Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

Richard tensed, jerked, and came . . . tensed, jerked, and came again. David had released before him. He always did. With an “Umph” and a muttered, “Shit, that was good,” Richard rolled off David and onto his back in the king-sized bed that took up nearly every square inch of their postage-stamp-sized Chelsea apartment in Manhattan. David turned onto his side, away from Richard, so that Richard couldn’t see his tears.

If it’s so good, why are you leaving, David thought. That’s not what he said, though. He wasn’t going to beg. “Yes, it was good . . . for a last time,” he murmured.

“It doesn’t have to be a last time. Splitting up in an arrangement like this doesn’t have to stop all of the fringe benefits,” Richard remarked, with a snort. “Remember that we both came into this declaring it would be casual—no strings attached.”

Yes, that was the base problem, David thought. To him this had become a commitment—and Richard had eventually said it was as well, but, at the base, with Richard, it was just a convenient economic arrangement. A sure lay when a better opportunity wasn’t in the offing. That was why they’d reached this point. No, that wasn’t fair, David thought. To Richard it was mostly a convenient economic arrangement. It had been something to Richard too, or they wouldn’t have been together for nearly two years. What had started off, admittedly as casual, had become more than that. They both had said so at one time or another. It just hadn’t become enough of a commitment—to both of them at the same time. At least they hadn’t both honestly said and meant it at the same time.

He didn’t respond to Richard’s assertion that discounted so much of what had been shared and said since they’d first hooked up. They both lay there, both awake, both satiated with sex—but sex that couldn’t have come in worse circumstances. The breakup wasn’t coming out of the blue. David had seen the signs. But tonight was the first time Richard said it was over.

It probably should never had begun. They were polar opposites. Richard Stern was the robust, Nordic sports guy—two years younger than David, at twenty-six. He was a sports caster for ESPN, the Entertainment Sports Programing Network, that televised live commentary on sports events. He specialized in the minor and unusual sports—fencing, repelling, figure skating. He also did tennis and European football. He was boisterous, outgoing, glad-handing, bigger than life. David, dark, more slender and cautious, was the introspective, cerebral one. He was a writer on architectural history for the Architectural Record journal.

Richard was the closer at parties, usually ending up in bed, on the top. David generally left parties early, usually alone. They did this even as a couple, and that hadn’t seemed ever to bother either one of them. Richard would be moving on to the next party or a bar after the romp in bed; David would be going to back to the apartment to put classical music on and read a book or to write at the computer.

But they’d both eventually meet in bed even if it was after dawn when Richard dragged home, and they’d have satisfying sex. Richard, of course, was the top and David the bottom.

“There’s only one bedroom and one bed here,” David said into the darkness after a while when he was able to control the tears and knew that Richard was lying there, looking up at the ceiling, not any more prepared then he was just to leave here, even for tonight.

“True,” came back from Richard.

“So, who moves out?” They’d both celebrated the finding of this apartment. No matter how small it was, it was in a good building and within walking distance for both of them to their home offices. Neither one of them had a car. There was no place, really, to have one in the Chelsea district.

“We both will have to,” Richard answered. “Neither one of us can swing this alone.”

David saw the truth in that, at least as far as Richard would know, even though he didn’t want to accept it. He would have accepted it if Richard had said David would have to go and Richard would stay. It would have told David that Richard had someone else ready to move in. It would be whatever Richard wanted, though. Richard controlled. They both knew that. Even in saying they were breaking up, Richard controlled. David would never have said it even if he’d known it was coming. Richard had, David realized, known it was coming. He’d been quick to say they’d both have to leave. He’d already given this thought. He was the one who had a realistic handle on their combined finances.

Is that why he’d pledged a commitment he wasn’t going to carry out? David wondered. Was it because he’d already worked out that they could swing the apartment together but not apart? But, no, that wasn’t fair. He’d just tried it out and it hadn’t worked for him.

It had been working for David, though.

“Shit,” he suddenly exhaled.

“What?” Richard asked.

“The trip—our two weeks in Spain, followed up with Paris.”

“What about it?”

“We can’t go now, but all those nonrefundable deposits. And the airfare and the seaside apartment in Galicia. We’ve already paid those in full. Those were nonrefundable too.” David was just miserable about what was involved in this breaking up business. Of course this was just him being him—thinking of logistics to avoid thinking about what really mattered—that, after two years together, they were breaking up.

“We’ll just have to go ahead with the trip, with Spain, at least,” Richard said. “We should at least give it a try. I have some business to do there anyway. We hadn’t agreed on what we’d do in any event. I had my ideas and you had yours.”

“I suppose we could rearrange to have separate rooms or separate beds, at least,” David said.

“Why should we do that, David? I swear you’re stuck on being a romantic. It’s just fucking. A form of exercise. It’s a renewable source. It doesn’t have to come with strings.”

There it was, David thought. The real reason they were breaking up. Their interests were radically different. They’d been dancing around what they’d do in northwestern Spain and Paris and hadn’t come up with much both wanted to do, other than swim in the sea, sleep, and fuck. That would have been enough for David, but he knew that wouldn’t be enough for Richard—not just in doing it with each other. And, besides, once in Galicia, there was so much of interest for David—the architecture and the pilgrimage trails, the ancient Camino de Santiago religious pilgrimage routes. That would be near the ocean-side apartment they’d rented in Puerto de Sanxenxo. But, sportsman or no, Richard hadn’t expressed an interest in hiking a religious pilgrimage route.

“I suppose,” David murmured.

“The apartment in Puerto de Sanxenxo has two bedrooms,” Richard, the practical one, said. “We can both base there, in separate bedrooms, and do our own thing, if that’s what you want. It’s just a hotel room in Paris, but you can do Paris alone.”

Doing Paris alone wasn’t anything like how David had envisioned doing Paris. “I suppose,” he whispered again.

“And, again, just because we’re breaking up—not being a couple anymore—doesn’t mean we can’t fuck. We’re good with that. We’re good at that. What we just did was great—and that was after we’d agreed to split up.”

David didn’t answer. He hadn’t agreed to split up, not really. It had been imposed on him. But of course he realized that it took two to commit. He was still a commitment sort of guy. He wasn’t good with continuing to have sex after breaking up. That was another thing where they were different. Sex wasn’t that casual with him. And being with Richard hadn’t been casual with him either. He’d lied about agreeing to the limitations Richard had put on the arrangement. Whenever Richard had taken another guy to bed, David had tolerated it, but he hadn’t liked it, and he only now had surrendered to not being able to change it.

“We’ll just need to add a rental car. I’ll be on the road a lot in Galicia.”

What David couldn’t understand, having decided that he should have realized the breakup was coming, was why now? Why was Richard bringing this up now? In another month they were going on their holiday. Why didn’t he wait until they’d gotten that in?

“Oh, I should let you know too that I’m moving out this week?” Richard said, his voice heavy with the onset of sleep.

“Moving out? What do you mean?” David asked, turning toward Richard in the bed.

“I’m moving in with Craig Lundsford.”

Craig Lundsford. The Olympic gymnast. Richard was just back from covering the U.S. gymnastics nationals. So, he had been half right, David thought. There is another man. It’s just a man with an apartment Richard likes better than he likes this one.

“Is that why you’re breaking up with me now, right before we go on vacation?” David asked.

