Into the Wolf’s Den

Nineteen-year-old Scott Blake, blond, achingly handsome, with a well-muscled, trim dancer’s body sat in a half doze during his afternoon stint as a life guard on Miami Beach. The haze on the water was mesmerizing him. There wasn’t too much activity on the beach this early in the season—a few couples and a family or two down near the water, but few going in beyond ankle-deep water because there had already been some shark-sighting scares in that summer of 1963. Scott was contemplating his future beyond the end of the summer. That’s how long this beach gig would last. More important, that’s when he’d top out in the men’s ballet classes at the Miami City Ballet. That his passion was ballet was something he didn’t share with the other beach lifeguards. It definitely was no a macho interest in the sixties.

Would he go home to Minnesota State University and take up agricultural studies as his parents wished to take over the family farm or go for a principal position in the city ballet and stay here?

He had come to Florida for something exotic—to pursue interests and develop preferences out of his parents’ sight and that of everyone else in Minnesota looking down their noses even at his interest in music and dance. They all probably already assumed he was pursuing a lifestyle he was only dreaming about at this point—and condemned him for it. It certainly wasn’t the Minnesota way.

Scott became aware that the volleyball game some young men—regular bodybuilders Scott was seeing on the beach every day and suspected were gay guys looking for hookups—was breaking up and one really built and good-looking Hispanic guy he’d exchanged looks with over the past couple of days was headed his way with an oversized beach towel and a guitar case. Scott hadn’t honed in on him just because he was divinely built and a great looker—a good match with Scott himself; a dark, sultry Hispanic and Scott’s blond Minnesota wholesome farm boy looks. Scott had his guitar here in a case too. He’d had a guitar lesson between his dance classes at MCB that morning and his stint on the lifeguard stand and hadn’t had an opportunity to stash the guitar case away before being due for lifeguard duty on the beach.

He had been keeping a watch on the beach bums since he’d started this job, dreaming about their lifestyle and what they did with each other. It was part of what had lured him to Florida—that and the scholarship to the ballet troupe school—but thus far it was only dreaming and looking. But this one Hispanic hunk had been looking back.

The hunk spread his towel near the stand, ran into the water to wash off the sweat from the volleyball game; strutted back to his towel, smiling at Scott on the lifeguard stand as he moved, with Scott smiling back; settled down on his towel; took his guitar out; and began strumming out a Latin beat. After a while, he looked up at the stand and said, “I hope my playing isn’t irritating you.”

“Certainly not,” Scott said. “I like it. It’s different—the beat to it.”

“It’s the Bossa Nova. All the crave now. A popular Cuban guitarist here just brought it back from a trip to Brazil and it’s all the rage in Little Havana. You have a guitar there, I see. Do you play too?”

“Not as well as you do,” Scott answered.

“Gracias. I am Carlos. Carlos Perez, not long from Cuba. You don’t look like you are from Cuba.”

“Sorry,” Scott laughed and answered. “I’m not. I’m from Minnesota, far away from here in so many ways. My name is Scott Blake.”

“No need to be sorry, Scott Blake. You are a beautiful man. Not beefed up like so many of the beach bums around here, but with a beautiful, sleek body. Are you a serious swimmer? Is that why you lifeguard?”

Scott laughed again. “I’m not that interested in swimming, no. I’ve come to Florida to go to dance school. The lifeguard job is just a parttime job that fits my schedule. It’s what I did all through high school up in Minnesota.”

This would be when the Hispanic hunk cut off the conversation, Scott thought—Scott noting he was interested in being a ballet dancer. But it didn’t do that.

“It’s good to have something that suits your schedule,” Perez said. “Plus, it lets you show off that nice body of yours on the beach. The other guys here on the beach—the volleyball players—all talk about you. Such a sleek body, and the blond hair. Yes, I can see that you are a dancer. I’m sure I’ve seen you in the Miami ballet.”

Scott was both surprised and pleased that the guy had seen him on stage and recognized him. “The guys out there talk about me?”

“Yes. They were very interested when I told them I’d seen you dancing on stage. We talked about how flexible that means you are. Does that bother you? Do you not know what those guys are interested in? Can you not imagine how interested they would be in a good-looking honey who was very flexible? Unless, of course, you aren’t actively gay. Maybe I was taking too much for granted.”

