An Evening Out

“Have a lovely evening out. You deserve it and it’s about time you did it.”

I tucked the sheet under Raymond at the side and gritted my teeth. I was getting irritated at everyone saying that to me. Raymond’s night nurse, Chester, had said it when I’d come into Raymond’s bedroom to say goodnight to him. Raymond’s lawyer and president of the Asheville Gay Men’s Chorus that both Raymond and I had belonged to before Raymond entered his last, bedridden months and that Raymond was a principle patron of had told me that when he’d insisted I come to the choir’s concert this evening and then on to his party afterward.

Raymond had backed him up. In that gaspy voice he’d now acquired, Raymond said, “A young man from Atlanta we want as the choir’s new director will be at the concert and party, checking us out. I want you to check him out for me and let me know if he’s worth the money we’re offering. I want you to be nice to him, and I want you to enjoy the evening. You’ve run yourself ragged taking care of me.”

We both knew why I was sticking so closely with Raymond these last few months as cancer was pulling him down into the depths. We’d been together for twelve years, but I hadn’t taken the relationship seriously for the first four. He’d fallen in love early, and I’d fallen in like initially. But that hadn’t kept me from catting around for the first four years. He was thirty-eight years older than I was. It had taken a dust-up and the fear that he’d throw me out that made me realize I loved him too. And I’d spent the next eight years trying to assure him that I did. This was my last chance.

Even his doctor had told me I needed a break from this, and when finding out that Raymond wanted me to go this concert, had virtually ordered me to go. I gave in to them all, but I knew I’d fret the entire evening and would have to pretend to have a good time.

People lifted their eyebrows when they first learned that Raymond and I were a couple. They assumed he was an old fool and I was a gold digger. It took them to know us to know we were as good as married--and had been at least for the last eight years of our twelve-year relationship.

The arrangement had started in New York, where I was a wet-behind-the-ears, but randy gay young man trying to make it as a song and dance man on Broadway. Raymond, a rich businessman, was one of those “Broadway Angels” who made it possible for plays to get to the stage. I was good, but so were so many other young hopefuls trying to break into Broadway. I’d made it into the chorus line of a musical by being willing to go on my back and open my legs for men important to the production. That wasn’t a real problem for me; I was randy and needy. I gauged men by their cock size and backswing more than by any other factor in those days.

I was nineteen and Raymond was fifty-seven. He was a handsome, confident, elegantly dressed fifty-seven, though. And he could keep it up and quickly reload seven-and-a-half thick inches. The play’s producer, who was bedding me, invited Raymond to an after-rehearsal party one evening when he needed to gin up more money to keep the production on the tracks. He asked me to be very nice to Raymond and offered Raymond the use of one of his bedrooms. Raymond took me to the bedroom and was seven-and-a-half inches good to me for a half hour. Then he offered me a ride in his limousine around the park and he was seven-and-a-half thick inches good to me in a missionary on the backseat of his car. The limousine took us to his Fifth Avenue penthouse apartment, and Raymond was seven-and-a-half inches good to me in a doggie fuck on his bed.

He kept me. He claimed it was love at first fuck for him. He used that as a joke line among select friends, and it always drew a laugh and, I must say, some licentious looks in my direction from contemporary-age friends of his.

I was impressed with his wealth, his seven-and-a-half inches, and his ability to reload quickly--even at fifty-seven. He also always treated me well and with near reverence. He wasn’t shy to say he was a lucky man to have me. He claimed never to have fallen out of love with me. I knew I learned to love him for much more than his money--or even his seven-and-a-half inches that he had still been able to harden until the last few months of his inevitable fading away. But because of those first four uneven-commitment years, I had forever maintained a guilt and a need to prove my love and devotion to him.

All of the forces at play had to mobilize to get me to leave him even for an evening to check out the new choir director prospect. We were in that stage where he could go at any moment and quickly entering the stage where release would be a blessing for him.

The concert was fine, making me nostalgic for when Raymond and I both were in it, me as a tenor, Raymond as a low baritone. The men in the choir were all supportive of us. For them, the thirty-eight years’ difference in our ages meant nothing. They could see and understand that we were devoted to each other. It had been a good move to come to less hectic and demanding Asheville from New York City after Raymond had retired--officially, although he still had his hand in the management of his companies. Or he had until he’d been taken ill. Now I was taking up the slack there too. Luckily, he hadn’t let me just be his kept boy toy these twelve years. I’d been given responsibility in his businesses. I knew them almost as well now as he did. It was clear I would inherit them--and that our employees would accept me. Raymond had done that for me. All I could do for him now, I thought, was to be loyal to him to the end.

The choir director prospect from Atlanta was even finer than the concert had been. I didn’t meet him until the after-concert party at Aaron’s house. He was at the concert, but I wouldn’t have been able to pick him out in the audience there. He was young, in his mid-twenties. He was much too young to fit his résumé. Aaron told me, when I asked, that he had been a child prodigy, accumulating accolades from his early teens and graduating from college and his music training before he reached twenty. He was, Aaron said, the assistant director of the Atlanta Gay Men’s Choir now and obviously was underutilized in that position. Aaron told me we wanted him here in Asheville and to be very nice to him. And then he introduced us.

Jason Ward was a hunk and a half. He did look like he was in his mid-twenties, and he looked like both a movie star and an athlete. He was solidly built, trim but muscular. He dressed elegantly; spoke with refinement; had sensual, dark looks and a ready smile and eyes that concentrated and captivated the one he was speaking to; and his voice enveloped me in a rich, resonating baritone.