Richard didn’t answer, because Richard was asleep now. But of course that was why. Richard was moving on. Richard was moving on without David.

* * * *

The plane flights out of JFK, through Europe, and to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, northwest Spain, were exhilarating for David. He enjoyed being on the move, going on vacations. Richard complained all the way. He and the gymnast, Craig Lundsford, hadn’t hit it off well—not well at all. Richard didn’t actually ask to move back in with David, but the architecture writer had hopes that was coming. Everything Richard said he didn’t like about living with Craig was something David thought he didn’t do, and David thought, with hope, that Richard mentioned them to express appreciation for David and what the two of them had had together. He still pined for the big blond in his bed. Maybe if he just gave it a little time, David thought, Richard might be back. Would David take him back? Yes, of course, without question.

Richard had moved out. David had kept their apartment in Chelsea. He’d gotten a couple of raises at the magazine since the two first moved in together. David had told Richard about them, but it apparently hadn’t sunk in that it meant he was bringing more home. He hadn’t pressed the point, because Richard was fully capable of expanding his spending to erase anything coming in. David had to economize a bit to stay in the apartment, but he’d had his hopes that Richard would be back. Now there was a chance of that—or so David thought, as the blond sports commentator complained almost insistently while they flew across the Atlantic and down through Europe from London—that their Spain vacation would bring them back together.

At the Rosalia de Castro airport in Santiago de Compostela, as they picked up their luggage, David made a tentative suggestion. “Do we really need to rent two cars? That’s about the most expensive aspect of the trip. We’d originally thought we’d just do some of what you wanted to do and some of what I wanted to do but that we’d do it together.”

“I have plans already—in Lisbon, Madrid, and Barcelona. All sports stuff,” Richard said. “That was sort of the sticking point. We never did agree to go everywhere together. So, yeah, I think two cars is best.”

So, David got the Nissan Micra they had reserved and Richard picked out a sportier Nissan Juke, and they drove, in tandem, the sixty kilometers to the coastal harbor town of Puerto de Sanxenxo, where they’d rented a two-bedroom penthouse apartment with a large terrace overlooking the yacht basin. Richard loved the apartment, telling David, with a wink, that David should take the master bedroom with the queen-sized bed—“to encourage visitation,” he said, and Richard would take the bedroom with the two twin beds. Richard had always liked the roleplaying of attacking a defenseless and vulnerable David unawares in bed and ravishing him. David had enjoyed that game as well.

As soon as they settled, Richard wanted to go to the beach.

“Both of us?” David asked.

“Sure,” Richard answered, and off they went to the nearby Carabuzeira Beach, which was sparsely populated that late afternoon, mostly by other beefcake men cruising on the beach. Richard’s eyes roamed but David did what he could to maintain the blond’s attention. They cavorted in the surf and touched and kissed, and David was in heaven. They returned to the apartment as it was growing dark.

“We forgot to shop for food,” David said, looking into an empty refrigerator.

“And, worse than that, there’s no liquor,” Richard said.

They decided to hit a waterfront restaurant for dinner and order something they could take out from there for breakfast. A nearby bodega supplied wine and beer.

“I’ll make a grocery run tomorrow,” David said.

“You do that. You do that so well,” Richard answered. David preened at the compliment, sure that the two of them were returning to what David thought had worked so well in their relationship.

Everything was looking up as they prepared for bed. Richard was showering in the master bedroom bathroom rather than the second bath that went to the twin-bed room he’d selected. He came into the bathroom where David was grooming himself at the sink. Richard was naked and in erection. The shower was large, with a transparent glass door. Richard masturbated under the water, his eyes on David, also naked, at the sink. When he beckoned for David to join him in the shower, David eagerly complied, going on his knees under the cascading water and taking Richard’s long, thick erection in his mouth.

Life seemed to be returning to normal, as David had hoped it would.

Richard fucked David on the queen-sized bed in the master bedroom, with David on his back and Richard running a muscular arm under his smaller, but older, slim, dark-haired, slightly hirsute sex partner to lift and roll David’s pelvis up to him. David’s torso streamed out toward the top of the bed and he raised his arms over his head, grasping the top of the headboard, and, heels dug into the mattress, and, eventually, moved in consort with Richard’s thrusts up into the quick of him and held, trembling and mouth open in a silent yawn, as Richard filled the bulb of the condom deep inside David’s channel.

They had roleplayed as in times before, with Richard surprising David in bed, and David pretending to resist, being overpowered by the stronger man, trapped under him in capturing embrace, thrashing about as such clothing as there was was dispensed with, writhing and crying out at the forceable penetration, and slowly giving in until they were working together in the rhythm of the fuck. Despite the roleplay, Richard was not a rough or cruel lover. They were well matched.

David was in nirvana. He hadn’t been fucked since Richard had moved out of the apartment. He had lived in the hope that Richard would return. That hope was alive now.

Later Richard lay on his back on the bed and held David’s slim waist between his beefy hands as David rode him in a cowboy position. Then, both of them exhausted from the flights, the swim in the ocean, and the sex, they slept, entwined, in the same bed.

In the morning, David woke up on the bed—alone. Richard was gone. He’d eaten half of what they’d bought for breakfast. The coffee was cold. His suitcases were gone. The note he left said he was off to see a matador in Lisbon, at the Campo Pequeno bullfighting arena.

He said nothing about the lovemaking the previous night. Of course, it was only David who had called it lovemaking. Richard had always referred to it as sexual exercise—fucking, for short.

* * * *

Emilio Garca had gotten them seats on the boards at the Campo Pequeno bullring in Lisbon, delighted that he had managed to lure Richard to Lisbon to, he hoped, do a special sports clip on the matador, Roque Avila, who Garca managed. They had been in loose “if you’re ever in Lisbon” discussions of this ever since they’d met in New York at an ESPN reception, had moved on from the reception to a gay bar in Chelsea, and, ultimately, to a gay bathhouse. They didn’t ball each other—they were both tops—but Roque Avila was a submissive and Garca had seen his chance to get the matador some special sports coverage.

“Isn’t he magnificent?” Garca asked, pointing out Avila, who was now in the ring, dancing with a bull. The Portuguese bullfighter was just a year younger than Richard, at twenty-three. He was a handsome, sleek young man, slender and willowy, and he did, in fact, dance with the bull. He was small, not more than five-foot-six, but he commanded the arena and the bull. He was gorgeous and sexy in his tight matador costume and he knew he was.

He performed like a ballet dancer and was costumed like one. He knew that his manager had gotten a man from ESPN to come—and to interview and film Avila, if the matador was accommodating to the man. From what Avila could see of Richard, sitting with Garca, he was quite acceptable—nearly worthy of worshipping Avila’s body, as was the young man’s due.

Avila danced for Richard—obviously playing directly for Richard in the stands. The matador was toying with the bull, basking in the worship and delight of the crowd in the arena. The bull died well. Avila performed better. At the end, he came to the boards where Richard and Garca were sitting, and he pulled his hat off and gave a deep bow. The crowd went crazy in love with him.

The crowd couldn’t be any more in love with him than he was with himself.

