Saving Blake’s Chocolates

The farewell speeches and the final boss’s handshake had been performed, but the booze was just then being broken out. Ken Blake gestured for the marketing manager, marketing being one of the only departments of Blake’s Chocolates still functioning, to join him in his office. Then, with one last murmur of appreciation for decades of service by the production chief, Otto Merkel, Ken left the now-quiet manufacturing floor.

After a hundred and seventy-five years of providing gourmet chocolate in fancy boxes to New York and beyond, especially at Valentine’s Day, the business was going out of business. The standards the Blakes insisted be maintained weren’t profitable anymore on the scale they produced and sold product. If they were to produce more product, the exclusivity of the chocolates—and thus much of its sales appeal—would be lost. If they cut production costs by using cheaper ingredients and less-expensive packaging, their reputation would be scorched.

The departure—not really a retirement—of the production chief, Otto Merkel, was the “can’t-go-back” point. He was the institutional knowledge of achieving the company’s creamy product, something he’d learned from his father, who had learned it from his father. Without Otto, Blake’s would be just another chocolatier. And chocolates at Valentine’s Day—just like physical greetings cards—was no longer the routine gift of choice that it once had been.

“Would you please stay around for the partying, Tom?” Ken, the last of the Blakes and therefore the business CEO, said when they got to his office. “I hate to leave before Otto does, but I have a rehearsal I have to get to.”

“Otto still won’t say who is employing him now,” the marketing manager, Tom Kline, said.

“No, he won’t tell me either. But I don’t think he’s leaving disgruntled. I gave him an extraordinary bonus. He’s sixty-six. I thought he just retire. But he says he has chocolate running through his veins.”

“Isn’t there a danger of him taking our formulas and methods elsewhere? I understand there’s a bid to buy the company—that it doesn’t just have to close. If so, our formulas and methods—”

“They are safe with Otto,” Ken said. “He’s family. His family has been linked together with mine in this enterprise for many decades. Plus, he’s signed a nondisclosure agreement. If I found he was taking Blake’s unique aspects elsewhere, I’d sue the pants off him and whatever company he went to. The NDA specifies that anything made with the Blake formulas and processes have to bear the Blake name. And, as far as a company having made a bid, yes one has. But it’s big business with its hands in a whole range of companies, all of which I think are too commercial and gaudy for what Blake’s is known for. And everything has the owner’s name on it. Blake’s success has always been its exclusivity and its name. No, I’d rather close it than sell it to a crass conglomerate like that. And I can afford too. There are no more Blakes to pass this on to. I don’t have to leave inheritances.”

“You don’t think you’ll ever marry and have children?” Kline asked. “You’re not even thirty yet and you’d be quite a catch here in New York. Your family’s been top drawer here forever and you’re a fit and good-looking guy.”

“No, I don’t think I’ll ever marry and have children,” Ken said, picking up a heavy instrument case from the corner of his office. It was a signal that he was off for rehearsal and that that subject was closed. Tom Kline took the hint and headed for the direction from which the boisterous, liquor-lubed laughter was coming from. He wasn’t as sure of Otto Merkel’s loyalty to the memory of Blake’s Chocolates as Ken Blake was.

But it wasn’t his company, and he had his next job lined up too. All he needed now was to get the candy they still had in the refrigerators into the Christmas boxes. They could serve the market for Christmas but they wouldn’t even attempt to for Valentine’s Day next year. There were a whole lot of loyal Blake’s Chocolates customers who would be disappointed come next February. But if there had been many more of them who were still locked into that tradition, the company would have been able to stay open.

I guess being the last Blake in line made it easier for Ken to shut down, Kline thought. But he was less than thirty. How could he say for sure that he was the last generation of Blakes? He was desirable. Both of Tom’s daughters swooned over the young man. And he wasn’t lazy. He had his side activities, but Tom couldn’t see Ken going too long without a job. They weren’t closing because he wasn’t a good businessman. They were closing because they were too fussy about maintaining expensive quality in the face of a tightening market for high-quality chocolates for Valentine’s Day.

* * * *

Ken Blake looked more than a little sheepish when he was called forward after performing the cello solo in Dvořák’s Cello Concerto in B Minor in the first half of a New York Philharmonic concert at Lincoln Center and was handed a bouquet of two-dozen red roses. This quite definitely wasn’t protocol at the Philharmonic afternoon concert series. It did matter that, even though he was only twenty-seven, he had done a divine job on the solo.

