Green Eyes

The Lambda Literary Awards finalist:

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From live reviews: 

"If you like Woody Allen, you will enjoy the book!" 
"I dreamt of the GREEN EYES and woke up happy." 
"Grab it and plan to read it from cover to cover immediately!" 
"A literate and wonderfully witty romp!" 
Wow! That was my first reaction to reading this book, my second reaction was plain and simple holy shit!"
"This is a perfect book for any adult reader!"
"It is erotic with a twist, it's chocked full of wonderful gay fantasies---well and uniquely written by a master story teller!" 

Here are a few sample chapters:

PROLOGUE (INSTEAD OF CHAPTER 1)

Readers, the first chapter of this story describes a casual encounter of three men in the dunes behind the gay beach of my town. It does so in fairly graphic language--language that could discomfort or even harm some of you. I have therefore decided to relegate the chapter to an appendix and replace it by a flat summary of the events related there, events that triggered the heartbreaking, murderous, but ultimately fortuitous story of the Green Eyes.

My name is John Lee. I live in Georgia Beach, GA, and teach French at Southern Georgia College, a small school 30 miles to the south-west near the Florida border.

I have issues. During my adolescence, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a psychological condition characterized by difficult mood-swings. As I grew up, I became arrogant, shy, and homosexual, character traits that interact with my bipolarity. At my age--I’m 29 years old--I find myself in a downward spiral of disengagement, depression, and neglect. I was outgoing and sexually active during my youth, but confine myself mostly now to my small apartment on the Davis Canal, where I--autoerotic efforts aside--play chess on the internet (losing), publish a blog (that nobody cares about), and prepare classes (that students don’t like). A side-effect of my bipolarity important here has to do with my language. Although I am averse to power-point expressions ("going forward"), I myself use various forms of new-speak (e.g., “un” as an antonym-shirking prefix), idiosyn-cratic expressions ("said" as adjective, "wise" as post-modifier), and am given to awkward metaphors and abundant bracketing (()). My mother is French, my father rarely spoke when I was young (he did other things), and English is not my first language.

We're in early July when the story begins. I wake up on a Sunday morning, feel the need for fresh air, and decide to take a stroll along the beach. As I saunter past the gay section of said beach, I encounter a man of great physical attractiveness. He is roughly my age, but his most remarkable feature is a pair of green, mesmerizing eyes. We take note of each other. The man, let's call him Green Eyes, is somehow indicating his readiness for an immediate exchange of bodily fluids. I follow him into the dunes. We undress for, and engage in, a sexual act. A third man appears on the scene, undresses, and joins. All three of us reach a climax in due course. Green Eyes re-dresses and disappears. In a surprising turn of events--surprising at least for anybody familiar with the anonymous behavior of gay cruising--the third man invites me to a party at the house of a friend later in the evening. So far, Chapter I.

Readers, I urge you, I implore you, leave the appendix alone, turn the page, and continue with Chapter II.

Hold on. Bowdlerization of Chapter I doesn't mean you can fool around. This is serious adult material. You’ll see.

Chapter 2 --- SEX ON THE BEACH

You haven't read Chapter I, but we've just had a thrilling encounter with a green-eyed man, who, following cruising conventions, has left the scene already, leaving me and an anonymous blond person behind, who has suggested that we'll meet up again later.

I'm sitting on the ground, he's hovering above me, his head tilted a bit, his feet planted apart in masturbatory position, his absent-minded hand still stroking his own, softening dick, both of us naked, the beach only a hundred yards away--and he's asking for a date. "You are asking for a date?" I say. He halts his pointless jerking. "Yes," he replies, "an acquaintance is having a do next to the Blue Moon, midnight, I'm certain you would be welcome; we could meet up and get laid, there's always a closet or a darkroom for the occasion."

I take visible note of my own naked body, then stare at his (this avoids a lot of explaining), and say: "We just had an anonymous sexual encounter, not really sex, but a sexual encounter, spewing one’s cum over a person amounts to a sexual encounter, and you ask for a date? How intimate can one get?"

"Come to think of it." He studies his own bare body, "Yes, that's what I have been doing. Sorry. Don't be offended. Stupid me." He has a British accent. His hand plays with his short hair now.

I get up, retrieve my clothes from the ground, re-dress. He looks around. "You've no idea where my swimming trunks could be?" he asks with a helpless gesture. I look around, too. "You were wearing trunks, right? Where did you strip?” And, imbued with that particular sense of superiority of the dressed in front of the naked, I continue: "You were sneaking on us, weren't you, until the heat got the better of you?"
"Heat?" he asks.
"I mean your heat, your horniness."