The effect he had on me was that I went hard for him. That wasn’t unusual for me in engaging with a man I could imagine lying under. Being attached and loyal to Raymond hadn’t kept me from being aroused by a desirable man, and Raymond had understood that. In our more active years, we’d made a game out of it. When he’d seen me being attracted by a man, we’d talk about what attracted me later, in bed, as he was covering me, and he’d bang the hell out of me while whispering a scenario in my ear of me with the other man. If Raymond had still been up to it, my report on Jason to him would have led to such a night in bed.

That didn’t mean I’d actually been unfaithful to Raymond after those first four, uncommitted years in which I was still sowing oats even though I slept in his bed. I think that Raymond would have endured my going with other men, especially as he got older, as long as I slept in his bed, and thus how freely we went with imagining me doing so and Raymond being the voyeur, but I was determined to try to give him the same commitment he’d given me after he’d taken me back. Thus far I had managed that.

Once introduced, Jason stayed with me, even with others drifting by to speak with him and try, not to subtly, to convince him to come to Asheville. He was attentive, witty, and knowledgeable, although we spoke mostly in general terms and didn’t get into the nitty-gritty of music. I felt like maybe he was being grilled enough by others on that and I kept more to the delights of living in Asheville as a gay person. I assumed he was gay himself to be involved in gay men’s chorus. He certainly responded to me in the natural way of one man being interested sexually in another man.

I found myself hoping he was gay and then checking my thoughts. I mustn’t stray from my loyalty to Raymond, I thought. Although, if I was to construct the perfect man lover in my mind, Jason would fit the bill. If Raymond had still been up to our games, I would have climaxed left and right while he was fucking me but whispering about Jason fucking me.

At the end of the evening, I asked Aaron if I could use his telephone to call a taxi. I’d found the batteries in my cellphone were dead. But before Aaron could speak--he, strangely, looked at Jason rather than me when I asked that--Jason broke in and said, “Nonsense. Don’t spend money on a cab. I have a rental car. I’ll drive you home. I’m ready to leave too.”

At the door, while Jason was saying his good-byes to those still at the party, Aaron said, “Be nice to him. I think you know what I mean by that. We want him here. And have a lovely evening. You deserve the break. Raymond and I have discussed this; he wants you to have this evening.”

Before I could respond to that, Jason was there, at my elbow.

He drove, not to Raymond’s and my penthouse apartment on Grindstaff Drive, but to the Residence Inn on Biltmore Avenue, four blocks short of my street.

“I’m further up the road,” I said.

“This is where I’m staying,” he said. “Please come in for a while and keep me company. I have a unit with a living area and nice kitchenette. I have questions about the men’s chorus, questions I need to pursue before deciding whether to come here. I can’t be sure about the answers men would give me who are active in the choir. I understand you once were in the choir but no longer are. You are in a unique position to fill me in on some of the particulars. I have wine on ice. I’d like to have someone to share it with me.”

I knew I should demure. Raymond was at home. He needed me and I needed to assure him of my loyalty. But he had told me to be nice to Jason Ward, to help convince him to come to Asheville. Aaron had said the same, adding that Raymond wanted me to have my pleasure. I couldn’t deny the request to help with the decision as a nominally independent voice was a reasonable one.

In the back of my mind, I knew I shouldn’t open the passenger door and step out. But I did.

* * * *

We were sitting beside each other on the sofa, looking into the gas-log fire. Jason had his left arm around my neck, holding me close into his side. We had stopped talking and were looking at each other, eye to eye, for the longest moment. He dipped his face into mine and kissed the corner of my mouth, moving quickly away to gauge my reaction with his eyes again. I tried not to react, not to show him how needy I was. I hadn’t had a man between my legs for months; I hadn’t had any man other the Raymond between my thighs for years. Raymond had been sick for a couple of months. I had managed to give him some pleasure and release with my hands, but I had had to take care of my own needs.

I was vulnerable. Jason was compelling. All doubt had evaporated about his intentions for the evening. I couldn’t help but be flattered. I was six years older than he told me he was, although I’d kept my looks and my body. Men still made passes at me--not often gods like Jason was, though. My eyes went to the bed, just over there, in the soft-lit area off the living room, beckoning to us. I was weak.

But Raymond had been sick for a couple of months. We had been together for so long. I’d done what I could to keep him assured of my commitment to him.

But Raymond hadn’t asked me for total commitment and he’d clearly signaled otherwise for tonight.

My reaction must not have been what I intended, because Jason took the wine glass out of my hand and leaned over and placed it on the coffee table that was between the sofa and the fireplace. When he sat back into the sofa cushions again, his lips came back to my face and he kissed me directly on the lips. The kiss was tentative, testing, to begin with, but I heard myself moan as he pressed the tip of his tongue between my lips and, without intending to, I opened my lips and let his tongue inside.

“I hope I’m not being too forward,” he whispered when we came out of the kiss. “Aaron told me that you might be willing--”

“Yes,” I murmured, cutting him off from naming it out loud.

“Yes to what?” he asked, smiling at me.

“Yes to the kissing, at least,” I answered. I think we both knew it wouldn’t stop there, though, but that he had to take it slow. He didn’t seem concerned that I hadn’t surrendered to more yet.

He took my mouth with his again. I felt his right hand at the buttons of my shirt, undoing them and pulling the front of my shirt out of my trousers. The pressure of the kiss became more possessive and he was running his hand over my chest, my hard pecs, and down my flat belly while his tongue at first flicked in and out of my mouth and then invaded further, taking my breath away.

I reacted then, pulling away from the kiss.

“Let’s go over to the bed,” he murmured.

“No, please. I should go,” I answered in a breathless voice.

