I rolled back over and surveyed the body stretched out beside me. He was lying on his back, panting slightly, his legs still spread and knees bent. The pillow not yet out from underneath the small of his back. He gave me a wan smile, wrapped a hand around my neck, and drew me in for a kiss, barely giving me time to take the joint from my mouth that I had turned to take a drag from. We shared the smoke from the reefer in the kiss.
Such a cute little trick. I’d picked him up—or, rather, let him pick me up, since we were in his flat off Oxford Road now—at Sydney’s Midnight Shift Club in the heart of the Australian city’s extensive gay district. I’d gone to try out the bar there, only to find it was being renovated. I was waved upstairs to the club, where it was too early for their 4:00 p.m. opening, but where a bartender was checking over the inventory and was all “no problems” about pouring me a drink. The cute trick was perched on a stool at the other end of the bar. The bartender went to carry in some more liquor to even out his stock and the trick fluttered his eyelashes at me and asked if I might be interested in more than a drink.
I was, actually.
I could have taken him back to where I was staying—the City Crown Motel nearby, quite obviously a gay-friendly establishment—but in my air hops west across the South Pacific, where I had stopped in Fiji, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia, en route to Sydney to pick up a plane back to the States, I’d made a policy of going to the guy’s room or a hotel room other than mine so I had the option of leaving when I wanted.
I was still reveling in the mere week’s-old discovery that I was versatile. For two years I’d been in training as a bottom—in progressively more taxing fetish situations. I hadn’t realized that I could enjoy going both ways until I was ridden on a tramp steamer en route to Pago Pago. I’d been exercising that knowledge back across the South Seas.
He was small—less than five and a half feet tall, I estimated—and with a willowy, dancer’s body. In fact, I’d ascertained that he was a dancer—a pole dancer at the Midnight Shift. A strawberry blond. A classic “David” physique down to the pert cock and small, but distinctly separate balls. I had enjoyed rolling them about, distending them, and inhaling them into my mouth and sucking them in both cheeks. He had enjoyed that too. Just as he had tried the same with me and couldn’t get them both in his mouth—and most certainly had gagging problems in deep-throating what I was packing. He’d been game, though. And experienced.
Slightly effeminate, as had been the others I’d practiced topping on my way back to civilization. And, although it was subtle, he used makeup to enhance his eyes and eyelashes and to produce unnaturally cherry-red lips. He’d also rouged his nubs, but I had sucked the makeup off them. And done his nails, in a lavender, very much like the sweet little thing I’d gone with in Western Samoa.
I don’t really think the attraction was the type of men I was picking up to fuck. This was more of a transition, I believed—and hoped—and being sure if I could do the same with a more manly man. I certainly hoped I would be able to do so. As nice as I’d found pieces like this one to be for topping, there still was something missing in my sex life. But then there had been something missing in my life as a bottom too. Not arousal or lust, certainly—but something else.
I wondered if the makeup went with the slinky dresses I saw hanging around the small, one-room flat, or the high heels kicked into the closet. I’d never knowingly gone with a transvestite before . . . not that that mattered here because I knew this was a one-afternoon stand and he hadn’t come on to me in that way.
I took another drag from the joint and shared it with him in a kiss, while my other hand glided down his smooth, boyish chest, the fingers dragging across the silver ring in his navel and his closely trimmed pubes as he shuddered when I grasped his cock and slow stroked him.
“Fuck me again,” he murmured as we came out of the kiss.
“Liked that, did you?” I asked, still struggling over whether I could do this top thing convincingly.
“Loved it, stud. You’re so big.”
“Perhaps because you are so small.”
“No, honey, I know hung and hard when I feel it. And you’re still hard, and I want to feel it again.”
“We could go for some supper and then come back.”
“Can’t sorry. Gotta go to work. You’ll come and watch me dance?”
“Maybe. And afterward?”
“Fuck me again now. There may be no later. Can’t come back here later. I have a roommate.”
“A woman?” asked, gesturing to dresses hanging about.
“No, sweetie. Those are mine.”
The flat was small—I could see it all from here. There was just this one double bed. “So you mean a boyfriend, not just a roommate?”
“He thinks so, and a big bruiser he is. That bartender who served you a drink at the Midnight Shift. Not as big where it counts as you are, though, honey. Com’on, mate, do me again. You do it so well.”
What could I do? The pot was helping to keep me hard and aroused. I rolled back over on top of him, slid inside, and began to pump. He threw his arms around my neck, running fingers into the hair on the back of my head, arched his back, began to push down into every stroke, and cried out, “Oh, yes. Give it to me. Deep, hard. Oh, you stud! Ball me! Ball me hard!”