Richard had known that sex would be on offer if he did the interview. He thought it would be kicky to do a genuine matador. Avila came into the stands, and they did the interview there, filmed by two cameramen Garca hired for the occasion. The interview went well, although Avila was as skittish as a thoroughbred racehorse and twice as arrogant. He also had a high voice and now, outside of the bullring, his mannerisms were definitely seen as feminine. He normally wasn’t anyone Richard would go after, but this had been set up for him and he was trapped into taking what was on offer. Richard did what he could to tone the young matador down and encourage him to do little talking, letting Garca carry most of the interview talk, because Avila’s high-pitched voice didn’t go with the macho image of a matador.

“I wish to do another kind of film, with you and Roque,” Garca said at the end of the ESPN special report filming, “like we did together in the New York bathhouse for presents for some of your friends. Roque has special fans here in Portugal who he does special films for. You are quite the handsome and capable man. I know you want to lay him. You could wear a mask if you have a problem making such a film. I did it for you in New York. I thought maybe you’d do it for us here. I have kept the cameramen. They do this sort of work for me.”

“Where would we do this?” Richard asked, eying the simpering matador, who was vamping for him. This obviously was fine with Avila. He quite evidently made films like this for his special fans. Richard had certainly wanted to lay the matador in theory, but, now that he’d met him, he wasn’t so sure. But he was trapped into the arrangement. He didn’t want to alienate Garca.

“I have a flat on the Avenida Óscar Monteiro Torres leading off from the Campo Pequeno toward the sea,” Garca said. “It’s quite elegant. Avila wants to be fucked on shiny silk sheets.”

Avila got fucked on a queen-sized bed in a well-appointed bedroom on shiny silk sheets. His small body was beautiful in a willowy, effeminate way, and he wanted to be worshipped and fucked like he was a delicate-flower woman. There were mirrors on the side walls and behind the headboard, and he wanted to hold the most sensual, sexy poses for those while Richard, hunky, muscular, big-cocked, and blond fucked him. Avila, insisting that Richard be as worshipful with his body as he was himself, got more enjoyment out of the fuck than Richard did. For Richard, it had a one-time-only novelty pleasure to it, but it was like trying to dick a porcelain doll—a female one—without breaking it.

After much maneuvering and Avila playing the dying, reluctant swan, they got into the position the matador wanted—rising on their knees on the bed, Richard behind and embracing Avila, one hand jacking Avila off, while Avila posed for the mirror at the side of the bed. As Richard got himself in position and mounted and was penetrating the lithe, writhing, sighing matador from behind, Avila dramatically called out, “Um touro. Você é um touro!—A bull. You’re a bull!” and the fuck settled down to Avila, ever the dancer and performer, panting and moaning and performing the surrender of his virginity for the cameras and the mirror.

This time the bull ultimately won.

The cameramen had the most difficulty and exercise. They continually had to find good angles to film the fuck from without themselves being reflected in the mirrors that Avila was making love to.

Garca invited Richard back for the next day at the bullring, watching Avila dance with the bull, and later in bed with Avila, without the cameramen, but Richard demurred, saying he had other activities he wanted to check out.

“No, the interview went great,” he said. “I’m sure ESPN will run it. And the other film was fun too. But once with Roque was enough, I think.”

Garca understood. He had to live and contend with Roque Avila’s worship of himself. “Do you really have other activities you want to engage in alone for the two more days you’ll be here, or would you like me to show you what men like you and I like to do to unwind—perhaps with rougher, more manly, trade than Roque.”

“I’d like that,” Richard answered. Rough sex would be a novelty for him. And he did like it better than the sex with Avila, which had not been anything like what he’d hoped and imagined it would be, albeit it would be interesting to be able to say he’d laid a matador. It wasn’t nearly as satisfying, he decided, as his romp in the bed with David had been in Puerto de Sanxenxo. That thought depressed him. He’d broken up with David. That was in the past. What he was looking for was something that was as good as sex—and life—with David, or better.

The rest of the Portugal trip was OK, though. Garca took him across the causeway over the Rio Tejo waterway to the naval port area at Almada. There were brothels there, including ones featuring male whores, as one option, and where also the young Portuguese sailors came, randy and needy, on shore leave from sea voyages. Some of these were submissive. Here, over two nights, Richard and Garca shared a succession of four young, willing Portuguese whores and sailors in double penetration sessions that had already been established as a pleasure for them in the New York bathhouse.

This, this sharing of a young sailor, is what Garca should be filming for some fan club, Richard thought. But he didn’t mention it. He wasn’t really interested in becoming a porn star, even if he was built for it. He wanted something athletic and inventive, yes, but neither the Portuguese male whores, the submissive sailors, nor Garca were as experienced in what could be done and were totally satisfying as he got in the States—like he’d once been getting with David.

* * * *

David had just come back from a morning at the beach in Puerto de Sanxenxo, where he’d made “interested” eye contact with beautiful Spanish men a few times but hadn’t pursued anything, when the expected call from Richard came through.

“I think I’ll just drive on to Barcelona,” Richard said. “There’s a cute figure skater at the Pista de Gel Skating Club there I’d like to interview.”

The “cute” was enough for David to know what Richard’s interest in this interview was. “I thought maybe you’d come back here and we could do Santiago de Compostela together,” he said, trying to keep the disappointment frustration he felt out of his voice. He had turned down opportunities on the beach with the hope that Richard would be back soon. What they’d done before Richard went to the bullfights had given David hope of rekindling their relationship.

The Santiago visit had become one of the sticking points between them. They both wanted to see the city itself. Boasting several medieval period architecture wonders, especially the cathedral, the area was also famous for religious pilgrimage trails to Santiago, the Camino de Santiago, and David was hoping to do a segment of one of these. Richard hadn’t expressed an interest in that. David had held off from visiting there himself because he hoped Richard would come back from Portugal and they could go together. Obviously, that wasn’t going to happen.

“I’d been looking forward to the two of us doing some activities together, based from here, between our own activities,” David added.

Richard didn’t try to suppress the heavy sigh from the Lisbon end. This breaking up was so much easier for him than for David. David was being clingy even though, intellectually, he’d accepted that it was over. Richard was thinking that he should never have gone back to him even for a few days when it didn’t work out with Craig Lundsford. And they should just have come to Europe separately. They might have if it hadn’t meant losing some deposits for shared lodging and the hassle of rescheduling flights.

“I’ve already called the skating club in Barcelona,” he said. “It’s all arranged. I also want to go to Madrid to interview the pro tennis player, Fernando Lopez, and, once near the Mediterranean coast, it wouldn’t make any sense to drive back to the northwest coast only to turn around and go back to Madrid.”

“So, this is it for time together on the vacation,” David said, trying to keep the dejection out of his voice.

“Seems so, good buddy. I’ll see you in New York, I guess, when I get the rest of my stuff out of the Chelsea apartment.”

So, that was that, David thought. He was free to do the Santiago pilgrimage trail hike himself. He didn’t have to wait on Richard anymore. “Have to.” It sounded so definitive—and a little pathetic. He’d just have to bite the bullet and forge ahead. Richard was so much what he’d wanted—except for the lack of commitment. David picked up the brochures on the pilgrimage opportunities. He didn’t have time to do much of the trail, but he could do enough to get a flavor of it, he hoped. Then a couple of days in Santiago, soaking up the architecture of that place. It would be good to have a guide for that, but he guessed he’d have to concentrate more on going it alone in life—even though the thought of that scared the hell out of him. It seemed so bleak. He wasn’t getting any younger. His sexual fulfilling days seemed to be marching to a conclusion. He didn’t know if he was ready for that yet.

