Close-Up

He wasn’t looking. He was talking to a woman sitting at a table across the pool from me, but he was looking sideways at her and giving me a full-frontal view, so I snapped off a few photos. I captured the whole effect of him, just out of the pool, body beautiful, with beads of water glistening off his body in the sun. 

Then a few close-ups. One of his male-model handsome face: reddish-blond hair, square jaw, clean-shaven dimpled chin, gorgeous smile. Another of his torso: muscular, but not musclebound, beefy for a guy probably in his mid-thirties, swirls of the reddish blond hair around his pecs, descending in a line down his sternum and flat belly. A hint, possibly, of a fringe of pubic hair in the same color, but what I could see of that was probably just wishful thinking. And then a close-up of his pelvis. His suit wasn’t a Speedo, but it pulled nicely across his crotch. I think in a blow up I could get the curve of the cock and balls.

I didn’t know his name. I called him Mr. Wonderful, and I had been fantasizing about him ever since we’d both been coming to the pool of the Beaufort Christian Academy in the mornings before the classes started.

The school had the best pool for swimming laps to be had in the Beaufort, South Carolina, area, and, through contact with the English department chairman here, Kate Hamilton, my publisher had arranged for me to be able to use the pool. Apparently, others in town had the same arrangement, as there was a group of us out here swimming laps in the mornings before classes started.

I usually used lap time as a time to pull down inspirations for my writing—I wrote coming-of-age books; two kinds of them in genres I kept strictly separate by pen name. My Christian theme young adult books got me invited to book festivals and bookstore signings. My coming-out-gay books made more money. My publisher wanted more of each but said New York City had become too distracting for me—that I needed to get away.

Taking a long-term rental in the isolated town of Beaufort, South Carolina, off the beaten path of almost anywhere between Charleston and Hilton Head, seemed a good place to get away from the New York swirl.

“It’s picturesque; a sleepy little southern harbor town. Movies are made there,” Sara, my publishing house representative, said. “There should be inspiration aplenty.”

She’d been right. My muse had latched onto Mr. Wonderful, here, mornings at the academy pool. It had blotted out any inspiration I might have for Christian-themed coming-of-age novels. I could feed my gay coming-of-age muse, though.

To be blunt, I ached to fuck Mr. Wonderful. I didn’t even know anything about him other than he looked sexy in a bathing suit. I just knew that I fantasized about having him under me and being inside him.

I swam laps to clear my mind and let story ideas filter in. But he was usually in the pool swimming laps at the same time. All I could think of while I swam, with him one or two lanes over, was how many positions I could put him in. That certainly wasn’t a Christian theme. And it wasn’t a gay coming-of-age theme either. We both were way beyond the coming-of-age stage. Both of us were somewhere in our mid-thirties.

Now that I had taken the photo shots of him, I was obsessed with getting them printed. I had already set up a darkroom in the old bungalow in Fiddler’s Cove I was renting, because I wanted to indulge in my photography hobby as well as get two novels written to check off my contract with my publisher. Still I waited.

I waited until I saw Mr. Wonderful leave the pool area and then I followed him into the locker room. He was in the shower and I got in there too before he left. His body was even more beautiful naked than with the swimsuit on. Our bodies were comparable. We’d both stayed in shape. His hair was that reddish-blond color all the way to the trimmed bush. I was dark haired. We probably had the same covering of body hair, which was slight and more a frame for our pecs and a trail down into our pubes, but mine was black and curly, so more noticeable.

We were both slim hipped, with pert buttocks and distinct hollows below the hips. And we were both hung. We could make beautiful love together, trading off who did what to whom. I was so turned on by possibilities that I had to turn away from him or he would have known it.

I deeply regretted that I couldn’t somehow get a camera in to the showers and memorialize his naked body. I dreamed of taking a close-up of his cock and balls while just inches from them and before taking his cock in my mouth.

I drove straight home to the bungalow in Fiddler’s Cove, which was south of the Beaufort waterfront and around the curve of highway 802 going on to the Marine training base at Parris Island. The house, a one-story Carolina-style bungalow clad in weather-beaten wood, was on a longish dirt and gravel drive off the road to Parris Island. The house was set off on its own just above the water and up against a bend in the Beaufort River, looking back at the Beaufort waterfront. It was the photogenic view of the town waterfront at various times of day from here that had sold me on the house.

The house itself was both too big and too derelict for what I was used to, but I’d been told that there was nothing I could do to it that would impact on a security deposit and I had immediately seen how a back bedroom would be turned into a darkroom and that a sun porch on the back, overlooking the river in three directions and cooled by the wonk-wonk of a ceiling fan would be perfect for writing, so I took it.

I almost exploded out of the car when I got there and went straight to the darkroom. Not too long after I had blow ups of Mr. Wonderful that I could hang to dry and then I went to the kitchen to find a bottle of bourbon and a glass. I took a couple of swigs and then, carrying both glass and bottle, went back to my computer in the sunroom and sat there and pondered.

