Switching Sides

From Rome I sailed east across the Mediterranean on a small merchant ship that took on a limited number of passengers. In booking the voyage, my travel agent, Peter Phillips, had said that these vessels plying the inner seas of Europe were every bit as comfortable and accommodating as the cruise lines were—and a good bit cheaper. He said that, with fewer passengers aboard, it was easier to get to know them.  He proved to be right about that, and I’m glad he’d remembered how little I liked to fly and avoided it whenever possible. He also made side remarks about the male-male sex that could be easily found among fit sailors on these vessels, saying, “They spend so much time at sea with just each other for entertainment, and some of them go to sea just because of that,” but I was so worn out in that department from Rome that I, initially, at least, didn’t give that a thought for two days outbound from Italy.

What the slower progress across the Mediterranean did for me was that it gave me time to think. The last six months had been such a whirlwind of momentous decisions and hurried planning that I hadn’t had time to think about what I was doing, and every time I paused for a breath and to weigh my options, Peter was there with his own form of answers and I just gave in to them. Here, on the freighter, I had all the time in the world to review what I was sailing toward and the new lifestyle I was being propelled into.

Peter had pumped me for what I wanted to do and where I wanted to do it in the wake of my split from Caroline.

“I really do enjoy running the B&B and it allows me time for my photography,” I’d answered.

“So, do you want to remain partners with Caroline in the Decatur Inn and move into a place of your own? Ergon and I have a small guest house you could rent until you found someplace else.”

“Continuing as Caroline’s partner in the B&B isn’t an option. she’s buying me out,” I answered. “And I don’t think I want to stay in Cape May. I think it’s best to put a great deal of distance between Caroline and me.”

“Ergon and I were sort of hoping you’d stay around. But if you want to go someplace else, I can help you get there. Were you thinking of any place in particular?”

“Somewhere in the Mediterranean. Greece or Turkey, maybe. Someplace on the Mediterranean coast.” The answer had surprised me as much as it surprised Peter. I hadn’t, in fact, thought about it. That just came out. But then I’d remembered that Peter once told me that there were other men in Turkey like Ergon—young and good-looking and submissive. Once the idea had been voiced, I realized I had been interested in the eastern Mediterranean for some time. Caroline and I had taken a vacation there a few years earlier, and I’d been taken with the region—and with the young sun worshippers I had seen there—young people of both sexes and with very good bodies. I had thought at the time how much I’d like to photograph them. “But I want to do more than just pursue photography,” I continued. “And I have money to invest in something that will make money for me.”

“Greece and Turkey—especially the coasts—are tourist havens,” Peter said. “We’d have to get you documented, but foreigners can own small businesses like boutique hotels, at least in Turkey.”

“So, I could continue with the B&B idea?” I said. “I’d like something rustic, a stone village house maybe, one that I could have renovated to serve the small hotel purpose well. But I wouldn’t know how—”

“Real estate worldwide is sold on the Internet these days,” Peter said. “We can find just what you want.”

“And buy it sight unseen?” I’d asked incredulously.

“Sight unseen,” he answered. “I can help make sure you aren’t taken, though. But if we look for something cheap that we know will require a lot of reconstruction, you won’t be surprised and disappointed in what you buy. I’ve told you you need to go the whole way—to switch sides completely. Taking risks like this are what you need to start doing.”

And so, as Peter sat with me at the computer, I bought three properties in and near Kusadasi, Turkey, via the Internet. Two extremely cheap houses: one north of Kusadasi, in the quaint-looking coastal village of Bayraklidede, was in need of total renovation but attracted me as a place for me to live; and a second one, in the mountainous area inland from Kusadasi, would, I thought, make a great mountain retreat and short-term rental property—once it no longer wasn’t a mere gutted stone shell. The third property, larger and in the old town of Kusadasi itself, needed updating, but I could live there while it was being turned into an eight-bedroom, luxury guest house. That would be my answer to a B&B to run.