He moved his lips to my throat. His hand didn’t stop gliding and rubbing across my chest--and my nipples--though. We both felt me shudder and heard my soft moan. Neither of us heard me tell him to stop again, or mention leaving, or sensed me pushing him away from feeling up my chest.

He came back to my lips for a kiss, and I was even quicker this time to go soft and to open to his tongue. His right hand went to my basket and he was feeling me up through the material of my trousers. I couldn’t hide that I had gone hard. So much was going through my mind: Raymond telling me to be nice to the new director prospect for the men’s choir; Aaron asking me to do the same. Jason being the new choir director prospect. My need to have a hard man between my legs. Raymond, my mate of twelve years lying on his deathbed. How careful I’d been to show Raymond that I loved him, would be faithful to him as if we were married.

The feel and sound of the zipper of my fly being lowered is what turned the tide, what galvanized me into fighting my submissive nature. I put my hand on his hand at my zipper to signal that he was to go no further, and I pulled away from the kiss and lowered my head so that he didn’t have access.

He kissed me on the head and said, “I’m sorry. I thought it was what you wanted.” Then, gently disengaging me, he rose from the sofa and walked over to the king-sized bed that was in an L space jutting off from the Living room-kitchen combination separated by the breakfast bar.

I didn’t look at him directly, but was very attentive to his actions by the bed. He had taken his empty wine glass, which he put on the nightstand by the bed. He took his wallet out of his pocket and put it on a nightstand as well. Next to come out of his pocket was a soft pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He lit up the cigarette and stood there, momentarily, looking at me. I ached for how beautiful he was, and upbraided myself for not letting him go further. I should have been flattered. I was a good six years older than he was. He was in great shape. Perfect in every way I could see.

I had once been him--well, younger than he was--when Raymond had picked me out of a Broadway chorus line. And what was six or seven years? Raymond was nearly forty years older than I was.

But I had been faithful to him for twelve years--well, for eight of the twelve years. The last eight years.

Jason unbuttoned and slowly took his shirt off his back and draped it over the back of a straight chair within reach of where he was standing. Was he trying to tease me? If so, he knew the ammunition he had. His chest was magnificently developed. Not overdeveloped. He had a light covering of curly dark hair, but it almost looked like it had been groomed to be sexy as hell. His torso was hard, his pecs bulging, his nipples taut, a ripped six pack, a flat belly. And swirls of dark hair.

He gave me a teasing smile and sat down on the bed, facing me, spread his legs, leaned over and put his elbows on his knees, and puffed on his cigarette. He used the empty wine glass as an ashtray. He sat there, his eyes on me. Challenging me. Seducing me.

“I did want it,” I squeaked quietly. I’d either meant to say it louder or intentionally said it softly enough that he couldn’t hear it but that I could say I admitted it.

“What did you say?” he asked in that rich baritone voice of his. I assumed that he wasn’t just a choir director, but probably was quite a good baritone soloist as well. I wondered if there was anything he didn’t do well, but that made me think of how cut his torso was, of him stroking my chest and rubbing my nipples--and of how delicious and dominating his kisses had been, and I tried to push the images out of my mind.

Not successfully, however.

“I said I did want it . . . that I do want it,” I said more loudly. “It’s just that . . . it’s complicated.”

“Come over here. Sit beside me,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be complicated. Sex can be quite simple. We tend to tie too much into what is a simple biological need, one that can be satisfied without adding any strings to it or hurting anyone. Let’s talk about this.” The request sounded so reasonable, and I’d drunk more wine than I should have. And I needed the attention he was offering so badly.

“I don’t think so,” I said--but it came out softly again, me knowing he couldn’t hear it. I pulled myself up from the sofa and walked slowly to the bed. He smiled at me and crushed his cigarette out in the wine glass.

When I got there, I stood by the bed. He had to take my hand and coax me to sit beside him.

“You are so tense,” he said. “Twist away from me.” When I did he put his hands on my shoulders and massaged them. He paid some attention to my neck too. He did that long enough that I thought that was going to be it. Mixed feelings of relief and disappointment fought inside me.

He was a master; he waited for the disappointment to push away the relief. I felt his hands come around me and cup my pecs inside my open shirt. He lightly pinched my nipples between his thumb and a finger on each side and rolled them. His chest pressed into my back and he kissed me on the back of the neck. This lasted only for a few seconds, though, before he pulled my unbuttoned shirt off my back and tossed it over to the straight chair where his shirt was draped.

He was rubbing my nipples with his fingers again. “Umm, nice,” he said in a murmur. “You’re in great shape. I love a man who keeps himself up.” I certainly was up. My erection was tenting my trousers. I wondered if he had chosen his words carefully. “I bet you work out regularly.”

“Yes,” I said. What else could I say? Should I have said he was in great shape too, I wondered. Wouldn’t that be the same as saying, “Fuck me”? And although I knew now that’s what I really wanted--and he obviously intended to do--it would be defeat of all I should be saying and doing here to admit it to him out loud.

“Aaron tells me you once were in the Gay Men’s Choir.”

“Yes,” I whispered. His attentions were making me breathless. “So was my partner. We both had to quit when he got sick. He needed attention.” I needed to bring Raymond into this as a defense against his foreplay. I needed to keep Raymond in the room with us.

“We all need attention,” he said, and then returned to his line of approach. “That means you were what, a tenor?”

“A second tenor,” I answered.

He zeroed in on what he really wanted to clear up. “And gay? It’s a gay men’s chorus.”

“Yes.”

“Actively gay?”

“Just with my partner in recent years.”

“But before that?”

“Yes.” Why was I answering his intrusive questions?

“Indiscriminately? Casually? Big men?”