Scott laughed, but a bit nervously so. He was both pleased and embarrassed that the men on the beach would be thinking and talking about him in this vein. He didn’t know what to say, so he looked out onto the water, doing his job of watching for trouble. That he didn’t deny he was gay gave Perez reason to think he was.

The young Hispanic persisted. “You look at them too. I see you do that. You look at me. You think of them—and of me—I think. In fact, I am sure that you do.”

“I don’t know,” Scott said. “I’m afraid I don’t know much of anything about those things. Florida is not a bit like Minnesota. I just don’t know.”

“I think you must know that many of the guys out there, on the beach, would like you to go with them—to go under them. I would too. So, you’ve never—?”

“No, never. I guess I’m just not brave enough. Do you talk about me too, with those guys?”

“Yes, of course I do. I think you should be brave. I think you should be brave with me. I think you should go with me and go under me.”

“Oh, well.”

“Am I being too forward?” Carlos stood, standing close to the lifeguard’s stand, and putting a hand down on the edge of the platform, near Scott’s bare foot. Scott looked at the hand and shuddered in aroused pleasure.

“No, it’s fine,” Scott answered. He was finding this very arousing.

“Listen. This is the man who brought the Bossa Nova on the guitar to Little Havana. His name is Juan Lobo. His father, Julio, was the most famous businessman in Cuba until the Castros threw Batista out three years ago. Julio opened a club here, the Wolf’s Den, just so people can hear Juan play the guitar. Maybe you go get something to eat with me when you get off duty here. We could get something from one of the stands off the beach and take it to my apartment. I live close to the Wolf’s Den. Then we could go listen to Juan Lobo play the Bossa Nova on his guitar. Afterward we could go back to my place and fuck if you like. I could give you great fuck.”

“The Wolf’s Den?” Scott couldn’t bring himself to commit to anything further, although his imagination was spinning.

“Yes, it’s a play on the Lobo name. Lobo means ‘Wolf’ in Spanish. I know Juan. I could introduce you to him. He teaches guitar. Maybe you could—”

“Yes, I think I’d like that.” Scott was trembling but he also, looking at the hunky Carlos Perez and thinking of what the man was offering, felt himself going hard. He was leaving a response to the rest Carlos was proposing twisting in the wind, but as long as he wasn’t saying no to that, the possibility of it remained. He’d been in Florida for nearly a month, knowing he’d come here to pursue a different lifestyle than Minnesota would permit him comfortably engaging in. It was time for him to be brave.

* * * *

Scott had never been in this position before—sitting close to Carlos on the floor in front of Carlos’s sofa, both of them leaning back into the couch, both of them stripped down to their briefs, and the two of them exchanging a marijuana joint as Carlos helped Scott with the fingering of a guitar to produce the Bossa Nova beat. Scott hadn’t smoked marijuana before, and he’d certainly never been in a compromising position like this before. But he had already decided that this was the day, if there was ever going to be one. Carlos was taking it slow and deliberately, accepting what Scott told him about never having done this before even if he had contemplated it and welcomed it.

He didn’t know if the erection and his sensitivity to Carlos’s touch were caused by the joint. He’d heard that marijuana was an aphrodisiac, but he didn’t know if he believed it. He suspected that if you thought it was, it was because you’d convinced yourself to believe it was. He could believe that it lessened apprehensions, though, and relaxing into this was fine with him if he could think of the drug as inducing it.

Carlos slowly pulled him over into his lap, facing away from him and both of them cross-legged, the maneuver seeming natural as the Cuban manipulated Scott’s fingers on the guitar strings with his fingers. Scott could hardly not be aware that Carlos was in erection too—and massively so. When Scott had gotten how to position his fingers, Carlos’s hands pulled away, but only as far as to glide up Scott’s torso, causing the young man to shudder, and to land on Scott’s pecs, which Carlos palmed, his thumbs pressing into and thrumming Scott’s nipples to the rhythm of Scott’s strumming of the guitar strings.

“Nice,” Carlos whispered into Scott’s ear. “You’re getting the rhythm of it.”

Scott wondered if he was talking about attaining the Bossa Nova beat on the guitar.

