In His Own Time

“Cam, come over here and meet our guest. Jordan, this is—or was—my prize pupil, Cameron Williams. He likes to be called Cam. He now provides private lessons for some of our students—both piano and voice. He’s truly gifted. Oh, there are the Thompsons at the door. I’ll have to greet them. I’ll leave the two of you to chat. Jazz, it’s all about Jazz. All that jazz.” Hannah Brandt laughed a deep-throated laugh, turned, and hauled her zaftig, floral caftan-clad body off in a cloud of perfume.

It was fairly obvious to both men that she was throwing them together.

Cam stood there, left alone with the visiting conductor from Philadelphia, fully suspecting that this was one of Hannah’s setups. She was always trying to help Cam move along in his goal to become a premier jazz musician and composer—and, knowing he was gay, she was equally intent on finding him a sugar daddy to promote his professional goals and personal needs. Seeing Jordan Smallwood in person and up close now, and the way in which Hannah had thrown the two together, caused Cam’s antenna to go up. Hannah, his former high school music teacher, was the department head for music at Baltimore’s School for the Arts, the city’s special performing arts high school.

Jordan Smallwood was a tall, elegantly dressed, and commanding-presence man who probably was in his early fifties. He had a probably cultivated air of English don about him. He was dressed for the part of the conductor of Philadelphia’s Jazz Orchestra—in flamboyant style, with elegant black silk shirt and trousers and a red-silk-lined black cape. He sported a wavy mane of gray hair and a classically handsome face that bordered on the effete and handled a gold-headed walking cane more as a theatrical prop than a walking aid. He was slender and held his body in the manner of a runway model. It was clear to Cam that the man was gay, but he carried it off with an air of authority—the most interesting man in the room. He’d still be the most interesting man in the room if this wasn’t just a reception at Hannah’s apartment for her students after Smallwood had given a lecture in conducting jazz at the high school.

Cam, a half black Baltimore inner city youth of nineteen, had attended the performing arts school on a gifted student scholarship. Hannah Brandt had seen his extraordinary talent in both piano and voice and had taken him under her wing. He was out of high school now and working part time in the piano bar of a gay-friendly hotel near Patterson Park as well as giving private lessons to students Brandt sent his way. She wanted to get him into a good music college and Cam wanted that too. That was going to take time and effort, though. Cam didn’t want to be beholden to anyone. He wanted to do it on his own, in his own time. He was determined that a young man with one foot in the Baltimore black ghetto and the other in the high, white society of the DuPonts in Wilmington, Delaware, could make it in the music world on his own efforts.

“Hannah tells me she’s trying to sell you the idea of going to the University of Arts in Philadelphia for a BA and Master’s in music,” Smallwood said after Brandt had wafted off. “It’s a good school. Your jazz piano performance at the school today was phenomenal. I have no doubt you could get in. She’s asked me if I could help you get a scholarship there. I was skeptical until I heard you play and sing today. You have a natural talent for jazz. I’m sure we could get you in.”

“We?” Cam asked.

“Well, you know I conduct the Philadelphia Jazz Orchestra.”

“Yes, I know,” Cam said.

“I teach at the University of the Arts too.”

“I have work here in Baltimore. Philadelphia is an hour and a half away, and I don’t have a car. I’d like to go to the Philly arts university, but—”

“You could move to Philadelphia. Hannah says you have students here. You could do that in Philadelphia as well—and I understand you play in a piano bar. We have piano bars in Philadelphia. And I could give you work in the jazz orchestra.”

The man sounded serious in his proposal. Cam was infused with a glimmer of hope, but he’d been disappointed relying on others before. He knew he should feel elated at the possibilities being raised here, but the response he was getting from his body was more one of going on guard and throwing up defenses against false hope. He’d been raised in the Baltimore ghetto with a few heart-breaking visits to the manicured lawns of Wilmington, where he and his mother were received as relatives of one of the house servants, even by his natural father.

Smallwood had a hand on Cam’s arm and the look he was giving Cam indicated that his interest in the young man went beyond music. Cam was a handsome young black man. He wasn’t tall, but he was solidly built—muscular and movie star handsome, the Jamaican black features melding with French ancestry providing a sensual mix. He was a chocolate brown, with full lips and velvety brown eyes. His dreadlocks, tipped with gold beads, made his exotic looks extremely attractive to women and some men as well—men like Jordan Smallwood.

