The Horse Master

“This is Claude, Claude Barbier, Neal. He’ll be living with us this summer. He’s a concert pianist. French.”

“I’ve heard interesting things about you, young man,” the Frenchman said. “I’m looking forward to getting to know you better.”

This was how I was greeted coming off the train in Gunzenhausen, an ancient Bavarian town on a large lake, Muhr am See, between Nürnberg, thirty-three miles to the northeast, and Münich, ninety miles to the southeast. I had landed in Münich five hours earlier from London and I was strung out. Gordon Haydon, the painter, had harassed me to come to him for the summer, but he hadn’t bothered to drive to Münich to pick me up even though he was opening the boot of a perfectly fine Mercedes sedan at the Gunzenhausen station for me to hoist my bag into. And now he was telling me that we wouldn’t be the only ones in his lakeside house this summer.

I wondered if the funny little old bald man Gordon had introduced me to as Claude Barbier would be demanding the same privileges Gordon would. Chances were good he would--not only from the way he smiled at me like he could eat me up alive but also because of how familiarly he was placing the surprisingly long and elegant fingers of one hand on the small of my back as we exited the Bahnhof.

I had resigned myself to one lecherous old man when I’d agreed to come model for Gordon “in nature, au natural,” as he had put it, in exchange for help with my photography, room and board, and more money than I could have made doing anything else to bridge the school terms at Cambridge. Gordon had been my art professor there in my first year--before the scandal that had sent him into an exile retirement in Germany, but that, since I was of age and of little interest to anyone, hadn’t swept me up as well.

At the car, the Frenchman, nearly salivating, held the door of the backseat open for me and probably would have followed me if Gordon hadn’t said, “Ride up front with me, Claude.”

Ever aware of my surroundings as a possible photo shoot, I avoided eye contact with Claude, who had turned in the front seat to look back at me and was babbling about what had brought him to Gunzenhausen for the summer himself--something about retreating from the busyness of the Paris whirl to perfect the music for a fall concert tour. I didn’t listen too closely, and he seemed to be satisfied with an occasional grunt from me and to viewing my golden curls and blue eyes from profile as we curved around the east side of the Muhr am See, turning into ever-more-narrow and picturesque roads and bucolic scenery until the trees were meeting overhead.

I kept stroking my camera, anxious to be out and about and clicking off photos of this beautiful landscape. I also was fully aware that Claude had an arm extended into the backseat and was stroking my knee with long, elegant fingers--so incongruous on his short, rotund dwarfish body.

OK, so Gordon had told the Frenchman exactly what I would be doing for Gordon this summer, I thought with a sigh--and, I suppose, for the Frenchman too if I wanted to earn my keep. I was resigned to it, though. Gordon was paying me far more than he would without the understanding that I’d be lying under him. It’s not like we hadn’t done it before. He definitely knew his photography art, even though he personally preferred fine art. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity for the instruction he could provide. I’d return to Cambridge far ahead of my peers.

And it was just sex--a renewable resource, as Gordon had continuously reminded me while he was banging me at Cambridge. It’s a good thing I looked younger than my age, though, or he wouldn’t have been banging me and I’d have missed out on the valuable instruction.

The car slowed, and I turned my head to the front windshield, only to drop my jaw in amazement. We were on a narrow lane, Gordon having told me that we were quite close to his lake house. In front of us, though, showing no indication he would move off the road, was a magnificently large gray draft horse, powerfully and beautifully built, and riding on him was an equally magnificently constructed young man. He was naked to the waist, broad shoulders tapering down to a narrow waist. He was riding the horse nearly bareback, with just a red cloth for a saddle. His beefy legs hung down at the sides, there being no stirrups.

“Give him the horn,” Claude said.

“I’d love to,” Gordon answered, with a chuckle. “But I’ve already checked him out. He gives his horn; he doesn’t take one, old chap. But, seriously, I don’t want to spook the horse,” Gordon continued. “He’s wearing headphones and listening to music--maybe one of your piano pieces.” He gave Claude an indulgent smile.