“Yes.” We both knew what he meant by “big” men. I knew then that he was hung and checking out fit. Could I take a big cock? Had I taken big cocks? Did I do--had I done--so casually? How easy was I--had I been any time in the past? I’d have to say “yes” to all of that. Suddenly I ached for the chance to say “yes” to all of that.

“Your partner has been ill for some months?”

“Yes.”

“He was dominant and you are submissive, right?”

“Yes,” I whispered. He kept drilling down toward the question, “Will you lay down and open your legs for me and take my cock?” And I kept responding to his questions.

I both felt and heard the lowering of my zipper this time. I didn’t do anything to stop him this time.

“I find you very attractive,” he said. “I want to fuck you.”

“I have a partner.” Keep Raymond in the room, I thought.

“Aaron tells me you have worn yourself out taking care of your partner. That you needed an evening out. That you need this--that you need me to fuck you. Yes, Aaron told me that there would be someone at the party who I might like being with me tonight. I am highly sexed. I don’t like to sleep alone. He was right. You arouse me. I want to be inside you.” We had reached the key question. He hadn’t quite asked it yet, but it was lingering there in the air.

“I understand that your partner--Raymond--is a big financial backer of the choir and that he wants, if I come to Asheville, for you to be pleased with me--in a sexual way.” Zing! That was an unexpected arrow, and it completely took the excuse of Raymond off the board. But it raised another inhibiting specter.

“So, you are doing this as part of the negotiations of your coming to Asheville?” I asked, a bit heatedly.

“No, I am doing this because I want to make you and your loyalty to your lover is getting between us. I want you to understand that it’s a false barrier. He wants me to fuck you. I want to fuck you. Could I get it up and keep it up as I have if I didn’t want to fuck you? The dick doesn’t lie.”

No, I suppose it doesn’t, I thought. Mine certainly had betrayed my want and need. He had fished my erection out of my trousers and was slow stroking me. I hadn’t stopped him. “I want to make love to you, to fuck you. I need to be with--inside--someone tonight. Lay down for me, open your legs to me, let me fuck you. Don’t think of your Raymond tonight. He doesn’t want you to. I can take care of your needs. I want you to take care of mine.”

There it was, the very question.

I can’t do this to Raymond kept screaming through my mind. Fighting with that was Raymond saying, “We want this new director. Be nice to him this evening.” And Aaron saying, “Be nice to Jason Ward this evening.” Both of them strongly hinting, “Let him fuck you. Give in to your need.” And Aaron saying “be nice to yourself too. You need a break. You need comfort as well.” And the hunk that was Jason Ward kissing my neck and shoulders and stroking my cock--Jason, a god, saying he wanted to fuck me.

With a low moan, I whispered, “Yes.” My voice had been low, but he’d heard me.

“You’ll lay down for me, open your legs to me, and let me fuck you?” Just checking for sure.

“Yes. Do you want to fuck me here on the bed or in the bathroom or on the sofa?”

“Good. Yes, I want to fuck you in all those places, but, for now, here on the bed will be fine,” he said and I heard my belt buckle being undone. “Come up and lie on the bed on your back.”

He used the maneuver of me coming up on the bed to pull my trousers, briefs, shoes, and socks off and drop them to the floor. I just went with it. We were going to do it.

He stretched out beside me, my head pillowed under his right arm and his left hand exploring my naked body as I groaned and moaned for him. I had my legs together, and his hand glided down there, and went between my thighs. I opened them a bit and sighed as he lightly stroked my inner thighs. My cock was standing straight up in throbbing erection.

“Turn your thighs out a bit for me,” he whispered. “Like this.” He placed turn my thigh with his hands to the position he wanted them in, and I let him do it. “Push your groin up. Proudly show your cock.” I did. His hand went there and stroked it. “You have a very nice cock.”

I was going to have a hard, god-like man between my thighs tonight.

“Please, please. I might come,” I pleaded. “It’s been so long since--”

“Your body is so nice. You deserve to be fucked regularly. I’m going to be so good to you. It doesn’t matter if you come now. You can come as many times as you want tonight. I can make you come repeatedly.”

I shuddered.

“Open your legs for me now, please. Yes, spread them. Bend them, feet flat on the bed. Elevate your pelvis more, please. I want to see your hole. I want to open you up for me. I have a big cock.”

I complied, trembling.

“Nice. But it will have to open much more for me. I have a very big shaft.”

His demands, calmly expressed as if they were oh so reasonable requests, were raw, straightforward. They were driving me wild. Spoken in any other tone, they would be crude, earthy. But I was beginning to want that from him. If he suddenly rolled over on top of me and took me swiftly, I would melt to him.

His hands were on my buttocks, spreading them and squeezing them. I gasped as he leaned over and blew on my anus and then gasped again as one of his fingers went to my hole. He rimmed it for several seconds and then penetrated it. I tensed and my sphincter closed down on it, but he massaged that a bit. I moaned, feeling myself turning to Jell-O. I was losing control. I started to lower my legs to expel the finger and roll away from him. No one else had fucked me this way--methodically destroyed all of my defenses before taking me.

“No, no. Keep your legs where they are. Let me in. Relax, don’t fight me. Give it all to me.”

With a groan I returned to the position he’d put me in and he inserted a second finger in me, massaging my sphincter with it as the other finger sank deeper into me. Like gates rolling open, the way opened to him and he pressed deeper in with the second finger. He whispered, “Relax. Let me in. Yes, like that. Continue opening. Let me do whatever I want. Where is it? Yes, there it is.” His matter-of-factness sent me up a notch in arousal.