“Did Hannah tell you that I conduct a jazz orchestra in New York City too—the Queer Urban Orchestra?” Smallwood asked. He was stroking Cam’s arm and had pulled in close to him. “I hope the name doesn’t shock you.”

“No, not at all,” Cam answered. Was this some sort of check on his preferences, he wondered. Surely Hannah had fully explained his orientation to the man—especially if she was trying to hook them up. Smallwood’s orientation was quite obvious.

A head taller than Cam, the man was looking down into Cam’s face, hovering over him, asserting a stance of control and intent that was not to be questioned. Cam shuddered, which Smallwood no doubt felt. He didn’t pull away from the conductor, though—which Smallwood also was clearly aware of.

Hannah Brandt surely had told Smallwood more about her prize student and his needs than just about his musical abilities. Cam wasn’t promiscuous, but immediately after graduating from the performing arts high school, he had taken up with one of Brandt’s male teaching colleagues, a man in his fifties. The affair hadn’t lasted long, but Brandt had been well aware of it and not only that Cam would go with an older—and white—man but also that having a mature male lover had served to focus Cam better on his music. Since Cam and Roger had broken up, she had been on a campaign to settle Cam down again with an older man—preferably a rich one. And one from the music world. Hannah knew Cam wouldn’t be interested in a man who didn’t understand and appreciate good music.

“New York?” Cam asked.

“Yes. There are even better music colleges there I’m sure you could get into—with a scholarship,” Smallwood said. “We’ll have to talk more about the possibilities.”

At that point, Hannah returned to them. “Jordan’s staying at the Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel for a couple of nights, Cam. I could call him a taxi, but it’s such a nice night out, and it’s on your way back to the Patterson Park area. Perhaps you could walk him to his hotel on your way.”

“I suppose I could,” Cam said, fully realizing what Hannah was up to here, but having no idea if Smallwood was of the same mind. The man didn’t seem to be the walk-on-the-city-streets type. He was more of the hired limousine variety.

But Smallwood quickly indicated he was interested in taking a walk with Cam. “We could have a drink in the bar there and discuss possibilities,” Smallwood said.

“I’m not old enough to drink in a bar,” Cam said.

“You look old enough. And you work in a bar. I’m sure it will be fine.” Smallwood touched Cam on the arm again with long, sensuous fingers and added, “You’ll be with me,” which seemed to convey more than just access to an alcoholic drink. “We could talk more about the music opportunities in Philadelphia, and I’d really like you to have a drink with me.”

That was sort of silly, Cam knew. They were at a party. Drinks were being served here. “Well, sure, if you’d like that,” he answered. He found he wanted to go with the man—and for more than a discussion of music or his training possibilities.

Hannah Brandt stood at her living room window, sounds of a successful party swirling around her. She’d lost interest in the party, though. The reason she’d had it was gone now. For her, success was reflected more in the two men leaving the apartment building, one tall, white, and middle-aged, elegantly dressed, and the other, young, black, achingly beautiful, dreadlocks gently swaying as he moved, the gold tips picking up light coming off the building’s security camera. She sighed when she saw the older man put his arm through the younger one’s and guide him down the sidewalk. She would love it if she could have Cam Williams for herself, but she knew that wasn’t in the young man’s nature. Success to her was matching him up with someone like Jordan Smallwood who would appreciate the young man’s talent and help it to blossom. She wasn’t naïve. She knew there would be a price to be paid for that.

* * * *

Smallwood was masterful and experienced, and his expertise in bed belied his effete persona in public. He controlled from the bottom. He initiated the kissing and the fondling in his hotel room—and the slow peeling off of clothes. From the beginning, Cam realized that he was in the hands of a master. Smallwood was the first to take the cock of the other in his mouth, and he was the one to maneuver Cam onto his back on the bed and to mount the young man’s loins, impale himself on Cam’s cock, take the shaft deep, and ride the young man in a cowboy position. He did so with the fluid motions of a professional dancer. There was no question who was in control.