“Ah, in that case . . .” Claude responded, returning the smile and, thankfully, turning full frontal to the wind screen. “What a magnificent body,” he said, giving a low whistle.

“The horse or Guido?” Gordon asked.

“Yes,” Claude responded, and then he gave a low laugh.

“As I said, he’s not for me--or for you, Claude.”

“Pity,” the Frenchman answered. “But he barebacks his mare so masterfully. Don’t you think he bareback well, young man?”

Before I could answer, though, Gordon said, “That’s not a mare, Claude. That’s a boy horse, I’m sure.”

“Well, if so, he barebacks his boy horse masterfully,” Claude said, with a snicker.

That told me all I needed to know about the preferred positions of all three men. “Open the sunroof,” I said impulsively.

“Excuse me?” Gordon asked.

“Open the sunroof. I must photograph this.”

“Good idea,” Gordon said. He opened the sunroof, and I stood, coming out of the car up to my waist and started firing off shots of the horse and rider from the rear. I only stopped long enough to reach down to try to brush the Frenchman’s hand away--unsuccessfully--from copping a feel of my crotch as I was hanging out of the top of the Mercedes.

Instinctively, the horse rider--who Gordon must know, as he called him Guido--sensed he was being followed, and he turned. The musculature of his chest, ornamented with curly black chest hair, was as magnificent as the view from the back had been. Our eyes met, and I fired off a couple of more shots. He didn’t look particularly pleased at that, and, as he pulled the gray horse to the side of the road to give the Mercedes room to pass, he gave me a bit of a scowl. I photograph that too--he was just as breathtaking with a petulant scowl on his face.

I wasn’t paying complete attention to him, though, as I had the Frenchman to worry about. He had turned full to toward the backseat, had unzipped me and pulled my trousers and briefs down onto my thighs, and, clutching my buttocks in his hands, had his face buried in my crotch. I was trapped in that position and, for the remainder of the drive to Gordon’s house, I lay on the roof of the car; my arms extended; my buttocks being kneaded, with fingers exploring my anal entrance; and Claude expertly sucking me to an ejaculation. Giving in to him, I lay there, moaning, and moved my pelvis so that I was slow pumping his mouth cavity.

No, there was no question of the favors I would be expected to extend to the French gnome during the summer.

* * * *

The house was more than a bit of a surprise. It was set in a grove of trees, with the slope of a pasture behind it gently rolling down to the shore of the Muhr am See. At first it was hard to pick out the house at all. It was constructed of ancient, moss-covered stone slabs. The house rambled from left to right and was nestled into the trees and large boulders coming out of the ground, boulders which were of the same hue as the stones of the house. It was as if the building had sprouted from the ground there and had been there forever, formed at the same time as the topography around it.

Once inside, another surprise awaited me. The back of the house, facing the lake, was almost entirely of glass, and the house was laid out such that nearly every room opened to the glass-walled view of the pasture and the lake.

Despite the twelve hours of plane and rail travel punctuated by sit and run periods in airports and train stations I was also laid out immediately upon arriving at the house. Gordon, with Claude panting behind me, showed me to my room, at the end of a corridor off one side of the main house, showed me my bed, showed me his erection, showed me that he hadn’t forgotten how to expertly undress a weary young man, and fucked me missionary style on my bed. Claude watched us, salivating, and took up Gordon’s position between my legs as soon as the painter was done.

So, there was no uncertainty of what my role was to be here this summer.

Gordon was tall and gangly; his cock was short and stubby. Claude, who was short and roly-poly, had a long, thin cock. Both men were in their late fifties. Neither had much stamina. They both had fucked me and vacated the room, talking of cigars and scotch on the terrace, in less than a half hour. I rolled over, with a groan, and went to sleep immediately.

When I woke, the sun was setting over the lake. The view was magnificent and I immediately was figuring out exposures and camera stops to capture the sunset the next time it was this good. As I stared at the view, I noticed a feature I wished I could capture immediately, so I grabbed my camera and rushed, naked, to the glass wall, finding, thankfully, that I could push back a panel for an unobstructed shot.