Well, he wasn’t going to just mope around in the Puerto de Sanxenxo his whole vacation, as nice as it was. It was a great town and he had every reason to believe he could find some companionship on the beach if Richard wasn’t going to be there, but they’d come to Galicia to see some sites in an interesting part of Europe. He planned a three-day trip to walk part of the Camino de Santiago into Santiago de Compostela. He’d drive to one of the stops, Arca, on the main pilgrimage trail that was twenty kilometers to the northeast of Santiago, a distance he thought he could handle in a day. He’d make a hotel reservation for two nights in the city to have a full day to explore it, and then hike back to the car.

Three days should be enough to get a flavor of the place. Then he’d take another two-day trip up to the Bay of Biscay, to A Coruña, where there was an ancient tower, the Tower of Hercules, he’d read about and had always wanted to see. Then he could be content with the vacation in Spanish Galicia and he’d go on to Paris, where he would be attending an architecture conference representing the Architecture Record. Richard had initially said he’d go to Paris with him, but he’d already cut that off of his share of the trip.

So, a few days later, he found himself parking the car in Arca and starting off on foot on the final segment of the Camino de Santiago.

More hours later than he’d had any idea it would take, totally foot sore, he stopped at the side of the trail at a place called Monte Gozo, which was on the heights overlooking the city of Santiago de Compostela, the first place from which the city could be viewed from the east, and drank in the city stretched below him. After looking for some twenty minutes, he realized he couldn’t go on. He hadn’t brought proper hiking boots. He had good athletic shoes, but they just hadn’t been up to the requirement. Both the shoes and his feet were shot. There was a café at the side of the trail, with rooms for pilgrims on the second floor, and he just sank to the front steps of that.

“I hope you didn’t walk far in those sneakers.” The voice was deep, amused. “Bet you’re an American.”

“Yes, on both counts,” David said, looking up to see a mountain of a man—but in great body proportions—standing in the doorway of the two-story rustic building at the side of the trail in Monte Gozo. The man had some aspect of a grizzly bear, but one with a big, friendly grin and, incongruously, wearing an apron. “I hadn’t planned to walk very far—just to get a flavor of the pilgrimage trail as it approached Santiago, but I didn’t come equipped for a hike—you can’t really include hiking boots in luggage for a Trans-Atlantic flight—and the distance was much greater than I’d calculated. And, yes, I’m an American. How could you tell?”

“I don’t want to say it’s because you came dressed for a stroll in the park and found a rougher trail. It’s because I heard you talking with those other hikers passing through. Your American accent pulled me out here. I’ve been to Chicago.”

“I’ve been to Chicago too,” David said. “Great urban architecture.”

“Well, you’re not in the city now, and I don’t think you’ll make Santiago before it gets very, very dark. You may not make it at all in those sneakers.”

“I realize that. Is this just a café, or does it have rooms too?”

“It has rooms too. But you look like you could use something strong to drink before worrying about finding a room. Come on inside. The first drink is on the house—because we’ve both been to Chicago.”

“Oh, I look more liquor cabinet than bedroom?” David asked. He was being cheeky, but the guy was giving him “that look” and the guy was a god of man.

The man laughed. “You look quite bedroom, since you mention it, but let’s have a drink before talking possibilities.” So, with that, the guy was being cheeky back and, just perhaps, the dance that certain men do had started.

“Is this your place?” David asked.

“It certainly is.”

“Well, I can’t turn down a free drink—and a rest for my sore feet. I guess I’ll have to look for someplace to stay the night. I think you’re right. I won’t make Santiago tonight. I have reservations in the city, but I have no idea even where the hotel is.”

“I have city maps inside. When I have a few minutes from the other customers, I’ll help you locate your hotel. I’m Hugo. Hugo Castro.”

“David Danforth,” David said. “From New York.”

“City?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been there too. Some impressive architecture there.”

“I know. That’s what I do. I write about architecture.”

“Then you should love Santiago de Compostela,” Hugo said.

“So I’ve heard. That’s why I’m here.”

“To see the city and go on religious pilgrimage—in Nike sneakers?”

“To see the city and to walk a trail I’ve heard a lot about.”

“You have come alone or with someone else who didn’t have Nike sneakers to take in the hike?”

“I thought I’d be with someone, but he split up with me. He wasn’t interested in the hike.”

“Ah, he.”

“Yes, he,” David said. There, that should be enough information for the big, beautiful man to decide whether he wanted to go deeper with this.

“You’re taking the pilgrimage trail because it’s religious?” Hugo asked.

“Not particularly,” David said.

“Ah, a fellow who is not deeply religious,” Hugo said. “Perhaps a man open to liberal thought and activity, and who likes to have pleasure. I agree that the hike is worth it because this is a lovely part of Spain. I have found the deeply religious men who take the trail aren’t that much fun to be with.”

“Or that liberal in what they find to be fun?” David asked, with a smile.

“Precisely. Do come in and tell me your choice . . . of drink.”

Was the pause querying whether David was a bottom or a top, David wondered. But first the drinks. He opted for beer and patiently waited at his table for Hugo to be free and to join him—for whatever. It had been some time since David had danced around the possibility of a casual hookup. He’d thought his casual hookup days were over. After his most recent unsatisfactory telephone conversation with Richard, though, he was feeling particularly available. He found it a bit exciting to be flirting like this—and with a beefy hunk of a man.

At Hugo’s summons, a waiter came out of the back of the café and took over the service of the other patrons, and after looking around to see that everyone was settled, Hugo took off his apron and came over and sat down at David’s table. He towered over both David and the table, a handsome, gregarious, bearded man, who looked like a wrestler or a rugby player, complete with a slightly offset nose. David thought the prospects were quite good that the man was a top. He brought a city map with him. “Now, what hotel are you staying in in Santiago?” he asked.

“The Hotel Praza Quintana.”

“Ah, a very good choice. Very close to the cathedral, which you’ll want to see. And not far from other sights too if you are interested in architecture. There’s the Palacio de Raxoi and the Monastery of San Martiño Pinario. And you can’t miss the Praza de Quintana—very near your hotel. All classical Spanish Renaissance buildings. None of it to be missed. You said you are traveling alone? You don’t have anyone to share the experience with?”

“I didn’t mean to be traveling alone to see it,” David said.

“But?”

“But, as I indicated, the man I was traveling with has left me—he’s gone to Portugal and then on to Barcelona.”

“You did say man,” Hugo said. “I just wish to be sure. I don’t want to embarrass myself in showing an interest.”

“Yes,” David said, simply. “We had been living together in New York. But it had gotten rocky.” He was finding this handsome bear of a man arousing. He saw no reason not to declare himself explicitly. There wasn’t anything to lose. The man had opened the discussion with him and seemed to have signaled. Either it would work out or it wouldn’t. He’d never see the man again after this, one way or the other. “But I don’t want to embarrass you if you don’t like to hear about men being with other men.”

“I very much like hearing about men being with other men,” Hugo said, with a grin. “You can’t go to Santiago in those sneakers, I think,” he added, not reacting further at that point to David’s admission that he was gay. “I may have a pair of hiking boots you can borrow.”

“I can’t hardly see how that can happen,” David said. “But thanks for the offer.”