And pondered and pondered. I wasn’t in the writing mood. I was in the fucking mood, to be honest. That was the mood my publisher had wanted to get me out of by sending me out of New York. It had bummed a ride with me, though.

I couldn’t have Mr. Wonderful. At least tonight. Maybe sometime down the road, but not tonight. When the photos dried, I’d have some close-ups of him, I thought. I could pin them up somewhere and sit in front of them and masturbate—and no doubt I would—but not before they dried. I didn’t want to take the chance I’d mar them with a smudged fingerprint.

In the meantime there was the computer. I’d already made use of my subscriptions to a few video sites and, desperate, and not having found anything in cruising on the one street of bars and restaurants in Beaufort, I’d even looked into the local hookup sites on the Internet. I’d paid for it occasionally in New York. I wasn’t embarrassed to do that if I got value for the money. I’d been paid for it myself when I was younger. Indeed, my first coming-of-age gay books had been autobiographical, going from being a rent-boy on the streets of New York to an escort in my early twenties. There then had been the period of being paid in apartments and cars and travel rather than cash by sugar daddies. Now, at thirty-five, I got it by being interesting or recognized as an author. And sometimes I paid for it.

I would pay Mr. Wonderful for it if I had the opportunity. But I bet he’d be insulted. He’d either want it too or could get what he wanted elsewhere. And to have access to the pool he was swimming in, he probably had too much money already to need to fuck for money.

I’d found nothing in hookups on the Internet in the Beaufort area. There was Hilton Head and Savannah to the south and Charleston to the north. All three were lucrative sources for rent-boys and hookups. I had subscribed to the Savannah and Charleston sites.

I pushed everything aside and forced myself to put in a full day of writing. I denied myself more than one glass of bourbon, albeit it was a tall glass, perusing the hookup sites on the Internet or going into the dark room after the close-up photos of Mr. Wonderful until I’d written at least four thousand words to a Christian teen novel.

I won’t say I’m not disciplined. I was able to carry out my daily contract with myself—indeed it was just such negotiating with myself that kept novels of mine in the pipeline well enough for the synergy of moving buyers of one novel right on to buying one coming out when they finished reading the previous one.

It was getting dark when I typed the last of the four thousand words, though, and, looking at the dirty dishes on the table by the computer, I couldn’t even remember what I’d fixed myself for dinner.

I stood up and stretched. I was about to turn and go into the darkroom for the photos of Mr. Wonderful. But then I said, “What the hell,” out loud to the river flowing just outside the windows in the twilight, poured myself a slug of bourbon and tossed it off, and sat back down at the computer.

I went to the Charleston hookup site. It would show me some photos, but not many and no specifics on the guys unless I joined and filled in portfolio information myself. What the hell, I thought, and opened the application. It wasn’t so bad. I could answer truthfully, if generically, and be impressive enough, I thought. I’d tell the truth about the age off the top. No use spinning wheels, lying about that, and being closed down at the first face to face. Besides, bottoms didn’t mind going with tops that old. The problem was the other way around usually.

E-mail: I gave it. Phone number (optional): I didn’t give it. Height: six foot even. Weight: 185. Tell the truth about that as well. Build type: muscular. When you can say it, say it. Profession: novelist. That was true. That was an “advantage” answer too. Interests: writing, art, music, swimming, tennis, fucking. Race: Caucasian. Hair color: black. Smooth/Hirsute?: light pattern. Cut/uncut: cut. Cock length: seven and a half. Another area not to fudge too much with, and I was proud of mine. Finding by sight that you were off by a couple of inches meant a quick backout. Thick? yes. Preference: Versatile, but mostly top. Availability: Anytime. Location: Beaufort, S.C. Range: From Charleston down to Savannah; have wheels and accommodations. Comments: Horny and ready to rock your world. Rates/Willing to Pay: either; I’ve been paid; I would pay.

Then the kicker. Download photos—bare body shot, head shot, bare torso shot, cock shot.

God, they wanted it all. And they’d want it real. This wasn’t about cybersex; this was about face-to-face sex. And, it was OK with me. I didn’t see any reason to be scared of this. I hadn’t had any complaints—yet. I wouldn’t give the head shot in New York, but this was out-of-the-way South Carolina.

OK, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this. I picked up my cell phone, went into the bathroom, where there was a full-length mirror on the back of the door. I stripped down. Holding the cell phone out of the frame of the picture on a stick, I snapped a full length. Then close-ups of my face and torso. They didn’t ask, but I did two dick shots—flaccid and hard. I didn’t have anything to hide there.