When Cam was inflamed enough and comfortable enough with the fuck that he wanted to be more assertive, Smallwood rolled onto his back, taking Cam with him and let the young man ride him in a missionary. But even then the older man was controlling the fuck and was ensuring that they both got a maximum of pleasure from the copulation. His hips were as vigorously into the rocking motion of the ultimate sexual connection as were Cam’s. His channel muscles were expert in grabbing and rippling over the cock and in pulling it in—and, when the time came, in milking it.

He crossed his legs on the small of the back of the perfectly formed milk chocolate youth to hold him in place, Cam’s cock deep up inside Smallwood’s channel, and alternated between digging his fingers in the young man’s shoulder blades, gliding his fingernails down the well-muscled shuddering back, and clutching and squeezing Cam’s buttocks cheeks, as the young man buried his face in the older man’s throat and rode him hard. Smallwood rode him back, putting his hips into motion and working in complete harmony with the thrusts and withdrawals of the thick shaft. They became one smoothly moving, synchronized fucking machine, both taking maximum pleasure from the thrusting rod. But it was Smallwood who was milking Cam.

Cam had never been so expertly and totally fucked and drained before. He truly was in the hands of a master. None of the johns Cam went with in his job at the hotel have ever worked and drained him like this.

It was Cam’s cock that was inside Smallwood’s channel, but it was highly questionable who was fucking who. They barebacked. They moved so quickly and smoothly into the clutches and then into the fuck that wearing protection hadn’t had time to be raised. When Cam arched his back and cried out in a series of off-beat thrusts and releases of cum, Smallwood didn’t let him withdraw.

“Holy shit!” Smallwood exclaimed, clutching the younger man tightly, arching his back, and rocking against Cam’s groin as the black stud released his cum in several deep thrusts and jerking flows. “Fuck! Oh, shit!” the older man cried out. “Hit me again!” And Cam did—again and again, young, virile, fit, the muscles of Smallwood’s channel milking and draining the shaft. Cam’s senses soared to the heights. He’d never barebacked a man before, and he was riding on the clouds from the response of the fuck master that Smallwood was.

Smallwood rolled them again, putting Cam on his back, keeping the young man inside him, letting him go flaccid but sticking with him, massaging his pecs and bending down and sucking on the young man’s nipples as Cam hardened again and then riding Cam’s cock to another ejaculation from the virile young black stud. At the end, Cam just held there, rigid, moaning, every nerve concentrating on Smallwood’s marshaling of the muscles of his channel walls to caress, ripple over, and milk every last drop of cum out of the young man’s cock. It was Smallwood taking all he wanted from Cam as long as to.

Smallwood was such a master of this that he was able to time their ejaculations this time—his first—to go off simultaneously, and it was like a fireworks display for both of them.

They lay there, side by side, Cam in Smallwood’s arms, both of them working to calm their breathing, both of them aware that they still were trying to come into synch with each other, they still were working as one.

Smallwood had done this many times before. To Cam, this coming together was new. It was a revelation to him that this could be done—that two men could spiral up into heaven together like this—that the other man could control and manipulate him as well as Smallwood could and did—to use him completely. This fuck Cam would remember.

Without realizing that was what he was doing, Jordan Smallwood was the one to break the mood. “I want you to come to Philadelphia with me. I can get you into the University of the Arts there.”

He had no idea how fixated Cam was on “I want to do this myself—in my own time.” His words were a mood breaker. He thought that in completely conquering and possessing the young man’s body as he had done, he now owned every aspect of Cam. He didn’t.

“I haven’t thought of that as an option,” Cam said. “It would be moving too fast for me.”

Smallwood didn’t zero in on where Cam was on this. He wasn’t saying “no,” but that’s what Smallwood seemed to have heard. “You have talent. I want to polish that and make it all it can be. Come to Philadelphia. You can live with me. I’ll get you a job as well as get you into the music college. We’ll—”

“The sex was that good?” Cam asked. He was, in fact, surprised that it was that good for Smallwood. The man was such an expert at the fuck and Cam obviously inexperienced in that department, that surely, Cam thought, this hadn’t been the glorious experience for Smallwood that it had been for him.