There, in the meadow, were three horses--a heavy gray and two sleek thoroughbreds, a stallion and a slightly smaller mare. And standing there among them was the sturdy young hunk from the afternoon--Guido, Gordon had named him. The tableau was perfect set off by the setting sun. I clicked away with my camera.

The zoom lens gave me a shock. Guido was turned toward the house and I could swear that he was looking directly at me. He had his cock out and was masturbating himself. I was suddenly conscious that I was naked and in full view of him if the light was right. But then he didn’t have a zoom lens. I did, and so I continued firing off photos of him stroking himself while the three horses stood by him, one of them nudging his shoulder with his nose.

I was able to handle the camera with one hand, and the other one went instinctively to my own hardening erection--both of the old men had fired off before I’d built up an ejaculation--and I pulled on my cock in rhythm with the young hunk. We came nearly simultaneously.

I was well versed in the knowledge of the play of light, so I was nearly positive that the horseman couldn’t see me from where he was standing and with the light the way it was. But part of me wished that he had been able to see me and that we both knew we were jerking off together. I was resigned to a summer of lying under Gordon and Claude, but the man out there with the horses was everything the two of them weren’t--young, muscular, virile, handsome, big cocked. In short, a horse in his own right. I hadn’t had any men except for old ones, ones who had trouble getting it up and more trouble keeping it up long enough to give me pleasure. Ah, the thought of being ridden by that horse of a man.

* * * *

“No, don’t move.”

That’s what I woke up to the next morning. Gordon’s voice telling me not to move.

“I’ve got to piss,” I said. I started to move an arm, but he hissed at me.

“I said don’t move. You can piss in a couple of minutes.” Your pose is just too luscious.

I opened an eye. He was sitting across the room behind an easel and obviously had been painting me while I slept. I slept in the nude, of course--he’d left me that way when he’d withdrawn. He hadn’t fucked me, because he couldn’t get it up more than once a day, I didn’t think, and he’d already had his go at me when we’d arrived at the house. But he’d massaged me until I’d gotten it up and then had sucked me dry while finger fucking my ass.

He’d left me tangled in the sheets, with my buns protruding, and I’d gone to sleep that way and had been so exhausted from the trip here that I hadn’t moved before I woke up.

“Sorry, I really have got to piss,” I said, and, when he didn’t object this time, I pushed myself up and out of the bed and padded to the bathroom off the corridor. I heard what I thought was a record of a piano piece, but it abruptly stopped, and I realized that it must be Claude Barbier practicing on the keys. I couldn’t fault with his piano playing.

When I came back, Gordon called me over to the easel and then pulled me into his side. He was just wearing shorts and his fly was open. He had an erection, possibly his only one for the day and I sighed, knowing he’d use it. I looked at his painting. It was near enough finished that he didn’t need me to go back into the pose. And while Barbier was a master  on the piano, Haydon was a master with the paint brush. As critical as I was of their sexual prowess, I had to be in awe of them both in their separate artistry. I was in the company of truly great artists, icons in their separate disciplines. I needed to appreciate that and be grateful I had been brought into their company. Someday I might find myself to be a footnote in one or both of their biographies.

I turned and threw my right leg over his thighs, reaching down to grasp his cock and holding it in place as I came down into his lap, skewering my ass channel on his shaft. Taking his head between my hands, I put our faces together and entered into a deep kiss. I moved my butt on his cock, bringing him to a quick ejaculation, ending in an appreciative sigh. Then, when he pressed the palm of a hand into my sternum, I arched back with my head and hands to the floor in front of the chair we were straddling and moaned for him as he stroked my cock off and I felt him going flaccid inside me. It satisfied him and it didn’t do any damage to me. It was the least I could do for a man who could render me so sensually in oils and possibly give me a footnote in the history of art.

I came back up and took his mouth in mine again. His cock stirred inside me, but just couldn’t manage another hardening--at least not then.

My camera was on a side table within reach and I pulled it over. “I want you to look at these shots,” I said. “I think some of them are good. I’d like to pick out some and take them into town and have them blown up.”

“We don’t have to go into town for that--although I plan for us to do so for lunch anyway,” he murmured. “I have all of the facilities here to process them. Pick out what you want and tell me how big you want them blown up.”

