The Christmas Present Cruise

I met Wade in a church, of all places. Not that either one of us is religious, and neither one of us was attending a church service there. It was the cathedral in Cologne, Germany. I was bumming around Europe during the summer between university and grad school-I was studying art photography at MICA, the Maryland Institute College of Art, in Baltimore-and Wade had come off a river boat cruise lashed up to the side of the Rhine near the cathedral. I was studying the art of the cathedral and photographing it at interesting angles to add to my "what you did this summer?" study for when I returned to the institute. And, as it turned out, Wade was studying the photogenic young men walking around the open square in front of the cathedral.

He tripped on the front steps of the cathedral-or pretended to-and I was near enough to keep him from falling.

He was forward enough to smile and lift his eyebrows to me, as if to say that, to him, I looked astonishing, and to ask me if I was interested in having a drink and a meal on him in a nearby café in gratitude for saving his life. I hardly thought I'd saved him from much harm, but I was on a very limited travel budget and he seemed a pleasant enough fellow-in his early fifties maybe and trim and very well groomed; very expensively dressed, which boded well for a good meal-so I said "sure."

He took me to the Gasttaette im Mariengarten restaurant, which was just off the cathedral square. He went right to it, which gave me the impression he had mapped everything out, a thought that proved prophetic enough quite soon. We ascertained during the meal-which indeed was quite good and plentiful-that he owned a winery west of Baltimore and was taking a Rhine river cruise to taste the German wines and stave off boredom. There was no indication given that he was married or that there was anyone significant in his life. A loner, just like me.

We laughed at the coincidence that I was living in Baltimore and going to school there when he lived just to the west of Baltimore. And here we'd both met by chance in northern Germany. And we were even more amused that he was an avid art collector and I was studying to be an art photographer.

"I rather thought something like that," he said. "I saw that you were taking hundreds of photographs around the cathedral and were quite serious about it."

He had watched me take hundreds of photographs. That had taken me a couple of hours. And he had been watching me. I thought that a little odd, but I also was secretly pleased-that he was that interested in me. I could possibly have been more interested in him, I thought, if we had more time. I was pretty much asexual up to this point, but I long had assumed I could go either way if the person was attractive enough. And, in men, it was the older, distinguished-looking, trim ones who captivated my interest.

Wade fit all of those categories. Plus he appeared to be quite wealthy and he was a very pleasant conversationalist.

And there was little beating around the bush with Wade. He was very direct.

"Seriously, I would be very interested in seeing your art work," he said. "I have revolving art and photography exhibits in the tasting rooms of my winery-plus I collect what I like myself. Perhaps you could give me your card, and I could view some of your work when we're both back in Maryland."

My card, I thought. He and I definitely lived in two different worlds. "How about if I write my name and e-mail address on one of these napkins?" I asked.

"That would be divine," he answered. "Here's my card. If I don't contact you by the end of the summer, feel free to call me. And do come out to the winery too for a tasting-all free, of course."

Over dessert we discussed what had brought us both to Cologne and what our travel experiences were. I didn't keep from him how limited my travel budget was, but it wasn't meant as any sort of setup for a come on. Wade appeared to take it for that, though-or at least take it as a green signal for further-and, now, very bald-advances.

"I've booked a room at the Linden Hotel just down the street," he said. "But I have to be back on the boat by 6:00 p.m. If you'll come with me, I'll pay you $100 and you can keep the room, prepaid for the night. Get a nice shower and a good night's rest and a complimentary breakfast in the morning."

"Come with you?" He had booked a hotel room just for the afternoon?

"Yes, I would very much like to fuck you. You go with men, don't you? You have that look about you. I'm seldom wrong." He had reached across the table and taken hold of my hand. He could feel me begin to tremble. He didn't feel me take my hand away, because I didn't.

"I've never . . . No, I don't really go with men."

He was nothing if not confident and persistent. "But you hesitate and you haven't taken your hand away," he said. Then is a slightly more hoarse voice, "If you are a virgin to men, then of course I would pay more. And I would be gentle.Your initiation would be all that you could hope for."