He drops his head. "Horniness, that's an awkward word."
"We better find your trunks," I say, repeating myself: “Where did you strip?”
"Don't know, nearby, obviously." We look around, walk around, we're in the dunes, or just behind the dunes, some trees planted on a sandy surface partially covered with dune grass and ground ivy, but there are no trunks in sight. The sense of dressed-ness still tickles: "You realize we're in the middle of a calzonade?" I say.
"Come to think of it," he says but then adds: “Swimming trunks are not strictly underwear.”

We search some more. No swim suit nowhere to be seen. "I'm screwed," he says (Brits, apparently, use four-letter words selectively). I can’t help it, I like him. Perhaps not in a sexual way, but I like him as a human being, enough at least to get concerned about his future as a naked alien on American soil. "You're in trouble," I say, "you find yourself in the middle of public space, surrounded by more public space. You need a towel. There are enough towels on the beach, I'll go and get you one."
"You would do that for me?"
"Yes, I will," I answer, already waving my hand in goodbye.
"Can you tell me your name?" he asks.
"John. And, yours?" I ask reflexively.
"Maurice."
Of course, I think. "I'll be back, Maurice," I say.

I'm back on the beach now. I got here this morning for a stroll when I met the Green Eyes, didn't bring a towel or anything, no car, not even the cell-phone, my own place is half an hour away walking, what am I to do? I will purloin a towel and misplace it. And God will forgive me and remunerate the victim in a display of eternal justice. It could be in the victim’s interest, in fact, my stealing his towel, if he needs eternal justice more than I do—which he possibly does, given that I’m not much of a believer.

This is the gay part of the beach, the rainbow flag plays proudly with the easterly breeze. Most visitors have ensconced themselves in some setup involving lovers, beach towels, beach umbrellas (for the sun), wind screens (for the breeze), and assorted paraphernalia such as colorful ice boxes for the booze, each party constituting a little island unto itself.

This particular island is empty, and between the umbrella and the windscreen there are three large beach towels in evidence. Who needs three large beach towels? I climb onto the island (the sandy patch between the umbrella and the wind screen), and it's my arrogance, as usual, that is my undoing. I'm getting choosy, hesitate as to which towel I should take back to the Brit. And so, before time, a shadow falls over my feet, a hand touches my shoulder, and a voice growls: "What are you doing here?" The voice belongs to a mature man, soft in the middle and elsewhere, and it's during the next second that I commit the next error of the day because I'm not only arrogant, I'm also slow-witted under duress. I should have risen above the occasion and ask the bear directly: 'Could you lend me a towel,' perhaps followed by some explanation, perhaps even the true explanation, he would possibly laugh a bearish laugh, his belly shaking, and everything would be fine, and I could walk away with a towel to save a British arse. But I don't. "I'm admiring your towels," I say, "trying to find out about the brand, so I could order the same."
 
"I don't believe you," the towel owner replies. "I think you are trying to steal something, possibly the booze." "No," I say, “no, never." This round man isn't slow-witted, and he's developing dubious schemes behind his forehead (hindsight).
"You were trying to get hold of our champagne, a Bollinger vintage, ten years old, a bottle that George and I brought to the beach to celebrate the first week of our friendship, worth a hundred bucks."

In retrospect, I could have said so many things, like 'What's your friendship worth,' or 'Bollinger is not my thing, I prefer Moët.' Or I could have confessed and plead for a towel for a hapless Brit. Instead I say: "Believe me."

That was the last thing this beach bear intended to do. "You're in trouble," he says with a clear sense of my apprehensiveness, "I'll get the Beach Guard, they'll take care of you." There’s a brief, mutual pause as I consider my future as a convicted felon while the bear mulls over his dirty thoughts.

"OK, I'll show you the towels," he says, "get down." I sit. He does not sit with me, however, rearranges the wind screen and the umbrella instead. Our little island becomes an open-air cubicle with more privacy than I could care for. "The towels," he says, "are from Nordstrom, and they are very expensive, but also very useful, especially when you have to change out of your swimwear." He strips (more roundish shapes), picks up a towel, wraps it around his hips, posits himself above me, his legs apart, and says: "I'm ticklish."
"Do I need to know?" I ask.
"Tickle me," he says. It's clear what he means. 'Prison or sex,' I think a low-information thought, raise my arm, get under his towel, and tickle what comes my way.