And why Kusadasi? It not only was on the Turkish resort coast but it also was the cruise tour port town giving access to the biblically significant ruined city of Ephesus, which attracted tens of thousands of tourists every year. The major city of Izmir, whose inhabitants used the Kusadasi region for a retreat, lay just sixty miles to the southeast. Caroline and I had gone through Kusadasi to visit Ephesus a few years earlier, and I’d remembered how we had remarked that this would be a great, cheap place to cash in on the tourist trade if we wanted to go international with our B&B operations. It seemed only natural that this, a world away from Caroline and Cape May and my former lifestyle, would be where I would come to start a new life.

That part of what I thought about as my freighter with its passenger section steamed east across the Mediterranean became solidified in my mind. Once again taking charge where I had indecision or lacked knowledge, Peter had hooked me up with a Kusadasi lawyer and Realtor, Cemil Teke, not only to smooth me through the process of a foreign investor in Turkey but also through the renovation process on my three new properties.

“He’s gay—flamboyantly so. I met him at an international Realtor’s conference,” Peter had said. “You won’t be attracted to him or he to you for very long beyond his initiation fee, but he’ll help you in switching sides as well as in all of your setup needs. Normally, you’d have to watch him like a hawk, but we went cruising together and have an understanding, so I think he will deal with you as he would with me. You’ll need someone like him in Turkey. They are great people, but they are sharp in business.”

“What do you mean by ‘beyond his initiation fee’?” I asked, “and ‘for very long’?”

“Ah, you caught that. It shouldn’t be a big deal by the time you get to Turkey. You’ve indicated you’re interested in trying both ways although you probably want to be dominant. Teke doesn’t work with anyone he hasn’t dominated first. After that, there’s rarely anything he’ll want from you. His primary interests are in someone much younger than either you or me.”

“Dominated?”

“Fucked. As a top.”

“And you? Did he dominate you?”

“Yes. He fucked the stuffing out of me. And then he lost interest and introduced me to Ergon.”

I didn’t ask questions about Peter and Teke beyond this and he didn’t volunteer any more information.

When Cemil Teke’s sexual interests came into my mind, which, I gather, involved interests in those of less than legal age, even in Turkey, the other thoughts I struggled with during my voyage to Turkey came up. The depths to which I had delved into sexual activity in Rome had aroused me, but they had also frightened me. How much I enjoyed bedding young men and what I had learned in Rome to do in doing so disturbed me. Was I moving too deep into the world too fast? I couldn’t help but think that it easily could control me and make me into something I didn’t want to be. Did I really want to make a switch, or was it just my relationship with Caroline having gone south that made me think I was off women?

It was Emilee, a passenger on the freighter whose last name I didn’t learn until we disembarked, who made me question my radical decision of a change in lifestyle. She was everything in a woman that Caroline wasn’t—petite, dark, shy, and totally feminine and sensual. When we encountered each other at meals and in passing on deck, she would give me looks that sent a chill up my spine and caused my cock to harden. I couldn’t tell if she was coming on to me or just naturally sexually charged. And it didn’t matter which—she turned me on when I was in the process of concluding that women didn’t do that for me.

The kicker was that the young man she was with, a Turk named Talal, did the same for me. And when I caught them together in a remote area of the deck in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep and had left my cabin to go out to the rail to try to let the action of the waves lull me into a stupor, I found that I didn’t really know which of them I wanted more.

They both were naked, their clothes strewn on the deck around the lounge chair they were writhing on. Talal was on his back on the chair, with Emilee saddled on his cock, her head bent over, her eyes locked on his, and her luxuriant auburn hair cascading down onto her arms and back. She was palming his pecs and her pert little buttocks were rising and falling on him. As she descended, he was thrusting up, deep inside her. He was grunting in a low tone and she was sighing in a rich alto. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I wanted her riding me like she was riding Talal. But I wanted him too. I wanted to be on my back, with him riding my cock the way Emilee was riding his. When I couldn’t take the tension anymore I stole back to my cabin and masturbated to a full and satisfying ejaculation.

I was so confused. I had already broken from Cape May and was riding the waves in the eastern Mediterranean. To a great extent, my choices had already been made for me. But was it all happening too fast?