"I'm sorry . . . I don't know . . ."

"I think you do know-down, very deep inside you, I think you do know. I watched you for some time. You weren't taking photographs the entire time. You were looking at people on the square from time to time. Not at young girls much.More at mature men. Men like me. Your eyes were lingering on men like me-assessing and enjoying the look of them. I assure you that I'm an expert lover. I can teach you to take much pleasure out of being with a man. And I know you could use the night in a good hotel and a little extra spending cash."

I lowered my eyes, lost for something to say. Of course it was a ridiculous idea, and I certainly wasn't looking at men on the cathedral square with any special interest-surely not with a prurient interest.

But it was true that I hadn't taken my hand from his, nor had I done more than flinch slightly when he put the other hand on my thigh below the surface of the table. It was quite true that I could use a good night's sleep in a decent hotel and a good breakfast. Even a good shower was welcome at this stage of my travels.

And I remember having joked with my fellow students before I set out for Europe that I was looking for adventure-something I could bravely do in Europe that I wouldn't do at home.

"$200,"he said in a quiet little voice.

I didn't look up. But I didn't get up and leave him in indignation either.

"Waiter,"Wade called out. "Check please."

He had a hand on me all the time we were walking to the hotel-on my arm or the small of my back. It was as if he sensed that I might cut and run at any moment. And if this was his assessment, he was right. I was close to hyperventilating, struggling in my mind whether I could go through with this.My mind was racing. Was he right about me subconsciously ogling men of his age?I knew it wasn't right that I had so little sexual experience. I thought it was just that I was so busy establishing an artistic life-that eventually I'd meet some young woman I had chemistry with and we'd settle in with each other. I'd never thought of meeting some young man, even though throughout the art world this was normal. Now that I thought about it, though, I had been attracted to one of my art professors. And he was gay. I knew that, and he didn't hide it.Was my attraction to him because he was a model as an artist or because he was gay? Or maybe because he was both gay and of a similar age and commanding presence as Wade?

At the door of the hotel, I knew I just couldn't do it. It scared me that Wade had it all set up. He had intended to fuck some young man in this hotel this afternoon as just a side activity of his expensive river cruise. He said he'd be attentive to my first-time needs and that he'd pay me $200, but maybe he was just a bit too smooth and confident.

And maybe I wasn't capable of gay sex or as attracted to him as he was trying to sell me.

"I'm sorry, Mr. LaPage, I can't do it. I'm just not ready for anything like that." I held back from mounting the steps to the entrance of the hotel, and Wade drew me off to the side, holding me at arms' length with hands lightly gripping my upper arms. I assumed he was going to be livid. But he wasn't.

"Ah, that's a pity. But I understand. You need to think about it, though. I'm almost never wrong. I think I know what you want. You walked with me from the café to here, so both you and I know you are strongly considering it. There will be opportunities in Baltimore. But you must understand that I don't have much time to convince you today. I must make other arrangements if you're not ready.There isn't much time before I have to be back on board."

We parted amicably-with me slightly disappointed he had given up so easily. Half way across the cathedral square, I turned and looked back. I think I would have walked back to him then, but he already had a hand on another young man's arm.And this time, the pair walked directly up the steps and into the entrance of the Linden hotel.

During the following fall, Wade called me a couple of times in Baltimore. I tried to be as polite and noncommittal as possible when he asked me if I was ready to visit him. At no time did I just tell him to fuck off, though. It was as if I knew he was right about what I wanted but just couldn't cross that line.

Somehow he obtained a mailing address for me. At Christmas he sent me a pair of sheer, red, silk sleeping shorts, with a note that he surely would love to see me under his Christmas tree wearing those. On Valentine's Day, he sent me flowers and a box of chocolates and a request that I let him show me his winery-and the apartment he kept on the floor above that. He said there was a soaking tub for two in the apartment and he rather graphically described what we could do in that tub.