He’d found my prostate and was lightly rubbing it. I was seeing flashes of light and moaned and I rolled my hips slightly against the probing of his finger. He bent over and took my cock in his mouth. The fingers in my ass were moving, in and out, in and out. Pressing against the wall, teasing the channel to widen. His tongue was flicking at my urethra slit and then was pressing in like he was going to fuck my dick with it. I gasped and then gasped again as his lips slid all the way down the shaft and he was constricting his throat muscles on it.

I shuddered and shot my load in his throat. It didn’t seem to faze him a bit. He slowly pulled his mouth off my cock, did some cleanup work with his tongue, and then raised his lips to mine and we kissed. I was surprised when I found we were sharing some of my cum. Raymond had never done anything like this with me before. I was trembling. I never would have done this with anyone else. I was Jason’s captive, wondering what else I would do with him that I’d never done with any other man.

Apparently, whatever he wanted.

When we came out of the kiss, I apologized. “I’m sorry. I don’t usually come that quickly.”

“Nice,” he said. “Even your cum is sweet. You haven’t had it for a while, have you? But your body is so nice. You have a very nice cock. And you’re tight, but you’ll open fully to me. I’ll make you come for me again . . .” He pulled a moan out of me and smile that he had.

He was so professional about this. I didn’t doubt that I would come for him as often as he wanted me too. I was completely his now. There was no going back--or thinking of doing so. We’d already had sex and he hadn’t even fucked me yet.

I moved to close my legs, but he put his hand on the inner thigh of my left leg and said, “No, stay that way. I’m going to do you in a missionary, and you’re already in position for that.”

I was trembling again. He was so open and straightforward, so matter-of-fact about this--and so, so sexy.

He rolled off the bed and stood up beside it, saying, “Stay there, just like that,” again. I watched him strip off his trousers and briefs and socks. He’d taken his shoes off and left them by the door earlier. He wanted me to see him do that, to undress. His body was magnificent, lightly hirsute, and more than lightly muscled, with a sculpted six pack. His navel was marked by a sunburst tattoo that radiated out from it an inch and a half in all directions. He was hung and fully erect.

I had a short flash of pleasure and pride that I had made him hard.

“Is your partner this big?” he asked, cupping his erect cock. His tone again showed just mild curiosity.

“No, not quite. But he’s big.”

“After I have reamed you to my size, will he notice that a bigger man has been there?”

“We haven’t fucked in months. He has cancer. He’s dying. We won’t fuck ever again.”

“Ah, yes. Now I remember being told that. Sorry. But that will make this special. I will have to fuck you very well, if you are only going to get it every few months, won’t I?”

“Yes,” I answered. I wasn’t going to banter with him about this.

“Luckily, I do fuck well. I think you’ll remember this for a couple of months. If I come to Asheville, we can fuck regularly.”

His right hand went into the slit in his wallet and he came up with a condom packet, which he held up for me to see and then slit it, extracted a disk, rolled the condom on his cock, and smoothed it out--all while I watched and came close to hyperventilating.

He smiled a charming smile for me and said, “You have said yes to so much. Say yes to me now. It would be best if we were absolutely clear. I am going to fuck you, aren’t I?”

“Yes.”

He held his erection in his hand and wagged it at me. “I’m going to put this big shaft deep inside you and ride you hard.”

“Yes.” He wasn’t asking just to make it clear. He wanted to heighten my arousal. It was working.

I had my cock in my hand, stroking it and moving my hips. I was rubbing my nipples with my hand. Panting, panting hard now. Now, now. Fuck me now.

“You’re going to have a ball being balled by me.”

“Yes.” The crude language from a young man who had been so refined before we’d come to this hotel room was sending my arousal into the stratosphere. It was as if he knew what the effect would be on me. I was tingling all over. Alive. More alive than I’d been in several months. Now. Now. Fuck me now.

He came back up on the bed below me, crouching below me, grabbing my ankles and raising and spreading my legs. I yelped and began to pant as he rolled my pelvis up and stuck his face in my crack, going for my asshole with his tongue.

I came again within minutes. That appeared to be a signal for him to stop the tease.

He fucked me in the promised missionary position, his knees pressed far under my buttocks, with my thighs running far up his, which raised my pelvis at an acute angle. My legs hung on his waist, my feet not able to touch the surface of the bed, my arms flung out from my sides, with my fingers clawing at the bedspread, while I panted and babbled such intelligent words as “Oh, shit. Fuck! Christ. God, you’re big. You’re enormous.” And later, when he was pumping me hard, pumping me deep, “You’re killing me! Yes, yes, yes! Git it, git it, git it.”

While, forcing himself in me deep and I arched my back and yodeled to the ceiling, he got it and got it and got it. But at first, initially, he held, rock-hard steady, and I moved my passage on the shaft, fucking myself, showing him how needy I was for it.

When he took over, he went in deep, into the inner core of me and held there, throbbing. I was mewing, begging him to pump me, but he held there, throbbing, my passage muscles rippling over his hard shaft. A cock thicker and longer than Raymond’s, I thought, in embarrassment, especially since this man had gotten me to tell that, although Raymond had nothing to be ashamed of in that department. I had a stab of guilt, seeing this as another betrayal of Raymond.

The only negative with Jason was that Raymond didn’t use condoms. I would miss the feel of his warm cum exploding into me. I felt guilty about bringing up Raymond and making comparisons in this position. I needed the friction so badly that, on the first penetration, I had used my core muscles to move on the cock that Jason was holding there, steady. He had laughed, running his hands down my thighs, possessed my cock and stroked it, as I moved my passage on his hard shaft, fucking myself. With Raymond, it had always been him showing his need to fuck me; with Jason, it was me showing my need to be fucked by him.