I decided even before I reached Turkey that I’d reverse in my progression to the other side—for at least a while—and take it slower until I figured out what I really wanted from a changed lifestyle. The sex in Rome had been good—the sex had been terrific. But I can’t say that it had fully satisfied me. There still was something missing. Until I figured out what that was, I decided I’d be more reserved. I’d concentrate on renovating my properties, opening my B&B, and becoming settled in a culture that was strange to me. And I’d have to figure out how my interests in photography and male nudes—and male-on-male copulation—fit into that. I still, thanks to international communications, could continue the side business I had set up for that. But how would the Turks feel about that? Peter had said that for the right accommodations—meaning money—I would have no trouble with anything I wanted to do, citing the Turkish lawyer and Realtor he was sending me to, Cemil Teke, who openly lived under conditions that would slap him in prison in the States and that, by law, should do so in Turkey as well.

That’s what Peter had told me about Teke, who certainly did seem to know how to grease palms to get my property purchased and renovations started even before I got there. Just as Peter had known how to take care of me royally in Rome, he seemed to be opening doors wide for me in Kusadasi, Turkey—maybe wider than I was prepared to walk through.

* * * *

The conditions on the wide concrete pier in the Kusadasi harbor were those of chaos. A cruise ship was in and berthed on one side of the pier and our freighter was on the other. A crowd of tourists was milling around on the pier and queuing up at various meeting points for excursions. Most of them would be going thirty-five miles into the interior to the ruins of Ephesus, which once was on the coast itself but had died as an inhabited city and busy ancient port when the river at the base of the mountain valley it had been built in silted up.

I had no idea where I was going. I owned a large old stone house somewhere up the slope in the old city from here and I had trunks on board the freighter that would be delivered there, but Peter had said that Cemil Teke was to arrange for me to be picked up at the pier and that a room and bath in the house I’d bought would be prepared for me.

I disembarked at the same time that the arousing couple did.

The woman had turned to me as she came down the freighter’s gangplank and saw me standing there, small suitcase set on the ground between my legs as if I was protecting it from the mob that was swirling around me, and, fluttering her eyelashes at me, said, “Do you have a hotel to go to, Mr. . . . ?”

“Cliff. Cliff Strand,” I answered.

“Emilee,” she answered. “And this is Talal. He’s familiar with Kusadasi. He’s from Izmir, which is just down the coast from here. And I have a gift shop here—in the hotel district. If you don’t have a hotel yet . . .”

If two people could look more eager than these two did that I not have a booking of my own to go to, they would be undressing me in public. Talal, young and trim, seemed to be fluttering his eyelashes at me too. At that moment I very much regretted that I hadn’t made any move to hook up with one or both of them during the voyage.

“I’m very much sorry we didn’t become better acquainted on the sail from Rome,” Emilee said.

“Thank you, but I do have some place to stay. I will be opening a small hotel here myself and my agent here has said a room there is ready for me.”

“Ah, then, we will both be Westerners in the city,” the young woman said, and the way she said it made me feel like we’d be clinging to each other—which, of course would be fine with me. “It’s not a large city and the foreigners tend to stick together here. There’s an English-speaking group that meets regularly here. Perhaps we will meet again here.”

“Yes, perhaps,” I said, but then I recalled that I supposedly had finished with women. My eyes turned to Talal.

“We would enjoy getting to know you better here in the city,” Talal said. “I would enjoy getting to know you better,” he added, and the look of interest he gave me was quite obvious. I couldn’t help but return it, and thoughts of Emilee, naked, with me, receded into thoughts of me with Talal.

“I think I would like that too,” I answered—truthfully—“I’m told the bed and breakfast I’m buying and renovating is on a street named Bozkurt Suk. Perhaps—”

“Ah, I know that street well,” Talal answered.

Before I could say anything further or more specific about meeting, a beautiful young Turkish man—an older teen, I would more think—was there at my side, pulling on my forearm and saying, “You are Mr. Strand? I have been sent by Mr. Teke to guide you from the boat.”

Giving a slight “what can you do?” smile to the two lovers who had fucked their way across the eastern Mediterranean, but alas, without my participation, I picked up my suitcase, which the young man grabbed from me and started to weave his way through the crowd on the pier to dry land. There was little I could do other than set out after him, with a half worry that I had just been pick pocketed as I was told the people of all nationalities in the Mediterranean littoral states specialized in this.