“Excuse me?”

“You want me to come to Philadelphia and be your sex toy in training—to wear a collar maybe, and have you put me through my paces every evening?” He didn’t say it angrily. The sex had been phenomenal for him. If Smallwood wasn’t putting the rush on him, Cam would be thinking of possibilities himself and of moving to Philadelphia. “You’ve had me now. You know now I am out of your league in this. You don’t want to just move on to the next young guy with little experience in this?”

“The sex was great—among the best I’ve ever had,” Smallwood said. “But that’s beside the point. It’s your talent that is important. I’d like to have you near me—in my bed—yes, but the part of the music college and the honing of your talent—that’s because you have talent—phenomenal talent. I work with people with talent every day. Yours is a standout among the others.”

“It’s something to think about,” Cam said. He couldn’t fail to appreciate what the man was saying; it wasn’t only to get into Cam’s pants. The man had gotten into Cam’s pants and taken whatever he wanted. And Cam knew he’d let Smallwood take him again whenever the man wanted to. Indeed, the man had regained an erection and his gliding hands on Cam’s body were bringing the young black man into season again.

Cam’s response, as his breathing became labored again and he arched his pelvis up into Smallwood’s stroking hand wasn’t a “no,” but Smallwood was not used to his young men failing to jump at the opportunities he provided—and, no, Cam wasn’t the first Smallwood would take under his wing and develop both professionally and sexually.

They fucked again, and this time, with Smallwood sitting in Cam’s lap and on the young man’s folded legs, facing him, and Cam arched back, supporting himself with hands dug in the mattress behind him and the older man encasing his waist with an arm as Smallwood languidly rocked on Cam’s buried cock, bringing them both to the brink of send-up and then backing off, only to climb the mountain of release again. At Smallwood’s manipulation, the shared release was dynamite. The pleasure for them both was as glorious as the previous couplings had been.

They had fucked for over an hour. The younger of the two was exhausted. Smallwood gave the impression he could have worked Cam’s body like this for another hour and a half without breaking a sweat.

“Well, I have to take a pee. I’ll shower while I’m in there,” Smallwood said after he’d ensured they came together again. He rolled to the side the bed and stood, letting Cam collapse back on the bed with a deep sigh of satisfaction. He reached down for his trousers and took his wallet out of a pocket. “We’ll talk when I come out. Then you can get cleaned up too. You can stay the night here. I’d like that.” He extracted an address card and several fifty-dollar bills, folded the banknotes, and dropped them on a dresser. “Here’s something for you. I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage of you.”

There was, of course, no question that Smallwood had taken advantage of Cam—or that he had given Cam a masterclass in one man fully fucking another man. Cam fucked men, but none had given him the attention and drawn out the fuck like Smallwood had done. He made it an art, not just a physical act.

Smallwood’s seduction technique had worked with young men before, but, once again, Cam wasn’t other young men. When Smallwood came out of the bathroom, the room was empty—and the wad of money was still on the dresser. Smallwood was encouraged to see, though, that the young man had taken his address card.

* * * *

Lost in the moment, Cam Williams was pounding out the keys on the baby grand in the bar of the Harris Hotel on Baltimore’s Foster Avenue. The tune was a complicated, rambunctious one, the “Yardbird Suite.” He wouldn’t have played a jazz classic like this for the bar patrons, except there weren’t any bar patrons there at the moment, this being the 1:00 a.m. dead time near the end of his shift. When there were men in the bar—almost always men, as this was a gay male boutique hotel between Baltimore Harbor and Patterson Park, the center of the city’s gay district—he kept to light jazz tunes and what Cole Porter would play and Nat King Cole would sing. Cam’s voice was reminiscent of Nat King Cole’s—rich, subdued, smooth, and soothing, like languidly pulled taffy. Even then, the men usually were so engrossed in each other that he was akin to elevator music in maintaining their attention.

Sometimes, though, Cam was the most attractive young man in the bar of an evening, and a man staying at the hotel, but not staying here with anyone or not having found anyone to bring back to the hotel, would end his day in the bar, sitting near the piano, and giving Cam his undivided attention. Cam had a bowl set out on the piano’s sounding board, where men dropped tips, sometimes substantial ones.