I crumpled the note up and tossed it in the trashcan. Later, however, I retrieved it and smoothed it out. I placed it in the center drawer on my work table, and a couple of times when I felt tense, I took it out and masturbated to what he had written.

My birthday was in July. I have no idea how he had tracked that down, although I think he somehow had gotten to one of the other graduate art students who was giving me knowing looks and was coming close, I was sure, to propositioning me himself. Wade was even more direct this time. He sent me a box of condoms and specialty lubricant and a request that I let him take me to a hotel in New York. There was a widely publicized photography exhibit in New York City in September that he said he was aching to take me to-and unbeknownst to him, but perhaps not as I hadn't made a secret of my interest, it was an exhibit I was aching to go to also.

He almost was beyond direct. He included a photograph of him in the nude. He was in very good shape and he was holding an erection that had to be well over average. His note explicitly told me what he wanted to do with that erection.The photograph went in the center drawer of my work table along with the note he had sent on Valentine's Day.

At Thanksgiving, I received a ticket for a five-day Christmas cruise leaving Baltimore, bound for Bermuda. It included a note saying the ticket was nonrefundable and that he wouldn't be on the cruise. He included a photocopy of tickets in his own name for a Christmas cruise on the Danube.

"It's not that I'm giving up on wanting you," he wrote in an attached note. "But this is my pledge how much I want you and what lengths I will go to to have you."

I checked. The ticket indeed was nonrefundable-and I was informed that the booking deal came with a hefty cabin allowance that also wasn't refundable. I checked to make sure it was for a single-birth cabin.

And then I decided to go ahead and take the cruise. I felt I had earned a cruise for all the hard work I'd done that semester-not necessarily from Wade, but I didn't see anyone else around with a checkbook in their hands.

** * *

I got my last fall semester paper submitted not more than three hours before the cruise was set to sail on December 23rd and then it was a race for the Baltimore docks. The ship wasn't nearly as big as the Royal Caribbean ship I'd seen in ads that sailed from Baltimore, but it was sleek. I was so weary when I boarded that I went straight to my cabin, which, although it was a single, had a small balcony and a full wall of glass facing Baltimore harbor.

I slept the sleep of the dead for a good three hours beyond the sailing time. I managed to drag up in time for the first-night dinner as the ship was nearing Hampton Roads for its sail out into the Atlantic and eastward journey to the island of Bermuda.

It was only then that it struck me that there didn't seem to be any women on this cruise.

"Yes, this is a gays-only cruise," a flouncy little maître d' who was making goo-goo eyes at me assured me when I looked perplexed by his effort to redirect me from the dining room to the pool deck for dinner. "And you, my dear, are overdressed. This is a let-it-all-hang-out sail, and I think when you let it all hang out, you definitely will be the belle of the ball. Tonight's dinner is a buffet on the pool deck. You can take those stairs over there-unless you'd like to stay around and talk with me longer."

He was right. There wasn't much in the way of clothing at dinner, which was a barbeque buffet around the topside swimming pool. Everyone but me was in nothing much more than a Speedo. I was late to dinner, and some of the men were already beyond the "wearing a Speedo" phase.

I took my plate and retired to my cabin. Sitting on the balcony and watching the last glimpses of Virginia Beach recede to the west, I contemplated how I was going to be able to stay in my cabin-and out of trouble-for five days. At least one day would be spent docked in Bermuda and I could escape from the ship as long as it was in port.

I knew what Wade was up to in sending me on this cruise. He figured I'd become part of the party and arrive back in Baltimore all gung ho to give in to his advances. Well, he had another think coming on that. I was warming up to the idea, that was true, but I didn't like to be pushed into anything. One of these days, I would just show up at his winery. I would take the next step under my own steam. When I could build up the steam to take such a defining step.

I wouldn't have put it past Wade to be on this cruise himself, despite the evidence that he was in Europe. I'd actually called for him on the telephone at the winery the day before sailing to see if I could catch him at a deception, but the woman I talked to claimed he was vacationing on the Danube. I wasn't fully convinced then, though, and less so now.