We crossed the promenade avenue following the curve of the harbor, the young man ahead of me, weaving deftly through the crowd and me following with a good deal more brushing against shoulders and muttering of “Sorry” In English. I’d learned how to say that in Turkish, but, for the life of me, I couldn’t bring up the word now.

On the other side of the street, a brick-floored central park-like area with café tables and trees spaced close together enough for their foliage to cover the area unfolded. On the three sides of the park away from the pier older brick, stone, or stucco buildings like I’d seen in almost any Mediterranean port town, if perhaps a bit more Oriental cast to them, with shops on the ground floors, enclosed the courtyard. Sitting at one of the tables was a mountain of a man flamboyantly dressed in yellow and orange, in Arab-style dress. A red fez, such as I’d see on a stereotyped Turk in a B movie, perched on his head. It was obvious that he was wearing makeup, and, as the lad running ahead  with my suitcase, tended to evidence, I surmised that this was Cemil Teke, my new lawyer and palm greaser.

I was assured I was correct as I approached, as the man turned his hooded eyes and slight, knowing smile toward me, latched onto me, undressed me with his eyes, assessed me, and settled down to some show of comfort and satisfaction that I couldn’t gauge other than to get the impression that he found me acceptable and, I gave a little shudder, malleable. Peter had told me that there would be a condition of getting help from this Turk.

The young man got to him before I did, and I heard Teke say, “You may set that down here, Envir, and fetch us coffee.” Suddenly I remembered enough Turkish to figure that out. As the young man scampered off, Teke turned his attention to me. He held out a bejeweled hand, but he didn’t rise from the seat that he overflowed. I knew if he did stand, though, that he would tower over me. I took the hand—not being sure if I should have kissed it instead—and we didn’t shake so much as Teke held my hand in his in a near-vice grip.

“Mr. Strand, is it?” he asked in elegant English. “Clifford Strand? Peter didn’t tell me that you were a beautiful man.”

What could I say to that? I ignored the last comment and simply said, “Are you Cemil Teke, then, the man who has so patiently guided me thus far in this brave—or foolish—Turkish adventure?”

“The same,” he answered, “and I have thoroughly enjoyed being part of this transition. You have selected a fine property—in fact, three good—promising—properties. And we are making fine progress on your hotel. It lies just three streets up the hill from here. Still inside the old city. We will go up there after we have had coffee and chatted a bit. Ah, Envir is back with our coffee. Please sit.”

I sat down beside Teke at the table and we chatted about my trip out from the States and our mutual acquaintance of Peter Phillips while the young man poured our coffee and then backed away from the table, sat down on the bricks on his haunches, and went blank. He was a fine-looking young man, alabaster skin and jet black hair descending to his shoulders in curls. He was short of stature, but perfectly formed. There was no way, I thought, that he could have been of age. But from what Peter had told me of Cemil Teke . . .

“You know that when Peter was here, it was I who introduced him to Ergon Seljek?”

“Yes, he told me that.”

“Ergon was a sweet young man. And a firecracker in bed. I enjoyed him for several years before passing him to Peter. I trust they are still doing well as a couple.”

“Yes, they are devoted to each other,” I answered. I did calculations in my head. Working from knowing Ergon was only twenty-four now, I decided that he must not have been any older than the young man here, Envir, when he was with Teke.

The young man was hunched down close enough to Teke that the lawyer absentmindedly reached out with one of his many-ringed hands and ran his fingers in Envir’s hair as we talked.

“You must be tired from your trip,” Teke said.

“No, I don’t feel a bit tired,” I answered. “Traveling by ship isn’t nearly as taxing as flying.”

“Ah, then, perhaps I can show you my bathhouse and you can be refreshed before we go up to your hotel . . . and there’s the seal on the contract we can take care of from the beginning. I find in watching you approach from the ship that I have great interest in that.”

I smiled wanly at him. Perhaps it was a mistake to not have arrived too tired to take care of that detail so soon. Peter had said that it would be decided in a wrestling match that I surely would lose, but Peter hadn’t told me that Teke was a man and a half—whether or not he dressed androgynously and wore makeup.

