Escape to Girne

The sun was still low in the eastern sky when I stole in the gate from the parking apron into the back garden. I stealthily--and painfully--mounted the outside stairs to the garage flat, hoping that Ergon hadn’t come back in the night after I’d left him in my bed. If he had, he wasn’t here now.

I was in the kitchen, applying cold compresses to my shoulders, thighs, and buttocks when I heard sounds coming up from the alley below my window. I went over to the window. I’d spent much time here, watching the alley, trying to see whatever I could. And fortuitously now I saw what I’d been looking for all along.

A small, nondescript trade van had been backed into the alley. The van sat there for several minutes until a man showed up at the head of the alley and looked both ways before coming into the alley, passing the van, and knocking on the door of Fuad Fikret’s villa. It was the Yemeni, Murad. The Yemeni and Fikret spoke for a few minutes at the door and then Ahmed came out of the house and started helping the driver of the van, who was wearing a hoodie, with the hood pulled over his head, pull bulk-wrapped packages out of the back of the van and carry them into the house. When they were done transporting whatever it was in that direction, heavier wooden boxes came out of the villa, each one carried by Ahmed on one end and the driver on the other--and not too easily moved--and placed in the back of the van. Fikret, Ahmed, and the Yemeni watched the van drive out. Ahmed went into the villa and Fikret and the Yemeni spoke for a moment more.

I didn’t know when, if ever there would be another opportunity. I could never have hoped to have this one. I quickly opened a drawer in the kitchen and sifted around until I’d found a sharp-bladed, sheathed knife that was small enough to put in the pocket of the cargo shorts hanging over the back of a chair in the bedroom. I dared not go for the shorts, though, without knowing what the Yemeni was going to do.

When I saw him walking back to the mouth of the alley and Fikret pulling back into the villa and shutting the door, I raced into the other room, pulled on the shorts, pushed the sheathed knife down into the lower pocket on the right, and moved down the stairs as quickly and quietly as I could.

The Yemeni was still in sight when I got to the mouth of the alley. He was across the street and entering the grounds of the Anglican church, quite evidently intending to take the shortcut through the church graveyard and in the shadows of the castle wall en route to the harbor below.

I had been trained to move fast and quietly and I put this training into full use as I crossed the street and entered the church grounds. Moving faster than the Yemeni was.

* * * *

After a brief visit to the garage flat kitchen, I put on a smile and went over to the house. I knew I was much later than I’d told Ergon I’d show up. As I walked across the gallery porch, I looked through the French doors and saw Jamil and Sami working in the morning room, finishing up the painting there. They were being unusually quiet this morning, and when they looked up at me, their faces showed apprehension rather than the usual sunny welcome. They both turned back to facing the wall they were painting with only the slightest polite smile.

Ergon was in the living room. He wasn’t sporting a sunny smile either when I walked in there.

“You said you wanted to see the early morning light coming in from the garden doors before deciding the color to paint this room,” he said, as I entered. “It’s no longer early morning.” His voice was hard, resentful. This wasn’t at all like he’d been last night when he was holding and rocking me. I actually preferred this. His gentleness and evident affection last night scared the hell out of me. I’d never intended for it to be that way.

“A light yellow will do, I think,” I responded, ignoring his mood. I wouldn’t bring it up unless he did. He didn’t own me; I made my own choices. I’d never asked--or meant for--him to care. “Almost white, only showing yellow when the sun shines in in the morning. I already was pretty sure of the color.” I actually didn’t give a crap what color the room was painted. I wouldn’t be here to enjoy the house. Whoever bought it could change the colors as they wished. I had never intended being around to live here.

“So, I’ve said a color. Are we going to inaugurate this room now?” I had said it to cut the iciness in the room. It failed miserably.

“No, I don’t think so,” he answered, “unless you direct me to. I work for you and will do what you tell me I have to do.” Didn’t sound too willing, but he did look at me then. I had turned from him and walked over to the fireplace. “You have welts on your back and legs.” I could almost hear the gasp he gave at the revelation. “You didn’t have those when you came back last night. Have you been there again today--next door?”