Later, after I’d left him and was walking down toward Circular Quay at the Rocks, one of the places where all Sydney mingled, to catch some dinner, I luxuriated in the thought that I’d obviously satisfied him as a top. That didn’t mean I’d lost interest in bottoming as well, and maybe before I left Sydney on the flight out to Los Angeles the day after the next, I’d be able to get a little of that too.
I laughed at the realization that I’d neither asked the sweet little piece for his name nor given him mine. It had been the same way at all of the overnight bars on the hops by plane from Western Samoa to here. I wondered if sharing names was part of the “not quite” I felt in satisfaction in my sex life.
I don’t know what had drawn me to Circular Quay and the view of the Sydney Opera house out on a small peninsula beyond, other than that I wanted to be in the middle of a lively crowd without direct interaction. I wasn’t looking for a hookup. I’d had that today already. Tomorrow I planned some last-minute browsing in the area around Oxford Road, and the day after that I’d be on a plane for the States, my junior year summer exploration from Princeton over and ready to start my senior year in a month’s time. And quite a summer it had been, traveling the South Pacific on tramp steamers supplying all of the small archipelagos across the sea. And quite an experience in sexual awakenings, just as I had hoped it would be.
I also don’t know what drew me first to the busker leaning up against a closed ferry ticket window wall—his music or the clothes he was wearing. Or maybe it was the natural sensuality of the man. But, since I wasn’t looking for sex, I’ll pick the clothes he was wearing—and wearing quite well, I might add.
I had to laugh. Early in my summer adventure, I’d been seduced by a Frenchman—Etienne—who had coaxed me to take a tramp steamer with him from Nouméa, in the New Caldonia archipelago, to Suva, in Fiji. He had robbed and deserted me in Fiji. But he had taken not only my cash and credit cards but also my favorite fringed deer-skin cowboy vest and my cowboy boots. As melting as Etienne had been as a lover, missing those articles of clothing was what I remembered about him the most.
The busker was wearing them. Not my own vest and boots, of course. There were differences. But the similarities were close enough to arrest my attention and for me to make the connection. He was wearing a cowboy hat too, but as I hadn’t lost one, I didn’t focus on that. So, I stopped to admire the clothes, worn on top of tight, worn jeans, and a tight T-shirt, both tight because of his pronounced musculature. His face was easy to look at too. He was hirsute, but not grossly so. He maybe was in his late twenties, six or seven years older than I was. His faced showed both the cares and joys of a longer life than his body revealed him to be. Both the care and joy came through his rich baritone voice too.
He looked like the authentic rendering of an Australian cowboy, if Australia had them, and, with the country’s vast outback, I realized they must have them. That, I guess, was what they called stockmen or jackaroos.
His songs were accompanied by a scruffy guitar with a sweet tone that matched his voice perfectly. I remained, loitering on the fringe of those passing by, for four songs. None of the tunes were familiar to me. All of them were good enough that I probably should have heard them before, though.
I eventually was embarrassed that I was hanging around so long when others were swirling around us, just passing by. All happy and boisterous. During the fourth song, I felt the isolation—not just of me, but of the busker too. But it wasn’t an isolation of the two of us together, although I would have to say I found him arousing—not arousing in the sense of the new-found topping activity I was experiencing, but more in the older, more known sense of him on top of me, possessing me fully with his cock. I knew it would be a plump, long one. My trained eyes could see that in the basket of his worn, tight jeans.
The feeling of isolation in a bustling world—even from each other—saddened me. It didn’t help that the song was a sad one too. I came closer to him. He looked up and smiled at me, a smile that went beyond the friendly. He interrupted the song long enough to give me the traditional “Gd-day, mate” greeting, revealing that he had noticed me stop and listen to him when all the rest had passed him by—even the ones who had dropped money in his open guitar case in passing.
I had only come closer to add my contribution to the case—a large sum since I was coming to the end of my visit and had Australian notes to burn. I mumbled something to him, he tipped his hat and started to say something, but I turned and walked away.
The music started again in my wake. He took up in the sad song where he had left off. I got the sense, though, that he was singing just to me now. There was a clutch in his voice. My instincts fought among themselves. Should I turn and return to him? Suggest a break and a coffee somewhere—and maybe a little fuck in the shadows? Or should I cut and run? Should I acknowledging that my “down under” across the Southern Pacific adventure ended the next day and just let it go?
I went directly back to the City Crown Motel, took a cold shower, and laid on the bed. I would forget him—but maybe tomorrow. In the meantime, I’d masturbate myself to sleep thinking of his body—wearing my cowboy vest and boots.
One of my dream scenarios was being out in the old, wild West in the States. Riding up into the Rockies on horseback with a hunky, horse-hung cowboy, and being fucked all night over a saddle and under the stars. It wasn’t really a Brokeback Mountain dream—that movie had fallen far short of the sex action I wanted in my dreams. Having sex with a man was neither a frustration nor a guilty complex for me.