As it was I didn’t have a chance to answer directly, as Emilee and Talal were coming into the park at that point and Teke called them over and bade them sit with us. It was obvious that they knew each other. The conversation settled on how small the expatriate community was here.

“The English speakers gather every Tuesday night at a restaurant near your hotel, Clifford,” Teke said. “The woman who owns it, Sheila Cantrell, is English. You must join the group.”

“Yes, you must,” Emilee agreed, putting her small hand on my forearm, squeezing it, and giving me a doe-eyed look.

Talal obviously saw the “fuck me” look, but showed no concern. “So, you’re the mystery man who is refurbishing the big house on Bozkurt Suk for a boutique hotel,” he said. “We’ll be near neighbors then. We’ll have to become better acquainted.” He then was giving me a meaningful look, and I went hard. I’d seen both of them naked. I’d wanted both of them then. I wanted both of them now. Could it be I wasn’t interested in switching all the way? That I was bisexual?

The two of them left and the conversation returned to the properties Teke had acquired and had begun renovating for me.

“I know you ran such a hotel in the States,” he said. “And Peter tells me that a men-friendly hotel was being run beside yours and that you were interested in that.”

“It was quite a busy operation,” I answered.

“You could have such a busy operation with your hotel too,” he said, “if you wish. We have not enough high-quality arrangements for men coming here with men and to be with men. There is a need for that here. If you wished to run such a hotel, I could help you stay in good stead with the law. I could also help steer business to you. You could give the hotel a Greek name. That’s a joke among the Turks who are part of the man-love scene. Name something Greek and you are evoking Greek love—sex between two men. If you pointed to a man and said he was Greek, everyone will know that you were saying he went with men.”

“It’s something to consider,” I said, not having considered it before. But it aroused me thinking about it. It would put me deeper in business with Teke, though, and I was finding him intimidating. At the moment I was finding him quite intimidating, as he had a beefy hand on my thigh and was squeezing.

“I think we should go to the bathhouse now,” he said in a hoarse voice. “You have me hard. Go on up to the hotel now, Envir. We will be along shortly.” Then he turned to me and said, “I am giving you Envir. You may fuck him if you wish. But I have set him up in the attic of your hotel and he will be your servant as long as you wish the arrangement. He won’t cost you much. And don’t have any apprehensions. He looks very young, but he is of age.”

I was lost on the “you have me hard” comment until Teke said what I could do with Envir.

“The age of consent here?” I asked.

“The same as where you came from—at least formally,” he said. And then he laughed. “If we can bring Islamic law to Turkey, it will be twelve years old. We may progress to that in the not-too-distant future. And if you wish a lad of fifteen, as long as there is no formal complaint . . .” He left that hanging there.

That needn’t happen for me, I thought. But I said nothing.

We bathed at the bathhouse in a large pool where other men were reposing or moving about languidly in the water. A few of the men were engaged sexually with others, so I surmised that this was an “everything goes” bathhouse. Teke and I sat next to each other, and he checked me out under the water with a hand, but more like a doctor would than a lover.

We were massaged side by side after the pool, and I admit that I came to the masseur’s intimate touch, but I was the only one of the four of us there who was embarrassed by that. The others treated it like it was natural, especially for someone uninitiated to this form of pastime as I was. The masseur acted like it was expected and he would be insulted if I could not get it off at the stroke of his hands. Lying there, I watched Teke’s masseur bring his massive cock to ejaculation as well. Teke watched me watch that.

The other three complimented me on my physique and conditioning, which helped me go hard and, eventually, to shoot off under the strokes of the young, muscular masseur. The two masseurs were built like Apollos. Teke was built like a whale, but was as muscular as the other two, and hung like a bull, and he carried himself like his was the most beautiful body there.

“The masseurs will go to the pool with us and you can use yours as you will. He says he would enjoy having you fuck him,” Teke said.

This was too much too fast for me, though, and I said so. I was already building up nervousness over Teke’s declaration that he would collect his initiation fee for services from me before we left the bathhouse.

Teke did take his masseur into the pool, though, and I sat beside him, hard and stroking myself, as Teke sat on the bench rimming the inside of the pool and pulled the masseur on and off his cock, as the young man sat in his lap, facing away from him.