The beach bear grins, shakes his hips, and orders: "Wank me off."

We're long since past the point of return. I close my eyes, imagine a dark, dark room, and stroke his softish member. "You need to cooperate," I say.

Let's recall, I'm sitting on the ground, he's standing above me, legs apart, I'm reaching out to his parts under the towel, discerning his little sausage by my sense of touch, and now I'm fondling it, doing what I can to further a swelling, but nothing happens. ‘This is not how erotic novels are meant to evolve,' I think to myself.

"Harder," he says, "we don't have much time."
"How so?" I ask.
"We don't have much time," he insists. 'We don't have much time,' I think, 'but we don't want to say why.' I sense the tables turning. "Faster," he orders--he senses the tables turning, too.

My slow wit is coming to its senses. George, his partner of last week, is expected back soon, and this is not the moment to transform a one-week relationship into an open-air relationship while the champagne is still on ice. I abandon his willie, get up. Now or never. I grab his towel and run for the dunes. He's naked now, no way for him to run after me. Dog-eat-dog.

It's only hundred yards, I've escaped, I'm back in the dunes, waving the booty, but Maurice is gone. No Brit in sight. Shall I keep the towel? I hang it on a tree.

Chapter 7 --- TOM OF FINLAND

(In the meantime, John has decided to follow Maurice's "invitation." Not knowing what to do until then, he spends some time in the Blue Moon, the gay bar conveniently located next to the venue of the party, and happens upon Maurice, who tells him what happened to him (Maurice), after John had left in search of the towel:)

"You were talking about a calzonade, remember?” Maurice continues, “the real calzonade started after you left. Well, not quite, calzonades are supposed to be funny, this turned very ugly. I'm fearing for my life now, you know."
"Why," I interrupt.
"It's easier to explain once I have told the story. Let me tell. The police arrive in a police jeep, step out, and start asking pertinent questions about my costume. I try to explain. How to explain your nakedness in an open, public space? I tell them I had to poop, and took off my trunks, and couldn't find them once I was done. 'Where's the evidence,' they ask, 'show us your feces.'

“It wasn't clear to me whether they were kidding or not. Anyhow, the question provided an opening, perhaps somebody else had taken the pains to defecate nearby. So we circle around a bit in search of poop. Just imagine the scene, I, still starkers, the two police men, overdressed, on my heels, not wanting to let me escape. Overdressed. They were in full police armor, beepers, guns, intercoms, tactical equipment, everything held in place with tactical Velcro, there was a whiff of Tom of Finland right from the start.

 Tom of Finland, drawing (ca. 1968)

“We can't find any poop, of course. I think about running away, but without shoes, on that ground, you couldn't run fast, and they looked reasonably fit. 'So, we can't find your trunks, and we can't find your feces, either,' one of them says with his best attempt at irony. I realize the hopelessness of my situation. Better let the unexplainable unexplained. I fall silent. 'No other excuses,' the other cop asks perfunctorily, I will later learn his name, Dick. What's in a name, I tell you.

“I never learned the name of the second cop. 'We'll have to take you in,’ the nameless cop says. They throw me into the rear of their jeep, the nameless throws a blanket over my private parts, they always have blankets, I don’t know how they do it, Tsunami prevention, perhaps, we're off to the police station. We arrive there, it's time for the mug shot, but the camera malfunctions (me, standing there, holding up the blanket, my rear exposed to the wall with the measurement scales, it was still kind of amusing in a slapstick kind of way). The mug-shot camera malfunctions, everything stops. 'Somebody must have a mobile phone,' I say, 'why don't you take the picture with a mobile phone.' No no, they can't do that, regulations, etc. It's Sunday, you realize, they are understaffed, there are two other policemen there, the chief and some other chap. The chief stipulates that I'm arrested on some article of the Georgia code, and be kept in custody until a mugshot has been taken, presumably tomorrow. I'm a legal alien, but that's where it ends.

“You see, animals, when they are cornered, when they know they are cornered, they just give in, birds, especially, when you pick them out of the water, some oil spill, they are covered in tar, they just relent. I once helped to clean up an oil spill near Torquay, I saved a few birds, I know how it is. I was covered in nakedness. I thought of these birds, I just folded. They read me the Miranda rights, I take the fifth--I had to take a course in the UK how to protect my rights in America, I'll explain later. 'I will need clothes,' I say to the chief, 'if you want to keep me all night.' Insurmountable problems arise. The chief gets on the phone, can't reach anybody. He finally decides that he has the authority to send Dick to Walmart to buy some clothes, the money being added to my bail. Then he leaves. The fourth policeman also leaves. It's Sunday. I'm alone with Dick and his nameless partner. Dick will go buy clothes at Walmart now, and leaves as well.