Tonight, it wasn’t an American cowboy I dreamed of. It was an Australian jackaroo—I really liked that term for a hung man taking me. And it wasn’t just any jackaroo. It was the busker from Circular Quay. My very own jackaroo, wearing only the fringed vest and cowboy boots I’d loved so well. He could wear his hat too, for all I cared.
* * * *
“Gd-day again there, mate.”
The voice sounded familiar and when I looked around I confirmed I was facing the good-natured grin of the busker from the previous evening at the Circular Quay—the jackaroo of my dreams.
“Oh, hi,” I said. “You’re the singer from last night.” He was even more than that, which was immediately electrifying me. We were both in a gay bookstore, the Bookshop Darlinghurst. The busker who had turned me on the previous evening was standing here in a gay book store—with a book in his hand. It had to be a gay book; it was a gay bookstore. So, he was probably gay. Extremely good information to know.
Everyone I’d told I’d be in Sydney had told me that I must visit the Bookshop Darlinghurst. It was my last day in Australia, and I had found, by walking around the Oxford Street area, that the bookstore was near my motel. So, here I was—and suddenly very glad I’d decided to visit here.
“Ah, an American accent. You an American then, mate? Just visiting Sydney?”
“Yes, American. And yes again, just visiting. I’m leaving for the States tomorrow.”
“So, we’ll have to work fast here.” A grin of a smile.
I felt a chill go up my spine. I didn’t know how to respond to that to not come off as easy as I was feeling in his presence. I wasn’t about to say or do anything that would put him off me. He was really lighting my fire. So I didn’t answer at all.
He pointed to the book I had in my hand. I’d barely opened it before he’d interrupted with his “Gd-day, mate,” but it had made quite an impression on me—such a shock. A book this daring out on the table in a bookstore. I didn’t know any bookstore in the States that wouldn’t have it confined to a backroom, and, even then, probably locked in a cabinet and available only to customers who knew what they were looking for. It made me think of the stories the Frenchmen, Christophe, was writing as I traveled across the South Pacific with him. Stories meant for a small, highly jaded and well-heeled clientele.
I’d only had a moment to glance at some of the photographs—but what I’d seen was way beyond just provocative. More sensual even than photos of men fucking. More imagination and arousal food than that, which porn videos had taken the edge off of.
“I see you’ve found the Saxon book. Turn you on, does it?”
“I haven’t had much time to look at it. What I’ve seen is shocking. It’s—”
“The title pretty much reveals it, if you knew the photographer—Steven Saxon. The photos are all conquests of his. The title, After Saxon. You can see it. The fucker has the biggest dick I’ve ever seen. The photos are all taken after he’s reamed them a new one.”
“I got that,” I said. “All of the poses.”
“Showing their holes, making clear they’d been rebored larger than before they’d met Steve. So, does it turn you on?”
He had moved closer to me, an arm was around my back, the knuckle pressed into the table I was standing next to. He was significantly taller than I was, and it was like he was looking over my shoulder at the book, which I had open to facing pages showing two really good-looking guys, on their backs, obviously right after sex, their legs open, the men looking totally wasted, their assholes yawning open, their facile expressions leaving the impression of eyeballs swimming in rising cum.
“You call him by his first name and seem to confirm he’s superhung. So, do you know him, this Saxon photographer?”
“Sure. We live in the same building. Artsy types live there. It’s nearby. He’s a visual artist. My gig is music. I compose.”
“I thought maybe so,” I said. “The songs I heard last night. Catchy, but I’ve never heard them before. Your own?”
“Yes. I sell them for others to record. But I try them out at Circular Quay to see how they do in public. Not so well last night. You were one of the few who stayed for any time—you were there for four songs. Left the biggest tip of the night. Wouldn’t have forgotten you.”
“Because of the tip? And you knew how many songs I’d stayed for?”
“I latched onto you the minute you showed up. Hoped you’d linger, and you did. You were the dream of my evening.”
I blushed and looked back at the photos in the book. Should I tell him that he was the dream—the wet dream—of my night too? Was it my imagination, or was he leaning in closer to me?
“You interested in getting what these blokes got? I could introduce you to Steve. I’m sure he’d be interested in doing you and taking photos. You could be a model; could actually be a model, for all I know. Don’t ask for an introduction unless you want to be lured into doing his will, though. He’s a very persuasive man.”
I shuddered, and I’m sure he was close enough into me to feel it. “I think he’d kill me.”
“Never been doubled before? Never fisted?”
I didn’t answer, so he assumed I had. And he was right.
“Not much different than that.”
“You saying that from experience?” I asked.
“Page fourteen,” he said, reaching over and turning the pages for me. “Did I tell you that Saxon was a very persuasive man?”