This was the time of night when a man who had been paying close attention to Cam might even drop a copy of his room key. The Harris Hotel was both discreet and accommodating. Cam had been hired to be one of those accommodations. Even the single-registered male guests received two key cards for their rooms at check-in, and although there was a security man on duty monitoring everyone entering the lobby, it was quite clear that he exercised no memory retention, and the elevator doors were not in the line of sight of the reception desk. The nearby Patterson Park was teeming with young men willing to be brought back to the hotel, and the hotel itself provided opportunities for guests seeking company. Guests were subtly made aware of this at check-in. “You need only tell the room boy if he or we can provide you special services.”

As he was bringing the “Yardbird Suite” to one of several available conclusions on this night, Cam sensed more than saw that someone had entered the bar. He heard the man order a Black Russian from the barman and say to send a drink of choice over to the piano player as well.

“One Black Russian and a scotch rocks,” the barman said. Cam knew his drink, his drink of choice being preordained in this bar, would be more rocks than scotch, but he didn’t mind. Any drink was better than none. And he couldn’t legally drink booze in a bar anyway.

Drinks delivered, the man took a seat close to the piano, where he could see Cam’s face while the young man played and Cam could see him too. He was dressed as a business man—expensively, but not flashily. He was maybe in his forties, good looking, dark haired, a Mediterranean look about him. He was solid, slightly stocky, but he looked like he had taken care of his body and hadn’t gone to fat. He was sitting on a stool near the far curve of the piano, and while Cam played, the patron’s fingers kept time to the music by strumming the ebony shine on the edge of the piano. He made sure that Cam could see his long, sensuous fingers. He knew his music, keeping perfect time to whatever Cam played. He listened with his eyes at least half closed and a slight smile on his lips, which marked him as a musical connoisseur and not just an attempted maker of piano players.

When the man had entered, Cam switched to Nat King Cole—”Begin the Beguine”—and softly sang along with it. He didn’t abandon serious jazz completely, though. He then played and sang “Orange Colored Sky.” When he finished, he paused, taking a swig of his weak scotch, saluting the newly arrived guest with it, and said, “Thanks for the drink.” His speaking voice was as smooth and rich as his singing voice.

“That was nice,” the man said. “A Nat King Cole song, right? You sound like him. Very smooth.”

“Thanks,” Cam repeated.

“But as good as your singing is, it doesn’t compare with your piano work.”

“Thanks again,” Cam said, showing his appreciation that the man went to what Cam valued most by raising his glass in salute. The man wasn’t just good looking, he was giving Cam the strokes the young man craved. A chill went up Cam’s spine at the image of those sensuous fingers of the man’s gliding across Cam’s naked body. If this was his seduction method, Cam was right with him.

“Do you take requests?” the patron asked.

“For music?” Cam asked, giving the man a pointed look.

“Yes . . . for now.”

“Sure, if I know them. And it doesn’t look like there’s anyone else here who might not like the selection. Harry, at the bar, is tone deaf.” He saluted Harry at the bar, who smiled and flipped him the bird.

“Maybe something a little more complex. I’ve heard you are a master of jazz. You have any versions of ‘Lullaby of Birdland,’ or, more classic, ‘Footprints’ or the ‘Green Dolphin Street’?”

Cam gave the man a searching look. “You really do seem to know your music.”

The man shrugged. “It’s my profession. And sometimes it comes in handy when you want to get the attention of a handsome young musician.”

“Just to get his attention?”

The man laughed. “Well, when you are trying to make him.”

So, the man getting down to what he really wanted from a young man in a gay bar, Cam thought. Well, that’s what Cam was here for. As important as the piano work was for Cam, it was just a front come-on for the hotel. Paid sex was where the bigger bucks of the job were. “You’ve heard I played jazz?” he asked, focusing his attention more directly on the guest and steering the discussion back to the music. It was pretty clear that the hookup was settled, if that’s what the patron wanted.

“Yes. I came to hear you because I’d heard you’re the best in Baltimore with jazz on the piano.”

“You want to hear my version of one of those or all of them?”