He looked over at the director, Jaap van Zweden, but the man looked as confused by the gesture as Ken was. As Ken walked over into the wings at the halftime interval, though, the mystery was solved. Susan Altman, the orchestra’s manager was waiting there. “Here, let me take those and put them somewhere so that you can get to the interval. There’s someone I’d like to introduce you to we’d like you to be nice to. He’s a major patron of the orchestra, Gideon Mason. He’s the one who supplied the flowers. We want to keep him happy.”

“We do, do we?” Ken asked. “The flowers are a nice and unexpected gift, but I don’t know what to do with them. Perhaps you can have them distributed among the box office staff with my compliments.”

“That’s a great idea. They don’t get enough appreciation,” Susan Altman said. “And the big donor? You’ll meet with him?”

“Well, for the flowers . . . lead on.”

Altman turned the bouquet over to an assistant and led Ken out to the lobby bar. He was recognized in route as the cello soloists and saluted by several of those attending the concert, causing him to blush. When they reached the lobby bar, Susan Altman signaled to a tall, expensively dressed, fit, graying man in his late forties or early fifties who was having an animated discussion in a group of other like men, and the man broke away and came over to them.

Ken was immediately impressed and intrigued. He thought he might have seen the man somewhere before—his countenance certainly was arresting enough for Ken to have taken note of him before. But he couldn’t place he men.

“Ken Blake, this is Gideon Mason. Ken was our celloist in the Dvořák piece. You wanted to meet him.”

“Indeed I did,” Mason said as Altman backed away and left the two in isolated discussion. “The roses indicate how well I liked your playing. I hope you enjoyed them.”

“They were a total surprise,” Ken said. “Such gestures are not to be expected at afternoon Philharmonic concerts. But they were there soon after the piece ended. Surely—”

“The wonders of the Internet and delivery systems in the city,” Mason said, with a smile. He had a very nice smile, Ken thought. “There’s a flower shop nearby that delivers. I messaged as soon as I got carried away with your playing, and there the flowers were by the interval.”

Ken didn’t know if that was true or not. There seemed to be an angle here, but he didn’t know what it was yet.

“I’ve actually seen you before and am intrigued by more than your cello playing,” Mason said. And when Ken just looked a bit confused, he continued. “We belong to the same club and gym—the Apollo Club. You are a unique club member—a little hard not to notice and admire.”

“Of course,” Ken said. “Now I remember seeing you before.” And this must be the basis of the man’s interest, Ken thought. The Apollo Club was an expensive gay-men’s gym and club. Ken belonged to it, and he was pretty free with his preferences there. He let his hair down there and engaged in gay activities that he didn’t do elsewhere. Few outside of the gym knew or could tell that he was gay. So, this man was just hitting on him? This Gideon Mason. Mason. Wait.

“You aren’t that Mason, are you?”

“Yes, guilty as charged. And you say it as if I am guilty of something. I admit that I am intrigued with you personally, but I do have another reason for wanting to meet you. You’ve been eluding me on this proffer to buy your family business. I wish to discuss that with you personally.”

“I don’t really think we have anything to discuss,” Ken said. “I don’t think our business models are compatible. I promised my father I would just close Blake’s Chocolates before seeing it go commercial with lower standards.” The lights flickered. It was time for the patrons to find their seats. And it was long past time for Ken to be back in his place on stage. He turned to leave, but Mason latched on to his arm and held him in place. Mason was a lot bigger—taller and heavier—than Ken was. The younger man felt a shiver go up his spine—one of arousal. He melted to older men taking command.

But this wasn’t the time or place—and it quite probably wasn’t the man. Ken didn’t want to become involved with a man who would own big, flashy businesses with his name slapped on them in large neon-light letters.

“I must go. I should be back on stage now,” he said, although he didn’t have the will to break away from the man’s grip.

“Just give me a chance to discuss the deal. Don’t you want to know how sweet a deal I can make it?”

“OK, I guess so. Just let me go now, please.” He didn’t want a sales pitch. He needed to get back on stage and tune up his cello.

“Dinner this evening. After the concert. You don’t have other plans, do you?”

No, Ken didn’t have other plans. “OK, if you must. Just—”

Mason released his hold on Ken’s arm and murmured, “Thank you. You won’t regret it,” as Ken turned and hurried back toward the side entrance onto the stage.