The Cuban’s lips went to Scott’s carotid artery, and Scott leaned his head away seemingly without knowing he had given Carlos closer access. He moaned low, though, acknowledging that they were in foreplay. When Carlos raised a hand to the side of Scott’s head and turned the young man’s face to him and went into a lips-parting kiss, Scott trembled but went with the kiss. When Carlos transferred a couple of pills from his mouth to Scott’s, Scott ingested them but then gave Carlos a frightened look.

“Relax, baby,” Carlos murmured. “We’re gonna have a great time.”

Within minutes, Scott was panting lightly, was seeing a swirl of colors, lost control of his body, and was putty in the Cuban’s hands, which seemed to be everywhere on the young man’s body—gliding over curves and into crevices. Scott moaned as Carlos moved him onto his back, ran his hands up the insides of Scott’s legs, coaxing the legs to spread and bend, and rolled over on top of the young man. The Cuban continued with the hand fondling, and, with his pelvis pressed into Scott’s, began to rock their bodies together.

When a moan, Scott was moving his hips with Carlos’s, their briefs were stripped off and the guitar set aside. Still Carlos took his time, repositioning their bodies in front of the sofa, one of his hands moving to the small of Scott’s back, helping Scott maintain the rhythm of the two rocking their pelvises against each other. Carlo’s erection was pushed under Scott’s balls and was dry fucking the young man, rubbing across Scott’s perineum. When Scott was maintaining his rocking motion on his own, one of Carlos’s hands cupped the young man’s butt cheeks and his index buried itself in and explored Scott’s hole. He moved them into the sixty-nine position, and his other hand cupped Scott’s head, holding it into his lap, showing Scott how to pleasure another man by taking cock in his throat, something Scott had never done before—had just fantasized about. Carlos took his time, though, teaching the young man how best to do it.

Eventually, Carlos repositioned their bodies again, turning Scott face down on the floor, cheek to the carpet, arms outstretched and palms to the floor, and raised on his knees in the doggy position. Carlos swung a leg over the young man’s hips, mounted Scott’s buttocks, and slowly worked his erection into a hole that had been teased open by drugs and his fingers.

Scott, eyes a bit dazed, murmured “Yes, yes, yes,” truly wanting this and grateful that Carlos was taking it so slowly and with sensitivity. The young man was totally relaxed and his inhibitions all erased, as Carlos got the glans of the cock positioned and waited for the hole to open more. When it didn’t, Carlos grasped Scott’s waist between his hands, forced himself in, and held as Scott gave a little cry and writhed ineffectually under him. Carlos grasped Scott’s throat with one hand and palmed the young man’s lower belly with the other, holding him captive and under control as Scott weakly struggled and cried out to the relentless forced invasion and stretching of the cock. When Scott had settled down and Carlos felt the young man’s channel stretch to his need, he slowly began to pump.

At some point the sound of guitar music had returned to the small room. Carlos had put a record on. The music was the Bossa Nova, strummed on a guitar. The tune had started off quiet and slow. The two men moved their bodies in harmony with the music, becoming a mechanism of beauty of perfectly rocking against each other, Carlos’s hands cupping Scott’s buttocks and Scott’s fingernails pressed into Carlos’s shoulder blades, the two groaning and sighing in unison. As the music picked up volume and speed, Carlos clutched Scott’s waist and held the young man tightly in position, increasing the intensity and depth of his stroking action. Scott went with him with abandon, taking the cock deep.

Carlos was in full fuck and Scott was holding steady for him. The young man had even moved a hand under his belly and was stroking himself off. The drug had kicked in and Scott was taking the thrusts well. All was good with his first fuck.

Carlos tensed and jerked and came; tensed and jerked and came, flooding Scott deep in his gut. Being convinced it was Scott’s first time, Carlos hadn’t bothered using a condom. He liked it bareback when he could get it that way. Scott had ejaculated too and Carlos let him collapse on the carpet in front of the sofa.

Scott came almost fully to later in the shower, where they were both cleaning up. The young man’s back was against the slippery tiles and his knees were hooked on Carlos’s hips, as Carlos fucked him again under the cascading water of the shower. Scott had no idea whether Carlos had fucked him between the first time and this, although when they came out of the bathroom, he saw that the sheets on the bed were in a tangle and they hadn’t been before Scott had taken any drugs, and the initial fuck had been on the floor. The clock on the nightstand indicated there were two hours unaccounted for in his consciousness.