Application submitted and accepted and suddenly the world of gay male hookups in Charleston opened up to me. There were more than a dozen of them immediately. I’d just go through some of them tonight. I’d get more serious tomorrow. I was being distracted by going back and forth between guys in the search file and guys pinging on me. I got a dozen at once pinging interest in me and that was intruding in my own search of the files so much that I just sat back, sipping bourbon, and going over the expressions of interest.

I was leaning back on two legs of the chair, merrily watching the screen scroll through and rubbing my dick through the material of my shorts from the bluntness of some of the offers, with my cock going hard, when I whistled, set the chair back onto all fours, and muttered, “Holy Shit.”

It was him—Mr. Wonderful—but it wasn’t really him. It was what he surely looked like when he was in his early twenties. The smile was the same, though. The color of the hair was the same. He was slender, with a twink’s body. He claimed to be twenty. Nice face, no body hair, very nice shy smile, nice cock. He looked fresh. From his join date, he’d only been there for a week. His stats showed a high number of interests, but no references. He liked my portfolio—a lot, he said. Both my photos and profile made him hard, he said. He charged $50 an hour during the act and $20 for side hours, plus travel and entertainment expenses, and would come to Beaufort, but I’d have to come get him in Charleston. He was a student—art and dance—at Charleston College. He’d travel but he didn’t have wheels. He could meet me tonight. He’d love me to fuck him.

“Holy shit,” I exclaimed. I bent over the computer and banged out a bid. “Interested. Rate is fine. I’d bring you to Beaufort and take you back. Soonest is tomorrow, May 10th.”

A message came back almost immediately: “How about pickup and checkout at Dudley’s, 42 Ann Street at 4:30 afternoon? They open at 4:00. I’d have to be back at college at 10:00.”

I answered, “I’ll be there. Can you shoot a shot of you naked, jacking off, to my cell phone now? I want confirmation you are your file photos and I want to get it off on you before tomorrow. $20 extra.” I gave him my phone number. It was a crude request, but if I was going to do an hour drive to Charleston, I wanted to know he was serious.

“You first,” came the reply, “and I won’t charge for my live photo.” He provided a cell phone number. I went into the bathroom, straddled the toilet seat, jacked myself hard, took a cell phone shot, and fired it off to him.

It took a few minutes, but he sent a photo back. He had a nice hard on. And he sent a short vid, not just a single shot. After hyperventilating for a few minutes, I took the phone, went into the dark room and retrieved the torso and crotch shots of Mr. Wonderful, which were dry; took the phone and photos into my bedroom; and stretched out on the bed. Bending my knees, I propped the phone and the photos up on my thigh so that I could see them in the background while watching myself jack myself off. Then I masturbated myself to a nice-load ejaculation and dozed off.

“Tomorrow I get laid,” I whispered as I nodded off.

In New York, when I was selling myself, I got laid every night. Sometimes twice or three times a day. Here, in sleepy little Beaufort? Not yet.

* * * *

My first use of Ethan’s ass—that was the name the rent-boy gave me, Ethan—didn’t go real well. He kept clinching and telling me I was too big. I went for some time assuming he was being coy, the way rent-boys are prone to do. Rent-boys should be ready to take a big one. But I decided that maybe he was being literal, because I only got it in a couple of inches and he was impossibly tight and closing his passage down. He’d been fine with the sucking, so I guess my observation that he seemed fresh was more relevant than I’d thought.

I didn’t get irritated, though, because I’d been so horny and ready for it that the effort of spiking him and not having gotten any for a couple of weeks had me finished off with just that much. And, as I said, his sucking before that had been fine and had put me on the edge.

I had been so horny for the guy who looked like a younger Mr. Wonderful that I’d changed plans for the day.

When we met at the Dudley’s “anything goes” bar and had both confirmed quickly that we were who we’d been in the photos we’d exchanged and that that was just fine, I said, “So, you’ll go with me? I had the $50 out in two twenties and a ten and showed them to him.”

“Sure, that’s fine,” he said.

“I’ve got a room at the Motel 6 on Ashley Phosphate Road,” I said. “We’ll do it there. Then I’ll take you to dinner and drive you back to your college.” I picked the Motel 6 because it was only one star and my experience with Motel 6s and my observation of the neighborhood it was in was that we wouldn’t have trouble. I didn’t know if the rent-boy was going to be a screamer. I wanted a place where nobody would care if he was.

“A motel here? I thought we were going to Beaufort.”

“I couldn’t wait that long for it with you in a car with me,” I answered. That seemed to please him and it had the advantage of being the truth. Besides it was neutral ground. If this went sour, I’d just bail on him.

When we got out on the street and I took him to the car, a new Nissan 370Z sports coup, he whistled and said, “Nice ride, Chris.” He said like he was surprised, and I knew why.