I already regret it, he thought as he went into a jog. Yes, now he remembered Mason from the Apollo Club. Quite a hunk he was. But under these circumstances . . .

* * * *

Ken didn’t know how or if he’d hook up with Gideon Mason after the concert, but he told himself he didn’t care. He’d leave it up to Mason to make it happen—if it happened. He didn’t want to meet with the man to be pitched on selling Blake’s Chocolates to him. He’d already decided he wouldn’t. But on another plain, Ken found the man himself arousing. He was just the age and conditioning of the men he liked to go with—of the type of man Mason undoubtedly had already seen him go with at the Apollo Club. He’d just leave this up to Mason.

Mason sent him roses. That’s not what a man usually would do for another man. Maybe Mason was making a point. He, in any event, was taking the initiative—and a dominant man taking command was something that aroused Ken. While he was putting his cello into its case, Susan Altman arrived at his side.

“Mr. Mason’s driver tells me he’ll pick you up at the entrance to the parking garage after you’ve stowed your cello in your car. Does this mean Mr. Mason is taking you to dinner?”

Ken could hear the hopefulness in the woman’s voice. “Yes. It’s a business matter.”

“You own Blake’s Chocolates, don’t you?” she asked, and when he acknowledged she did, she said, “We love those. It’s a Valentine’s Day tradition in our family to gift those. I’m so looking forward to them again this Valentine’s Day.”

Ken just gave a little grunt. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that wouldn’t be happening this year.

“Just remember that Gideon Mason is one of our principle donors for this afternoon concert series,” she said.

“Which mean not to do anything to upset him, right?” Ken asked, with a smile.

“Well, yes, of course.”

“I’ll do my best.” Even with the promise barely past his lips, Ken grimaced when he found Gideon Mason’s chauffeured car waiting for him. It was a late-model white XT5 Cadillac limousine. It wasn’t so much that it was an ostentatious vehicle that put Ken on edge. It was because the word “Mason” was embossed in big, gold—obnoxious to Ken’s sensitivity—letters on the side of the car. Ken came from a subtly rich and prominent family in the city, one from which New Yorkers had been taking their style and etiquette cues from for nearly two centuries. This display of personal importance was everything that Ken knew his father would not want Blake’s Chocolates to become entailed with. This was big and brassy—completely the opposite of what the family brand tried to establish.

Gideon Mason was in the backseat, giving Ken a big smile when the younger man entered the car. The seat was so commodious that the two didn’t come anywhere close to touching for the short drive to dinner. The younger man sank in one corner of the seat and the older man made no effort to intrude. Ken’s foreboding didn’t dissipate as they entered the hotel’s dining room where Mason said he’d made dinner reservations. Mason had chosen the Gideon Dining Room in the Mason Premier hotel for their meal. The hotel was identified by a huge, garish “Mason Premier” neon sign on its roof.

No, not for us—for me, Ken was thinking as they settled into a premium table in the garishly decored room named after his host and were served by a gaggle of attentive waiters. Mason just smiled and acted the attentive host, apparently oblivious to the over-the-top effect on Ken of the bling that the older man was subjecting the younger one to.

What surprised Ken once they’d been served was that Mason didn’t immediately go into a business sales pitch. He turned out to be a much smoother—and interesting—conversationalist than that. It was almost as if he realized that he’d drawn Ken here by another interest—a sexual one—and that he either was switching gears in the pitch he was giving or that sexual interest in Ken had been ascendent all along.

“I don’t like talking business over a meal, so perhaps we can hold that off until afterward, with drinks.”

“That sounds fine to me,” Ken said. “What shall we talk about then?”

“Let’s talk about cello solos in orchestral works and the talent you showed today in the Dvořák. I thought you played that divinely, and I would like to hear more works like that in the afternoon concert series—more that featured you on the cello. Is the Dvořák your favorite or have you played either the Schumann Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in A Minor or Menotti’s Fantasia?”

The man knew his music, Ken thought, in admiration—and, in particular the aspect of music that Ken was engaged in. They had no trouble finding something to talk about for the rest of the meal.

“I’d love to play in any of those,” Ken was saying over dessert and coffee, “but Van Zweden isn’t much taken with the cello—or me. I’m surprised he selected the Dvořák and let me solo in it.”

“I’ll admit I had something to do with that?”

“You? You got the Dvořák on the program?”