The invitation that was slipped under my door the next morning let me know I couldn't hide in my room. I was being invited to sit at the captain's table for the Christmas Eve gala meal that night. That was the first time it dawned on me that I hadn't even given a thought that I'd be at sea on Christmas Day and away from anyone I knew. Both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day had been a time when we'd go around visiting family and close friends. I didn't have many close friends and very little family left, but the previous Christmas I had managed to scrape up enough of both to have some feel for the Christmas spirit.

Still when night came on both nights of the previous Christmas, I got nearly snookered by myself with Christmas wine, went to my solitary bed-wearing the silky red sleeping shorts Wade had given me, I must admit-and masturbated myself into a hazy sleep.

We wouldn't reach Kings Wharf in Bermuda until the morning of the 26th. Until then, I would be out at sea with temptation at every turn.

I didn't know if it was some sort of sacrilege to turn down an invitation to the captain's table for Christmas Eve, but I'd brought the sleeping shorts and I could order the wine in. I could do no worse this Christmas Eve than I had done the last-and I would not have taken that irrevocable step of having sex with another man.

I called for the room porter and asked him how I could convey my regrets-that I had neglected to bring a suit, let alone a tux, on the cruise. The porter smiled, left, and within twenty minutes had returned with a tuxedo on a hanger that fit me like a glove.

Mid afternoon on Christmas Eve, decked out in my tux-in which I had admit I looked really, really good-I left my room in search of alcoholic support and went to the lounge. Most of the men-all on the frenzied make because this was that sort of cruise-were topside at the swimming pool. I briefly looked out on that deck before going to the lounge and saw that, as expected, there was a major sex orgy in progress out there.

I retreated quickly to the lounge in the fantail of the boat on a deck that included just that lounge, the dining room, and the central atrium with the reception desk.

The lounge was decorated for Christmas, which I didn't find to be a surprise, but what did surprise me was that seeing the decorations and hearing the Christmas music made me feel both sad and maudlin at the same time.

Other than the two bartenders, who both gave me very warm smiles when I came in and ordered my first of several drinks, there was only one other man in the lounge.He was gray haired and patrician looking. In fact, I thought I recognized him as a popular leading man in British movies-swashbuckling in his early movies and a suave heartthrob for middle-aged women in his later years. He was smoking a cigarette, had a snifter with brandy or port in his hand, and was viewing the Christmas tree and, beyond that, the wake that was endlessly churning off the stern of the ship as it steamed east. He, like me was wearing a well-cut tuxedo, and he, more than I, I was sure, looked like it was exactly what he should be wearing.

I sat half way across the lounge from him, taking in the same view that he was. I had tossed off three drinks, preparing myself to socialize at the captain's table. I had no idea he even knew I was there until he spoke, in a sad, but beautifully modulated and resonating British baritone.

"You seem as melancholy as I feel," he said. "I came on this cruise to forget and all I can do is remember. Surely, you are too young and blessed to also be wallowing in doom and gloom here in the lounge. I would have thought you would be carousing with the best of them topside."

"I wasn't aware what kind of cruise it was," I answered.

"Ah.And you find it all repugnant? You are afraid that, with your glorious looks, you will be ravished?"

I laughed at that. My answer surprised even me, though, and I have no idea why I responded with such unrealized honesty. "No, not exactly. I'm afraid that it's what I would want. A man who wants me has tricked me to come on this voyage. I think he hopes I will be ravaged and will come back to him with open arms."

"And that would be bad? Come, come over closer and sit with me. I find that talking with someone else would be comfort. It surprises me that it would. I came in here thinking otherwise."

I moved over closer to him, where I still had the same view of the tree and the ship's wake that he had, though. One of the bartenders refreshed my drink. I was feeling quite mellow from the booze and that must have made me loose tongued. We sat in silence for a few moments.

"I asked if that would be bad-if what your hopeful lover wants for you-for both of you-is a bad thing."