Not long after that, it was my turn.

Teke was sporting. He said we could wrestle for domination, but of course it was no contest. We wrestled on a mat in a stone-walled room, with arched recesses and erotic frescoes on the walls of men wrestling and fucking. We wrestled naked, and Teke got on top of me and took the wind out of my sails with his weight and the power of his grips.

“Go up on your knees and spread your legs and it will be less painful,” he whispered in my ear.

As he covered me from above and behind and was working his cock inside my ass, I wondered how it possibly could be more painful. But eventually I opened totally to him and I went with his thrusts with counterthrusts of my own, concentrating on enjoying the fuck to the extent I could. I reached back and pulled my buttocks open, and I widened my stance and concentrated on being open for him, When I relaxed my body, didn’t struggle, and let him have his way with me, I managed better. Still, this was enough to convince me that I much preferred to be the top.

Lying there, exhausted, on my back on the mat after he’d shot his load, I panted as he propped his head up with a bent elbow and looked down into my face. He was slow stroking my cock with his hand, and I knew he’d take me to climax.

“It’s a pity that you are more a top than bottom,” he said. “I sense that you are. You are very much like Peter was. You are more desirable than Peter was—for your age—you remind me quite a bit of an American movie star of some years back. But I can tell you prefer to be on top. You are older than I really like. I would have like to have met you twenty years ago. You know now what I can demand for easing your way through the systems here. This may be the last time, but maybe not. Until then, you may do as you will with Envir, and you undoubtedly will find your own men. Or they will find you. You will be a favorite for Turkish men who like to be topped. I must tell you that most Turkish men want to dominate.”

I came for him and then he showed that that hadn’t been the last time he would use me, as he rolled over on top of me, thankfully taking most of his weight on his knees pressed between my thighs. He palmed the small of my back with a beefy hand; commanded me to wrap my legs around his waist, pressing my heels into the flesh at the top of his buttocks, which I did; took the weight of his torso on his elbow pressed into the mat next to my chest; thrust inside me; and fucked the stuffing out of me—just as Peter had said he would do. This time I already was reamed open to his size, relaxed immediately, moved my pelvis with his, and was able to get more enjoyment out of the fuck.

“Maybe this won’t be the last time,” he muttered, as we were cooling down from the second coupling.

After another session in the pool and being dried off and dressed by a couple of young Turks, we walked up to my new house, a stone mansion, set sideways to the street, of three stories, an out-of-ground basement, and an attic. I had been told that it was nearly 10,000 square feet of space, but I had had no idea what that looked like in real life. It was nearly twice as big as the B&B I was leaving in Cape May.

The lot was a big one, a double city lot, 60 feet wide and going to a depth of 150 feet. The house, 30 feet wide by 75 feet long, sat on the front, southern side of the lot. running along the northern wall to a parking lot at the back of the lot was a driveway. Between the house and the drive were a walled entry courtyard, with fountain, and a pool house, open to the back of the yard, where the hole being dug for a swimming pool surrounded by stone terraces lay between the house and the walled-off parking area.

The lowest of the three main floors had an entry hall on the front north side and a parlor running back from the front southern side. A balcony on the north side overlooked the courtyard half a story up. To the rear of that was an office area on the north, with a staircase on the south. A large dining room spanned the width of the back of the house. A balcony beyond that overlooked the pool, and there was a staircase alcove to the south side of the balcony that went down to the kitchen and storerooms under the dining room. The second and third stories were identical to each other, with three en suite bedrooms wrapping around from the front back toward the back, with a larger suite, with sitting room and bath, over the dining room. This made for eight guest rooms, each with a modernized bath, which was a luxury for Turkey. Until my village house in Bayraklidede was finished, though, I would occupy the third-floor, rear suite. The attic had an open terrace over the rear suite and, forward, a small flat and two servants’ rooms, sharing a bath. The front of the basement area would be my photography studio and dark room.

Only the suite I was to occupy for a while had been completely renovated and the swimming pool wasn’t more than a hole in the ground, but as I followed Cemil, I could easily see how everything would work eventually, and I could tell that he had put a lot of effort into getting the renovations started. I wouldn’t begrudge him his domination over me in the process nor fight him if he wanted more from me. I could see that I would need him for some time to come.