“Not today. Later last night.” I didn’t feel the need to protect him from anything. It was time to end this anyway. I was getting close to the end.

“Christ, the man is going to kill you. Don’t you understand that?” His words were angry. He cared. I had to steel myself from this.

“What if he does? What a way to flame out. And it’s my choice.”

“Did you come here--to Girne--to die?”

“I came here to seek atonement and to lessen the guilt. To be punished for my guilt, yes. If that requires my life--”

“I can’t stand by and watch you destroy yourself this way. You are going out on his boat with him too, aren’t you?”

I just shrugged and turned my face to the fireplace. I couldn’t look at him. It was too hard. I cared too, and that threatened to tear me apart. “If you want to go--you and Jamil and Sami--that would be fine with me. I will pay you two week’s severance. I could pay you now--as soon as I’ve been to the bank--or bring it up to the Tree of Idleness, if you prefer. Which would you--?” But I turned then to find that I was talking to an empty room. I went out into and walked along the gallery porch to where I could look into the morning room. They were gone. All three of them.

“Shit,” I said. But it wasn’t an I’ve-got-to-find-them-and-bring-them back shit. It was a general shit about how this had ended. I’d never planned to care--about any of them. It hadn’t been something I could afford. That I found I did care was what was shit.

I slowly walked across the garden and mounted the steps to the garage flat. I moved to the balcony from where I could look over the wall and into Fuad Fikrit’s orchard garden. Ahmed, in just shorts was sprawled out on a chaise lounge between two fig trees.

“Time to drive a nail in this coffin,” I muttered to myself.

There was a garden gate leading to a narrow pathway between the entry porch to Fikrit’s villa and the wall at the back of my lot. I pushed open the gate, which screeched in protest, and walked back to the garden. Ahmed watched me approach, but he didn’t move from his sprawled position, slid down on the chase, his legs extended off to either side, and his big feet flat on the ground.

I knelt down at the end of the chaise lounge, bent over his thighs, unzipped his shorts and pulled them off his legs, and took his long cock in my mouth. I gave him great head--or so his groans were telling me.

I was quite aware that at the screeching of the garden gate, Fuad came out onto a balcony on the bedroom level and watched me kneel below Ahmed and start giving him head. Fuad had a robe on, but it was open, showing that he was naked underneath. He was smoking a cigarette with one hand and hoisting a snifter of brandy with the other.

I was on Ahmed’s lap, riding his cock, facing him, when Fuad came down from the balcony, sans cigarette and glass. He crouched behind me, his hands gliding across my body. I moaned for him and turned my face to his for a kiss. He tasted of both the smoke and the brandy.

“You too, please,” I murmured when we’d come out of the kiss. He knew I could take a double. He had both a dildo and his own cock inside me the previous night. And he didn’t require more of an invitation. He coaxed me to lean forward, almost touching Ahmed’s massive, heaving chest with mine, and to roll my buttocks up. He fingered my hole and the root of Ahmed’s cock for a moment or two and, then I was panting heavily and giving little yip yip sounds as he worked his cock, with that thick PA ring, inside my channel underneath Ahmed’s shaft.

The Egyptian lay there very still, not moving his cock, which, though, was buried to the hilt inside me, as Fikrit palmed my pecs with his hands and started to pound, pound, pound my ass. Faster and faster, causing me to writhe and bounce up and down on the cocks. With a grunt, Ahmed couldn’t hold off any longer either and he was thrusting up into me too--both on the beat of Fikrit’s plowing and off the beat. They came up inside me almost simultaneously. I had already jacked off on the Egyptian’s chest.

We held there, time and action suspended other than heavy breathing in trio.

“You take it well,” Fikrit whispered in my ear. It sounded like a compliment, but I sensed a tone of “What do I have to do to break you?” in his voice. This was where I wanted him to be. I wanted him to do what it took to break me. Ergon had warned me--twice--that going out on his yacht with him would be over the edge. That’s where I needed to take Fikrit.

“It was like riding the waves,” I murmured. “Like we were on your boat and I was riding your cock in the waves of a storm.”