He just smiled and did a couple of turns of the room later that morning, as I was hanging poster-size shots of the horse master on the walls of my bedroom, including a couple of sunset shots of him masturbating.

“You like him, I can tell,” Gordon said. He hadn’t made any comment of surprise that I had caught the hunk jacking himself off.

“Thus far he’s the most striking subject I’ve seen--well, the horses as well. Somehow they go together.”

“You mean he’s horse hung.”

“That too,” I said, with a smile. “You gave him a name yesterday. Guido. So, do you know him?”

“I don’t know him in quite the way you may mean,” Gordon said. “I know that he’s a top too. I unsuccessfully tried to buy him for myself. He was good-natured about it, though. He’s Guido Marini, an Italian mother and an absent English father. He lives in a cottage in the woods down near the lake. His purpose in life seems to be those horses of his. I let him pasture them on the slope down to the lake. He has other pastures for them as well. He’s part of the tourist industry here, as no doubt you’ll learn later. Do you want him to fuck you?”

“I wouldn’t turn him down,” I answered, trying to sound noncommittal. I thought that was more politic than answering hell yes, I want him to fuck me.

Later, when we’d driven into Gunzenhausen and were seated in the outdoor café, the Vanilla Café, on Hensolt Strasse, I saw him again, and became even more interested in fucking him. He was across the street, near an old clock tower, astride his gray draft horse, wearing German lederhosen and posing for photographs for the tourists. I wanted to run over and photograph him too--and make lewd comments about how good he looked in tight leather shorts.

I didn’t have to, though, as, spying us, he walked his horse over to us and spoke with Gordon and Claude in what I recognized as rudimentary French, which, nonetheless wasn’t rudimentary enough for me to understand. I would have done better in Italian, and I sensed that Guido would have, as well. The conversation was brief. Although he was speaking with the two men, he was looking at me. I looked right back--looking up as he was still on his magnificent horse, both steed and man exuding power and sexuality.

When he saw a tourist group coming down the street, he moved back to his photo op position.

“What did he say?” I asked Gordon, barely able to contain myself.

“He asked who you were,” Claude answered. “He knows who Gordon and I are.”

“What did you tell him?”

“We told him you were Gordon’s son, here on break from Cambridge. I don’t think he believed me, and I didn’t expect him to. Everyone around here knows we bring young men to the lake house and debauch them. He asked about you and the camera and we told him the truth--that you were studying photography. That seemed to satisfy him.”

“Oh,” I said, not knowing what I thought about that. I had been worried that they had said more--more about what I was doing beyond photography here. I had thought I didn’t want him to know more about me, but now I realized that I wanted him to know more--to know it all. I wanted him to know that I took cock and would gladly take his.

Sensing my aroused interest, Gordon smiled and said, “the truth is that he asked if Claude and I fucked you,” he added, and I felt my blood turn to ice and then immediately boil. “I told him we did. He said he’d like to fuck you too. I said he’d have to ask you about that.”

Oh. I felt myself blush and I turned my face away so that they couldn’t see the mixed reaction I had to that.

On the way back to the house, I complimented Claude on his piano playing. He asked me if I played, and I said I’d taken lessons but wasn’t very good at it. This led into him fucking me at the piano that afternoon when we returned to the house. He didn’t have the problem that Gordon had about only being able to get it up once a day.

He told me he’d help me learn a simple rendering of the haunting tune I’d heard him play that morning. I knew it as “Elvira’s Theme” from the movie soundtrack to Scarface, but he told me it was Mozart’s Piano Concerto Number 21, the “Elvira Madigan Theme.” He sat me on his lap, my legs spread over his thighs, and he took my hands in his, his fingers over mine, and guided me in the tune on the piano. We progressed from a simple one-handed version to two hands and then to chords. The tune was intoxicating and I felt myself melting into him, forgetting entirely his resemblance to a toad. His cock engorged up the small of my back, and I was panting when he unbuckled and unzipped my shorts--all that I was wearing--unzipped his own shorts--all that he was wearing--and closing the lid over the piano keys.