“Yes, and I can get other cello solos on the program if you wish.” The man was coming on strong. Ken gave him a scrutiny—a commanding figure, rugged, manly features. A healthy shock of graying hair, indicating as hirsute by the curling at his neckline and wrists. A well-cut body, which, now that he thought about it, Ken had seen in nearly the altogether at the Apollo Club.

Yes, Ken could go with such a man—as long as they kept business out of it.

“Perhaps we could go upstairs to discuss business,” Mason said as he lowered his empty coffee cup to the saucer.

“Upstairs?”

“Yes. I’m sure you noticed that this is a Mason hotel.”

“I hardly could avoid noticing that,” Ken said, with a laugh.

“I have a penthouse hideaway here. Will you go upstairs with me?”

Ken paused, knowing that Mason was asking for a deeper purpose than a last drink at the hotel bar and the pitching of a business proposal he suspected—and Ken knew—wasn’t going anywhere. “Yes, fine,” the younger man said.

* * * *

“Well, that’s a very generous offer, but I promised my father I’d just close the business down if we—or anyone buying us out—couldn’t or didn’t keep the highest standards of product.” It was, in fact, nearly twice what Ken thought the business was worth. But he already had all the money he needed, and he’d made a promise to the family.

“And you don’t think the name Mason would be keeping up the standards?”

“No, sorry, I don’t,” Ken said. “I’m sorry to be honest about that. I’ve found I like you and I don’t want to make you angry. But you put your name on all your products and some of them seem substandard.”

“You didn’t make me angry and I like you too—very much. We can relate in separate contexts. But I’d like to have your company. All I need are the formulas and the production line. It wouldn’t be economical to set up a production line in a separate factory.”

“You’ve hired some of my people, haven’t you?” Ken asked. “Who? Otto Merkel?”

“Yes, Otto is on board with us . . . and Tom Kline will join us soon. We want to be up and running for the Valentine’s Day market.”

“Tom Kline, my marketing manager? Shit. You know that there are nondisclosure agreements in place, don’t you? The Blake name isn’t going on any candy not owned and approved by the Blakes. And it’s the Blake name that sells the chocolates. Frankly, I don’t see anyone buying Mason chocolates.”

“We would have workarounds, but I hear you. I see your drink is finished. Would you like to see the rest of the apartment? I have my own gym room here—nearly all windows, with good views toward Central Park.”

“Yes, enough of this. Let me see the rest of this place. I was expecting just a hotel room suite. This goes on forever.” This was a full apartment surrounded almost totally with glass-windowing that glowed of orange because the neon hotel sign was just above he unit.

“And this is my home gym. I have a house out on Long Island, but I admit I spend most of my time here.”

“This is nearly as big as the gym at the Apollo Club,” Ken said. “And it’s as well appointed with machines.”

“I haven’t gotten to the club in a few days, and I’ve really enjoyed watching you workout there. You are a unique creature. Maybe we could . . . now . . .”

“Sure, I don’t see why not,” Ken answered. He knew what Mason was up to—what he wanted to do. It was a fresh approach. Ken had decided even before they’d come upstairs that he’d let Mason fuck him—as long as they could separate out business discussions from a sexual hookup.

They were both stripped down to their briefs—Mason in Calvin Kleins and Ken in a red satin bikini brief and spotting each other on the equipment as they looked out over the city through floor-to-ceiling glass windows, with the orange glow of the “Mason’s Premier” permeating from overhead, when Mason made his move.

Ken was straddling a bench and lifting a barbell off a stand when Mason came in close behind him, sitting right behind him. He started with his hands on Ken’s as the younger man lifted the barbells. Then he let his hands glide down Ken’s arms and cover his breasts.

“Not much here yet,” he whispered in Ken’s ear and then kissed him there.

“That comes later . . . when I’m sure,” Ken answered. It was then that Ken realized that Mason had slipped off his briefs. The younger man could feel the silkiness of the older man’s chest hair on his bare back and, as well, now could feel the man’s throbbing erection at the small of his back. Mason was moving slightly up and down, letting the underside of his hard cock rub against Ken’s back. The left arm that was snaking around Ken’s side, with the man’s hand palming his pecs, was covered in a black and blue swirly design sleeve tattoo that Ken knew covered the man’s left breast, the tattoo peeking out through the matting of salt-and-pepper hair on Mason’s breast. The man’s hair got darker as it moved down his body.

Mason’s right hand glided down Ken’s belly and under the waistband of the bikini briefs.