How many times could one get fucked by a virile guy in something over two hours, he wondered. He was sore enough that the time in the shower may not have been only his second time.

As they dressed, Carlos didn’t remark on what they had been doing or make any reference to this having been Scott’s inaugural fuck session—that the young man had just lost his virginity to another man. Scott was quiet too, going over what had just happened, trying to recall all that had happened, realizing that there was no going back from that now, and, having strange sensations as he came out of the effects of the drug, having feelings that were both laced with guilt and euphoric. One thing was clear, though. Carlos was a god. As they dressed, Scott kept touching the Cuban reverently, and, though Carlos wasn’t all that demonstrative back, when Scott showed he wanted a kiss, Carlos gave him one.

Coming out of the lip lock, though, Carlos said, “I promised to let you hear a live version of the Bossa Nova on the guitar from a master. Do you want me to take you to the Wolf’s Den to hear that, or have you had enough tonight?”

“Will we come back here afterward?” Scott asked.

Carlos laughed. “If you want to.” In some ways the laugh was a release of relief. Carlos hadn’t been sure how easy it would be to get the cute blond under him. It had been easy; the guy had been ripe for it. Carlos had fucked him four times, barebacking him each time. Cum had been dribbling down Scott’s inner thighs before they’d gone to the shower. Scott had been totally fucked.

“Yes, I want to,” Scott said. “Both going to the club and coming back here afterward. I’m sorry if I—”

“You were fine, especially for the first time. If you want to learn more, though—”

“Yes, please.” It was done now. Scott didn’t want to go back. “Teach me everything.”

Over the next three weeks Carlos worked away at doing just that. And that was Carlos’s purpose here. He’d had no idea it would be so easy, though.

* * * *

The Wolf’s Den was a small, dark venue, with all of the direct light going to a small platform where one man sat on a stool, holding a guitar, and another one stood behind him, holding a double bass. There was smoke swirling around in the air from the audience and even the guitarist and bassist were smoking. The only light anyone in the audience got came off the reflected light from the stage and that bounced off the swirling smoke. The bassist was looking around in the room as he played, but the only indication the guitarist knew anyone else was there was when someone dared speak while he was playing, at which time the culprit would get a fleeting death stare. That usually worked, which left the impression that Juan Lobo, the guitarist, was not someone you wanted to cross—or fail to listen to in his club and on his stage when he was performing.

He wasn’t a handsome man. He was something over forty, with a compact but a bit heavy body, and a receding hairline. His face was craggy. His guitar playing was divine and filled and commanded the room, which was why he rarely had to break out of his isolation to stare a talker down. One got the impression that he was totally introspective. The bass player was as old as he was, tall and rangy. Again, not a looker. Both obviously were Hispanics. The club was a block off Colle Ocho, Southwest Eighth Street, in Miami’s Little Havana, so everyone there the night Carlos took Scott there was Hispanic—and Cuban. The revolution in Cuba that had forced the exodus of anyone connected with the dictator Batista was only three years old. Little Havana was Little Displace Cuba and it seemed they all were wedged into the Wolf’s Den that evening.

The evening was just settling in at the Wolf’s Den when other clubs were beginning to shut down. Everyone here had come from some other entertainment venue. This would be the performance of the night they would remember, though. Carlos and Scott had come here from a marathon fuck—Scott’s first ever, so he was more than a bit keyed up.

Scott was mesmerized by what Lobo could do on the guitar. Carlos told him Lobo had been trained by the great Spanish classical guitarist Andres Segovia and his Brazilian jazz counterpart, Charlie Byrd, so the man’s technique and classical touch was pristine. Since his family had left Cuba and settled in the States, though, Juan Lobo had traveled in South America and Spain and was introducing different styles, albeit all controlled by classicism, of his own. He had albums out. He went on tour. His father had given him this nightclub to try to keep him in Miami as much as possible. But Julio Lobo himself had expanded out in business in the States, after losing an empire in Cuba, something that Scott eventually was to find out for himself.