“I'm alone with the nameless chap who tells me that he will lock me up. It transpires, they have two jail cells right off the main office, along a small corridor. He takes me into the corridor, ceremonially unlocks the first cell, leads me into the cell. I expect him to leave, but he doesn't. Instead, he shuts the cell door from the inside, which is fairly pointless because the door isn't concealing anything, it's just an iron frame with vertical bars, old fashioned, homely almost, the whole jail, he shuts the door anyway. There is some symbolism to this. Perhaps he didn't do it consciously. So we're alone now, a twosome behind bars. It's getting awkward.

“'Show me how you do it,' he says. 'Do what,' I say. 'Your queer thing,' he answers. My God, we're still into queer here, I wonder whether he used the word on purpose. I understood what he meant, though. 'I took the fifth,' I tell him, 'no need to confess anything.' 'This is between you and me,' he replies. Hilarious, as if anything could happen just between him and me under these circumstances. 'OK,' I think, 'he could get violent, beat me up under some pretext.' So I answer 'You want me to explain about casual gay sex, is that it?' 'Yes,' he replies, 'that queer thing.' It's like in an off-Broadway piece from yonder, some Tennessee Williams counterfeit. 'You need to learn about masturbation,' I say, somehow circumventing the issue, hoping to embarrass him. Most people are embarrassed about masturbation because they think they wank too much, although in reality they wank too little. But no. 'No,' he repeats, 'your queer thing.' When have we heard this kind of dialogue for the last time, fifty years ago?"
"Are you a playwright?" I interrupt.
"I’m trying," he replies, interrupting himself: "You know," he says, "there's something about casual artistic activity, if that's the word, I'm not invoking Shakespeare here, but, you see, a Westend play, or off-Broadway, you see, or Spielberg, a lot of it is just context, changing context. A dialogue that worked 50 years ago doesn’t work any longer because people have changed, they talk differently, they're clever-er."
"You know that the dialogue in the Raider of the Lost Ark was written by Tom Stoppard, even though he is not credited?" I say.
"Yes,” Maurice says, "I know."
Souls meet for a split second, but Maurice isn't done with his story yet.

"I'm bringing this up, the dialogue, because I'm not convinced myself," he continues. "Anyhow, the issue is masturbation, or not, since this chap wants to know about 'the queer thing.' 'I don't know about the queer thing,' I say. I use my words carefully, they read me Miranda, anything could be used against me, his word against mine, with my British accent, he's likely to prevail. 'I'll show you,' he says. And, he drops his trousers. And, he has an erection, a delta-plus erection, if you will. Embarrassment, that's not the term I would use, I felt something much stronger, and I was scared.

“We have entered Tom of Finland territory now, a nasty, darker version of Tom. Who knows what he would have done next. Anyhow, we hear the door banging, and Dick is back. Prematurely. We're in the cell, the cell door's closed, I'm with my blanket, the nameless cop with his aroused member. Dick materializes in the corridor. Dick holds some apparel, if that's the word. Something that resembles a defunct T-shirt, underpants, sweatpants, and some discordant leather brogues that one wouldn't be able to buy at Walmart. The nameless cop clutches my blanket, covers his private parts, but fails to hide the trousers hanging on his knees. Dick scrutinizes this carefully. The nameless cop lowers the blanket a bit so as to cover the trousers as well, with little success. This was not Tom of Finland, of course, it was more Tom and Jerry. It would have helped, perhaps, if the anonymous cop would have said: 'we didn't expect you back so soon,' you see, he could have shifted the blame on the queer under arrest, I was starkers, remember, perhaps it had been me who had started this, but he did not explain, he remained silent. Which put the onus on Dick, so perhaps it was a clever reaction of his not to react, after all. Dick has now to explain why he returned prematurely. Which he does. He saved the tax payer some money, he says, because his ex is living nearby, and he passed by her place, found some clothes, and is back now, peremptorily. Peremptorily wasn't the word he used, though, and the taxpayer was bollocks since the expense was supposed to be added to my bail, but anyhow. He's still holding the second-hand apparel, now he drops it. He's in our cubicle, right, with us. And, you know what he does? He closes the door. Ever so gingerly. The cell door. The door that had been closed before. We are a threesome behind bars. And, you know what he does next? I guess you can guess," Maurice says.
"Yes," I answer.
"He drops his trousers, brings out his dick, which is still soft, but hardens rapidly as I and his nameless partner stare at his crotch, and before I know it, he has thrown me on the ground, and is fucking me. Fucking me, OK. No gel, no condom, just nature. His name was Dick, right? His name should have been Cock, or Artan, or anything that denotes excessive manhood. This was the worst fuck of my life. He's pushing, and every stroke kills me. Kills me. I think they use rape a lot when they torture people. I tell you, they know what they are doing. You know, when your senses merge, when you can see pain, hear it, feel it, touch it, smell it, lick it? When you can't even groan? When all senses unite in despair? That was it. I was versatile, you know. I shan’t be a bottom again, I think. Never.”