“Do you want to go out on my yacht with me?” I could almost feel him wetting his lips, anticipating what he’d do to me out in international waters where I would be fully his captive, entirely at his mercy. I knew I had challenged him, that he considered me a mission now--a mission to break me completely.

“Yes, I’d like that. Do you have some toys on your boat you don’t have here?”

“You’d better believe it,” he growled. “Saturday. Saturday I’ll take you to sea.”

Today was Thursday. The end was near. But there wasn’t much time.

We were rocking together, still fully linked, and I could feel the renewed interest in both of them. “Double me again, can you? Now. But harder. Punish me.”

They complied.

That evening I dressed in a tight T-shirt and long trousers and walked down the hill to the Harbor Club. The bar was on the second floor, overlooking the harbor through a large window looking out onto a balcony with tables. The tables were all occupied with Westerners, eating their meals earlier than the normal Cypriot dinner hour.

I sat at the bar chatting up a young American woman, who obviously was bored and cruising. I couldn’t give her satisfaction on the cruising, but I could keep her from being bored for a bit of time before an unattached man to her liking showed up. She had seen a young man slip me his phone number and blow me a kiss as she was approaching the bar. She seemed comfortable that I was a safe interlude to serious shopping.

“You sound like an American,” I said.

“Yes. American embassy,” Cynthia answered. “And you? I can’t quite place the accent.”

“Canadian. I’m into coal in Canada. But escaping the dust.”

“In Cyprus long? Have you found a good beach on the Turkish side?”

“Not long,” I said. “I haven’t found a beach I like, but there’s a pool bar, called Rosie’s on the Rocks, west from here along the coast that I like a lot. You pay by the day and there’s a great pool right on the rocks over the water. You can swim in the sea there too, if you like. And they have a bar and a covered dining area. You can do the whole day there without leaving. And it’s only used by the diplomatic corps, UN soldiers, and British expatriates.”

“Sound luscious. I’ll have to try it.”

“Did I mention that UN soldiers like to go there?” I gave her a wink. “But beware of the twilight hours on a Friday night, unless you are looking for serious action.” And that was no less than the truth. Peter and I had liked nothing more than to pick up a hunky UN soldier at Rosie’s after 5:00 p.m. to work me over and then to share me with Peter before Peter moved on to one or more of his pain-pleasure specialties.

“Then I’ll have to be sure to try it out--maybe earlier in the day, though. Going there anytime soon?”

“Tomorrow morning, as a matter of fact. And Saturday a friend is taking me out on a yacht. That long, sleek one down there.” I pointed down to Fuad Fikrit’s yacht bobbing slowly up and down off Effendi’s restaurant. “It’s called the Chankaya.”

“It’s stunning. But it probably will be scorching out in the water in the afternoon.”

“We’re going in the morning. I’m only planning up to Saturday, though. I’m making no plans after that for my life.”

“Ain’t that the Cypriot way?” she said. “Live only for tomorrow or the next day.” We both laughed. Cynthia’s laugh was a pleasant tingly one, and it drew the attention of a young, good-looking man, who saddled up to the bar on the other side of her. She turned her attention to the newcomer, younger and, one could hope, far straighter than I was, and I slipped off my barstool and faded into the shadows.

I walked back to the compound, where I walked through the rooms of my house that was under renovation, imagining how much I would enjoy it here if I had really intended to stay here. Who knew what Saturday would bring, though? Maybe I would survive and this guilt inside me for Peter’s death would be punished out of me enough for me to go on. Who knew? I wouldn’t be selling the place in the next day, of course. Maybe if I was still alive after the weekend, I’d keep it as an option to come back to someday in the future.

But it was so quiet in the house. I had realized how accustomed and in tune I’d become to the hammering and bantering of the three young men. How I would like for Ergon to be in the garage flat when I went up there--waiting for me in my bed. Fucking me and then holding me through the night as he had done for such a brief time last night.

Yes, I hadn’t counted on caring for those three young men.