“I want to fuck you now,” he murmured in my ear.

And I unhesitatingly answered, “Yes, put me on your cock,” in a breathy whisper, wanting him inside me.

He lifted and spread my legs so that my ankles were on the top of the grand piano case, raised me with strong hands, and set my channel down on his erection.

“You’ve done this before,” I whispered.

“Many times; many times, young man,” he answered wistfully, as if he realized those days were coming to an end, which would make him savor this all the more.

He was longer--much longer--than Gordon was, and able to stay hard longer than Gordon could, and was strong enough to raise and lower me on his cock until we both had come. I stayed with him, feeling him go flaccid, and locking my fists behind his neck as we kissed and he rubbed my nipples. If I received instruction on the piano like this for the rest of the summer, I decided that being fucked by a toad wouldn’t be half bad. I didn’t even have to look at him in this position.

Still, my daydreams went to the horse master.

Later in the day, when I was posed in the nude on the low rock wall between the terrace and the grass of the pasture and Gordon was painting me, I turned my head at the sound of a neighing horse and looked into the pasture, where Guido’s three horses were feeding--and Guido was standing among them and looking up at me.

“Turn your head back to where it’s supposed to be,” Gordon admonished.

Reluctantly I did so, but I was aching to be looking at Guido instead.

I only saw him one more time over the next month. We took an excursion south of Gunzenhausen to the larger and older town of Weissenburg. Gordon told me that he wanted to show me the reconstruction of the Limes in Weissenburg, one of a five-hundred-mile line of Roman fortresses that had been stretched along Germany to aid in Roman control of the unruly Germans two thousand years earlier.

I only found out why Gordon wanted to take me there after we had arrived. I had noticed that Guido and his horses had disappeared from the pasture area soon after I had arrived--too soon. I’d even ventured down to the lake and found his stone cottage, but it was locked up tight each time I went there. Gordon had told me that the horse master moved around the area with his horses and that he’d be back sometime during the summer. But after a month he hadn’t returned.

But there he was, at the reconstructed gates of the Limes in Weissenburg, astride his thoroughbred stallion and dressed as a Roman cavalry officer. He was posing with tourists for photos. I found him to be achingly sexy, as I’m sure some of the tourists who rushed for photos did as well. He looked at me and gave me a little smile when we stood there briefly before Gordon and Claude pulled me away to an outdoor café, but it was just a look. He was too busy taking the tourists’ money for photos to come to me, take me to a quiet corner of the fort, and fuck the shit out of me. For some reason I thought that’s how he’d fuck--rough and a total taking. And after a month of the “maybe I can get it up” quick sex with Gordon and Claude, rough and total by a horse-hung muscular man was what I longed for.

“So, will you thank me for bringing you to see the horse master today?” Gordon asked, with a mischievous smile on his face.

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll run off with him?” I countered, a bit confused that he willingly was bringing forth competition--unfair competition at that.

“I want you two to fuck,” Gordon said. “I want to see it so that I can paint it, though. We must make arrangements for the magnificent young man to ride you while I capture it in paint--if I can do justice to it. I’m quite certain that Guido would do justice to you.”

I didn’t know what to think about that--so I shoved it out of my mind.

* * * *

I don’t know how long I looked down at the lawn sloping down to the lake from the terrace that Thursday in the middle of July before I realized that Guido’s three horses were grazing there. When I realized that they were, I rose from the chaise lounge where I’d been sunning myself in a Speedo and went into the house and straight to the kitchen. I threw together a basket of provisions, with cut-up pieces of cheese and French bread, and grabbed a bottle of Burgundy, which I uncorked and shoved the cork back in an inch, and two wine glasses. On my way out of the house, I took up a blanket, and then I marched down into the meadow and to a small stand of trees about halfway down to the lake.

It wasn’t long before Guido appeared in the pasture, where he patted down the horses--the two thoroughbreds, the stallion and mare, were being frisky--saw me, pretended for a few minutes that he didn’t see me, on the blanket, with the wine, cheese, and bread, and then turned and strode deliberately to me. He plopped down beside me, on the ground, not on the blanket. Without preliminary warning and showing no interest in what I’d brought, he reached out for me with both arms, embraced me, and rolled me away from the blanket. He wound up on top of me, pinning me to the ground.