"And then," I ask a bit heartlessly.
"I lie on the ground, being raped to death," he continues. "The nameless cop is standing next to my head. He's perhaps quite happy that Dick's outburst is helping him to escape from a tight situation. Anyhow, I see one nameless foot stepping back, and through my pain I feel the words 'Dick, your ex.' Dick doesn't pay attention at first, until I hear a scream, the scream of a woman.

“Dick unpops, gets up. I'm still on the ground, Dick's impressive member swings across the cell above me. I discern an under-class woman who’s standing on the other side of the bars that hide nothing, and she screams. This happens between indigenous southern Georgians in their local vernacular, I hardly understand a word, but she came home apparently, and discovered the theft, and somehow deduced that Dick was the perpetrator, something about smells, 'I could smell you...,' and some explanation that she came here because he's always on the Sunday shift, and she complains that he stole Martin's leather shoes. Martin, we might fathom, is the new man in her miserable life. 'Martin needs his shoes,' she explains, suddenly appearing very reasonable.

“I guess that did it. Her rationality upset him. The shoes, the shoes did it; he went off the cliff because of the shoes. He steps forward, his dick still throbbing. Some people really can't get rid of an erection unless they come, or he is on Viagra, he grabs her, starts manhandling her badly, and is yelling at her: 'You be quiet.' It's clear he's menacing her to shut up. He grabs her neck, starts to throttle her. She gags. He slaps her face, badly. He does what he can.

“It was obvious, he intended to shut her up, make clear that she must forget about the whole affair, go home, lick her wounds, and never look back. I don't know what it was, her screaming, his heat, his irrepressible erection, I don't know, suddenly he grabs her skirt, tears it down, throws her on the ground, the same thing he did with me, gets on top, holds on to her shoulders, and bangs her viciously. She screams, cries, howls. He fucks. It's rape, unadulterated rape of the worst kind. He fucks, she screams. Fortunately he's done quickly. After two minutes or so, he growls with a few discharging gestures of his hips as he comes. He's finished. He uncorks. He's still stark naked where it matters, he clutches her, and her skirt, and drags her along the corridor, sort of squat-shifting himself in his hanging trousers across the main office, and kicks her out. She must have crawled home. He comes back, his cock's still swinging, and a drop of semen plops onto the floor—I wonder whether they wiped the floor later, and if so, who did it. He raises his trousers, re-adjusts his tie, yes, that's what he did, he re-adjusted his tie, they wear ties on Sunday, apparently, and says, 'Now what?' He got back to normal very quickly. The nameless cop raises his trousers too, and adjusts his tie in sympathy. Both look at me. I think, 'They are going to kill me. They'll get rid of me, I'm the only witness.' But no. They look at each other, the nameless cop collects Martin's clothes, hands them to me, I dress in this white-trash outfit with leather brogues for emphasis, and Dick says: 'You better go home now.' But then he grabs my neck, strangles me, for at least a minute, hard, I'll show you the marks, how long does it take before you die—and says: 'What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.' He took some risks there, a Brit might not have understood what he meant. Anyhow, I did understand. He releases his grip, shoves me across the office, and kicks me out.”