I’d given him my real first name, but not my last. “It’s leased,” I answered. And it was—not because I couldn’t afford a flash sports car but because I normally lived in New York City and had no need for a car there. But so that he didn’t get the wrong impression, I said. “I didn’t book at the Motel 6 because I’m cheap, Ethan. I’ll take you to a good restaurant for dinner. I booked there because we’re using it to fuck, not lounge in, and we don’t want to attract attention. Lots of people use Motel 6 to fuck anonymously in, and the Motel 6 people respect that.”

That seemed to satisfy him. And no reason why it shouldn’t, because it was the truth. I kept looking at him to see him as a younger Mr. Wonderful, and the similarities were there—the ready smile and the graceful walk.

So, inside the room we stood and swayed against each other, feeling each other up as we kissed. I backed up and sat on one of the beds—it was a double—two double beds—and there wasn’t much room after what the beds took up—and he knelt between my thighs and went right for my zipper and my cock. He treated the cock right, although in retrospect I realized there wasn’t any deep-throating. Worked up quicker than I normally was—because it had been an unusually long time since I’d had it—I lifted and bent him over the bed when I decided I needed to back up on the work on my cock, pulled his trousers and bikini briefs down, pulled around to kneel behind him, and sucked his cock and balls and got his anus wet and, I thought, open.

When I stood and crouched over him and put my crowned cock in position, he closed right down on me and started the “God, you’re big. Too big,” complaining routine. He was trembling and panting heavily too.

He obviously wasn’t a seasoned rent-boy. Well that was OK. It was just as good to break one in. It just meant this was going to cost me more than the $50, though, because it was going to take more time. That was OK too. I just didn’t mean to leave until he’d taken it all. That was the main point here. He wasn’t trying to back out. He was making no effort to leave.

He clearly was upset after that. He knew he hadn’t given professional service. Personally, I was a bit thrilled I had had a neophyte to work with. I took pains to assure him we were doing fine—and that we weren’t finished. I coddled and cuddled him as we sat side by side on the bed. And I kissed and fondled him and exchanged small talk with him. He was calming down and relaxing. He stiffened a bit when I pulled him onto my lap and fondled and kissed him some more—and let him feel I was hard for him.

I didn’t want to try anything fancy until he was mellowed out and was opening to me, so, assuring him we’d take it slow and easy, I took him in a bent-over-the-foot-of-the-bed doggie fuck again. I took it slow, taking my time getting in the first three inches and working his cock to take his mind off what was happening in his passage. He struggled against me and cried out when, feeling him relax, I quickly fed him nearly three more inches in a thrust. Then I held there, embracing him and calming him down and giving him time to adjust to me before I gave him the last couple of inches and pumped for a good fifteen minutes like that—beyond his shoot off—before I released into the bulb of the condom. By then, he was just lying in my arms, loose as a rag doll, and moaning.

I fucked him like this longer than I needed too—I kept edging off when I could have come—because I wanted him to be able to open to something this big and I wanted to work him until he was putty in my arms. I kept it hard by substituting Mr. Wonderful for him in my mind. My concept of Mr. Wonderful would be a fuck that went on forever.

We spoke only in monosyllables and surface comments as we showered separately and I took him out to the car and to Ruth’s Charis Steak House and fed him a T-bone. I took him back to the motel and T-boned him again myself, doing him in a missionary and making him open up completely to me in short order and giving it all to him. He was fine that time, although he did a lot of belabored groaning and came across as a sacrificial lamb. I was having none of that; I fucked him good.

Afterward I whispered. “You can register that as a seven and a half.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. I was still on top of him, still inside him, and we were both focused on me going flaccid—but still filling him.

“I was a rent-boy once too. When you talk among yourself about johns, you’ll refer to a date like this in terms of how many inches you took. We mingled pubic hairs this time, so you can tell the guys this was a seven-and-a-half-inch date. You haven’t done it for pay like this before, have you?”

“No. This was my first time with a stranger—for pay,” he admitted in a small voice, turning his cheek to the sheet and not looking at me.

I pulled off him, stood up, and said, “You can use the shower first. Then I’ll take you back to your college.”

“Was it . . . did I . . .?”

“I’ll send you a message when I get home,” was all I said. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d said more that he would have sworn off doing this ever again with anyone and pulled the plug on his hookup site listing.

At the college, we kissed before he got out of the car. “Did I . . . ?” he started to say again before getting out of the car, but I shushed him and told him I’d be in contact with him by e-mail. He gave me a worried look and exited the car.

When I got back to Beaufort, I sent him an e-mail. “You’re a sweet lay, Ethan. I wouldn’t have sprung for a T-bone if you weren’t. If you’re willing, I’d like to see you again—maybe pick you up at Dudley’s again next Tuesday at 4:30. I’d bring you to Beaufort this time and take you through enough paces that you’ll become a top earner. I will teach you but I will take full pleasure from you. Your rates will continue to apply. Confirm if you’re interested and if you want seven and a half each time.”