He slowly, relentlessly, joined me in the fuck, taking ever deeper, ever more rapid strokes, until I collapsed and left the fuck to him. With months of depravation, I had come yet again, with him stroking my cock to the rhythm his cock was stroking my passage, when he came as well. He rolled off me, pulled the spent condom off his cock, and made a perfect throw with it into a waste basket.

“That was nice. You’re an excellent lay. You needed that, I could tell. I needed to get my rocks off too. You heated me up thinking that maybe you wouldn’t take me. Stay right there. Don’t move,” he said. “If this is all you’re getting this month, this will have to be a marathon. I Need another one--another rubber--and I’ll need a couple of minutes before I can fuck you again.”

He went off to the bathroom, and I stayed right in place, on my back. The guilt was still there--and the embarrassment about how open and raw he was about this, and that it turned me on--but we’d fucked once. Now that I was here, if he wanted to fuck again, I’d let myself concentrate on the requests to please him rather than the disloyalty I was showing Raymond. I had thought I could make it to the end with Raymond and feel good about my commitment to him later. The commitment of a much younger theater singer and dancer to an older wealthy man had always been there between us as something that easily could wound and then fester. But I’d done my best--at least for the last eight years after the one blowup and separation--until just now.

But, god Jason could fuck. And he was hung like a bull. Perfect in every way, damn him. He had left the bathroom and breezed by me to the kitchenette. Maybe for more wine. I could still feel his fat cock in me, working me, and I had a stab of disappointment when he walked by the bed. He’d said he’d fuck me again. But he said he’d need some time for recovering before he did. And of course he did. But I ached to have him inside me again.

Thoughts of Raymond, wheezing in his bed and me not being there tonight, assaulted my mind, but I kept pushing them back--reminding myself of Raymond’s permission, of him actually helping set this up. If I was going to two-time him and let myself be fucked, I’d at least lay back and enjoy the fuck.

Jason was back at the side of the bed. He’d gotten another condom packet from the bathroom. Apparently, he traveled with only one in his wallet. He rolled it on and smoothed it out.

“Phase two,” he said. “We’ve been introduced; this is where we ride each other like lovers.”

And ride each other like lovers we did. It was another missionary position, but very different from the first. At his direction, I sat in his lap, facing him, my thighs over his, the two of us in a close embrace. He was inside me, deep. We wrapped our arms around each other, my smooth chest rubbing against his slightly hirsute one, and kissed and cooed to each other. And we rocked against each other, both of us maintaining a motion with our hips and the leverage of our legs, and the swaying of our torsos with each other, causing his cock to slide in and out, deep.

“Go with me, baby. Yes, just like that,” he cooed.

We became one perfect, synchronized fucking machine.

We moved faster and faster against each other, urging each other on, telling each other what a good fuck we were getting. I came first and just lay, arched back, in his embrace, my arms dangling at my side as he moved inside me, against me, kissing and licking my sternum and belly, and, eventually, tensed and jerked, one, two, three times, and I knew he was filling the bulb of his condom. The slight regret reared up in me and then melted away that we weren’t barebacking, that I didn’t feel his warm cum inside me.

“That was good,” he whispered. “It would have been nicer if I wasn’t sheathed, though. If we were permanent lovers and could fuck raw. I would love to fuck you raw. Maybe if I take the Asheville chorus job--”

My thoughts exactly. The specter of Raymond floated across my mind. But reality told me that, if Jason took the Asheville job, Raymond more likely than not be no longer be in the picture. I hadn’t pictured anything after Raymond. Now I could be bold enough to do so--with Raymond’s encouragement. I realized how much Raymond was in this fuck. He was signaling for me to get past total reliance on him and moving on in life.

“Yes, yes. Take the Asheville job. Come back to me--come inside me, raw, fully possessing,” I murmured. If he had stripped off the condom now and mounted and penetrated me, I would have willingly taken him bareback.

“Let me see it,” he said, gently pushing me on my back and folding my legs up into my chest and rolling my pelvis up. He dabbed at the rim of my hole with his finger. “Yes, nice open now. Maybe we can get a little rough now.”

I sucked in air and flinched. He patted my buttocks, laughed, and said, “Just kidding.”

But I couldn’t tell how much he’d been kidding. He moved up to where he was stretched along my body again, pulled me to him with his right arm around my shoulders, looked down into my eyes, and then he took my lips with his again. The kiss became prolonged, intense, rough, almost brutal. When he released my mouth, he whispered, “Have you ever had it rough?”

“Not in the last twelve years--well the last eight years. My partner wasn’t rough.”

“You have been with your partner how long?”

“Twelve years.”

“The first four years he fucked you rough? Slapped you around? Bound you?”

“No, not him. I wasn’t always faithful to him at the beginning--only later, the last twelve years.” I wanted to cry. Was Jason going to pull everything out of me? All of my secrets? Was he going dissect my relationship with Raymond? Was I going to let me, give him anything he wanted--pull every private secret out of me? Bareback me, if he want to even? I realized that I wanted him to bareback me.

“So, there were men who were rough with you before you went solely with your partner?”

“Yes.”

“Did you enjoy being fucked rough by them.”

I hesitated, but then I confessed. “Yes, sometimes.”

“Have you thought that maybe you went with them in those years when you were first with your partner because he wouldn’t fuck you rough, fuck you totally, and you needed that sometimes?”

I wouldn’t answer that.

“Think about it,” Jason said. Then he laughed and rolled away from me and off the bed. He left me, with the indication that that was the sex for a while, although I felt a flash of arousal when he said, “Can you stay the night? I like to sleep with the men I’ve enjoyed fucking.”