“You’ll have to come back through here. I heard you tell those other hikers that you’d come from Arca and had left your car there.”

“That’s true. But you’re a big man. I think I’d be able to swim in your boots.”

“Do big men scare you?”

“No, they dazzle me.”

Hugo laughed. “They wouldn’t be my boots. They’d be Estavo’s.”

“Estavo?”

“Yes, he’s my guy. About your size. He’s off doing military duty.”

“Your guy?”

“I think you know what I mean. He goes under me. Here, I’ll go get the boots.” When he came back, they fit David. He was gone long enough for David to recall and figure out the “he goes under me” reference.

“They fit,” David said. And we’d fit, he thought to himself. “I could leave you some sort of surety that I’d bring them back.”

“I have a better idea,” Hugo said. “I’ll go with you to Santiago to keep an eye on them. You’ll see more of the city if I’m there. I know where everything is. I could guide you.”

“But where would you stay?”

“You said you have a hotel room. You could wear Estavo’s boots, if you gave me what Estavo gives me. If you will go under me. I have missed it. I pick him up in a couple of days. I could drive you back to Arca on my way to picking Estavo up at the military base.”

“And I could take Estavo’s boots off then?”

“I would hope you would take everything off for me. You are a sexy man and I have my needs. Or do you not want to talk about the bedroom? I said we would see to a drink before talking about the bedroom. You’ve had your drink. We talk about the bedroom now?”

“It’s getting dark,” David said. “You say you have rooms here. Do you have one for me?”

“The rooms are all taken, but there is my bed. I will let you in my bed, if you let me put my cock in you.”

That certainly gave David pause. The first bald word on the subject they’d both been dancing around. “You want to fuck me?”

“I want to put my cock in you—fuck you, yes. If you are agreeable to that, you will be my Estavo tonight—and tomorrow night in Santiago too, if tonight goes well. You can say no now, if you wish, and I will help find you another room for tonight.”

David didn’t say no.

That night went well, as did the next one in Santiago after they’d had a full day of walking the city and admiring the architecture. Hugo’s cock matched his size and his technique was both inventive and forceful. The coup de grâce—when Hugo fired off after various positions and edging out of them, giving David two ejaculations before Hugo gave his up—came with David kneeling on the bed, facing the headboard, and Hugo behind him, standing on the carpet, grasping David’s wrists, and pulling back on David’s arms as he power fucked David from behind. Hugo had been polite enough to ask how rough David would like it and David had answered that he wasn’t made of glass.

David enjoyed the two nights with Hugo, but he didn’t think he could take anything that forceful—or a cock that big—on a steady basis. It was just as well that he also got the distinct impression that Hugo and Estavo were a permanent couple and that, beyond that, Hugo wasn’t interested in anything more than a one- or two-night stand. David wasn’t getting any younger. He wanted something more than a one-night stand.

After Hugo and before leaving for Paris, though, all he got was a couple of one-night stands. And, although he was still hoping that Richard would come back to Puerto de Sanxenxo for a day or two, Richard didn’t.

In the Santiago hotel room, after an athletic fuck and Hugo complimenting David for how well he took it, Hugo said, “There are other parts of Galicia with architecture I’m sure you would enjoy seeing. You should go to—”

“I’m going to A Coruña,” David said. “I want to see the Tower of Hercules.” The tower, a lighthouse on the Bay of Biscay, was built by the Romans, which made it quite old, but the Galicians had a legend that it was even older than that—that it had been built by Celts, who, having been able to see Ireland from there, of course an impossible feat, had sent an expedition off from there to bring the Celtic culture to the Emerald Isle.

“I have a friend there who I think you might enjoy,” said Hugo. “I’m sure he would enjoy you. He will do it rough. He’s a guide at the tower. You’ll find something unusual about the guides.”

The guide indeed was happy to see David. He was nearly as big as Hugo was—in every way. And the surprise Hugo was referring to was that the guides at the Tower of Hercules wore kilts, claiming that they too were native to Galicia. And the man David was guided to kept to the tradition of wearing nothing under the kilt, which made it convenient when the two met, as the guide, having heard from Hugo that David was an easy and enjoyable lay, found a private spot in the park surrounding the tower to bang David in the bushes, requiring no more than a flip up of his kilt to be in fucking form—and then again that night in David’s hotel room and again the next morning.

David returned to his Puerto de Sanxenxo penthouse rental flat bowlegged and fully satisfied—content that he’d found another one-night stand rather than the makings of something more permanent. The day before he left for Paris, Richard never having come back, David was brave enough to let a hunky Spaniard showing off his muscles on Carabuxeira Beach to come back to the apartment and fuck his lights out.

It was all almost enough for him to forget Richard and the life he’d been trying to build with Richard—almost. If nothing else, he was back in the casual sex mode—and he had found that he still had “it”—some form of pheromones that brought good-looking tops sniffing around him.

* * * *

Richard was seated on the curvy Italian lounge chair, his feet on the floor on either side of the chair to provide leverage as he rocked on the small Filipina, fully transformed T-girl saddled on his cock, facing him, the heels of her small hands dug into his chest, and her long, ruby-red fingernails scratching at his pecs. His cock was buried up her surgically created snatch as, leaning back, her long, black hair swishing on her buttocks, she rose and fell on his shaft. His hands were alternating between grasping and squeezing her augmented, melon-sized breasts and doing the same with her plump buttocks cheeks.

The biggest surprise of Richard’s Barcelona visit to the Pista de Gel Skating Club to meet and interview the international figure skater Carlo Fuentes was not finding out that Fuentes was retiring from competition to take up coaching, a fact that deflated the effect of the ESPN interview Richard had been anxious to film for feature showing at the next Figure Skating Worlds that Fuentes now wouldn’t be attending as a competitor.

What surprised Richard more was that he wasn’t the only one fucking the Filipina T-girl in the Barcelona male brothel. Fuentes was there too, nestled in behind the Filipina T-girl, fucking her in the ass while Richard fucked her in the snatch. He was riding her from behind, his arms embracing her, and his hands on top of Richard’s, as Richard squeezed her melon breasts. Richard had shared a young man before with another, enjoying the rubbing of his dick against another man’s inside an anal passage, but this was the first time he’d done a fully transformed T-girl with another guy, his cock in the cunt and the other guy’s in the ass. He found he still could feel the other cock at work, and that gave him a thrill and a delicious little taste of the taboo.

The even greater surprise was to have found that Fuentes, a small, slim guy with effeminate flourishes when on the ice, wasn’t a submissive. Richard had assumed he was and had come to Barcelona to cover him as well as film him, but they’d shared a laugh when Fuentes clued him in that, though he had kinky sexual tastes and Richard was a sexy hunk and a half, he wasn’t going to bottom for the ESPN correspondent to get a sports feature.

“What sort of kink?” Richard had asked.

After drinks at a bar and drinks and dancing at a gay club, Fuentes had brought Richard to this gay male bordello to show him what a Filipina T-girl whore would do for two tops. Richard was beyond intrigued.

The fuck went into overdrive, with Richard lifting his pelvis off the surface of the lounger, grasping and spreading the Filipina’s plump little buttocks, moving his lips and teeth to the T-girl’s nipples, and stroking up into her hard and fast with his cock. Fuentes pistoned just as rapidly from behind, his hands going to cupping Richard’s head, and his face buried in the hollow of the whore’s throat. The T-girl, bouncing furiously on both cocks, buried her nails into Richard’s biceps, arched her back, threw her head back, and cried out to the ceiling, “¡Joder! ¡joder! ¡Dámelo!—Fuck! Fuck! Give it to me!” as the two men unloaded inside her.