I went up to the flat, but of course Ergon wasn’t there. I packed my suitcase, and quietly, almost surreptitiously, left the house by the front door--not by the alley, where I might be seen by or encounter either Fuad or Ahmed. Staying in the shadows, I circled around the harbor on the street above the harbor and came by the water near the Dome Hotel, where I checked in for two nights. I couldn’t face staying in the silent house I owned for the next two nights. Nor did I want Fuad Fikrit to find me and tempt me before our yachting cruise.

* * * *

The next morning, after an early breakfast at the hotel, I threw a Speedo, towel, and flip-flops in my carryon bag and walked up the hill, above the harbor, to my house, entering by the front door again. I couldn’t avoid going into the alley, as the funky old Morris Minor convertible I’d rented was in the garage under the flat. I needed a car to get to Rosie’s.

As I drove out of Kyrenia, west on the coastal road, I saw that I was being tailed by a black Mercedes sedan. I hadn’t left the house unseen. There wasn’t anything I could do about that. If Fikrit wanted to tail me to make sure I wasn’t doing anything funny before Saturday, I’d have to adjust to that. I had maneuvered him into salivating a Saturday at sea with me on purpose.

I was early at Rosie’s, but the sun was up, as was the heat, and the water looked inviting. I rented a small room off on the opposite side of the covered restaurant terrace for the day and changed into my Speedo in there. Rosie’s had been here for decades, as had Rosie herself, a statuesque redhead given to muumuus, a sunny disposition, Margaritas, and a raucous laugh. It had been a favorite watering and cruising hole for Peter and me--especially when cruising for strapping Scandinavian UN soldiers to make up a threesome. Rosie’s wasn’t just a pool bar on the rocks over the Mediterranean. It also was a brothel. You could rent rooms on the terrace level by the kitchen and below Rosie’s flat and either bring your own or rent one of the men or women Rosie housed on the level above her flat.

If you were there at 5:00 in the evening on Fridays, you could get your action right there at the pool.

I found a chaise lounge in a long line of empty lounges, placed a book on the cushion I’d rented--a classic homosexual novel, John Richy’s City of the Night, and dove into the pool. People started to dribble in as I swam laps, trying to work out the tension in my body. A young, well-built man and his honey-blonde wife and two blonde daughters entered the pool area and took up residence on the chaise lounges immediately adjacent to the one I’d staked out.

When I rose up out of the pool and came over to my chaise and stood there, drying off with the beach towel I brought, the blonde wife and two blonde daughters went into the pool. This left the husband laid out on the chaise next to mine. He was wearing sunglasses and boxer swim trunks and reading a Greek-side English-language newspaper, the Cyprus Mail. He too was blond and of all-American jock physique. Muscled up, but only enough to look manly and capable, not a muscle freak.

I went down on my lounge bed, picked up the Richy book, and started to read. Ahmed had come into the pool area while I changed in the room I’d rented. He was laying on a lounge bed across the pool from me, stripped down to his shorts. He obviously hadn’t brought swimming trunks. He’d had no idea where I was going this morning.

The young athletic guy and I lay side by side for a while. I ordered a drink from a passing waiter, one who looked so effeminate that I figured he also was part of the brothel.

“You speak English.”

“Excuse me?” I said, turning my head to the man next to me. “Oh, yes, I’m Canadian,” I continued. “I’m Clifford Clarke.” We both reached across the divide for a short handshake.

“I’m Ted Severn,” he said. “From the American embassy. Cultural affairs. You visiting Cyprus?”

“I’m from Sudbury,” I answered. “Sudbury, Ontario. Coal. The air there has become dreadful. Much of that my fault, I’m afraid. I own a few coal mines. I was told to get out of the pollution, so I’m restoring an old Turkish house in Kyrenia. Uh, Girne, I suppose I’m supposed to call it.”

He’d spoken to me without looking at me, but I could tell that he’d seen the book I was reading. He reached into his bag and pulled out a copy of Edmund White’s A Boy’s Own Story. Another classic gay novel. He lowered his sunglasses and gave me a meaningful look before he opened the book.

The ladies reappeared, the daughters saying they were hungry and, “Could we eat now, please?”

Laughing, Ted rose from his chaise lounge and agreed to the short trip over to the covered dining terrace.