I had waited to pose this offer until we were at a distance from each other and there would be no pressure for him to sign on for anything he didn’t want to do. I wanted it to be clear that if we had another date, he would be worked hard.

He confirmed within the hour.

* * * *

I was standing, knees bent slightly to balance his body, as Ethan was arched off from me. His shoulder blades were pressed to the surface of the mattress at the foot of the bed, his arms stretched out straight from his body, his fingers digging at the edge of the mattress on either side, moaning deeply and looking into my eyes with an expression of pain, pleasure, and passion. His legs were hooked on my hips, and I was supporting his body with one hand palming the small of his back. I held a small video camera in my other hand and was recording close-ups that went from his expressive facial reactions to the root of my cock and the mingling of my black pubic curlies with the hair of his reddish-blond bush as I stroked him with all seven-and-a-half inches. I felt like it was more—that’s what the sexy young man did for me.

It was the second time I’d brought Ethan home to the bungalow at Fiddler’s Cove in Beaufort and worked him over, teaching him how better to take cock and the nuances of giving pleasure to his partner. He’d even improved his sucking technique and had become completely open in taking big cock.

One of his hands went to his own cock and I photographed him masturbating himself to completion. I continued stroking him deep until he’d shot off onto the lens of the camera in a close shot and then I dropped my load too and went down on the bed, dragging him with me to where we were fully on the bed and I was stretched behind him and holding him close.

“Did you get some good close-ups?” he asked in a whisper.

“I’m sure I did. And video too. We’ll have a great portfolio for you in no time.” I’d volunteered to do a photo portfolio up for him to share with clients and prospects. It would up his rates considerably, I thought. Until now, though, he admitted that he’d only gone with me for pay. I still hadn’t gotten him to admit that I’d been the first one to fuck his ass, but it was fine with me just to think that I probably was.

“I don’t want to go with anyone else for pay until you’ve shown me more,” he whispered. “I’m so embarrassed I didn’t do well the first time.”

“You did great the first time,” I said. “There’s a whole line of men who want to feel they are taking a virgin. If you get the idea you’re with one who does, remember how you were that first time with me. Embellish a bit on that in innocence and reluctance and they’ll pay you anything you want. And you’re ready to go more public now. I’m going to up your rates for me myself. You’re a great lay.”

“Please. I’m learning so much from you,” he murmured. “I’m not going to charge you anything. And I don’t know if I even want anyone else to—”

“No, don’t say that,” I said. “You can’t fall for the first john you pick up and give it to him for free. Or don’t you need the money?”

“Yes, I need the money. My father foots my college bill and expenses, but I want a car too. And I want nice clothes. And, to tell the truth, there’s an extra kick of taking it from someone who will pay me for it.”

“Paying you for it is arousing for me too. And I know what you mean about the rest. I did my time as a rent-boy. I valued the stuff I bought from the money I earned on my back more than I did the stuff anyone gave me—anyone other than sugar daddies, of course. What they gave me was what I was earning on my back too.”

“Speaking of earning on my back,” Ethan whispered. “You were going to show me the position you called the ‘rent-boy missionary.’”

I crouched between his legs, Ethan on his back, his back arched and me with one hand buried in the hair on the back of his head and arching his head back. I held the cleaned small video camera in the other hand, taking close-ups. I was elevated a bit on my knees between his bent legs and holding steady, as, his pelvis rolled up with a pillow under the small of his back, he moved his pelvis, fucking his passage from his own stroking motion on my held-steady cock.

I had told him that a successful rent-boy had to know how to gauge his john. Some wanted to control and make the moves. Others wanted the same kind of fuck, but they wanted the rent-boy to do the work. In this missionary position, the rent-boy was doing the work. Ethan was doing it well, but I was of the type who liked to control, if it was my cock being used in the fuck, which was another aspect of this. A successful rent-boy was versatile. To get the maximum money he had to be prepared to both take and give cock. I’d done that. There still were men I looked at and could think of both giving and taking with or just taking. My thoughts went to Mr. Wonderful. He was the sort of man I’d let make all of the decisions, including which of us was going to take cock.

Needing to control when I ejaculated, I turned him on his belly, with the pillow under his belly and his buttocks raised a bit with him on his knees, slid inside him and covered him close from above, my hands grasping his wrists, raising his arms above his head, and my face buried in the hollow of his neck. I fucked him in long, slow, deep strokes. This was another lesson in being a rent-boy that he was catching on to swiftly—to go with whatever the john wanted.

Later, I was sitting in a chair facing the side of the bed, watching him, and clicking off close-up photos. He lay there, exhausted—whether actually or not, I didn’t know. I’d told him that johns liked to think they’d worn out the rent-boy and he should cultivate the look of being totally spent. He had the look down perfectly now. He lay there on his belly, an arm draped over the side of the bed, his knuckles scraping the floor beside the bed. He had a beatific, well-fucked expression on his face. I was sure the photos would be great.