Exhausted, exhilarated, and momentarily satisfied, Richard fell back into the lounge chair. The T-girl fell off to the side to huddle and pant on the carpet. Fuentes padded into the bathroom, showered, and then, with a salute to Richard after he’d dressed, left.

Their business was over. It had had a payoff for ESPN. The short film clip Richard did included Fuentes’s first declaration that he was retiring from skating and turning coach. Richard didn’t bother to regret that he hadn’t been able to top the lithe, effeminate little skater. Thanks to Fuentes, he’d collected a new sexual experience.

He thought for a few moments on how pleasurable this kinky experience had been. He was surprised, though, to have a sudden jab of regret. His sex with David was anything but kinky like this, but it had something else in it—something reassuring and perhaps more satisfying, a satisfaction that seemed to be enhanced with age. And he couldn’t think of this Filipina T-girl being home, fixing dinner or doing the laundry, when he came home. Of course, Filipinas were famous for being this domesticated, but Richard rather doubted this one followed that pattern.

Oh, well, he thought. No time now to be entertaining any such regrets about David. He was here, in a brothel, with a sexy T-girl, having a fuck session like he’d never had before. He rolled off the lounger, reached down, and picked the panting and moaning T-girl up; put her on her knees on the lounger; came in behind her, standing; put his reengorged cockhead in position; and, when it was lodged in her snatch, He reached around and cupped and squeezed her breasts in his hands.

“Oh, bebé, bebé. ¡Joder!—Oh, baby, baby! Fuck me!” the Filipina cried out. Thrusting up inside her cunt from behind and restarting the dance of the fuck inside her, he did just that.

Having a ball in Barcelona balling a T-girl bitch’s custom-made snatch.

* * * *

David was somewhat—but only somewhat—surprised to see a placard with his name on it being lifted and waved a bit by a tall, distinguished-looking slender man in his late forties or early fifties in the baggage reception area of Paris’s Orly Airport at the end of David’s flight from Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Ever since she’d learned of David’s breakup with Richard and that David was going to go ahead with his trip to Galicia and then Paris, Shelby Sands, editor-in-chief of the Architecture Record, had been working on setting David up with Bastien Baril, a professor at a new architectural graduate-degree university, teaching in English, the Paris School of Architecture.

“You must be sure to meet up with him in Paris,” she’d said. “He’s recently lost his younger partner and I think the two of you will have much in common.” Shelby had gone out of her way to show she was gay supportive. She’d even provided a venue for the two of them to meet. “He’s hosting a seminar on historical renovation near the end of when you said you’ll be in Paris. He also heads an architectural restoration firm in Paris. He has a project of transforming the historical Paris Peninsula Hotel into luxury flats while maintaining its historical visage, and I promised to send someone to do a magazine article on the project. You’d be the ideal writer for that assignment.”

“Ideal in more than one way?” David had asked teasingly to make sure Shelby understood that he saw what she was doing with matchmaking.

“Yes, in more ways than one,” she asked, meeting his challenge. “I don’t like to see you adrift. I think Bastien is an answer for that.”

David had only, indeed, caught her passing reference to Baril having recently lost a male lover, much like he had, but under different circumstances. The two weren’t the same. Baril’s lover apparently had died suddenly somehow, whereas Richard had just deserted David for greater sexual adventure.

Shelby had then pinned her matchmaking down even tighter. “The position of our Paris correspondent is open,” she said. “Take a look at it while you’re in Paris. You would be perfect for that job.”

“You’re just trying to get rid of me.”

“Not in the least. You’re a star. You should rise higher.”

“I take it that Bastien Baril is a good friend of yours,” David had said, dryly.

“A very good friend, yes,” she’d answered. “He has been despondent since his Gaston died. I’d really like to see him be his old self again. I’d like to see that for you too.”

She’d said that with a straight face, But David very well knew what she was up to. She showed him photos of Baril before he left on his trip and David had found him to be a very handsome man. He read up on the man’s background and was impressed. And now, through no intent on his part, he was unattached again. Thus, he was not rebelling against meeting with Baril—and whatever that might lead to—when he arrived in Paris. He was impressed that the man had come to the airport to meet his flight.

Introductions went smoothly, as did the explanation for why Baril had come to the airport himself to pick David up. David had assumed he’d have to find his one-bedroom vacation rental on the Rue du Poneau near Montorgueils and the Réaumur-Sébastopol Metro station himself. He’d already received a key to the place in the mail. He’d been to Paris before, but it had been with Richard, who had known his way around better than David had.

“I had to see someone else off at the airport, and I understand you might not know your way around well,” Baril said smoothly in only slightly accented English. “So, I decided to guide you into town myself and help you settle in your rental flat. I understand you wish to see the architecture of the city before my seminar starts at the end of the week, and I would be privileged to show you around. Shelby has told me what you’re interested in.”

The last was accompanied with a meaningful look. They melded well and covered a lot of ground in their backgrounds—the boating accident that had taken the life of Baril’s younger partner, Gaston, and how David and Richard had grown apart because David was ready for lifetime partner commitment and Richard wasn’t; their shared interest in Renaissance architecture; their shared knowledge that Shelby Sands was trying matchmake them, and even that they both liked to play handball for exercise. It was evident that Baril had researched David’s background—probably with help from Shelby—as much as David had researched Baril’s. They knew so much about each other and were so completely comfortable with each other that it didn’t seem like this was their first meeting.

David had wondered about Baril’s age, but he’d found the man to be beautiful; elegantly dressed and in movements; highly intellectual; tall, with a swimmer’s lithe muscularity; and melting when he touched David here and there in animated conversation over art and music or architecture or even male athletes and movie stars they both were aroused by. It hadn’t taken long for them to discuss these men in terms of arousal and to be comfortable doing so. They did not avoid talking about their sexuality or their preferences. Baril was a dominant top and David a submissive bottom.

“I don’t have to take pills to perform—yet,” Baril had said.

It was obvious to both that they were a perfect fit. There didn’t seem to be any misunderstanding about this meeting ending up in bed, trying each other out.

It was getting dark as they entered the city. “Would you like to stop for a drink before we find this flat you’re renting?” Baril asked.

The “we” did not escape David’s attention. “Yes, I would enjoy that.”

“A music bar perhaps? The La Boite?”

“Wherever you wish,” David said. He was demonstrating that he was a submissive and was most comfortable with a dominant. He could tell that Baril was used to setting the agenda and making the decisions, and David showed him he was comfortable with that. He wasn’t surprised that it was an intimate, sophisticated gay bar with muted, but excellent soft jazz music. The music didn’t compete with their conversation, which became more intimate and included more touching, and, before they left, a kiss and a slow dance. Baril comfortably settled into the role of the dominant, taking the initiative and making the decisions. This came out in how he touched and guided David.

“I will help with getting you settled in your flat, yes? It will help to have someone who speaks French and who knows the system here.”

“That would be wonderful.”

They both knew they weren’t talking just about getting the key to the rental flat.