Ken gave a little gasp and began to moan as he moved on the fingers of the hand that had found the vestigial penis that had been moved to the top of his folds. The fingers sank into the cunt.

“I’ve never fucked a trans male-to-female before,” Mason whispered.

“Yes, yes, fuck me,” Ken moaned, moving on the fingers that had entered his surgically provided cunt and were spreading him. He turned his face for a lingering kiss with the older man, who held him securely and worked his transformed body.

Mason leaned over Ken and pulled the bikini briefs down to the young man’s knees. Ken did the rest in working the bikini off his calves. In doing so he raised his buttocks a bit off the bench. He was still gripping the bar bell rod.

He cried out as Mason grasped his hips as Ken them raised off the bench and moved up and under him, sliding his erection into position and thrusting up into Ken’s cunt.

“Oh, shit. FUCK! Fuck me, Daddy!” Ken cried out as he writhed against Mason, making some effort to pull away from him. But Mason was the stronger of the two. Standing up from the bench and bringing Ken up with him, the younger man’s body parallel to the bench and his arms extended, his hands hanging onto the bar bell rod for dear life, Mason hooked Ken’s knees on his hips. Ken was entirely in his control now. If he let go of the bar, his head and chest would fall to the bench, but the older man would still be lodged in and in control of his anal passage.

Sliding his shaft in and out of the young man’s manufactured cunt as Ken cried out in ecstasy, Mason fucked Ken vigorously to his release.

Afterward, he carried Ken into the suite’s bedroom, lowered him on the bed on his back, and, grasping Ken’s ankles and spreading his legs, mounted and penetrated him again, fucking him in the missionary position. For much of the night he experimented in all the positions in which he could fuck an MTF trans in the cunt. And when he grew bored with that, he fucked Ken in the conventional male-to-male way: in the ass.

Ken objected to none of it. Mason was a handsome, bear of a man, and he was both virile and hung.

Lying there on his back, as dawn was creeping in through the walls of glass tinged with the orange glow of the “Mason’s Premier” sign just above the penthouse, and Mason was in the shower, Ken checked to see if he felt any guilt. He didn’t—not as long as he keep his business out of Mason’s hands. This was more of a favor he was doing to the New York Philharmonic. Mason was a big donor. Susan Altman had asked Ken to keep Mason happy. The older man was whistling when he went off to the shower. Ken would take that as mission accomplished.

Mason came back into the bedroom with a towel around his waist. Ken was on his back on the bed, his legs bent and spread. His right hand was diddling the vestigial penis at the top of his cunt.

“Shit, I wish you didn’t do that,” Mason said, letting a long, heavy breath out.

“Do what?”

“Look so fuckable.” The towel dropped. Mason was going hard again. He took long strides back to the bed and came down between Ken’s spread legs. He laced his arms through the young man’s legs, holding him to the bed, as he attacked Ken’s penis clit and cunt folds with his mouth.

Ken writhed under him, fighting to free himself, begging Mason not to attack his cunt so forcefully, but Mason gave him no mercy, sucking and teething him until, with a shudder, Ken exploded in an orgasm. Then and only then, Mason came up on his knees, moved up Ken’s body, positioned the bulb of his hard shaft between the folds of the young man’s manufactured cunt, plunged inside him, and fucked him and fucked him and fucked him.

* * * *

“So you said you’d never before—”

“Yes, it was great. It was all I imagined it could be,” Mason said as they sat on stools at the kitchen bar in the morning. They were both wearing half-length silk robes and nothing else. Mason had put a breakfast together for them as Ken was showering.

“So, you are selling the candy company,” Mason said as they tucked into breakfast.

“Yes.”

“It’s an old company. Are there no regrets?”

“I am the last of the line. I’m not going to have children—not just because I’m gay. Because I’ve transformed. It wouldn’t be possible now. There’s no one to leave the company to. There are no regrets as long as the company’s name isn’t sullied.”

“And that’s what you think I’d do if you sold the company to me. You think I would besmirch its name.”

“You’d give it your name. You do that with everything you buy. I won’t say that you’d besmirch the name, but, yes, I’m afraid you’d bring its reputation down a few notches. I’d rather it just disappear. I think my predecessors would agree with me on that. My father flatly said so.”

“Fair enough. But what will you do now? You’ve grown up with the business. And would you ever consider settling down with someone?”