He had seemed so professional at this that I couldn’t tell if he really was enjoying it as much as I was. And I didn’t want to take the risk of asking. I just reveled in each time he’d said something was nice or good.

I assented to staying most of the night, mentally checking what time Raymond’s night nurse went off duty. Jason accepted that without argument and went to the bathroom to take a shower. “There’s a Falcon’s game on TV, I think,” he said as he padded off. “Something to do before bedtime.”

“I thought--” I started to say.

He laughed. “I can fuck you on the sofa while the game is going if we get randy again that soon.” The TV was over the fireplace facing the sofa and Jason had come from Atlanta to check out the choir opening in Asheville.

“I’m already randy again,” I whispered.

“Of course you are,” he answered, full of confidence and knowing he was in control. “See how easy it is now that we’ve done it?” He already was in the bathroom and turning on the shower.

I gingerly sat up on the side of the bed. I was a bit sore, but gloriously so. It had been several months since I’d had a cock inside me. Raymond was big--one of the reasons I’d gone with him in the first place. In those days, a man’s cock size was more important to me than his bank account. Raymond was blessed in both regards, though. But Jason was appreciably thicker and longer. And he certainly knew how to use it. He could be a pro.

He also knew how to tease and seduce.

I went to stand up but was a bit wobbly. I reached my hand out for support and accidentally brushed Jason’s wallet off the top of the nightstand. The wine glass he’d made into an ashtray would have gone too, but I instinctively chose that to grab for and save rather than the soft-sided wallet.

Bills and pieces of paper and business cards and all slipped out of the wallet as it fell to the carpet. No condom packet, though. I couldn’t help but looking at the stuff as I was putting it back in the wallet. A sudden flash of anger went through me, but then I was struck with understanding. My eyes teared up, but then I shook my head and gave a sigh and a little laugh.

When he came out of the bathroom, a towel tied around his waist, Jason smiled, jerked the towel open, flashed me a shot of his erection, showed me that he was carrying another condom packet, and said, “For later.”

“No, for now,” I said. “Come here and lay on the bed. We made love to each other last time. You gave me what I needed. I make love to you now.”

He raised his eyebrows and gave me a lopsided smile, but he dropped the towel and came over to the bed. He stood there for nearly a minute, in front of me, while I handed his cock and rubbed it on my cheeks and teethed the sides of it. I know he wanted to put it in my mouth, but I teased him with it momentarily.

Than I did make love to him, for the first time without reservation or guilt. I made him sit at the foot of the bed and I knelt before him and gave him a blow job, holding him down with a palm on his belly and my fingers tracing the rays of the sun emanating from his navel. I laced the fingers of my other hand through his balls and squeezed and rolled and distended them as I suck his cock. He rewarded me with low moaning. The balance of control was shifting a bit. I meant for it.

“Do you bust your partner’s balls like this?” he croaked.

“No. I never have. This is special, just for you,” I said, momentarily taking my mouth off his cock, but only momentarily.

He groaned but he didn’t beg me to stop. “You’re going to make me cum a bucket load,” he said, in a weak voice.

“Yes,” I answered.

He could have risen, of course, but he respected the demand of my hand not to let him get up until he’d come in my throat. As he had done with me, I then climbed up the bed to him and shared his cum with him in a kiss.

I had him move up the bed on his back and I covered his body in kisses until he was hard again.

“Do you want to bareback me?” I whispered. “I’ve had only the one partner for years and we have had no trouble. It’s all up to you and how often and when you’ve--”

“We’d better not,” he said.

“You have fucked--”

“I fuck men all the time. Better we use a rubber, but thanks for the offer.”

Of course I knew he fucked a lot of men. He was too good at it and to be doing it regularly. I knew what his answer had to be--and I don’t know what I would have done if he’d said yes. But I wanted him to know that I was committing to him fully, if only for this fuck.

I crowned him with the third condom, and I straddled his pelvis, facing his head, screwed my passage down on his cock, and rode him and rode him and rode him, arching back, with my fists buried in the mattress at his ankles and bouncing on his cock in long slides just like a male whore working a sugar daddy. I was giving him the best ride in town.

When he’d come again, I just lowered myself on top of him and we dozed off. He wouldn’t find out the score of the Falcons game until the next day, and I’d never bother to check up on it.

I woke up at 5:00 a.m., stretched out beside him. He was snoring lightly, still in a very pleasant baritone. I got the clutchy feeling that Raymond was in bed with me because he snored in the same pitch. I quietly got out of bed, dressed, and left the hotel suite. The Residence Inn was only four blocks from Raymond and my apartment, so I walked it. It helped to clear my head and to think about what had happened and why--and where to go from here.

* * * *

I let myself into our apartment and went to the separate bedroom I’d started using at the beginning of Raymond’s sickness, when it was really bad with him. It was a large apartment. We had plenty of bedrooms. There would be too many empty ones when he was gone. The last couple of weeks, he was doped up enough that he wasn’t restless. I lay with him during the days now sometimes when there was no nurse on duty. Sometimes I told them they weren’t needed, but Raymond could afford to have them around the clock and to have everything he needed here in the apartment so he’d never have to go to the hospital again.

We were close to the end. He kept saying we were both close to a new beginning, but, until tonight, I hadn’t understood what he meant or been prepared to accept it. I had thought I would just give up sex after he was gone. But after the night with Jason, I knew I wasn’t going to do that.

After I took a shower, I changed into a pair of pajamas and went into his room.

“How has he been, Chester?” I asked the night nurse.