"Well, it came as quite a surprise when he first told me what he wanted. But over the months, I admit that I've found the prospect increasingly attractive."

"Then perhaps you don't need whatever he wishes for you on this cruise. Perhaps you just need to return to him and give yourself to him. You will never know if it's the right thing for you or not unless you give it a try. And you seem the steady type. I doubt it will knock you on your feathers even if you find it isn't for you."

"I suppose," I answered. But then after a brief silence, I decided it was his turn to bare his soul. "But why are you in here and alone? And why are you melancholy."

"You've come on this cruise for enjoyment. I shouldn't burden you with my sadness."

"But you said you were glad to have someone to talk to. I would like to know why you are sad . . . why you are on this voyage. What are you looking for? Another man? Have you found the prospects of the voyage unsatisfactory? The mood of the passengers too hedonist for you?"

"Too hedonist, yes, perhaps-at least under my present circumstances, although I assure you that I've made a party fool of myself often enough in my time. I'm not a demonstrative man usually, though. I'm going home, actually. I have been in the States, and I'm returning home. I live in Bermuda. So, it's really only half a voyage for me, and I thought that seeing all of these young men around, being happy and making love, would stave off my mourning. I didn't realize-although I should have-that they would be making sex, not love-and that underneath the veneer of happiness is a core of frantic need."

"Mourning?"I asked. "Have you had some sort of breakup with a lover?"

"He died. He was American. I brought him home for his final rest."

"Ah.I'm sorry."

"So am I. We were together for over twenty years. And in all that time, I didn't acknowledge him. Bad for the box office, you know. Now I wish I had. But now it's too late."

From there we moved to less-painful chit-chat for both of us. I told him of my studies and he spoke to me of his years in film and his life with his Chad. He seemed in a less reticent mood as darkness slowly turned the sea into shimmering light reflecting from the moon and accentuated the white caps of the wake and the colorful festivity of the Christmas tree.

The discussion had lightened my mood too-helped along by a few more drinks than I should have had.

"Thank you for the company," he said as he rose from his chair. He cut quite an elegant figure still-trim of body, handsome of face, and noticeably well cared for. "I mustn't be late for the gala dinner. I'm afraid I have to endure a captain's table performance. I never can seem to get off stage."

"For some reason, I'm at the captain's table too," I said as I rose from my chair.

"Ah, then, I at least will have someone I can talk with enjoyably," he said. "Shall we? And shall we go arm and arm so that any mashers get the impression that we are together?"

"That would be splendid," I said, as I offered my arm to him. And I surprised myself in the realization that it, indeed, would be splendid.

Continued conversation was not to be, though. My new-found friend was placed on the captain's right, with a blowsy middle-aged banker type, simpering at the presence of a famous British leading man at the table, placed on the captain's left. To his left was the ship's first officer, a florid, beefy redhead not more than a couple of years older than I was who was expressive with his hands the entire meal-certainly with the use of them on my arms and knees and thighs as he made suggestive small talk. I was confused and slightly embarrassed when I didn't react even when his hand went to cover my basket-and giving a low growl when he found I was hard-but through the buzz I reasoned-idiotically, of course-that it was just the drink affecting me like this and that I'd go straight to my cabin when dinner was over.

I was placed on the first officer's left. So Magnus Brooks, the former matinee idol, was too far down the same seating line from me for interaction between us to be possible. I felt I regretted not having him to talk to further, although it seemed like he must have exhausted all topics of mutual interest back in the lounge.

I found it difficult to talk with those sitting across from me, the whole line being young, fit, handsome men who obviously were placed there to be eye candy for the captain and his chief officers, all of whom revealed in the language they used and jokes that they told that they too were gay. It wasn't that the young men might not have been pleasant to talk with, nor was it because I tried several times to divert the first officer's interest from me to them. It was because my world was going hazy and disjointed from the drinking I had done before and during dinner. The first officer was my partner in crime in this, topping off my wine glass before it was even half empty and proposing toast after toast.