“Just keep them coming until your shift is over. I’ll stop you if I get bored. From what I’ve heard, I won’t get bored.”

“You have the time to stay until the end of my shift?” Cam asked. Another check on whether the man’s intention was to book Cam for after his work here was done.

“Absolutely.”

“And after my shift is over?”

The man reached over and touched Cam on the forearm. “Absolutely.”

“You got it,” Cam said. He was coming alive. Usually he was winding down at this point in his evening shift in the hotel bar. Often he was thinking more of what he had to do the next day—practice or teaching pupils—he almost never had a bar patron ask him to play anything of consequence in the world of jazz. He did, however, often have a patron stay to the end of his shift with the wish to take Cam upstairs to his room. Cam kept the money he earned from this aspect of the job separate from his living expenses account. This was his further musical education money.

And tonight his “after shift” income appeared to have been settled.

He played for a half hour, stopping only when a party of four, dragging in for one last snort before calling it a day, entered the bar and gave their drink orders to the bartender.

The man, who had been drumming the edge of the piano in synch with the music, his eyes closed, his body swaying gently to the beat, a smile on his face, opened his eyes and saw that they no longer were alone in the bar.

“That was all I’d been told it would be,” he said. “You should cut a demo and get it shopped around.”

“You think so?” Cam asked. “I have to say that you certainly do know your music.” It was refreshing for a john to take the route to getting Cam in bed that ran through discerning music.

“Yeah, I do. As I said, I’m in the business. I’m interested in you.” He stood and pulled his wallet out.

“Oh, please, I enjoyed playing for someone who knows and appreciates true jazz,” Cam said. “Please, put your wallet away for the musical part of this. It was my pleasure.”

“Oh, this isn’t for the music. I’m interested in you more than for your music. I’m pretty sure you have understood this. Playing jazz isn’t all I hear you’ll do,” the man said. “My name is Sol—short for Solomon. Room 314.” He took a key card out of his wallet, along with a small wad of cash, dropped them in the bowl on the piano that was there precisely for this use, smiled at Cam, and turned and left the bar. “I’ll make it well worth you while financially, and I think you’ll enjoy it as well. I intend to.”

So, it wasn’t just the music, Cam thought, as he swung into playing and singing Nat King Cole’s “Embraceable You.” Two of the party of four clapped when he started, recognizing the tune, but then they returned to trying to make each other.

His shift over, Cam went to the bank of elevators and, when a car arrived, he pushed the button for the third floor.

* * * *

It was all natural the way it worked out when Cam got to the man’s hotel room. His name wasn’t really Sol. That had been a “getting the lad to the hotel room without a trace if it didn’t go well” maneuver. He was checked into the hotel as Sol, with fake ID he carried for this purpose. His actual name was Charles Hanson, although Cam didn’t know that until after they’d had sex and agreed they wanted to have sex again. And he really was a music producer, and he had been afraid that Cam would recognize his real name and remember it if they didn’t click sexually. There was no question that the man expected and was paying for sex, though, and Cam had been so mellowed out that the guy had wanted to hear Cam play jazz—the jazz that Cam lived to play on the piano, not the Nat King Cole honey-toned singing that most in the bar wanted to hear in front of whatever Cam was doing on the piano behind his singing—that he was in the mood for sex himself. And maybe the man was a bit stocky, but he was quite good enough for Cam’s mood.

What surprised Cam was that Hanson seemed to know from the top that Cam was the top in this particular coupling. That usually had to be worked out in fits and starts with men who dropped their key cards and a wad of cash in the bowl on the piano and waited for Cam in their hotel rooms. Sometimes Cam cleared that up as soon as the room card hit the bowl and, more often than not, the man had expected to be on top and pulled his card back. But sometimes the issue never got resolved to Cam’s preference or to the employ of his perfectly magnificent jet-black bull’s cock. Sometimes Cam had to give in and go under the man in the hotel room. It was the man’s money and his room and the hotel expected Cam to give satisfaction.

