STORY EXCERPT

The austere beauty of the landscape contrasted with the glory of the sunset, and contrasted, too, with the sordidness of what Perce and Moussa had been discussing so intently together. Now, Perce forgot, for a moment, about the pleasures of the flesh that Moussa had promised to procure for him, and lost himself in the sensuousness of the sunset as it gradually yielded to twilight and the first stars appeared.

Back in front of the hotel, Perce dismissed Moussa and went inside.

The Verdeaus were typical hardworking French hotelkeepers: after the guests’ dinners were over, they had gone to enjoy their own long-delayed supper, and from their well-earned supper straight to their beds, leaving only a rather dissipated-looking young Arab man in charge of the front desk. Arabs of the servant class, Perce had already learned during his stay in Tunis and Algiers, tended to be incorrigible gossips, and this one was no exception.

“What can you tell about that young spahi—?”

“Ah, Dehnal Oud al Qurashi! He is the son of Ben Hamid al Qurashi, the great caid. He is beautiful, is he not? One cannot deny it. He is strong. He speaks French perfectly. When he is on leave, when he goes to the desert to visit his father, he always stays here at the hotel for a few days, on his way there, and on his way back. All the women who see him fall in love with him. In Algiers, they languish and die for their love of him, and in the desert, when he returns to his father’s house, they long to be chosen as his bride.” The youth looked somewhat slyly at Perce. “The men admire him, too, and compete with one another to be his…friend.”

“He is not married, then?”

“Not yet, m’sieur. He enjoys his liberty too much.”

In his room, with Tommy’s help, Perce undressed and put on his pajama bottoms. It was too warm to put on his dressing gown over them as he might have done when he sat up before retiring to bed. He sat down at the little desk the hotel provided and looked at his reflection in his shaving mirror, which sat on its pedestal on the desk. In the warm yellow glow of the lamp, his face looked oddly pensive.

He was tired, and his sense of physical fatigue allowed his thoughts to wander. He didn’t resist the mood he suddenly found himself in, but let himself think, at random.

This isolated town, Tin Ouzel, at the end of the railway line—he had chosen it, on a whim, precisely for those reasons. Why? Perce had heard the slang expression “getting away from it all.” What was he trying to get away from? Or, conversely, what was he looking for?

There didn’t seem to be a great variety of diversions in this unsophisticated place, and yet, inexplicably, he was glad he had come here. For some reason, he liked it here.

He was a hedonist. He had never denied the fact. Actually, he had never denied himself anything, really, if he wanted it and it lay within his reach. Even before he had come into his inheritance, his one aim in life had been to have a good time. And he had pursued that goal with immense energy, concentration, and imagination. But now? What did he want now?

Tommy was putting his clothes away, with his usual unobtrusive efficiency, and turning down the bed. Perce caught himself contemplating his valet. Tommy was a really beautiful young man, he decided. In the lamplight he looked like a figure in a Pre-Raphaelite painting.

“How long have you worked for me, Tommy?” Perce asked.

“Four years, ten months, and seven days, Mr. Fain.”

Perce smiled. How like Tommy to know the exact amount of time, down to the day. “Oh? How can you be so sure?” he asked.

“I keep a diary, sir. And I include a running total of the entries.”

“Really? What do you write in this diary of yours?”

“Everything. The places we go, the things we see, the people we meet.”

Good God! Perce couldn’t help thinking. If Tommy were ever to try his hand at fiction writing, he, too, might come up with some sort of a ghastly roman à clef. Perce could see the title now: A Gentleman’s Gentleman, or, The Memoirs of a Valet, by T.F.

“Remind me to increase your wages, Tommy. But, as I was saying…so we have been together for almost five years. Have I changed at all in this time? Oh, I know I’m older, of course, so don’t bother to flatter me by telling me I look just the same. I’d like your honest opinion. Have I changed inside, as a person?”

“You have the kind of looks that only improve with age, Mr. Fain,” Tommy insisted. “Like certain wines and cheeses. But, seriously…yes, you’ve changed. When we first met, you were always kind and generous to me, as we both know. But toward other people…you could be kind of defiant. Almost as though you were daring them not to like you, because of, well, the kind of man you are. You seem much more at peace with yourself now, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“That’s interesting. I suspect you may be right.”

“And you seem to have changed since we left Paris and came here.”

“Really? Why, whatever do you mean? We only left Paris a few weeks ago.”

“Yes, but ever since we arrived in Tunis, I’ve noticed that you seem quieter somehow. More relaxed. More introspective—yes, that’s the word: more introspective. You did ask me to be honest, Mr. Fain.”

“Yes, I did, and I’m glad that you feel you can be honest with me. You’re extremely perceptive. It’s one of the many things I like about you. Well, that’s enough of this serious talk for one night. I’m going to go to bed.”

ADULT EXCERPT

Preston found the scented cold cream and quickly coated his erection with it. Then he dipped his fingertips into the jar again and inserted them in Perce’s ass. He explored the tight aperture, probing, massaging, slicking it up with the lubricant. His green eyes smoldered with anticipation as he stared down at Perce’s face. Perce felt extraordinarily vulnerable. He was sure Preston could see the raw need written there, in his features.