Envir prepared an evening meal and served it in the dining room, which was somewhat bedraggled but gave considerable promise of rising again. As I saw Cemil to the door, he reiterated that Envir was mine for the using. He made quite clear he had trained the young man to please another man sexually. Envir, in turn, would live in the attic in one of the servants’ rooms and serve whatever needs I had for him at the hotel.

“And there is the English-speaking group,” Cemil said. “It will be to your advantage to attend that and fit in with the expatriate community here. Remember, Sheila’s Restaurant, just up the street, on Tuesday nights.”

“I’ll remember. Will you be there?”

“Of course. I can always improve my English.” I nearly laughed. His English was better than mine—and more English. “And, about earlier. You are a desirable bottom, if you wish to go that way. You are too old for me, but there are several old, well-established men here, who would enjoy you, pay you well, and extend influence over you. I will help you find men you’d be pleased to fuck—some of them would pay an American like you well too and be of political advantage to you. Just tell me what you want. Incidentally, in case you are squeamish about that, let me reassure you that Envir may look younger than eighteen, but he’s passed that birthday. I probably wouldn’t be giving him to you otherwise; I’d keep him for myself.”

“For now, I just want to get my hotel and houses finished,” I said, but I added my thanks for his other consideration. I knew it was politic to remain in his good stead. That led me to add to what I said. “Are there men, in either category, that you would want me to be with for either my or your advantage?”

“Perhaps,” he answered, with a smile. “Just perhaps. And do think of specializing with this hotel.”

“I will,” I answered, already having decided to take up his suggestion.

As he was leaving, he pulled an official-looking document out of his briefcase and handed it to me. I assumed it was some sort of deed, but, as he showed by picking words out here and there and then a date, I discovered it wasn’t.

I descended to the kitchen to wish Envir goodnight, and he gave me a look that indicated I would take him upstairs with me. But I didn’t. I struggled with myself, but I didn’t know what to trust, what to believe, and what I wanted. Cemil had sexed me up that day, though, and I was in a state. It did make a difference to me, though, that he was of age.

I locked the door to my suite, having resolved one thing, but I kept taking the document out and looking at it. When I heard Envir at the door, trying, unsuccessfully to open it, I put a pillow over my head and tried to ignore him at the door, knocking and calling out to me. When he was gone, I lay there, on my back, masturbating and trying, unsuccessfully, not to think of the birth certificate Cemil had handed me claiming that Envir, in fact, was of age or to think of the photograph of Envir, naked, Cemil had provided along with the question of wouldn’t I like to use him as a model for my photographs?

Of course I would.

The door to his attic room was open and I could hear his heavy breathing and see that he was lying on his bed, naked, as I stood in the doorway, also naked. He was kneeling on the floor by the bed when I reached him and stood in front of him, gripping his hands in mine, as he made expert love to my cock.

I lay stretched out on top of him, him on his belly, his hands gripping the rungs of the brass headboard over his head, and one of my hands buried in the black curls at the back of his head and pulling his head up and back to me as I slid my cock inside his passage from above and fucked him and fucked him and fucked him.

* * * *

I woke up with Emilee crawling over me and stumbling out of bed.

“Sorry, it’s late. I’ve got to get the shop opened. Have fun,” I heard her say as if from a distance, through a wave of pain—my head, not my ass, so I assured myself that I wasn’t the one who’d been fucked. I hadn’t gotten drunk like I had the previous night during the English-speakers’ gathering since my fraternity days at the University of Maryland. I registered in my pounding brain that from now on I’d forgo the 6.1 percent ABV Marmara Kirmizi beer and stick with the Efes Light. It had been Talal who had told me to try the Marmara Kirmizi. And it had been the sultry redhead Sheila Cantrell who had grinned, winked at me—she’d been signaling to me all evening—and asked me if I was sure when she plunked the second strong beer in front of me. And it had been Emilee who told me to chug it and then we’d walk home together.