“Are you going to let me in?” Bastien asked as they reached the door of the flat, “and I don’t just mean inside the flat. Have I read you correctly? Are you going to let me inside you?”

“Yes,” David murmured, almost breathlessly. “I can’t wait for it.”

Bastien fucked David, masterfully, on the bed, as darkness descended over the city beyond the uncurtained windows. They helped each other disrobe as they stood by the bed, kissing and fondling and frotting, both delighted in finding a beautiful body in the other man. Bastien was hung, emphasized by the long, sleek lines of his body. It was clear, as he had claimed, that he needed no assistance in attaining and maintaining a full erection. He put David on the bed, on his belly, and sank his face in the younger man’s crack, expertly eating the writhing and panting David out as David raised his tail a bit and Bastien moved a hand under David’s belly, grasped his cock, and stroked him.

When Bastien turned David onto his back, there were no defenses on offer. “Yes, yes, put it in. Fuck me,” David murmured. And, after several minutes stretched by and dominating David’s body, moving a hand between the younger man’s thighs and fingering his hole, moving ever deeper and working on opening him up, Bastien did so. Bastien took his time but was ever dominant, moving at his pace, playing David’s body like it was a valuable violin, treating the young man with respect but making quite clear that he was going to fully own and use his beautiful body.

He gently coaxed David’s legs to spread and bend, and the younger man to elevate his pelvis by leveraging his feet flat on the mattress. Moving between David’s legs, Bastien slid inside him, David moaning at the stretch of the possession despite having been fully opened by Bastien’s expert preparation, and lowered his lips to David’s to possess him both there and in the anal passage, immediately setting up a rhythm of the taking. The Frenchman lived up to the reputation of other Frenchman as master lovers.

The fuck would have been beautiful to watch—two perfectly formed bodies, each reflecting the height of development of their respective age groups, moving in divine harmony, fitting together perfectly in rhythm and movement as if they’d been making passionate, mutually satisfying love together all their lives.

The refinement only went so far, however. To move to the level of the fire of passion, before ejaculating, Bastien turned David over, put him on all fours, covered and mounted him from on top and behind and fucked him like a dog. After a long buildup in sophisticated preparation, there were just a few moments of vigorous, virile, sweaty fucking before they both released and collapsed on the bed.

David loved it all. Bastien was taking the command of him and showing a Daddy mastery that David had been longing to develop with Richard.

“I should clean up before we go to dinner,” David murmured an hour later in the dark room, lit only by the lights of Paris reflecting into the room. “You will go to dinner with me, won’t you?”

Bastien didn’t answer immediately. “I suggest you take a bath instead. They have a lovely free-standing old copper tub in the bathroom here.”

That’s what David did. He was in the bath, when Bastien came into the room, naked, erection in hand. He came close to the tub, close enough for David to take his erection in his mouth and service it. And, at last, he answered David’s question. “You will be my dinner. I’ve called for something to be brought to us—later.”

Proving he had a young man’s stamina and recovery power—possibly intent on proving to David in this first coupling session that he did—Bastien entered the tub, putting his back to the opposite side from where David was leaning. He wasted no time in pulling David into him, sitting on and skewered by his erection, facing him. Bastien grasped the younger man’s waist between his hands and raised and lowered David’s passage on his cock. Before he was finished, he turned David to where he was bent over the edge of the copper tub, arms and torso dangling toward the tiled floor, and Bastien was crouched over him from behind, mounted on his ass, and, once more, completed the fuck with primeval, animalistic vigor and passion.

“Have I satisfied you?” Bastien asked afterward, showing a bit of concern. “The age difference . . . I don’t want you to think I can’t—”

“You were perfect,” David assured him. And he didn’t have to lie to say that. Yes, the man had fully satisfied him.

They dried each other off, found that the building concierge had gotten a meal delivered to the flat while they’d been in the tub, and they ate with gusto and comfortable conversation. Afterward they stood at the glass door to the terrace, still naked, for a bit, drinking wine. Bastien was in erection again, though, and he carried David to the bed, as a bride, and fucked him again and again through the night.

In the morning, when they awoke, Bastien suggested a game of handball after breakfast and before going on an architectural style crawl in the city.

“I’m not sure I can even crawl out of this bed,” David murmured.

“I’m sorry. Have I been too demanding?”

“Certainly not.”

“Perhaps it’s because I am French. But perhaps also it’s because you are so irresistible.”

David laughed.

“But not going for handball just yet is fine with me,” Bastien said. “I want to ball you again right here. Open your legs to me.”

“Yes, Daddy,” David responded.

The older man rolled over on top of the younger man, who found the older man in full erection again. Bastien Baril fucked David again in the missionary position, both of them making up for the time recently that they’d been without their regular lover.

David was completely undone by Bastien’s technique of an elegant preparation and a wild finish.

Embarrassed that he was doing so, David did check the medicine cabinet in the bathroom afterward for evidence that Bastien might have needed enhancement pills for that stellar performance, but he found none. He made a mental note to send Shelby a thank-you note, and maybe a bouquet of flowers.

* * * *

Richard was crouched over the spread legs of the twenty-four-year-old Spanish tennis player, Antonio Moreno, grasping the young man’s ankles and rowing his legs to the rhythm of the thrusts of his cock. They were in a private dressing room in the La Caja Mágica—The Magic Box—arena in Madrid, where, twenty minutes earlier, Richard Stern, the sports commentator for ESPN, had concluded a film clip interview of the young, up-and-coming Spanish tennis player. Moreno had been making eyes at Richard throughout, assuring the ESPN commentator not only that Moreno was gay but also that he had been sending out signals he would be submissive to Richard.

He was being submissive to Richard now. He was lying on his back, his back arched, the palms of his hands pressed into Richard’s pecs, Richard’s shirt flapping open, and the young tennis player moving his pelvis in countermotion to the ESPN’s rhythmic thrusts. Other than that, though, Moreno wasn’t contributing anything to the fuck. He was lying there, docilely, letting Richard fuck him, but not giving anything back.

Richard hadn’t been sure the sex was going to happen. He’d gotten messages from various quarters that Moreno thought he was sexy. They’d gotten it on at a party in Melbourne, Australia, four years earlier, but that had been more of a group thing with a lot of booze and drugs after Moreno had lost in the first round at the Australian Open. There had been sex between them, but several other guys had been having sex with them at the same time. The young player hadn’t lost in the first round of a tournament since then and they hadn’t hooked up on a more one-on-one basis. Richard didn’t think that Moreno would remember Melbourne. The guy had been doped up. Everyone topped him there. He probably couldn’t pick Richard’s cock out of all of the rest he’d had.

The hints Moreno wanted him was what had caused Richard to set up the ESPN interview. The signals once they had met in Madrid, at The Magic Box arena, had been mixed. Moreno had come on to him, but there had been a reserve, even a bit of hostility there. What Richard came to think was that Moreno had developed an interest in rough sex, sex out of anger and hostility. Thus, he wasn’t surprised when the tennis player suggested that they go clubbing after sharing a dinner and the clubs he named were all leather bars and clubs. Madrid had a large and kinky offering of gay lifestyle.

That was offered as a plan, though, after they’d gone to the locker room in the arena and to one of its private changing rooms and Moreno had lain down on his back on the bench in front of the locker and spread his legs for Richard. Of course Richard hadn’t turned down the offer.