“After you’ve rested, I’ll take you over to the Beaufort waterfront and feed you dinner. Then I’ll drive you back to Charleston.”

“Bring me back here and fuck me again before driving me back to college,” he begged.

“We’ll see. I’d like to walk you around Beaufort and show the place to you. It’s quite an atmospheric place. They make movies here.”

“I know all about Beaufort,” he answered. “I’ve lived here.”

“You have?” I asked, in surprise. I asked him more about that, but he said he didn’t want to talk about it. He wanted dinner and another fuck before he was driven back to Charleston.

“I want you to drive it in me before we go back. You say some guys will want to be rough and drive hard. I want you to drive me hard after dinner.”

Sounded good to me, so that’s what we did.

When I returned to Beaufort from Charleston that evening, I went immediately to the darkroom and processed the still shots from that third day with Ethan and hung them up to dry. I took the photos from the second session and looked them over. The progress he was making toward being comfortable and proficient as a rent-boy were evident. He wasn’t as good the second day as he’d been earlier today. But the second-day photos were sexy too. I took them out to the sunroom and posted them in an array behind the computer monitor.

I already had switched from the teen novel I had been struggling with. For the past two days, my Muse had wanted me to write a “training of a young rent-boy” novel. Ethan, of course, was who was in my mind while I wrote this. I sat down at the computer, opened a new chapter, and the vision of Ethan and of my own training to be a rent-boy nearly two decades earlier merged in my mind. I closed my mind to all other matters and let my finger race on the keypad.

* * * *

I couldn’t turn Kate Hamilton down. I hadn’t been going to the Beaufort Christian Academy pool for a morning swim for over a week, but I had gone and intended to go again regularly when this infatuation with training Ethan settled down, so I owed her for arranging for my use of the school’s pool. When we’d agreed to the arrangement I had promised to visit the English classes at the academy to discuss my Christian coming-of-age novels. She had a class that now had read one of the novels and was primed to discuss it with me. I was invited to the class. And, so, naturally I went—after, of course, I reviewed the book they were talking about. I wrote enough that, after a while, they all seemed to run together. I knew I’d embarrass myself some day when I was in a book discussion like this and started talking about a young guy getting fucked, mixing up what I’d written for the young Christian market and what I’d written for the dirty old man market.

I went and became petrified immediately. I have no idea how I made it through the class or even what I said to the students. I dearly hope we discussed one of my Christian teen novels and not one of my coming-out-gay novels. Kate was all smiles at the end of the class, so I guess I didn’t get that muddled.

I felt I was completely tongue-tied, though. When she brought me into the classroom and started the introductions of the faculty members sitting in before starting the discussion, I almost went catatonic.

“First, I’d like you to meet our headmaster, Nathan Sheldon,” Kate said. “He’s read several of your books and said he wouldn’t miss your visit for the world.” As she said that, the head master, who was sitting directly in front of me in the first row in the classroom, stood up and flashed a brilliant smile. Mr. Wonderful put his hand out to shake mine, and I limply let him hold my hand for several seconds longer than necessary. It wasn’t really discovering that Mr. Wonderful, the man I’d salivated over at the academy swimming pool was Nathan Sheldon, the school headmaster. That was logical enough—that the headmaster also would take in a swim in the mornings before school started to keep in the marvelous shape he was in.

I already had gone catatonic, because after introducing Mr. Wonderful to me, Kate said, “And this is his son, visiting from Charleston College, Ethan.”

And it was Ethan. It was my Ethan. He looked as shocked as I was, but he seemed to be hiding it better than I did. He may even have gotten an inkling of who Christopher Collins was in his world before I had come in. Now that I saw the two, I understood why I kept thinking of Ethan as a younger Mr. Wonderful—and why I was attracted to Ethan in the first place when I was in heat for Nathan. What I hadn’t caught, though, was that Nathan Sheldon was in an even better state of preservation than I originally had thought. He had to be more like forty than thirty-five to be Ethan’s father.

Now I understood what Ethan had meant when he said that he knew Beaufort—that he had lived here. He had lived with his father. And presumably there was a mother and siblings as well. My visions of Mr. Wonderful evaporated. He was Nathan Sheldon, a man with a family, a man who was the headmaster of a Christian school.

A man who was the father of the young man I was fucking and training to be a first-rate rent-boy.

Somehow I got through the class. But when it was done, Ethan had disappeared. I had every reason to believe he had now disappeared from my life altogether.

It wasn’t until now that I realized how much Ethan meant to me—that the relationship, in my emotions, had gone beyond fucking or training—or considering—him as a rent-boy. I was dominating him and he had been melding himself to me. He had been completely compliant and submissive. His body melted into mine, and now when we fucked, we fucked as one, coordinated movement of need, desire, cooperative give and take—affectionate, emotionally unified. Could I say it? Perhaps now, when I felt I had lost him, I could think of it more than just as like and desire. I could possibly consider that I had been on my way toward a deeper bond.