Chapter 17 --- MY PENIS HAS NEVER BEEN THIS LARGE 

(A lot of things have happened in the meantime; John and Maurice went to the party (thrown by Godehart Wagner, a 5-th generation member of the Richard Wagner family (the composer)). Maurice has collapsed at the party (the bad fuck), and the Green Eyes have re-surfaced as paramedic on the ambulance called to save Maurice's life. John accompanies Maurice and the Green Eyes (whose name is Alex) to the hospital. John spends the night in the waiting room there. Alex (the Green Eyes) rematerializes and offers John a ride home. John accepts, and so...:)

We're back in the bedroom. We finally embrace, kiss. This is it, this is the moment. Should Alex expect me to sink to my knees now, unbutton his fly, like the porn flicks would do--or unzip his zipper, most porn flicks are so cheap, they don't have money for the more expensive, button-holed Levis--unzip his cheaper jeans and start caressing his briefs with my lips, drawing the attention to his budding tumescence under the cotton? Well, I might, at least in the sense that my bedroom looks almost as bad as the motel rooms where those flicks are shot, a chest, two wooden bedside tables, two wooden chairs, and a timber-framed bed done in cherry imitation, a mattress, and dirty sheets, a discordant collection of things that speak of my financial (and mental) condition.

Yet Alex isn't waiting for the cotton kiss (besides, he doesn’t wear any fly-enhanced leg-wear but is still clad in his hospital sweatpants). Instead, he undresses unceremoniously. T-shirt, pants, briefs, shoes, socks are all arranged into a neat pile on the second chair. He climbs onto the bed, folds himself into some relaxed, unassuming position, like a model in a drawing class, but without the attitude. The simplicity of his movements I will never forget, they changed my life.

I follow his example and make an unusual effort at apparel-folding. Although we had fairly rough sex the previous morning, there is not the least suggestion of anything untoward between us in the past, for all practical purposes we could be virgins. I lie next to him. "You're beautiful," he says, caressing my face. I'm caressing back. This would be the moment to say 'I love you,' although you never know what you get back, like 'moi non plus,' statistically the most honest answer (moi non plus, French, invented by Serge Gainsbourg, the one and only basis for his fame, this noun phrase, meaning "me neither"), or 'I love you too,' but uttered unconvincingly, or 'I love you too,' uttered more convincingly, although you know it's bullshit.

(I hold back.)

(I cannot hold back.)

"I love you," I say.
"No sweat," Alex comes back--bypassing the world literature from Homer to Spielberg, have you ever heard anybody saying 'no sweat' in this situation? There's a teasing movement of his eyelashes, although his green eyes stay neutral as if it's head or tail. "In human sexual behavior," he says, "foreplay is a set of emotionally and physically intimate acts between two or more people meant to create desire for sexual activity and sexual arousal." Ooh, he's so sweet!

He does what he can. He caresses my pecs, my tummy, my nipples, retracts to my shoulders with his versatile hands, pays attention to my biceps. "You are still quite OK, gym-wise."
"Thank you," I reply, not reciprocating further--there are no words for his Adonis corpus. His eyes appear to know this while they are kissing other parts of my body. We're in for the longer haul. He bends over, caresses my thighs, my legs, teasingly avoiding my package or other private parts, all of which have reached a state of extreme arousal. My penis has never been this large.

Should I tell him? It wouldn't go with the romantic flow of his movements, or would it? I know, I know, but this is me, John, always ready for a silly remark. "My penis has never been this large," I say.
"There's no significant correlation between penis size and sexual satisfaction, save in extreme cases," he comes back. "King Farouk of Egypt had a two-inch penis, yet hookers loved it." He laughs. I could say something back, about kings and hookers, perhaps he's a bit naive here, but I don't. More caressing. "You're OK, though," he adds, "it's not too large, like mine." The teasing, tactile neglect of my sexual organs, when have we seen this for the last time, I wasn't even born. Touch and go, silence.

"The average sexual intercourse lasts sixteen point two minutes," he says, breaking the spell.
"That's long," I say.
"I can't believe it either, but that's what the medical literature says."
He could say something to the effect that we should help the statistics along by compensating for apparent over-reporting through making love forever, but he doesn't. Instead, he moves--yes, he moves to embrace the cliché--he moves to a higher level. He takes hold of my cock, strokes it gently. We're in familiar territory now, well, we've been in familiar territory the whole time, except for his 'no sweat,' remark, or for the size of his (uncut) dick (however irrelevant), or the record size of mine at this moment, or his beauty, or the touch of his fingertips, or his smooth, supple skin that I'm caressing myself. He bends over, and my cock disappears in his mouth. He has full, sensual lips, naturally, and his sensual tongue plays with my sensual soul. There's a flush in my abdomen, emanating, radiating, spreading through the known universe. We haven’t changed positions so far as if we will always be side by side, fluent movements rule. He's at it. He's at it. "Hold on," I say, "I'm about to pop already, not so fast." He can't speak now, due to anatomical constraints. He must have heard me, though, but isn't relenting, he continues, effortlessly--this is really something, how effortlessly he sucks cock. There are no special effects, he's taking his time, there's no rush, only…(rhymes)…my crush.