It was almost like Moreno was testing Richard to see how deep into kinky fetish he wanted to go as they made their progression through gay bars and clubs from the merely tolerant of same-sex couples, through transvestite clubs, and into leather underground when they reached The Meat Rack, on Calle Montserrat, not that far from Richard’s Chueco gay district hotel, the Axel Hotel, on Atocha. The Meat Rack was a members-only leather and anything goes club in what had once been an underground parking garage. Now it was a maze of smoke-filled bars, dance floors, performance stages, sauna, indoor swimming pool, of noise, testosterone, leather, nakedness, and openly performed sex in underground activity considerably different from parking cars.

Moreno was either a member or had managed passes, and he had friends there or guys who had coordinated with him on how the evening would go. He and Richard wound up in a club room with Turkish décor, strobe lights, pole dancers, dance-floor writhing, flowing liquor, loud music, drugs, and a swirling crowd of muscular young men barely outfitted in leather, their boots, leatherman flat-cap berets, vests, and occasional leather cock pouch providing the most cover.

Richard and Moreno were already three sheets to the wind on liquor when they entered the room. Moreno maneuvered them to a couch in an alcove separated off from the room by beaded curtains that provided psychological separation only. They were very much a part of the hedonist sex going on in the room. A dancer came off the pole and came to where Moreno and Richard were slouched side by side on the sofa, fondling each other. The men had come in clothed, but, while working each other’s bodies, they were down to their briefs. Moreno embraced Richard’s torso and kissed and fed him drugs while the small Moroccan dancer gave Richard a lap dance. Sometime in the process, Richard lost his briefs and the dancer lost his thong and was bouncing up and down on Richard’s cock as Richard grasped the young man’s narrow waist between his hands.

Richard was going to near—but not beyond—the edge of consciousness from the drugs Moreno was feeding him, when the tennis player leaned over and whispered in his ear, “Remember Melbourne, four years ago?” he whispered. “I would have gone with you anywhere. But where you took me was into the lion’s den. You lay there beside me, letting guys gangbang me. And you joined in. I wanted you—and I wanted to be with you. But you treated me like a piece of meat. Well, Richard, welcome to The Meat Rack.”

Richard was semiconscious, aware of everything happening, powerless to stop it, as the pole dancer disappeared and, when Moreno signaled, three burly leathermen appeared. For the next hour, they went round robin with both Richard and Moreno, fucking them both, side by side on the leather sofa while the night life of The Meat Rack swirled around them. Richard was versatile, although he hadn’t been active as a bottom for several years, so he wasn’t devastated by the activity and could get a level of pleasure out of a tag-team of muscular leather guys crouching between his spread and raised legs and fucking him vigorously. But, as Moreno intended, he was somewhat disappointed that Moreno and whatever man he had on top of him at the time were having an explosive, give-and-take maximum pleasure fuck, while the drugs he’d been given kept Richard just docilely lying there taking whatever his sex partner of the moment was giving him.

As he was blacking out for the time in the club, he had a huge Turk inside him, reaching climax, while Moreno was beside him, a leatherman under him and one on top of him, doing him in a double penetration, and Moreno yodeling his pleasure to the silk-draped ceiling of the alcove.

Moreno was clearly having more of a sexual high than Richard was and Richard had been reminded several times by the tennis player that they could be this good together if Richard had only given Moreno more regard in Melbourne than just being a piece of meat. This made Richard think beyond the tennis player. It made him think of when he’d been in a relationship with David Danforth and how he hadn’t given that all of his effort. He was getting older. This was fun—trips like this to sexual hell—but less and less this was a need he had. Moreno was teaching him a lesson.

When he woke next, he was in his hotel bed, a hunk lying and snoring on either side of him. He had no idea if these were the same leather guys Moreno had given him to the previous night. Moreno was there. Richard had a splitting headache, he had to piss, and his anal canal was loose and sore. He rolled over the guy closest to the bathroom door, and escaped to the can. When he returned, he thought the two muscular, naked hunks were still asleep, but not so. The one nearest him lashed out with a strong hand, grasped his wrist, and pulled him back onto the bed—and onto the erection of the other guy, who was on his back and who grasped his hands around Richard’s waist and put him on the cock facing him.

He bounced a writhing and moaning, only half awake, headache-racked Richard on his buried cock for a few minutes before the other hunk swung his legs over the first one’s from behind Richard, pushed Richard’s chest down on that of Hunk Number One, and put his erection in place at Richard’s already-breached hole.

“Guys, um guys. Not now. I’ve got a splitting headache. Guys! Oh, fuck. Oh, Shit! FUCK!”

Mounted on Richard’s ass from behind, Hunk Number Two entered him with a thick, hard cock, pushing in on top of Hunk Number One’s buried shaft, and the two began working him together.

Welcome to Madrid.

Moreno no long was in the room. Where the fuck had Moreno gone?

* * * *

When David Danforth arrived at the building his Paris vacation flat was in, he found his former partner, Richard Stern, sitting on the front steps.

“Richard. I thought you weren’t coming to Paris.”

“I’ve been waiting here for some time,” Richard said. His suitcase was standing beside him. “I knew the address but I didn’t know what rental company it was. I assumed you’d be here to let me in.”

“You assumed I’d stay at the flat the whole time in Paris just hoping you would change your mind and come here to resume our vacation?” The inference was a challenge that Richard might be wanting to resume more than the vacation together. David worked hard to keep the tone a bantering one. He didn’t, in his wildest dreams, think Richard would show up here. In fact, within just the last couple of days he’d stopped thinking about Richard at all.

“I’ve been thinking—”

“I just stopped by to pick up a few things here. I’ve made other living arrangements in Paris. I was going to cancel out on the flat—pay the penalty—and just let it go. But if you’ll be vacationing here now, I can give you the key.”

“Stay here alone? We had two more weeks here in Paris, didn’t we?”

“Yes, alone. As I said, I have other arrangements here in Paris now—something I’m happy with, Richard.” Just keep it pleasant, David kept telling himself.

Richard couldn’t avoid hearing that “the breaking up is done” tone to that, though. It hit him hard. He’d thought David would swoon into his arms at any indication of the two of them getting back together.

After a pause to regather himself, he said, “No, thanks. I’m not much in a vacationing mood anymore. I think I’ll just go to the airport and get the next available flight back to New York.” He paused to give David an opportunity to ask him to stay. When that didn’t come, he said, “When might I expect you back in New York? And what arrangements might we make with the apartment there? Maybe we could just resume—”

“I’ve let the apartment go, Richard. I have it until the end of September. I’m arranging for the office to clear it out and ship my stuff here. I’ve accepted the Architectural Record position here in Paris. I’m sure I told you there was a position here on offer. I’m staying in Paris. Oh, and I’ve found someone here.”

Another pause, with Richard looking down the street so that David couldn’t see the shock in his face. “Oh, well, that’s good news. I’m happy for you.”

And in time maybe Richard would be happy for David and, with time to think about it, maybe he’d take the time to think about what he really wanted with another man—maybe even a relationship like David had been saying he wanted. He really couldn’t say anything at this point, although he’d come to Paris to try to rekindle what he and David had had. Breaking up had been his idea, his initiation. He couldn’t deny that—he just had found out the breaking up was harder to do than he had thought it would be.

And bringing up was proving to be less hard for David than Richard thought it would be.