I dragged home. I punished myself by taking the processed photos of my third session with Ethan out of the darkroom and pinning them up on the board behind my computer. What I had thought was true. The melding had been quickly progressive. We were as one in the photos of the third session. He was mine. I was his.

I tried to work on the rent-boy training novel I had started. Ethan did run through my mind, just as he had when I’d been so productive, so sure of what to write, previously. But now I couldn’t see an end to the novel. I didn’t want it to be a bitter one—or even realistic. It needed to be a happy one. My publisher would have said that it needed to be a happy ending to sell and receive good reviews—not that gay male erotica got reviewed much, even though it sold well. But I knew it was more than that. This novel had to have a happy ending, or my own life would be destroyed. I couldn’t face life without a happy ending with Ethan.

But Ethan had left the classroom before I had finished. He had walked out. I was terrified that he had walked out of my life.

The horror that suddenly hit me was that the photos of him in coitus and afterward that I had pinned up around the room and was collecting for a portfolio for him weren’t the only photos I had pinned up in here. Before Ethan, I had other photos I had taken—photos that I surreptitiously had taken of Mr. Wonderful—Nathan Sheldon—Ethan’s father. They had included head shots. Ethan couldn’t have missed seeing them when he was looking at the photos I took of him. They must have still been pinned to the boards here. I looked around the room. They weren’t here now.

I was mortified. I tried to convince myself that I had taken them down before Ethan had come here, but it was a hard sell—and, although I looked, I couldn’t find where I might have put them. I knew I hadn’t thrown them out. I had been obsessed with Mr. Wonderful—so obsessed that I had gravitated immediately to the son who was the spitting image of him at nineteen.

Thoroughly depressed, I turned out the lights, went to the bedroom, took a long shower, and climbed under the sheets of the bed. I reached for my cock to provide me solace. But I was so upset, churning inside, that I couldn’t get it up to give myself relief.

Later in the night, though, I felt the sheets being lifted, and Ethan slipped into bed with me. I had no trouble getting it up then. He put all that I taught him a rent-boy need do to conquer a reticent john to full use, moving down my body, making love to me from mouth to cock and balls with his kisses and tonguing and sucking. When I was about to explode, he saddled himself on my cock, hugging my bent knees, holding, fully skewered until I was calming, and then starting to ride me, slowly, sensually.

I could only take that so long before I encircled his lithe torso in my arms, arched his shoulder blades back into my chest, laced my arms under his pits and locked my fists behind his neck, putting him into a full nelson. I laced my legs between his spread thighs, placed my feet on the surface of the bed for leverage, and, with him completely incapacitated, I took over the stroking, thrusting hard, long, and deep up into him, as he moaned, groaned, and sighed.

He gave himself entirely to me. I moved him into various positions that demanded flexibility and total submission and he denied me nothing. I brought him to release and beyond repeatedly. He took it all with no more than a groan and a moan. I exhausted him. We slept. I woke and woke him up fucking him again. We dozed off. I fucked him again when we woke up.

The next morning, with the sun up, he lay, totally spent on the bed, his eyes glazed over, a small smile on his face, drool running out of his mouth, and I moved around the bed, taking close-up shots of his beautiful, bruised, totally used body.

At breakfast, I said, “I’ll drive you back to Charleston this morning.”

“No need,” he answered. “That’s why I had come back to Beaufort yesterday. My father bought me a car. I have my own wheels now.”

The dominator in me sounded an alarm. It was nonsense, of course, but what was ringing in my head now was the knowledge that Ethan had independence now that he hadn’t had before. I had taken on the notion that the money I was giving him for use of his tail was going to what he’d said he wanted—a car. As long as he didn’t have enough from our fucking to buy a car, he was dependent on me, in my mind. I was dominant; he was completely submissive.

I became panicked, idiotically so, I know—but panicked nonetheless. I remained outwardly calm as I stood at my door and watched him pat the hood of a small, but sporty Subaru, all shiny and new, get in, and drive off. In my mind I was the one buying him a car. His father, Mr. Wonderful—Nathan Sheldon—had beat me to the punch.

And now, if Ethan carried through on his plans to be a rent-boy, it was because he enjoyed being fucked by men—multiple men—and not just by me. He no longer was all mine. And I hardly could consider myself his master now—I hadn’t managed to muster up the courage to ask him about the photos I had of his father.

* * * *

“4:00 p.m. Tuesday, as I know you don’t have a class then. Not at Dudley’s. New location, closer for you. North from the corner of Montagu and Rutledge, north on Rutledge. Two doors up from the corner. The brick carriage house with the arches in front.”