 Michael Breyette: One on one

I explode in his mouth. I'm cumming, I'm cumming, finally, too early, squirting, shooting, exploding, no superlative is spared. He's still sucking, quaffing my load, holding on to my dick. He relents. His position has changed, he's next to me, his dick throbbing over my face. He's so sweet. He's stroking it now, his member, we’re in for a facial. His ministrations continue fluently. He doesn't groan, he doesn't make any noise whatsoever, except for the squishy remarks of his foreskin (supplemented by uppity comments from my mattress, which are not his fault). "Ready," he says. A first contraction, his body spurts back. A second contraction, a first spurt of cum spouts from his knob, ends up on my face. More contractions, more cum everywhere, we've been there before, you get the picture. Still holding his dick with the right hand, he touches my face with his left hand, wiping his cum over my features, then licking it off with his alpha-tongue.

He sits. "Time for a cigarette," he says.
"I don't smoke," I say.
“It’s a poem by Tennessee Williams,” he replies.

We're silent for some time, and now, finally, our angel walks through the room, Alex stretches, another embrace, he's on top of me now, where he unfolds, as if we are forever suspended in a better space and a better time. Infinity.
 

Chapter 18 --- AGATHA CHRISTIE

One two three, infinity (I’ll explain later). My ass.

Alex had already left his perch as a grand horizontal when I woke up. Better even, or worse, the sheer fact that I could fall asleep testified to his untimely departure, since nobody, not even straight people, would be able to fall asleep with the Green Eyes on top of you. And I slept, because I had my usual morning glory, and I was alone, as outlined already, no external stimuli present, only my sleep, and sweet dreams perhaps that I don't remember. I'm too old for spontaneous erections, it's either sexual or it's sleep (not quite true, I remember now, I had one just yesterday, but still). Sometimes I have trouble falling asleep, and sometimes I don't know whether I did actually fall asleep before waking up in the middle of the night, but then I feel my boner, and know I slept, realizing that my sleeping is better than feared, and thus comforted fall asleep again (only to wake up at a later time with another boner (I think I should stop now)).

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Alex was gone, at least he was not the cause of my erection, and my bed was otherwise empty. Where is Alex? Perhaps he's brewing coffee in the kitchen. I get up, and my pendulous organ--I had learned the term "pendulous organ" from Alex only hours earlier--my organ was still not very pendulous on the way to the kitchen, the place where Alex was not brewing coffee.

My world falls apart, and it's only the second, or third, time in 24 hours. Detumescence (another word I had learned from Alex) strikes, and through the haze of my upcoming tears I look around. There's a sheet of paper on the kitchen table, a location where experienced tricks in my days used--in the days I still brought tricks home--used to leave their goodbye messages when they had been brought up well-enough to signal goodbye before leaving--after getting up as quietly as possible, hoping to undisturb my sleep, getting dressed quietly, not using the bathroom in order to avoid noises, finding some reusable sheet of paper, and some pen, and then writing in very readable hands, usually, like, like drawing a Valentine heart, signed "M," or perhaps even signed "Michael," or, in extreme cases, writing a grammatically well-formed sentence along the lines of "Sorry that I have to leave early, Michael"--sometimes even the word love was used, carelessly, perhaps, but carefully written, since most tricks live near the literacy threshold, rarely write anything, whence their writing hand is unblemished by later excesses.

Where was I? Yes, In the place where experienced, well-brought-up tricks would leave their messages (Mother: 'Michael, there is another thing that you should never forget, your exit should always be graceful, and should it happen that genetic destiny strikes and you end up as a loose homosexual, so loose that his nights are spent as one night stands in the company of other loose men, even then your exit should always be proper and good-byed'), in said place I found a re-used sheet of paper with the not-so-readable words "Dear John, I had to go, I love you, Alex," and a little Valentine heart drawn under the text (he could have encircled the text with the Valentine heart, it would have been prettier, but he didn't).

No home number, address, email, homepage link, twitter, tweet, something. Alex was gone.