“Would you care to join us?” he asked me after introducing me to his wife and daughters.

“Sure, why not?” I looked over at Ahmed. He was still there, and he was watching me like a hawk. He changed lounge beds as I entered the dining terrace with the chattering blonde American family. He moved to one from where he could observe the full length of the dining terrace.

“I want to go back to the pool,” one of the daughters declared after she’d gobbled down her lunch.

“Me too,” chimed in the other.

“You can’t go in the pool until your lunch has had some time to digest,” the blonde wife said. “And, besides, your father hasn’t finished his lunch yet.”

“Please, Mother. Pretty please. Please, please, please.” The girls made an insistent chorus out of the demand.

“Oh, go ahead and take the girls back, Ann,” Ted said. “Clifford hasn’t finished either. The girls can go in the wading pool.” The wading pool was around the corner from the dining terrace, not in a line of sight of the terrace.

When they had gone, Ted gave me a meaningful look.

“I have a room rented right over there,” I said.

We rose from the table, leaving our meals unfinished. Ted had his hand on my buttocks when we entered the room. Fifteen minutes later, we emerged and went back to our respective chaise lounges. A half hour after that, the family was ready to leave, to go on to their next holiday adventure, and they departed Rosie’s in the same whirlwind they had arrived.

I stuck around for the 5:00 p.m. action, which was initiated by a bulky bouncer going to the entrance to control who could come in on Friday at that time. It was, by tradition, hedonist orgy time. In addition to me and Ahmed, a slim couple of French young men, who obviously were partners, stayed around as well as a couple of thirtyish and fortyish women who had voluptuous bodies and roving eyes. Those eyes had roved over me a couple of times in the afternoon, and I’d carefully not shown interest.

Nearly at the stroke of 5:00, a caravan of sky-blue jeeps with UN peacekeeping forces logos on the doors roared into the parking lot. Friday night was a furlough night at the UN bases along the Green Line separating Greek and Turkish Cyprus. No doubt Rosie’s Friday evening special had been set on this fact.

Beefy, boisterous, and obviously randy UN soldiers--big boned Scandinavians, all of them--poured into the pool area. They quickly separated off by preference, a few showing interest in other UN soldiers, a few gravitating to the French couple, and several to the voluptuous cougars. Five made a beeline for me. A few started an approach to Ahmed, but he signaled that this wasn’t a good idea.

My five soldiers plopped down on chaise lounges on either side of me and horsed around between the lounge beds and the pool. It was mostly men today, although a couple of the cougars must have been regulars, because they were already being fucked on the lounge beds as the first wave of soldiers spread over the pool area. The testosterone level took a jump.

“City of the Night, I see,” a hunky blond giant said as he sat down on the edge of my chaise lounge. I looked over at Ahmed. He was still staring me down, but didn’t seem to be too disturbed. He was looking mean enough not to have to worry about company though.

One of the French men was holding the hand of his partner while a hunky UN soldier was already doing pushups on the partner’s ass. It was going to be a fast and easy night. I already was hard.

“Yes,” I answered.

“I know what that book is about,” the young soldier said, giving me a wink and smacking his lips. The soldiers he had come with were all getting frisky with each other too, and other soldiers had fanned out across the area, looking for a score. I looked down the line of the dining terrace to see a bulbous bare rump sticking out of a curve in the wall of the building. The rump was moving in and out. A pair of bare legs were hooked on his hips. I looked around for the effeminate waiter, but he wasn’t anywhere in sight.

“I know what the book is about too,” I said, looking into the ruggedly handsome face with a meaningful gaze. He moved a hand to the top of my thigh. I did nothing to object to that.

“You’re a great looking guy,” he said. “Great shape for your age. American?”

“No, Canadian.”

“Haven’t seen you here before on a Friday after five. You know the custom here at that time, don’t you?”

“Yes, I used to live in Cyprus and have been here at this time before.”

“Gay?”

“Yes.”

“A top or a bottom?”

“If you’re a top, I’m a bottom.”