The first meeting between Lobo and Scott was one where Scott was so overwhelmed that he said little. Carlos had said he knew Lobo—that he’d taken guitar lessons from him—but Scott had only half believed that. But, having seen Carlos and a young blond, seemingly out of place here, in the audience, Lobo had come off the platform during a break and come to their table. Carlos introduced Scott as someone looking for a guitar teacher.

“He’s musical—a dancer,” Carlos had said. “I’ve heard him play, and he is only at the beginning but he has the touch.” Lobo had turned his eyes on Scott and Scott saw more interest there than just in the playing of a guitar. But the man was magic on the guitar. His fingers playing on the instrument had a sensuality to them that make Scott think of those fingers playing him that way and he was aroused. There was nothing handsome about the man but he had a sense of control and danger—and, yes, sensuality—about him. Scott was trembling as they spoke. He kept looking at the long, strong fingers on the man’s hands and imagining what they could do on his body.

As he was thinking that, Lobo reached out and caressed Scott’s forearm with the fingers of one hand. Scott shuddered, being conquered in just that gesture. He was being played as expertly as the man played his guitar. He knew that if Lobo wanted to fuck him, Scott would let him. And Scott had the distinct impression Lobo wanted to fuck him.

Scott visited the Wolf’s Den twice more in the weeks he was with Carlos, and each time Lobo came to their table during a break. Little was said, but much was conveyed with the eyes. Carlos was fucking Scott both before and after bringing him to the club, but in the club Carlos drifted back when Lobo came to the table, deferring to the older man. It wasn’t difficult to conclude that Carlos was pimping for Lobo. It also wasn’t difficult to conclude that this was leading to Scott on his back and Lobo on top and inside him.

With his eyes Lobo was establishing a deeper interest than teaching Scott the guitar and, with his eyes, Scott was conveying a “yes.” On the third visit, Lobo took Scott’s hands, one after the other, and traced the fingers with his own, gauging, it appeared, whether or not Scott had magic in his hands for the guitar. Electricity went through the young man when Lobo did this and must have conducted to Lobo through his fingers because he grunted and said, “You say you could come for a lesson on Tuesday afternoons—that you weren’t working then. 2:00 here, next Tuesday. I will teach you, but there is something you must establish before we pick up the guitar.”

What had to be established, it turned out, was that Lobo had to fully own a student and bring the passion out of the student before he would work with him on the guitar. His apartment was above the Wolf’s Den club. The bassist’s apartment was above his. The bassist, Ernest Gonjalez, had left Cuba with the Lobos, and he and Juan Lobo shared everything, including young men who wanted Lobo to teach them guitar.

* * * *

Lobos fucked Scott first, Carlos having come to the apartment with Scott and sitting there, touching Scott while Lobo was doing so in preparation and murmuring to Lobo what Scott would do for him, based on all of the training in sexual techniques Carlos had given Scott. They were both fondling Scott, which made him think that perhaps they were going to fuck him together. He was trembling at the prospect of that.

“He gives fine head,” Carlos had said, and then Scott demonstrated that that was true.

“He’ll open quicker if you finger him and suck on that nipple”—which also was true.

It became obvious to Scott that Carlos pimped for Juan Lobo. But Scott didn’t care. Carlos was there, standing at Scott’s head at the ottoman they put Scott on on his back and held Scott’s ankles, his legs spread and raised toward his head, when the guitarist first penetrated him, nuzzling in between his spread thighs, holding a beer-can thick cock as he placed it in position, and then thrusting inside. Scott cried out at the unexpected pain of it, but quickly settled down, overwhelmed by the passion of it. Holding Scott’s waist between his hands, Lobo began to pump him immediately, anxious to get first fuck of the young man accomplished. Lobo came quickly, but moved into slower, more languid sessions, putting Scott on his back for a slow missionary fuck and, later, going on his back himself for Scott to saddle himself on the master guitarist’s hips and ride his cock. The two subsequently fucked like long-term lovers.

* * * *

Carlos disappeared soon thereafter, and Scott never saw him again. He didn’t answer phone calls and he didn’t open the door to his apartment when Scott tried to find him there. He didn’t return to the beach, either. He obviously had served his purpose—to pimp for Juan Lobo. When Lobo grew tired of Scott, it was clear that Carlos would train another fresh young man and bring him to the Wolf’s Den.