Guido grabbed my wrists--in a painful grip--and thrust them over my head. At the same time, he forced his knees between my legs and spread them. We were basket to basket. I could feel him hard against me, and I’m sure he could tell that I was hard too. We both were breathing heavily, raggedly. His mouth came down to mine and he possessed me in a brutal kiss.

There was no question that he was going to take me. And there was no indication that there would be much preparation before he did. My mind went to trying to remember how big he was. From the brief look I’d had of him stroking off in the sunset, I thought he was horse hung--long and thick.

He’d taken off his belt and tied my wrists together over my head, with the leather around the base of a small tree. This left his hands free to roam over my body, roughly grabbing and prodding me here and there. He rose up over me briefly, presenting a cock that was both magnificent and frightening for me to take in my mouth for several minutes. I nearly had to unhinge my jaw to take it. But take it I did. He left me no choice. I was frightened by him, though, and started working at the belt trapping my wrists over my head and to the small tree trunk.

At length, he shuddered and might have come if he hadn’t pulled out of me and hovered over me there, panting hard, making me hyperventilate at how overpowering he was, muscular, hung. He lowered himself on my body and his mouth moved down my body to my nipples. I gasped and whimpered as he stripped my Speedo off and grasped and squeezed my balls. His mouth was on my cock and then between my buttocks cheeks, with my legs hooked over his shoulder when I heard the whinnying from the pasture and looked over at the horses.

The stallion had a massive erection, a good foot and a half long, and the mare had her tail up. He was nuzzling her neck and she was skittishly moving from side to side, seemingly not sure what she wanted. She nuzzled the stallion back and then vigorous pumped her head up and down, snorted, and push at him with her nose like she wanted him to leave her alone. He did move away from her then and danced a wild circle around her at a bit of distance. The larger gray horse folded his ears down and moved away from the two smaller, sleeker horses. The stallion came in behind the mare and put his nose under her tail. She set her legs.

The stallion reared up and came down on the mare’s hind quarters with his chest and front legs. I watched his massive erection poke at her buttocks under her tail and, finally, slide inside her. The mare held steady, hooves planted into the ground, while the stallion pumped her--but only briefly, four or five times, before he came off her. His massive erection was gone.

But then the gray had mounted the mare too, almost forcing her to the ground with his weight. But she bore the weight and stopped fidgeting, holding steady as he bred her.

The cavorting horses weren’t the only thing I saw when I looked over in that direction. In my peripheral vision, I saw Gordon sitting within the tree line not far from us. He was sitting at an easel and obviously had been painting Guido fucking me. So, we were both happy.

With a burst of adrenaline, I broke my wrists free, surprised Guido by rolling away from him, rising on my feet, and running into the pasture. I had no idea what I was trying to do. But it didn’t matter. Guido caught me in the field, pushed me to the ground on all fours, covered me close from above, mounted me, penetrated me--painfully and deep--with his cock, and holding me in a firm embrace, pumped me and pumped me and pumped me.

The stallion had taken ten or fifteen seconds to seed the mare; the gray rather longer. Guido fucked me with the same intensity and in the same position as the stallion took the mare--to the extent that it was the image of the stallion and of his massive erection that went through my mind as Guido was fucking me--but he took ten or fifteen minutes of pounding away on my ass to seed me. When he was near to jacking, he moved a hand under my belly and stroked off my cock so that I came before he did.

When he had finished me, he fell over to the side, taking me with him, and, still buried inside me, held me close into his chest in a powerful embrace. I moaned and whimpered and listened to his heavy breathing calm down but then, after several minutes, grow ragged again. His hands went into motion, prodding and testing my flesh again. I felt him engorging inside me once more. He raised me back to all fours, mounted me again, and fucked me a second time, this time slower, deeper, with longer, more controlled strokes than the first time.

Looking over to the side, I saw that Gordon was still painting away. I wondered how many paintings he was getting out of these couplings.