“Now? You know what that is. I’ll play the cello in orchestras. Most of those in the New York Philharmonic have that as their full-time job. Some of them teach too. I already have money. Adding what I’ll make from selling Blake’s will set me up for life. Again, I have no one to pass an inheritance on to. I might as well spend it all myself. And as far as settling down, I’d have to find the right man. It would have to be someone who sacrificed for me—who put me at the center of their life. Someone who didn’t put their name on me as they do on everything they own.”

Ken had sensed that Gideon had a deeper interest in him than just a one-night stand, but he needed to head that off now before Gideon got his hopes up—and before Ken became more attracted to the man than he already was getting.

“Again fair enough. There’s something else I was wondering,” Mason said.

“What?”

“If your company isn’t going to make Valentine’s Day Chocolate boxes this year and you won’t let me buy your company and do it, there are going to be a whole lot of folks in New York and beyond who are going to be angry in mid February. I’ll be off on vacation. But are you going to stay in the city and take the heat for that?”

“Maybe I’ll go on vacation then myself,” Ken said. “Or is this an opening to—?”

“Yes, perhaps we could vacation together. I’m opening a new business then. You could come with me.”

“Sorry. I don’t want to have anything to do with your businesses. This was nice, but I think I should get dressed now and leave.”

He got up from the stool, but Mason said, “I don’t think so. Not yet.” He grabbed for Ken, tore off the silk robe, put the young man on his knees on the barstool, and, standing behind him and holding Ken in place with one hand palming his belly and the other clutching his throat, pulling the back of Ken’s head into the older man’s hairy chest. Thrusting up inside Ken’s cunt, Mason fucked him one more time for the road.

Loving the forceful attentions of an older man, Ken lay docilely in Mason’s grip and let the man take what he wanted.

* * * *

Ken spent the next couple of weeks, during which he didn’t see Gideon Mason again, tidying up the family business and getting the factory transferred. It had been sold to a consortium, working solely through their lawyers, that seemed only interested in getting hold of the facilities. The transfer included the candy formulas, but no one actually asked for them and Ken didn’t turn them over.

During this time that he really needed a vacation—to some place warm, preferably and some place that would make him feel totally free—weighed on his mind. Gideon Mason had pushed the idea of being out of New York when his former customers learned there would be no Blake’s Chocolates for Valentine’s Day, so ads for resort on one of the Florida keys that kept coming up on his Internet take pushed at him until he made a reservation.

The Blue Routon Resort on Boca Chica Key, nearly all the way to Key West, was ideal. It was private, tucked away, listed as gay-servicing, and it featured nudity. Ken was obsessed with his body. He had transformed it to make it perfect in his mind, and he didn’t mind at all sharing the look of it with others. He gymed incessantly. It was his body that had attracted Gideon Mason. Ken had bared it and let men use it so openly at the Apollo Club that he had attracted Mason.

Of course, it seemed like Mason was only interested in using Ken in his transformation the one night after the concert at the Lincoln Center, but Ken was used to that too at the Apollo Club—being treated as a novelty—used once and never again. That had mostly been fine with Ken, but he had fallen for Gideon Mason. To him, though, Mason’s primary interest was in buying Blake’s Chocolates, and, when he couldn’t have that, he lost interest in Ken. The only thing that mitigated against this was that the New York Philharmonic had put Menotti’s Fantasia on its spring program, with Ken playing the cello solo. Either Mason, as a major Philharmonic donor, had arranged that for Ken or Van Zweden had put the work on the schedule for reasons of his own. Ken didn’t want to even think which that was, so he hadn’t asked.

The Blue Routon Resort owned an island—not much more than a sandbar with a line of trees on the ridge—off the Boca Chica Key to the west, where they established a nudist beach. This was perfect for Ken’s needs. Valentine’s Day fell on a Wednesday that year. He booked for that night and a night at each side. He read that the temperature didn’t, on average, go above 77, but that was a lot warmer than New York was in February, and he slipped a couple of Speedos in his suitcase with a hope it would be warm enough to swim and in case he wasn’t permitted to do it in the nude.

As it turned out, his hope held out. Boca Chica Key enjoyed temperatures in the low eighties for the three days he was there. And he could go nude both at the resort beach and it’s off-shore beach. The downside was that he was going to be pretty much alone.

When he reached the resort in the early afternoon of Tuesday, hot and exhausted from maneuvering the narrow highway running down the spine of the keys from Miami airport, it was the sound of the hammering of construction.