Here, though, as they came out of the clutch inside the room, standing and swaying against each other, fondling and opening up, although Hanson took the initiative, it was clear from the beginning that it would be him riding the younger man’s perfectly magnificent jet-black bull’s cock. When they both were unzipped and freed, it was Hanson who went on his knees and took Cam’s shaft in his mouth. And it was Hanson who backed Cam to the bed and into a sitting position. It was Hanson who ran his hands up the insides of Cam’s legs, nudging the trembling young man’s thighs to part so that he could kneel between them and continue to give Cam’s shaft full attention with his mouth while running his hands up the young man’s exposed chest and thumbing Cam’s nipples to the sound of the young man’s signs and moans.

It was Hanson who murmured, “You’re magnificent. I want to ride it,” negating any misunderstanding there might have been.

And when they were ready, it was Hanson who rose, settled himself in Cam’s lap, facing him, and, legs bent and feet leveraging off the bedspread on either side of Cam’s hips and grasping the tips to Cam’s shoulders to hold himself in place, sank his channel on the jet-black monster phallus, and rose and fell on the shaft to a mutual ejaculation.

It wasn’t lost on Cam that the man seemed to have known that Cam preferred to top in this instance—to have known it without anything said or any signaling having been made. It was as curious as how the man knew Cam preferred to play serious jazz on the piano and was considered a master of that. The man had come into the bar with that knowledge—and he had received Cam here in the hotel room with unsignaled knowledge and acceptance that it would be Hanson riding the cock.

Lying side by side on their backs on the bed after the second fuck, in which Hanson put Cam on his back and rode him in cowboy style—all without asking if that’s what Cam liked or indicating that he, the man who was paying for the ride, would have preferred another position, Hanson returned to business.

“I wasn’t telling you a story in the bar downstairs to get you to come to my room,” Hanson said. “I really am a music talent promoter and record producer. And I really do work with jazz musicians. My name’s Charles Hanson. I’ve put my card over on the stand by the TV set—although with some more money because you’ve given me a really good time. I really do think you should make a demo. I’d like to help you do that.”

“You didn’t just show up here out of the blue tonight and suddenly decide I was talent you wanted to help, did you?” Cam asked.

“I heard about you. I came to check you out. I wouldn’t have said anything if you weren’t all I’d been told you’d be. You were.”

“Just as a musician?”

“What do you think? No, not just as a musician. As a beautiful young man, with a great body, and a big black bull’s cock. That too.”

“And you already knew I was a top.”

“Yes, I already knew.”

“Who told you that—both of those things? Have you been talking with Jordan Smallwood, the jazz conductor?”

“Yes, that’s who told me. We met on business today. He’s going back to Philly tomorrow. We met at his hotel. He knows what I like—in more ways than one. He told me to check you out—that you would interest me—and you do.”

“Did he tell you that I was breathing hard to find a sugar daddy—someone who would make it all easy for me? Because I can tell you the same thing I told him—that I want to keep control of my life—that I want to develop whatever I have completely on my own musical talent and in my own time.”

“No. He told me that there was a phenomenally talented jazz musician working the piano bar at the Harris Hotel bar, that he was a black god, and that he worked in a bar where, if you put your Harris Hotel room card and three-hundred dollars in the bowl on his piano, he’d give you a great time in bed. He also said that if I hooked up with you musically, you’d make me a very rich, satisfied man.”

“I did like playing for you and I did like fucking you,” Cam said as he rolled off the bed and went into the bathroom, peeling the spent condom off his shaft, tossing it into the trashcan next to the bed, and stooping and gathering up his clothes as he went. He had no qualms about leaving the evidence of the coupling in the hotel room—it was expected at the Harris Hotel. After a quick shower and change, he was back in the room. Hanson was reclining against the headboard and smoking a cigarette. Cam paused briefly in front of the TV set and then moved away, turning at the door with his hand on the doorknob.

“I appreciate the voice of confidence—and not just in my music,” he said. “I won’t need for you to arrange a demo record, though.”

“You really should consider it,” Hanson said. “It could—”

“I don’t need you to take the bother of helping me make a demo. I have two demo records already. I’ll send copies to you.” He showed that he had Hanson’s card in his hand. He hadn’t picked up the $200 additional money Hanson had left on the TV stand with the address card. “If you truly like what you hear on the demos, I’d appreciate any help you can give me.”