I guess that meant I hadn’t fucked Sheila the previous night—or her boyfriend, Alton. That had been my goal after I’d gotten half drunk. It seemed to have been their plan too—for me to stay around after the rest had left and the three of us having a go at it. Well, apparently it hadn’t wound up being that three.

I hadn’t realized that Emilee meant we’d walk to her flat above her souvenir shop, which was two blocks past my hotel-in-waiting, where Envir had assured me he’d been waiting from me in his garret room, on his back on his bed, naked and legs spread. I’d been in Kusadasi one day shy of a week and I’d spent every night on top of Envir doing pushups and the days wandering around in my developing hotel in a fog trying to stay out of the way of workmen, most, because of Cemil Teke’s planning, being hunky young Turks sniffing around the rich, movie-star-handsome American Teke had suggested might become their sugar daddy if they played their cards right.

I’d gone to the Tuesday evening English-speaking gathering at Sheila’s Restaurant as much to cool down and give my cock hard-on relief as anything, only to find Emilee and Talal there on the make for me and Sheila and her Turkish boy toy Alton Demir, as well. Cemil was there, sitting off to the side, smiling, and no doubt amused by my total emersion in the sexual innuendo.

I’d found Envir a delight to fuck. He seemed so young and looked so innocent, but he was so expert. He knew how to work me and drain me totally in ways that almost scared me. Cemil had thrown him at me. There was little doubt that Cemil had spent considerable time training Envir before the young man had reached his majority. Cemil was throwing workers on the hotel at me too, and it wasn’t clear that they all were of age. What was clear when Cemil was around was that he’d had them all.

Cemil had let me know that he would dominate me as he pleased. Who was running this adventure? Cemil or me? To what purpose? Was I paying for this hotel only for Cemil to ensnare me and, in the end, pull the rug out from underneath me—maybe see me put up on charges of one kind or another and taking my property for himself? Peter had told me that I had to watch the Turkish lawyer like a hawk. He’d told me that while, at the same time, telling me I had to trust someone in the corrupt system that was Turkish business and that it was Cemil Teke I’d need to trust.

But then, Peter had admitted that Cemil had dominated him too. And Cemil had said that he matched Peter to Ergon Seljek—who I’d recognized had Peter wrapped around his little finger and panting after him in bed. I doubted that Peter made any decision in faraway New Jersey that Ergon didn’t agree with.

When I’d stumbled out of Sheila’s Restaurant with Emilee and Talal, I’d known that I was going with them, not returning to the hotel and Envir’s bed, and I’d told myself that it was a declaration of independence from the web Cemil was weaving around me. But he’d been sitting there and smiling while Emilee and Talal had been getting me drunk. So, was this according to Cemil’s plans as well?

I reached out for Emilee as she rolled off the side of the bed, but I missed. I might have pulled myself off the bed and followed her, but Talal was awake now too and rolled over between my thighs, wrapping his arms around my thighs and taking my cock in his mouth. Most of the time we’d been working on Emilee in consort during the night, I had really wanted to be fucking Talal. The closest we’d come to intimacy beyond kissing and fondling each other was when I was on my back, my cock up Emilee’s slit, as she rode my pelvis and Talal behind her, fucking her in the ass. It was my first time sharing a woman with another man. I was learning so much in such a short time in my journey to switching sides.

I’d felt him inside her ass while I was in her vagina, the membrane between her passages undulating at the coordinate stroking of our cocks inside her. I wanted to be inside Talal so much, though. And maybe I had been. But I could only pull in snatches of the three of us moving together.

I lay back on the bed, gripping the curly black hair of his head between my hands and reveling in the blow job. Turkish men—or at least the two I’d experienced so far—gave great head. I moved my pelvis and he readjusted to give me room to stroke up into his throat.

He didn’t make me wait long, though. I had a huge, throbbing erection when he rose up over my body and lowered his ass onto the cock. I groaned deeply and grasped his waist as we moved together in the fuck, him saddled on my pelvis as Emilee had been last night, but this fuck, this fuck of a handsome young man, being so much more arousing than with any woman.

He rode me and rode me and rode me to a mutual explosion.

Only one week into my new life and I’d already exploded into hedonism. But was this free will or someone’s sticky spider web?