Juan and Scott weren’t alone when they were fucking, though. Ernesto Gonjalez was there, too, watching . . . and waiting. When Juan had fucked and breeded Scott on the ottoman in the missionary position in their second coupling, he withdrew and Ernesto, turning Scott on his belly, mounted the young man in the doggy position and fucked him as well. Later the two shared the young blond, sandwiching him between them in a standing position, Scott’s knees hooked on Juan’s crouching thighs and Ernesto crouching behind, and both dicks inside him, thrusting in rhythm of the recorded guitar music in the background of Juan Lobo in concert.

Juan did take time out from fucking the young man to give him guitar lessons. Lobo was an excellent teacher and he must have thought that Scott had more promise than just to provide a tight, willing channel, because in the five weeks Scott came to and for Lobo Scott became quite good at the classical guitar.

The young man became quite good with submissive male-male sex too. He was good enough that Juan shared Scott with his father, Julio. Julio was an old-school dominator and Scott suffered when the sixty-two-year-old man fucked him, but the old man taught the young blond to endure it and to give good fuck when it was demanded. Julio also taught Scott that a riding crop could produce high arousal.

The day came toward the end of the summer when Scott came to the club for a lesson only to find that Juan Lobo and Ernesto Gonjalez also were gone. They had left on tour, he was told. But, of course, they hadn’t said anything to Scott about doing that. He had come that day with a serious question to ask. He had come to Florida for a bit of adventure but not knowing what to do with his life when the ballet classes ended. A door was opening to him, though. He was offered a principal’s position in the Miami City Ballet. If he continued to do some lifeguarding, he could live off the stipend for this for a couple of years before aging out of ballet roles. Perhaps he could teach ballet himself then.

But he loved playing the guitar. He wondered if he did it well enough to play in clubs himself like Juan Lobo did and Carlos had said he sometimes did. He was going to ask Juan that day whether he was good enough to make a living off that.

Juan Lobo was gone. His father, Julio, was there, at the club, though. And after fucking Scott, he introduced him to another Cuban, a bodybuilder type of thuggish, but sexy looks, who had watched Julio fuck Scott in a standing bull position.

“This is Luis—Luis Hernandez,” Julio said. “He works for me. He can work for you too. He will arrange for you to go with men for the next month. If you impress him, he will take you to New York and you will make very good money.”

It wasn’t a request. Neither Julio Lobo nor Luis Hernandez was the sort of man who had to make requests. The summer lifeguarding would extend for another month. Scott would not have to decide on the Miami City Ballet position until that time. He also presumed that he could walk away from the pimping offer too if he found he didn’t like that. But for a month, exploring whether he would like to sell his body to men for good pay—men like he’d been giving it away free to? One thing he had found was that the man who covered him didn’t have to be young and fit. He had to have a good cock and to know how to use it. Juan, Ernesto, and Julio—and even the thuggish Luis—had that. Maybe enough of the paying men Luis came up with in Little Havana over the next month would meet that criteria to keep Scott satisfied. Once Carlos had started to hump him, he’d found he couldn’t get enough of it.

He could keep his options open on that decision for a month.

* * * *

The fucking of the two—the dancer, Scott Blake, and the older ballet master, Vasily Komorav—was an act of beauty. With soft Spanish guitar music playing in the back, the two were entangled, facing each other, with Vasily sitting the bed, legs bent and Scott nestled into his lap, facing him, with his ankles on the older man’s shoulders, his toes gracefully pointed, and Vasily grasping the younger man’s wrists and the two rocking together in a smooth rowing motion to the music. Both were naked, and trim, yet well-muscled. Both were premier male ballet dancers.

Scott had had a more formal audition, focusing on dancing technique, earlier in the afternoon, but both knew he had to pass this audition as well. They were doing this in the late afternoon because Scott had two sets of exotic dancing to provide at Club Havana, a New York Chippendales dancers-style gay male club in the Chelsia section of New York City. Vasily, who was assessing Scott for a principal’s position in the American Ballet Theatre, would pick Scott up at the club later, they’d go clubbing, and eventually, if everything worked out well, they’d wind up back here in the bed in Komorav’s apartment.