“You have such a beautiful arse,” Preston whispered, his voice a caress. “I could finger it like this forever and not get enough of it. Do you like it when I play with your arse like this?”

“Oh, God, Preston, hurry,” Perce urged. “Your fingers feel so good in there, I don’t want you to stop, but I know your cock is going to feel so much better! Put it in me quick! Can you do it twice, do you think?” he pleaded, raising his face level with Preston’s so that their lips could meet in another impassioned kiss. “Can you come twice?”

“With you—the way I feel right now—yes, easily.”

“Good! Then we can take it fast the first time, and slow the second.” Perce pulled Preston on top of him, spreading his husky thighs wide to accommodate him. His hand guided Preston’s cock down into the cleft between his buttocks, and even as Preston began his insertion, Perce moved to facilitate the process, sliding his calves around Preston’s back to hold the other man in place and push his erection further into him.

“Do it rough, fucker,” Perce whimpered. “That’s how I want it the first time, because that’s the way I kept imagining it last night! I wanted to break down your door, all right. I wanted to break down your door and beg you to fuck me!”

“You don’t have to beg for it,” Preston promised. “I’m going to give it to you! Right now!”

Preston plunged, and Perce let out a little scream of pain—and delight. His whole body urged Preston on. Soon the bearded man had lost all control of his motions, and there was only the pistonlike rapidity of his strokes, while his blond partner egged him on with clawing fingers and obscene yet tender words.

Perce was very much in his element: naked in bed with another man, giving and taking pleasure, oblivious to the world outside the four bedroom walls. But, this time, there was a crucial difference. Perce didn’t want to settle for mere transitory satisfaction. He desperately wanted Preston to feel that he was loved, that Perce was giving himself whole-heartedly to him—that Perce would do anything for him. He gazed up into Preston’s green eyes, and when Preston returned his gaze, it was as though an electric current suddenly surged and crackled between the two of them.

What had the marabout, the holy man, said to him in the marketplace? He had spoken of the damned, forever veiled in the shroud of eternal fire, and the blessed who rejoice in paradise. He had spoken of a chasm being bridged. Now, at last, Perce understood the full import of those words.

His sweat-bedewed flesh felt as though it were wrapped in fire at the moment, but the sensation, far from being agonizing torture, was intensely pleasurable. And Preston, lying on top of him, fucking him, possessing him, was bathed in a lather of perspiration, too. The hot drops fell from his body and rained down on Perce like a salty baptism.

As for the joys of the blessed—Perce now knew that they could be experienced by mere sinful mortals, right here on earth. He and Preston were surely savoring them together.

Even as his desire for Preston overwhelmed him, though, Perce retained enough presence of mind to draw upon his extensive repertory of erotic techniques, for his lover’s benefit. Perce had quite a few tricks up his sleeve, and he might as well try one or two of them out on Preston, now!

Any doubts Perce may have had about the efficiency of his technique were instantly dispelled by his lover’s response to his exertions.

Preston was just about to reach his climax when he felt a sudden violation of his own asshole. Perce had dipped his middle fingertip into the cold cream and had managed to reach around and push the fingertip through Preston’s clenched sphincter muscle and deep inside his ass.

“Cheater!” Preston shouted, as the spasmodic response of his asshole to the probing finger sent a fierce warning throb through his balls and the base of his cock. “Goddamned cheater!”

“Nothing in the rules against it!” Perce gloated.

“I’m going to come! I’m going to come in your arse!”

Preston exploded. But, even as his ejaculation took possession of him, he knew that he wasn’t going to stop—not even for a moment, not even to catch his breath. He knew his cock wasn’t going to soften, not in the slightest. He also knew that Perce didn’t want him to stop, that Perce’s fierce need fully matched his own, and was going to inspire him to heroic efforts.

He seized Perce’s ankles, forced Perce’s legs back toward him, bending them at the knees, leaned over Perce, and fucked him even more forcefully.

“I’ll teach you, you goddamned cheater,” Preston threatened. “So you wanted it fast the first time, did you, and slow the second? Well, that was fast. Too fast, as far as I’m concerned. I hope you liked it. Because this is going to be slow, nice and slow, and rough, the way you said you like it. I intend to take my time, now. I’m going to fuck you again until I come in you again, if it takes all goddamned afternoon!”

“Do it!” Perce shouted. “Do it to me! Fast or slow, any way you want, over and over again! Fuck me all you want, for hours and hours. Don’t stop!”

Preston didn’t stop, couldn’t stop. He was ravenous for Perce. He threw off all restraint. He was as rampant now as any rutting bull, and he was not to be denied. He knew that the other man’s passion equaled his—perhaps even surpassed it, if that were possible. He saw nothing, thought of nothing, desired nothing except the man lying under him who had kindled and was stoking this maddening fire in his loins.

“Perce!” he cried as he took the other man, who exulted in his use of him. “Oh, God, my beautiful Perce!”

“Preston, Preston,” Perce moaned by way of helpless, besotted reply as his gray eyes stared up into Preston’s green ones. “Oh, my love, my love. I’m yours…I’m yours!”