“Sorry,” the reception clerk said. “The resort has been sold and is being refurbished. The workmen will be here through this afternoon but won’t come back until next week. Perhaps you’d like to be taken out to the beach at the island this afternoon. That will be more tranquil.”

“The place looks deserted. Will you come out to the beach with me?” Ken tipped his sunglasses down and looked the clerk up and down, signaling approval. The clerk was a movie-star-handsome bleach blond surfer type in his late thirties. He was nude. Heavily tanned, no lightened area suggesting he hadn’t worn a suit to get a tan, and he was hung. He also had gone into an erection as Ken approached the reception desk. There was every reason to believe that Ken interested him sexually—but that, of course, was before Ken’s sexual secret had been revealed.

“Alas, I can’t this afternoon. I have to hold down this desk. But perhaps we could meet this evening after dinner.”

“I’m looking forward to it. And, yes, once I freshen up and get comfortable, I’d like to go out to the island. I’m not interested in enduring the construction noise.”

Hector has a boat ready to go there. Just go out onto the pier when you’re ready.

Hector was Cuban, probably in his early fifties, all muscle and leathery tan and rugged, good looks clinging to “intriguing” having once been thuggishly handsome. Hector ogled the naked Ken all the way out to the island as they plowed through the water in what essentially was a rowboat with an engine hanging off the back.

That Ken was MTF trans obviously excited, rather than disturbed Hector. He was wearing just athletic shorts and flip-flops and it became quickly evident as they moved through the water and Hector, knowing his way to the island without aid, ogled Ken rather than watching where he was going. He landed perfectly on the beach with a strong, incoming push of the surf and sat there in the boat, shorts pulled down in front, stroking a nicely plump cock while Ken set his towel out on the beach and swam for a short time in the sea.

When Ken came out of the water, Hector was still in the boat, pulling on his meat, and giving Ken the eye. Rather than walking to where he’d laid out his towel, Ken slowly walked to the boat. With no resistance from Ken, Hector laid the young man in the bottom of the rowboat, at the bow, with Ken’s arms hanging over the sides of the boat and his buttocks raised and resting on the slat seat. Hector crouched over him from above, clutching Ken’s throat to hold him in place at the bow of the boat, mounted him from in front, slid his plump cock between the folds of the young man’s surgically supplied cunt, and plunged deep inside him. Ken gasped and gave a little lurch. He squirmed, but Hector was too strong and he was well saddled.

Grasping Ken’s ankles and putting them on his shoulders, the gnarled Cuban showed Ken that he could pump him for over half and hour, edging him, until after Ken had come from masturbating himself and Hector could hold his jism no longer.

The sun was coming down when they returned to the resort. Ken ate alone in the resort dining room, although Chuck, the desk clerk, showed up to eat dessert with him. Shortly after, Ken was dessert for Chuck in Ken’s room. The surfer guy fucked him through the night.

So far it was a pretty nice vacation. Ken hadn’t been fucked that well and often since Gideon Mason had taken him to his penthouse apartment in the Mason Premier hotel in Manhattan.

* * * *

Ken woke up briefly in the half light with Chuck telling him he had to go to work. That was fine with Ken. He’d been satiated with the sex of the night and had been thinking of Chuck as more of a convenient cock than a lover of any sort. With both Chuck and Hector, Ken could feel the release that he sought in a vacation—an encounter, not any sort of relationship—and he could be content that his sex partners felt the same.

The next time he was awakened was by the sound of hammering and men cussing on the roof above his head. So, Chuck had lied about the workmen not coming back today. That didn’t last long, though, so maybe they’d just had a little more to do on their weekly schedule here and hadn’t bothered to tell Chuck. He was the reception clerk, not the manager, Ken didn’t think. Chuck was too loose to be in charge here.

And, speaking of reception clerk, the final time Ken woke, near noon, it was at the sound of Chuck’s voice bringing another resort guest upstairs to the room next to Ken.

It was the 14th of February, Wednesday, Valentine’s Day, and Ken was virtually alone at the Florida resort rather than going to the usual round of parties in New York. Heart-shaped boxes of Blake’s Chocolates were always featured at these parties. Not this year.

He hadn’t thought he would feel the loss of that, but he did.