I have no recollection of the transition that somehow was accomplished, but the next time that I was in consciousness enough to observe my surroundings, I was in a cabin not much larger than mine, and not nearly as well appointed as mine, and the florid redheaded first officer's pelvis was asserting itself between my spread thighs as I lay on my back on his bed. We were both naked; my mouth tasted foul and musky, as if I'd given the beefy stud a blow job, which for all I know I had, and I was being jolted jerkily back into awareness and the sensation of pain as he worked his cock inside me and began to plow me.

I think-but am not sure-that I initially tried to cry him off, but he only laughed and told me that I had begged for it, that I'd asked him to fuck me during desert at the captain's table, which I couldn't declare with any certainty that I hadn't done. I do know that once he was inside me and the initial pain had subsided, I felt a flood of relief that I finally was giving in to the urge. I do slightly remember having begun a rhythm of the fuck with him and moaning of the pleasure it was bringing me-and the pleasure I felt when I heard him groaning and moaning as well.

I assumed I was trying to cry him off the assault with my booze-slurred speech, but someone in the cabin was begging for him with exclamations of "Yes, yes.Fuck me." The more aware I became of my surroundings, the more I realized that the voice was mine.

Near the end of the fuck, another figure entered the cabin-the captain, I realized, a tall, muscular, dark man in his forties. He was Moroccan, or so I'd been informed at dinner. I had not been informed that he had a long, thin cock that curved up from the black, curly hair of his groin when he was in erection. When the first officer was finished with me, he turned me over on my belly on the bed, and fucked me doggy style. He laughed, hands on my waist, as I began to counter his thrusts with the motion of my own hips, pushing back on his cock, and when I raised my torso to his, flung my arm around his neck, and pulled his face into mine for deep kissing.

Where the first mate had been quite satisfactory for the release of my inhibitions, the captain's cocking was divine. All of this had been in that Valentine's Day note from Wade. I was just following a preordained script.

Wade certainly had guessed right about this cruise. I wasn't going to return to Baltimore as a reluctant virgin.

I embarrassed myself by begging for the fucking and riding the first officer's cock again entirely under my own power when the captain had ejaculated and left us, wishing us both a happy Christmas. I couldn't gainsay him on that. Now that I'd actually done it, I was insatiable. I regretted the captain's departure.One cock was hardly enough.

I woke up in the first officer's bunk and listening to him taking a shower and happily singing a Christmas carol in what he said, when he came back into the cabin, was his mother tongue, Welsh.

"Here, drink this," he said, offering me a glass filled with a cloudy liquid. "This will take away that hangover of yours and put you in a Christmas mood."

His idea of a Christmas mood and mine were two entirely different concepts. The drink made me groggy again and took control of my reason entirely away from me.I grabbed for his hips, pulled him to me, and sucked on his cock until, laughing, he agreed to fuck me again.

After we'd both showered, the first mate carried me, naked, up to the pool deck. He laid me down on my back on the diving board and called out cheerily that I was free for the taking-a Christmas present for all interested takers. A succession of men-too many for me to count, even if I'd been sober and in control-took advantage of the offer.

I had enough control of my faculties-but just barely-to realize that I enjoyed each and every fucking.

The next time I was aware enough to put two thoughts together beyond how much I liked having a man's cock churning inside me, I once again was in a cabin. This time it was a suite, dominated by a king-sized bed. I was laying on my back on the bed, naked, but I had been bathed.

"Are you back in the land of the living?"

The voice was that of Magnus. I felt comforted and safe. His voice alone was enough to make me melt to him.

"Oh, god," I murmured. "I'm so ashamed. I would never . . ."

"I know. It was the drink-and, I dare say, something that someone was putting in your drinks. Don't think of it. Just try to forget."

He was sitting in a club chair not far from the bed. He was wrapped in a blue dressing gown, and, like the previous afternoon in the lounge, he was smoking a cigarette and holding a snifter of brandy in his hand. Also like the previous afternoon, he looked elegant even though he was in a dressing gown rather than a tux.