“So, you’re looking for someone to lay you? You’re really sexy. I like men who are older, but still firm and good looking. As hung as I feel you?” His beefy hand was on my basket. I raised the leg on the opposite side of my body, bending my knee and placing my foot flat on the lounge cushion, pushing my basket up into his cupped hand.

My memories flashed back to similar times here with Peter, of Peter shopping for a guy to do me and share me with. I was younger then, but it was exhilarating to know I could still attract the randy UN soldiers. I widened the stance of my thighs and almost imperceptibly--but not to the soldier--put my basket in motion, raising and lowering it against his pressing hand.

“You can find out how I hang for yourself if you like,” I answered.

“Well, that’s very friendly of you,” he said. He pulled the front of my Speedo down and hooked it below my balls. I would have thought he was rushing matters if most of the other soldiers in the pool area weren’t already fucking someone. That was always the nice thing about the virile young UN peacemakers. They really were up for their Friday evenings at Rosie’s.

“Nice,” he said, with a whistle. I was hard as hard was going to get. The memories of early visits here with Peter, cruising for UN soldier cock, continued to race through my mind. If tomorrow was going to be it, then why not indulge my memories today? That’s obviously why I’d stayed around here for the evening session. I wanted what I once had--with Peter. Why not another fuck by a young stud today? He made a loose sheath of his hand, encircling my cock, and I moved my hips slowly, rubbing my cock inside his hand.

I watched as he stripped off his shorts, and saw that he was built big. I had thought he would be, which was why I did what I could to catch his eye when he’d entered the pool area.

He slung his leg over my thighs and brought our cocks together encased in my hand.

“I like to do some frotting before I fuck,” he said, as he stroked the cocks together and rubbed the bulbs against each other. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all. Do what you want with me,” I answered

He gave me a sharp look. “I fuck rough and sometimes in a pack.”

“It may be your lucky day, then,” I said. My mind was returning to those days. This is just how we bantered and heated up in those days. And a Scandinavian UN soldier was in superb shape. They could be serious pile drivers. And Peter liked to double me with them.

“Maybe?” he said, giving me a quizzical look, wondering, no doubt, if I was just a tease looking for a hand job and giving nothing in return.

“I want them long and thick,” I said. “Which of you soldiers here at the pool is the most horse hung?” I could have guessed it was him. I wasn’t small, but holding ours together and stroking them as he was revealed that I was small next to him. And I could see a good many of the soldier’s cocks out and in action around the pool area. He definitely was in contention for thickest and longest.

“Me, of course,” he said, with a laugh. As if it was proof enough, he opened he hand on our cocks to give me a good look at the comparative sizes.

I moaned and arched my back. He liked that. He obviously liked that a lot.

“So, am I going to fuck you? As I said, I do it rough. Take no prisoners rough.” The hand he had sheathing our dicks moved down to enclose my balls. He pulled them away from my crotch and squeezed them. I winced at the pain-pleasure of that and writhed under the increasing pressure as he rolled the balls in his grip and squeezed harder.

“Oh shit,” I whimpered.

“I see that makes you harder,” he said. He laughed. “So we going to do this or not?”

“Yes, you’re going to fuck me.”

He looked around the pool area. I don’t know if he was looking for someplace to go or was contemplating whether there was anyone who might object to him fucking me right here. The only one I saw who wasn’t already paired off and in some stage of fucking was Ahmed, who was still lying on his lounge bed and staring at me.

Two of the blond giant’s cohorts were under a bush behind the line of lounge beds. All I could see was that one guy was on his back, his legs spread wide, his knees bent and his toes scrunching in and out, evidently to the rhythm of the fuck, by the guy with the legs pointed down and lodged between the other guy’s bent legs. Both French guys were being fucked side by side. I couldn’t even see some of the cougars for the multiple bodies working them.

“Here? Now?” my UN soldier answered in a low, hoarse voice.

“I’ve rented one of the rooms,” I answered.

The first thing he did when I’d shut the door behind us in the little room I’d rented was to pop me one on the chin. I went down in a heap on the floor in front of him in surprise. He reached down and grabbed my hair and pulled me up to my knees. At the same time he’d pulled his swim trunks down onto his thighs and was fisting his hard cock.