He wasn’t sure he was up to seeing people much this day, so he called down to the kitchen and asked them to prepare a lunch and send it up. Chuck delivered it, quietly, not mentioning how he had dominated Ken in the night. Now he was a paying guest at the resort. The reception desk clerk wasn’t to relate to him too intimately.

“What was the commotion on the roof this morning?” Ken asked as he moved out to a balcony overlooking the water, where Chuck was laying his lunch out on a table.

“They forgot to do something yesterday that had to be done because the new owner of the resort was coming today. They had to make a change on the roof. I hope they didn’t disturb you too much.”

“No, it was OK,” Ken answered.

After lunch he decided to use the beach at the resort rather than have Hector boat him out of the resort’s private sandbar. He knew that Hector would cover him if he did that, and he wasn’t in the mood. Valentine’s Day was for romance, not sweaty sexual release.

He went to the beach in the nude, taking just a towel, which he draped on one of two lounges set under the cover of a large umbrella near where the sand met the grass. He swam in the sea for a while, trying to exhaust himself. He was in a mood and was second guessing his life. Had he made the right decision to close the business? Was there something wrong with him in only taking relationships so far? Was he afraid of settling down with just one man? Was he lonely?

The quiet of the nearly deserted resort was putting him in a mood.

As he walked out of the surf, he saw that the second lounger was occupied by a nude older man. Something made him look up at the roof of the resort building and elicited a laugh from him. A large, tacky neon sign, duplicated so it could be seen from land and sea alike, blared out “Mason’s Bare All Resort.” His eyes lowered back to establish the realization that the man in the lounger was Gideon Mason.

Awareness flooded in. Of course. The questions about vacationing at Valentine’s Day. The “push” advertisements for this place in his Internet feed. The change of ownership of this place. Gideon Mason wasn’t giving up in pursuit of him.

The realization of this was exhilarating, and Ken realized he wasn’t irritated. He was flattered. And he was aroused. He’d already sold the family business, so Mason, who would obviously have known he had, wasn’t pursuing him for that. He was pursuing him for himself.

“Well, fancy meeting you here,” Gideon said, his smile broad.

“Yes, fancy that,” Ken answered. It was then that he looked down on the lounger where he’d put his towel and saw the heart-shaped candy box. It was a Blake’s Chocolate box.

“Where did you find that?” he asked. “We sold out of those chocolates last year.”

“Those aren’t last year’s chocolates. Those are this year’s,” Gideon answered. “Today, all over New York City and beyond, people are expressing thrills that they are receiving a box of Blake’s Chocolates again this year.”

“You. You’re the one who bought my company, aren’t you?”

“Bingo.”

“How could you make my family’s chocolates? You didn’t get the formulas. Have you demeaned my product?” Ken experienced a flare of anger.

“No. These are the same chocolates. Otto Merkel knew the recipes. Your nondisclosure agreements only said the chocolates couldn’t be sold in any other name than Blake. These are the same. Take a look at the box. These are sold as Blake’s Chocolate. These aren’t packaged as Mason chocolates.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“I’m saying I want you and I want you on your terms, Ken. You yourself said how important it was to me to have my name on everything. You weren’t wrong. I don’t have my name on my company making Valentine’s Day chocolates. I have your name on that. Doesn’t that tell you how much I want you?”

“But you can’t make a profit on that,” Ken said. “You can make and sell chocolates, yes, but the reason I sold the company is that we couldn’t maintain high quality and make a profit anymore. You’ll lose money.”

“The loss will be covered by my other companies. Otto is ensuring the high quality standards will continue to be made. I’m make a bid for you personally here, Ken. And to show how important you are to me, I’ve not put my name on this product and I am willing to run this company at a loss. But people will still be getting the same Blake’s Chocolates for Valentine’s Day. I want you—on your terms, Ken. Can you consider coming to me under those circumstances? And, for now, as soon as you booked, I had reservations here closed. It will be just us at the resort for a couple of days.”

“I’m not easy, you know,” Ken said.

“For shit’s sake we’ve already fucked, Ken—several times.”

“And I’m not a rent-boy. I wouldn’t be going with you for the money.”

“Absolutely not. I’ve run your financials. And for what I paid for Blake’s Chocolates, I’d be after your money. You likely are richer than I am.”

Ken leaned down, picked up the box of chocolates, opened it, and offered the box to Gideon. “Would you like a nice Valentine’s Day chocolate before we go up to your room? I trust your room here is a lot more flash than the one they gave me.”

He was smiling.