Now, the situation was not completely hopeless, at least in the technical sense that I knew where he worked, so I could try to retrieve him by calling the hospital and ask for Alex, the alpha-god paramedic, (“Alexander, you know, I don't know his last name, the paramedic with the green eyes”) and it would be everybody's guess what the result would be, perhaps he was a medical secret, (“We cannot divulge the names or other coordinates of our staff, by law”), or not a medical secret (“You're not the first person who's asking for Alex in this way, you know”), or I could, in anticipation of such answers avoid any contact by telephone and position myself around dawn near the staff entrance of the hospital, waiting for Alex like fans wait at the bühnenausgang of Wagner's opera burgh in Bayreuth for a famous singer, and ask for an autograph when the alpha-god finally appears.

There are other possibilities as well, think hospital email etc, let’s do some hand-waving here (an expression I had yet to learn from Alex), you get the gist. Email, stop. Internet, Google. You know, I can't think in panic, so I typed "Alex" in Google's main search window of my computer, today enhanced for unclear reasons by a Sherlock Holmes motive. Only more than one billion answers. I still didn't think, clicked on the first link, which connected me to ALEX, the Alabama Learning Exchange. Good, I thought, that's in the South. But not in Georgia, I realized, then my thinking stopped again since the terrible truth struck again, that I had lost the Green Eyes to a hopeless, lonesome future in confirmed bachelor county, GA, USA.

I would normally make coffee once detumescence (what a useful word) has commenced, but didn’t feel like it. Instead, I got my thoughts together finally and started a more systematic search for "Alex," the "paramedic" of the "Memorial Baptist Hospital" in "Georgia Beach," in “Glynn county,” "GA," "US," which yielded nothing. A hospital is not a university, they won't list all their staff in unreadable, smallish fonts, even people who died 20 years ago of disappearance, like Alex had died of disappearance, this morning, between eight and ten o'clock.

I read the message again. "Dear John, I had to go, I love you, Alex." Nothing, nothing in this message would speak of the future. There were no undertones, no overtones, the message was as neutral as his green eyes were (used to be) when his own studied ambivalence was undecided about a course of action, in the meager space of a few hours I had seen this neutrality more than a few times already, if his eyes talked, something was at hand, and there was nothing of the surreptitious eye language that tends to accompany the meaning-challenged behavior of people who have nothing to say, eyes too open, eyes too small, eyes winking, squinting, and so on.

A message as neutral as his eyes. Why didn't he say anything about a date tomorrow, or on Saturday, or the Blue Moon, or the beach. Why did he "have," to go, he was sleeping next to me, or on top of me, or whatever, his next shift starting, what, possibly at 10 PM or later. Why did he have to "go?" Why did he "love you," why did he "I love you," if he loved me, he would not be gone but embrace me tenderly while sticking his penis into my ass, a routine that we had practice already once, although, during our earlier cruisin' encounter, he had refrained from the poignant anatomical commentary that accompanied his later work. "I love your work," he could have written, if I would only have shown him my blog, the blog I talked about earlier, about everything and nothing, even the gay condition, perhaps he would have liked it (although I have no followers), and decided that he cannot ditch a person that's not only 'OK, gym-wise,' as he had said during foreplay, but also OK blog-wise, and he would now put his penis into my ass, or at least leave his number, and everything would be all-right.

There is a movement now in trendy USA, of which even I am aware, gathering steam, to replace the words "blogger," "blogging," etc. by better, nicer words, and if such words are ever found, I would not only be a good blogger, I would also be a good nicer word, and Alex would be sure to stay, but he's already gone.

I stared at the Sherlock-Homes-themed Google search window and realized that there was no deerstalker, it wasn't about Holmes at all. It was honoring Agatha Christie, perhaps her thousandth birthday, and her biography came to mind, how she had married this racing pilot, much handsomer than plain Agatha herself, and how the relationship had soured, and how she, famous already, had suddenly disappeared, gone, futsch, with search and rescue teams (S&R) in hot pursuit, until she had suddenly and without prior warning reappeared in some country inn, or whatever these things are called properly in England (not "country inn," I guess, perhaps Golden Swan), and never returned to her handsomer husband, and later marry a handsomer archaeologist, 14 years her junior, and they would write books together in the sense that when she would write a book he would take time away from his other obligations and also write a book, in the room next to hers, this would be the future that Alex and I deserved, he an accomplished sexologist with a lucrative clinic next door, I'm an accomplished nicer word behind my laptop, and we would happily live ever after, and he would pay the bills.

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