“Shit. That’s you.” I felt the deflation immediately. He was a bottom. He was gorgeous in the photo. Hung, still in erection in the photo; well muscled; melting hair patterns on his body. Even with that wide-open hole. The expression on his face reflected that he gotten exactly what he wanted—and then some. No pay-for-gay expression there. I nearly laughed, though. All he was wearing in the photo was a fringed vest, cowboy boots, and a cowboy hat.
I was gaining experience as a top, but I hadn’t reacted to him as a bottom. He was much too masculine and dominant looking. I’d only thought of getting something else from him. “So, you’re a bottom.” I doubt I was able to keep the disappointment out of my voice.
“Mate, if you’d go with me, I’d be anything you want. I do both. How about you?”
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“I’ve done both.”
“Going to buy that book? Want that introduction to Steve Saxon?”
“There’s no way I could get this book through U.S. Customs. How about we go for a drink instead?” I said.
“Sure. We could go to a bar. There are several nearby. Some of them even open.”
“You said you live nearby. You have anything to drink there?”
“Yes.”
“And you have a bed?”
“So, you want to fuck me or do you want me to fuck you?”
“Yes.”
* * * *
It took us a while to get to the bed. We stopped and began stripping just inside the door of what was a very nice, well-appointed flat. The artwork seemed to be mainly Steve Saxon photos of sexy young men, but not like what he focused on in After Saxon.
He placed his hands on my shoulders and, taking the signal, I sank to my knees in front of him. He’d already pushed his shorts down to his ankles, and I took his cock in my mouth and gave suck. He appreciated that I could deep throat, even though he was built large. He wasn’t cut and moaned deeply as I edged his foreskin with my teeth, pushed it back with my lips, and pressure sucked his bulb.
I had a slight indecision who would be doing the taking first, but he was anxious to get past the first fuck and pushed me down on the carpet near the door on all fours, mounted my hips, and pistoned me hard and deep. He took me in long thrusts, and as we both neared ejaculation, he laced his arms through mine in a full Nelson, pulling my shoulder blades up to his hairy chest, and latched onto one of my earlobes with his teeth as he thrust hard up into me again and again. I shot my wad off in a high arc across his living room floor and collapsed on the carpet as he withdrew, jerked the condom off his cock, and spread his load on the small of my back.
The second topping went to him as well, although we’d made to his bed. The first coupling being high heat, the second one was the one that made me never want to leave his bed. He made slow love to my body from my toes to my ears with his tongue and teeth, spending significant time at the halfway point, beyond which he refused to go until I’d ejaculated down his throat. Then he fucked me in a rocking motion, with us embracing as closely as we could, with me trapping his body to mine by locking my ankles behind the small of his back, our lips locked in a deep kiss until we came almost simultaneously.
And, although, with a muttered, “Now me, mate,” he claimed his turn as a bottom, he remained dominant. I was trapped on my back under his greater weight and strength, and he rode my cock like a cowboy—like a jackaroo—not only rising and falling on my hard staff but also moving forward and back and from side to side as he rubbed every inch of his passage on my throbbing staff, massaged my pecs with his hands, and worked my nubs with his fingers and thumbs.
It was dark outside his windows before we were both satiated and exhausted. In the time I’d been with him, I realized what I had been missing in the two years of sex, including both bottom and top, classic positions and fetish, rough and not. It was passion. As arousing, heated, and fulfilling as the fucks had been before this, none were as passionate as I had with this beautiful Aussie. And it was the first time I thought of another man in terms of being a lover. Even though he’d remained dominant throughout, there had never before been the equal giving and taking—the concern for the pleasure of the other—that there was with this man.
“I’m afraid we haven’t been introduced properly,” he whispered after he’d rolled over on his side, taking me with him, still embedded inside him, and he nuzzled his way into my embrace. “I’m Noah.”
“And I’m Nathan,” I said. I’d come all the way back west across the South Seas, fucking young men almost nightly, and yet I hadn’t told any of them my name. I was sure it was significant of something that I’d so readily told Noah mine—and that I had given him my real name. I knew he had. I’d taken a good look at the nameplate on his flat mailbox as we came up to his flat.
“You say you are flying out tomorrow?” he asked.
“I lied,” I said. “I can stay for nearly a month longer.” My mind was racing on the need to get to a telephone to cancel my plane reservations for the next day.
“If you don’t want to stay wherever you’re staying—”
“Thank you, I’d like that,” I answered. “One thing, though, Noah.”
“What?”
“Can you tell me where you got the fringed vest and cowboy boots you were wearing last night?”
“You only want me for my clothes?” he asked.
“Absolutely,” I said, as I rolled him onto his belly, rolled with him, stretched out on his back, and started showing him he didn’t have to be dominant every time.