Gideon had needed a ride home.

* * * *

It was still in the dark of the night when Gideon woke in his bed to arousal. It took him a moment to realize that he wasn’t in bed alone, as he had been for the past couple of months. Someone—Troy he quickly realized—was below him, sucking his cock and balls and running his hands up and down on Gideon’s inner thighs. Gideon contentedly sighed and folded his arms behind his head. He would give Troy free rein for a few moments, but he remembered what the young man had said—that what he wanted was a partner who dominated him.

When Troy had moved up Gideon’s body, straddled his pelvis, and positioned his hole on Gideon’s cock head, and descended on the shaft, Gideon gave Troy a few moments of control. But then he grasped Troy’s hips in his hands and took over control, slamming Troy up and down on his buried cock while he counterthrust up with his hips. Troy cried out in ecstasy as he flopped around under Gideon’s full control, riding the cock like he was riding a bull—which, to Troy’s delight, was exactly what he felt he was doing.

Hours later, in daylight now, Gideon woke again to the sound of a hammer hitting a nail head into wood just outside his bedroom window. Once again he initially was disoriented. He reached out with both hands, searching for another body—at first thinking Penny, but quickly changing to an image of Troy. But he was alone in the bed. He felt the sting of loss.

As he became fully conscious, though, he figured out that someone was outside his window, repairing the broken shutter. With surging hope, he connected Troy’s absence with the repairing of the shutter—and he hoped to hell that that meant what he wished for it to mean. To hell with resenting Avril’s sure satisfaction that his ploy had worked. Happy Thanksgiving after all.