Scott had been working for six months at Club Havana, owned by Julio Lobo, and had been brought here from Miami by Luis Hernandez, the Lobo organization pimp who had pitched him to work in the family’s escort business. Although Club Havana specialized in a masculine, muscle-men Chippendales review, Scott and two other male ballet dancers were mixed into the routines. All of the dancers at Club Havana were handled by Luis Hernandez and also rented by the hour.

Those plans didn’t work out, though. The dancers were cleaning up in the dressing rooms after their Club Havana performances and Scott was telling one of the other ballet dancers, Pete, that he probably would be out all night—Pete was his roommate, but a submissive, like Scott, so there were no entanglement problems there—when Luis came in.

“I’ve lined you up to go clubbing with a guy visiting from Miami after you’ve gotten dressed,” he said to Scott.

“I can’t,” Scott responded. “I’ve got—”

“This ain’t a request,” Luis said. “He’s Cuban and an old friend of Julios. He picked you off the menu. Be at the stage door in fifteen minutes.”

Scott had already learned—a bit painfully—that the pimp, Luis Hernandez, didn’t request. With a sigh, he called Vasily Komorav on his cellphone and they spoke for a few minutes before he rang off.

The date was named Martinez. No first name was given. He was short and fat and looked old enough to be a contemporary of Julio Lobo, so Scott assessed him to be in his sixties. He smoked cigars and drank heavily and Scott wasn’t looking forward to getting alone with him after the clubbing. But that opportunity never came to pass.

The second club they landed in that evening was named Wolf’s Den North, and Scott should have known before they walked in that it would be one of Julio Lobo’s clubs. That left room for natural surprise that it was a near duplicate of Juan Lobo’s intimate setting guitar club in Miami’s Little Havana—complete with Juan Lobo on a small platform playing his guitar, backed up by Ernesto Gonjalez on the double bass.

Juan seemed as disconnected for the audience and in his own world as he had been in the Miami club. Scott tried to be conspicuous and draw the guitarist’s attention to him. The man had abruptly walked out on Scott when Scott thought they had a very good thing, sexually, going. It hadn’t been Scott’s idea to end the relationship. But the few times Juan looked out into the audience, his attention passed Scott by. After a few minutes Scott figured out why.

He could see that when Juan Lobo looked out into the audience, his attention was going to one particular table. Scott looked at the table and his eyes were completely opened to what he’d been doing for the last nine months—that he’d let himself be drawn in the wolf’s den male prostitution. He even had the revelation, by example, about what a short-lived option that was.

There were two men at the table Juan kept looking at. One, to Scott’s great surprise was Carlos Perez, the man who had seduced him from off the beach in Miami, taken his virginity to men, trained him in sexual techniques, handed him over to Juan Lobos and Ernesto Gonjalez, and then disappeared. The other man was much younger, probably no older than Scott had been when Carlos recruited him as a submissive in the Lobo family’s world. And he was blond and willowy and looked like a dancer. He and Scott clearly could be twins.

Watching Juan Lobo look at the young man and the worshipful way the young guy looked back, Scott saw his Miami summer unfolding yet again—but for this young man, not Scott. Scott had quickly been pulled into a deeper world of prostitution. They had used the same method in getting the young guy this far that they had used with Scott. He had a guitar case by his feet. He probably was being promised guitar lessons from Juan as long as he was nice to Juan—and then later, without really being asked for permission, nice to the double bass player too—and then to men of the Lobo family’s selection, and within months, like Scott was, to any man who would pay.

Scott could see that it was too late to try to intervene for the young guy at the table. There was little chance the guy would believe how fast he could descend by taking guitar lessons from Juan Lobos—and learning to play the guitar that way was the big plus of having done this.

Excusing himself from the cigar-smoking Cuban who had brought him there by saying he needed to go to the men’s room, Scott left the club. On the street he called Vasily Komorav.

“I find I could come back to your apartment tonight after all—if you still want me. And it’s a yes to the offer.” Then he held his breath. This was his chance to change direction, to start withdrawing from the wolf’s den.

There was no long pause, and Scott let out his breath in relief.

“Yes. Come over now. And I’m glad you’ll take the principal’s position I offered you at the ballet.”

Scott was escaping from the wolf’s den while he still could.