Having come again, Guido rolled off me and pushed me down on my side. He stood, strode over to the blanket, picked up the bottle, pulled the cork out with his teeth, and began to drain the bottle down his gullet. All of the time he was breathing heavily and his eyes were boring into me, daring me to move.

I took the challenge. Painfully, and groaning, I pulled myself up onto my feet and started to walk uphill toward the terrace. He was on me in a flash, grabbing me and throwing me over his shoulder. As he was carrying me off in the other direction, my gaze went back to the pasture, where the stallion was mounted on the mare and having another go at her. She was just standing there, steady, taking that impossibly long cock of his. Gordon was still there at his easel too. Taking long strides, Guido walked into the trees, to his stone cabin. Locking the door from inside behind us, he tossed me down on the bed on my back, covered and entered me, and fucked me roughly again. He repeatedly fucked me over the afternoon, finally pushing me out of the cabin and telling me, in Italian, to come back only if I wanted what he had to give.

When I had stumbled up to the house, I found that Gordon--my own old gray--was waiting for me, naked, and in erection. Energized no doubt by what he had seen in the pasture, he pushed me down on the bed, mounted me, and fucked me longer and stronger than he ever had before.

I went back to Guido three or four time a week over the next month, and each time he pounded my ass in multiple rough fucks. And each time I loved it, taking it as a balance of what I got from Gordon and Claude up at the main house when they used me in the limited way they could to feed their creativity and artistry.

I didn’t begrudge how they used me, and over the summer Gordon taught me much about the art of photography. Guido taught me to include a touch of the wild and primeval in my subject matter. Together that was to win me many awards in subsequent years. The paintings he’d rendered from those sketches he’d made of Guido fucking me in the pasture were a sensation at various underground exhibits.

As the summer was coming to a close, I was burdened with a conundrum. Claude was returning to Paris and to his concert tour. But Gordon wasn’t returning to anything. He was continuing in exile on the shores of the Muhr am See. He spoke to me of loneliness and of not having completed his study series in oils of my nudes. He wanted me to stay. I could learn more about photography and have a better career by staying with him than going back to Cambridge. This was possibly true, but if I wanted to have the option of teaching I needed the university credentials. To stay with him would be to put all of the risk into a commercial art career.

And then there was Guido. How could I leave Guido? No one fucked me like Guido did. He almost--almost--had replaced photography in my list of priorities.

It was Guido who decided for me, though. I went to his cottage one afternoon in late August. it was not an unusual time for me to come. He wasn’t alone. I knew that before I got to the cottage door. He was fucking a young man--younger than I was. I recognized him. It was Dieter, a waiter at the Vanilla Café we liked to frequent in Gunzenhausen. On top of that, the theme from Elvira Madigan, Mozart’s “Piano Concerto Number 21,” was playing on his radio. Guido had said he wanted me to stop fucking Gordon and Claude--to only fuck him. But of course I couldn’t do that. I took the playing of what I’d grown to consider to be Claude’s and my song while he fucked another young man as a message from Guido.

I turned and left, but not before Guido saw me standing in the doorway. He saw me there, but he didn’t miss a beat in his pounding of Dieter’s ass.

I swallowed my pride and came back three days later. His cottage was locked up tight and the horses were gone. Later that day Gordon told me, with a tone of victory in his voice, that Guido had moved on to another pasture and wouldn’t be back here until the fall.

“If you want to see him again--be with him again--you’ll have to stay here longer,” Gordon said.

What he thought was his victory, however, was also his defeat. Although it saddened me, I decided that my life didn’t stop here. If I was going to be an artistic force myself, I couldn’t be under the thumb of Gordon or the control of Guido. There would be other Gordons and other Guidos, and they would be more likely to be found in Cambridge and London than here on the shores of the Muhr am See.

In the end, I didn’t choose either Gordon or Guido. I chose me. It had been a summer to remember--but it had just been three months of my life near the beginning of life, not at its end. I didn’t forget to take the photo posters of Guido back to England with me, however, or to tell Gordon that I definitely wouldn’t return the next summer.