"It wasn't all bad, though," I said in a low voice, at length. I seemed to be addicted to acknowledging the truth to Magnus.

"Your hopeful lover's wishes are fulfilled then? You have learned that you enjoy sex from men?"

"Yes,"I answered, once again surprised that I could be so honest with him. "From some more than others, though."

"Oh.Some of the men at the swimming pool were quite young and muscular. I'm sure you must have enjoyed them."

"Surprisingly, yes. But if I had to choose, I think the captain was best. Older, more mature, more experienced men are better, I think."

"The man who sent you on this cruise is such an older man?"

"Yes."

"So, you are likely to welcome his advances now?"

"Probably.Yes. I didn't know how pleasurable it could be."

"There is something I didn't tell you yesterday," he said at length. "The reason, I think, that I asked you to come sit with me yesterday, why I spoke with you so openly is . . ."

He seemed to be struggling to say it. So I said it for him, having already seen the photographs he had on the nightstand. "It's because I look like your Chad, isn't it?"

"Yes, like he looked twenty years ago when we first coupled."

"Tell me. When you made love, did you . . . or he . . . ?"

"I made love to him. I was the top."

"Do you miss it?"

"Oh, god, yes. It's only been a few months, but I ache for it."

"Can you stand and let your dressing gown drop and let me see you? All of you?"

"Are you . . . ?"

"Yes, I'm serious. I've said I liked mature men best. It's Christmas. Time for giving and receiving presents."

He was everything I could wish for. And he was hard. I turned to the edge of the bed and opened my legs to him. As he moved between my thighs, I took his cock in my hands and pulled him inside me. He sighed and I gasped, wrapping my legs around his waist to hold him inside me as deep as possible, as he began to caress every nook and cranny of my channel with his expert cock in a slow, masterful fuck.

** * *

Wade LaPage stood at the dock in Baltimore, his eyes anxiously scanning all of the passengers, most of them marked off in closely embracing couples, as they walked down the gangplank from the Bermuda gay cruise party ship.

After a couple of hours, the departees thinned out and the crew began to leave the ship.

One sweet, mincing late-departing trick gave Wade a flutter of his eyelashes and a seductive smile as he passed close to him.

When the first officer hit the dockside from the gang plank, LaPage walked swiftly over to him.

"Has it worked?"

"Yes, by Christmas Day, your young friend was fucking like a bunny. Couldn't get enough of it. He's a great fuck too, I'll tell you. I can see why you invested the money and effort into him. But I think I gave you value for your money for my part in breaking him down."

"And no doubt you took him first," LaPage said with a snort.

The first mate grinned, telling LaPage everything he needed to know about that."Yes, and third and fourth, as I remember. And he wanted it bad. Before the night was out he was riding my cock and telling me he couldn't get enough."

LaPage scowled, this being just a bit more than he wanted to hear. "I haven't seen him come off the ship, though. Do you know where he is?"

It was the first mate's turn to scowl, and he turned away as if he was going to walk off without answering.

But LaPage grabbed at his shirt sleeve. "Is he still aboard?"

"No,"the first mate answered. "He got off in Bermuda with the British movie star, Magnus Brooks. And he didn't get back on before we sailed. If you want him, I guess you'll have to go to Bermuda to get him."

Wade LaPage was thinking about doing just that as he walked out toward the parking area. But when he reached the curb, he saw the cute young trick he'd seen mince off the ship while he was waiting for his art student to appear. He sauntered up beside the young man.

"Are you waiting for a taxi?"

"Yeah, but, fuck all, I got off the ship late. It may be hours before any get back here."

"So, you are in a hurry to get somewhere?"

The young man stood back and looked Wade up and down and then smiled. "Not particularly."

"I could give you a ride, if you like."

"What sort of ride?" the young man asked saucily.

"I'll give you $100 for a fuck and then I'll drive you anywhere you want to go. For another $100, I'll take you home for the night. Then we can talk about what sort of ride. You will enjoy it."

"Well, Merry Christmas to you too. So, where's your car?" the young man asked.