From the Harris Hotel, Cam went to his studio apartment on the nearby South Lakewood Avenue and picked up copies of the two demos he’d already made. The Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel wasn’t a long walk from his place. It was nearly 4:00 a.m. when he arrived there, but Jordan Smallwood, after a bit of delay, answered Cam’s knock on his hotel room door.

Smallwood had pulled a hotel robe on over his sleeping shorts. They didn’t remain on very long. Smallwood had no objection to that. In their first encounter, he had taken the initiative—from the bottom—with Cam. This time Cam took charge. He laid Smallwood on the bed and laid him—forcefully and totally. They fucked in a missionary, with Smallwood on his back, his buttocks on the edge of the foot of the bed, and Cam crouched between his thighs, hovering over him, pressing down on the man’s shoulders with the heels of his hands. Smallwood hooked his knees on Cam’s hips and rocked with him as Cam fucked him hard, deep, and vigorously.

At the door afterward, Cam turned and said, “Thanks for wanting to help me. I want to do what I can on my own and in my own time, but I appreciate your interest and willingness to help. I’ve left a couple of demo records here on this table. If you want to share them with anyone, feel free to do so. I’ve left them as well with Charles Hanson, the music promoter, who says he knows you. Do whatever you want—or not. But I’ll work on some things myself for a while too. I’ll contact you sometime to see if you’re still interested and have gotten anyone else interested too. But please don’t crowd me before then. And thanks for the fuck. You were terrific.”

With that, he left the room, leaving Smallwood flat on his back, legs still parted, Cam’s cum dribbling out of his hole—eyes slitted, humming, and smiling a satisfied little smile.

* * * *

Jordan Smallwood held the position of accompanist for the Philadelphia Jazz Orchestra open for as long as he could pending his offer to Cam Williams to move to Philadelphia and take the position, but three weeks without hearing from the young man and the need to start up the fall rehearsals of the orchestra forced him to tell the orchestra’s board of directors to go ahead with advertising and auditioning for the position. He couldn’t be in Philly for this. He had to be in New York.

When he returned from New York just in time to start rehearsals of the orchestra, he smiled when he was backstage ready to come on. He’d been told a pianist had been hired and that the board was quite pleased—and so was he when he heard the “Yardbird Suite” being played for the musicians who were assembling for the rehearsal. He was smiling because he recognized the distinct way it was being played.

The new pianist was, of course, Cam Williams.

He didn’t have an opportunity to talk with the young man until after the rehearsal, but he couldn’t keep himself from smiling the whole time.

“You took the job,” he said when he had Cam alone in his office. They had kissed first and embraced, but anyone could knock on the door at any time, so Smallwood held off from deeper expressions of affection or lust.

“I auditioned for the job,” Cam said. “I didn’t tell anyone you’d offered it to me already. I wanted to earn it.”

“And you have. But you didn’t contact me. You said you would, and I waited three weeks before telling the board to advertise the position.”

“I was busy applying for music college.”

“Oh? Where?”

“Here in Philadelphia, at the University of the Arts. They’re giving me a scholarship and an assistantship in teaching jazz piano.”

“But I could have—”

“I know you would have, and I do appreciate that. But I wanted to earn it myself,” Cam said. Both of them laughed. Smallwood was beginning to get the message here.

“I’m sorry, but I haven’t had time to shop your demo records yet, but I’ll be sure—”

“No need,” Cam said, with a grin. “I have appointments to talk to the folks at Blue Notes Recording. I’m optimistic.”

“Don’t tell me—you wanted to do it yourself in your own time.”

“That’s how I’ll know I’ve earned it,” Cam said.

“Isn’t there anything I can do for you that you haven’t done for yourself?”

“There are things you do for me—to me—that no one else does nearly as well.”

Again, Smallwood laughed. “I mean more in terms of moving your musical talent along.”

“Well, I haven’t found anywhere to live here in Philadelphia and I was thinking of trying to find someplace where I could pay my way by working part time—odd jobs around the house or something.”

“So, I have a big house here and could use a houseboy and companion. Maybe you could—”

“I was afraid you wouldn’t ask,” Cam said, flashing the older man a glorious smile.