“He was restless earlier. He’s at peace now. I gave him what the doctor said he could have. He’s been murmuring your name, sir.”

“I’m here now. Thanks. You can go a little early this morning. I’ll sit with him.”

“The doctor, he said that you needed--”

“I’m just fine. I’ve got exactly what I needed yesterday. Everyone was right. I just needed an evening out. I want to sit with him.”

The night nurse left, but I didn’t sit with Raymond. I stripped off the pajamas, which had been for the night nurse’s benefit, slipped under the covers, cuddled close in beside Raymond, and gently enveloped his cock in my hand. I thought he remained asleep, but he hardened up, moved his hips in the rhythm of my slow stroking, had a beatific smile on his face, and came for me.

Afterward, I saw his eyelids flutter, and he whispered, “Thank you, baby,” before he went back to sleep. I snuggled closer to him and tried not to cry. I dozed off in exhaustion myself. There had been a sneak attack in the night, a driving doggie fuck that had been rough, including slaps, hard taking, twisted arms, and pulled hair. It had had me strutting on the clouds. Yes, there was a time and there were men who had fucked me rough, and I had loved it. Each way Jason had taken me had reminded me that I was alive and wanted to be alive--and wanted to continue to be fucked.

* * * *

I was at the breakfast bar, eating breakfast, when Aaron called me on my cellphone.

“I hope you had a pleasant evening out, Derek,” he said. There was something in his voice that was tentative and questioning. “You seemed to be enjoying yourself at the concert and the party. I think it’s what you needed--an evening out.”

“Yes, I had a ball, Aaron. And I got balled. Four glorious times. The fourth time a sneak-attack doggie in the middle of the night. I really got laid out that time.” I kept an “amused” tone to my voice.

“Excuse me?”

“Jason Ward isn’t a Gay Men’s Chorus director candidate from Atlanta at all, is he? He’s a male prostitute and is from right here in Asheville. I accidentally saw his escort service and stripper services business cards last night. Don’t blame him. It was an accident and he doesn’t know I saw them.”

I heard the intake of breath on the other end. “Listen, Derek. It’s not what you think. Well, it is what you think, but there’s--”

“It’s OK, Aaron. It is what I needed to hold on for the next couple of weeks--and to be prepared to look to the future. I’ll feel guilty about it forever, of course. But I know your intentions were--”

“They weren’t my intentions, Derek. They were Raymond’s. He wanted this. He asked me to help get you laid--and laid good. He’s worried about you. He wants to know, Derek. He wants to know before he’s gone that you’ll let someone take care of your needs when he’s gone. Raymond paid for the male hooker. He told me to get the best--not only one who was hung--he was very insistent that the man should be young, muscular, handsome, and hung--but one who could seduce a stone statue. He said he wanted to hear you purring in the morning.”

I let that sink in. “Umm, I don’t know what to say, Aaron.”

“Well, don’t say anything to Raymond. He wants nothing said in the open about it. He says you’ve always been self-conscious by the differences in your ages and that he was keeping you. But he said he couldn’t have lived this long without you. He didn’t think you should ever know what he did concerning this hooker. I didn’t agree, though. I thought you should know so you wouldn’t feel guilty about it. And now you do. But Raymond doesn’t need to know.”

“Well, OK, I guess.”

“So, was he good?”

“Yes, he was very good indeed.”

“You said . . . four times.”

“Yep. Are you jealous?”

“A bit, yes. But, while we’re talking, two things, Derek. First, Raymond has paid the escort agency for three more sessions. Fee nonrefundable. He wants me to figure out a way to get you laid periodically until the end, and confidentially, since I’m his lawyer, his will leaving you most of his money specifies that he wants you to spend some of what you get from the estate by bringing a young guy with a big gear shift for you to ride and a problem of needing it once a day into your life and bed the week after he’s gone. Those were his words.”

I laughed. “Before last night I would have said no way. Right now, though, it’s not an idea you need to sell me. You said two things.”

“Yeah. Jason Ward has already called in to report on the evening. He said you were great. He’s aware you have credit with the escort agency and wanted to be sure I knew he wanted to throw his cock in the ring for more servicing of you.”

“OK, thanks, Aaron,” I said. “I understand. Thanks for looking after me. I gotta go now.”

I disconnected the call and dialed the nursing service. I told them they could cancel the dayshift nurse today, but send one as normal for tonight. Today, I wanted to pamper my man tonight. Tonight, I had other plans.

Then I went looking for my wallet and pulled out the escort service business card I’d swiped when I was putting stuff back in Jason’s wallet. I picked up the cellphone again. I hoped Jason wasn’t booked for tonight already. I had a sudden hankering for another evening out--one not clouded by a feeling of guilt.

I went in to Raymond after I’d made arrangements--and satisfactory arrangements there were. Jason could get the Residence Inn suite for another night. Raymond was waking up, or close to it as the pain killers were going to permit. He looked at me and smiled and I gave him a smile back. I knew that for the last few weeks I’d only been able to manage a look of concern, which concerned him as well. Today I could manage a genuine smile.

“I thought I’d spend the day with you,” I said. I’d taken over running his businesses months earlier. But he had good people on the payroll. I could take a day or two off. We’d always planned for me to take more time off near the end.

“How are you doing this morning, Derek?” he asked. I knew his question had more concern behind it than he was letting on.

“I’m purring, Ray; I’m purring.”

His answering smile was radiant. He closed his eyes. I waited until his breathing was as regular as it was going to get and I thought he was asleep. I leaned down and kissed him on the cheek and whispered, “Thank you for the purring, Daddy.”

His eyes fluttered. He smiled, slid a gnarled hand along the sheet, and squeezed my hand.