Ethan arrived on time, all questions.

“Later. Afterward,” I said, hustling him up to the larger of the two bedrooms, both under the eaves of a half second story. The massive bed took up nearly the whole room. I bent him over the foot of the bed and fucked him. I put him on his back on the bed and fucked him. I fucked him with him slouched in a chair, his legs hanging over the arms, his butt on the front edge of the cushion, and me hovered over him. I fucked him on the bureau against the wall, with his legs stretched out in either direction on the top of the bureau and me holding him from behind and fucking him. I fucked him on the carpeted floor, with him taking his weight on his shoulders, his head tucked in, and his tail waving in the air. His legs were in the splits and I stood over him, holding his hips between my hands, and jackhammering down into his passage.

He denied me nothing. He did it all. He gave me whatever I wanted. I wanted it all. I wanted to enslave him. He told me whatever I wanted I could have.

“I want you full time. My dedicated lover. Not anyone’s rent-boy,” I said later—after the close-up photos were taken of his debauched, ravished body. “I know I told you to avoid that, but now I’m begging you to do otherwise. I’ve moved here, to Charleston, three blocks from your college. I want you to live here with me—to go to college from here. But to come home to me. Here.”

“Your boy toy?” he asked.

“No, my partner,” I said. “My lover . . . my love.”

“I would have agreed even if you had said as your boy toy,” he answered.

I watched him leave, to return to his dorm room at the college, to pack up his things and return the next day.

As I watched him turn the corner on Montague and was about to turn, I looked up—to see Mr. Wonderful, Nathan Sheldon, approaching.

“Mr. Sheldon,” I said. “If this is about Ethan.”

“It’s not about Ethan. He’s enjoying you. This is about you and me.” He was holding the photos I’d taken of him at the swimming pool in his hand. I didn’t know what to say, and he didn’t wait for me to say anything. “Perhaps I should come inside.”

He fucked me on the tussled bed in the master bedroom, completely mastering me. I was totally submissive to him, letting him fuck me in a doggie fuck on the bed, me on all fours and him crouched over my hips, giving me more than eight inches. Giving me more than I gave his son. Giving it to me hard and longer. And I melted to it, wanting it, taking it, begging for it, and begging for more after we’d both come.

Then he gave it to me the same way I’d given it to Ethan that night he’d come to me in Beaufort—me stretched on top of him, trapped in a full nelson, my legs spread around his bent legs, him thrusting up into me, moaning and groaning.

Afterward, totally exhausted, I lay on my belly on the bed, an arm draped over the side, knuckles dragging on the floor, eyes glazed over, and a silly grin on my face. My buttocks was slightly raised by the pillow under my belly from the last position he’d taken me in, stretched out on top of me close, holding my arms over my head with hands grasping my wrists, swabbing my ear cavity with his tongue, and slowly, deeply, thickly, mining my ass, nearly the only movement discernible having been the rise and fall of his pelvis. I was drooling into the sheets, but I didn’t care. His cum was slathered on the small of my back; mine was puddled on the sheets under me. I hadn’t let men fuck me for years. Nathan fucked me without asking for permission, and he dominated me.

If he had wanted to fuck me again, I would have turned on my back and opened my legs to him. I felt the loss that he had stopped fucking me.

He sat across from the bed, in the chair I’d fucked his son in, magnificently naked, one foot casually raised to the cushion, snapping off photos of me in my debauched, ravished state with my own camera.

“Ethan gave me the photos,” he said. “I remember when you took them—and then when you followed me into the shower to see me naked. I would have fucked you then, if you’d asked me to. Then, after I asked around and found out who you were and discovered your books—not the young adult ones, the becoming actively gay ones—I knew we would fuck one day.”

I said nothing; just lay there, panting. I hadn’t had a man inside me for years and even then few were as big as he was.

Nathan continued. “Neither of us minds sharing you—as long as it’s you fucking him and me fucking you. He knows I’m here. He’s the one who forwarded your e-mail to me to let me know you were here. I have his class schedule. I’ll e-mail you when it’s convenient for me to drive into Charleston and when I know he’s in class. I know someone at your publisher’s, by the way. When I said I’d read some of your books, it wasn’t the Christian teen book drivel. It was your coming-of-age gay books. Quite some energetic scenes in those. We’ll have to try some of those positions out. You described being a submissive so well that I assumed that you let men fuck you. Was I correct?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“And that you would continue to let a man dominate you even when you were dominating others yourself.”

“Yes.” It was a bit late to ask for confirmation of that. The man had just fucked me every way from Sunday and I’d opened my legs for him.

The commanding voice of a dominator. He took it for granted that I’d let him fuck me again. He was right. With him I had been and would be the total submissive.

I couldn’t process this now, though. I was too totally fucked. Tomorrow. I’d think about this tomorrow.