“Let’s establish who’s in charge here from the start,” he growled, as he pushed the bulb of his cock at my lips. I opened wide for him and took him deep. He shuddered, and I gave him good head. His groans told me that he knew it was a good blow job.

He fucked me from behind, doggy style, with both of us standing on our feet and bent over the side of the bed that took up most of the small room. His hand grabbed my hips and my fists were buried in the surface of the mattress on the bed. He just pounded away at me in a basic deep, rough fuck for his first ejaculation.

My experience with the UN soldiers was that they could fire off repeatedly all day, and this one didn’t disappoint. He spiked me four times in all into the night in healthy, straightforward, no hint of romance poundings, punctuated by slapping and choking me almost blue in the face as he approached ejaculation.

If we’d gone longer--and I could have taken and savored him all night--it might have become more interesting. The last time was with me sitting on his cock on his lap, facing him, with one of my legs running up his hard torso and the other one bent around his slim waist. I was arched all the way back to the floor, my hands grasping his feet, and he pulled me on and off his cock in hard, deep pulls with hands gripping my waist. He fucked me interminably in this position, and I savored every moment of it, my mind racing over all of the other uses Peter and I had put other hung blond UN soldiers to here at Rosie’s.

When we came out of the room, it was approaching the Cypriots’ supper hour. I could hardly make out the black body of the Egyptian over in the shadows, waiting patiently--or impatiently for all I knew--for me to emerge from the room off the dining terrace.

The only bodies left on the chaise lounges seemed comatose and moaning softy--and now alone. Apparently we were close to the UN soldiers’ bewitching hour.

The soldier’s buddies were waiting outside the entrance to the pool area, beside two blue-painted jeeps. They were very vocal with their impatience when the blond giant met up with them while Ahmed was expressing his impatience in the dirty looks he was giving me.

“I hope to shit he was worth it,” I heard one of the soldiers say in a boozy voice. There was little question what he had been doing while they waited.

“Fuckin’ right he was worth it. Took it like a champ,” the blond giant shot back. This gave me a glow that I’d remember for the rest of the night.

“Did you fuckin’ kill him? We all know what an animal you are. I know I left that pansy waiter babbling and with somethin’ to remember.”

“Naw, he wanted it hard. Gotta come back here for more of that.”

“You gonna share next time?”

“He did ask me if I had any buddies who might like to help. I bet he does take it double. He said he would.”

“Well, shit, we could all pile back in there now.”

I didn’t hear any more other than a reference to curfew because the roar of the jeep engines swallowed up their exchange.

I walked over to Ahmed as the soldiers noisily boarded their jeeps and roared off. “We can go now,” I said. “I’d say I was sorry you had to wait, but I didn’t invite you to this day.”

“No, we fuckin’ aren’t leaving yet,” Ahmed growled, grabbing one of my wrists in a strong grip. “If I had to wait here for you to give it to two men for hours, I’m gonna get mine too.”

He lay stretched out on the lounge bed, while I rode his cock. And that was very nice too. It had been a hedonist day. But today it was all good, straight sex. I assumed that the next day would tax me to, if not beyond my limits.

He followed me in the Mercedes sedan back to Kyrenia in the dark, riding my taillights closely. I put the Morris Minor in the garage, entered my garden, climbed the stairs to my flat, and turned on the lights. Ahmed had come over to me when I’d gotten out of the convertible and growled, “Fikrit will want you.”

“Let me clean up first,” I answered.

I don’t know if Fuad would send Ahmed to the flat to fetch me, but, if he did, he wouldn’t find me there. Right after I’d turned the lights on in the flat, I came back down the stairs, went through the house in the dark, slipped out of the front door, and followed the deep shadows of the upper street around the harbor and to the Dome Hotel, where, in my room, I showered and, naked, fell on the bed and slept the sleep of the dead, only momentarily reliving the virile fuck the UN soldier had given me. He’d told his mates I’d been worth the fuck. I still had it--whatever it was that captured men’s fancies and made their cocks salute.