Tangled Sheets (32 page)

Once Brad had me loosened up, he pressed the head of his prick against my hole. I'd seen the size of his throbbing knob, and I knew it was going to be a real tight fit, but I wasn't prepared for the fire that ripped into my ass as Brad shoved his thick piece all the way into me. It was a good thing Craig's cock was buried in my throat, or I would have screamed for sure.

Brad lay against me for a minute, his arms locked under my stomach. His skin was still wet from his swim, and the water that dripped from his hair felt cool against my baking back. I tried to relax my ass muscles, letting my butt adjust to his thickness. Brad pumped against me in small, short thrusts, stretching my hole until the pain subsided and he could slide back and forth without tearing me to shreds. I could feel every movement his prick made inside me, like a piston sliding home inside a well-oiled machine.

As Brad gunned his cock in and out of my shitter, I slicked the length of Craig's pole with my spit, greasing him up until he flowed into my mouth like butter. The feeling of being filled by Brad's dong from behind and Craig's heavy artillery from the front was fantastic. Craig was still licking at my aching prick, and now he also had Brad's bull balls hanging in his face. Whenever Brad would slam up against me, Craig would slurp at his balls for an instant before Brad pulled them away again, dragging his nuts across Craig's face.

I'd almost forgotten we were on the water, but Brad's fucking reminded me, sending ripples underneath the smooth rubber skin of the raft like the muscles of a large animal tensing. The rocking of the waves also put Craig's and my bodies into motion. As Brad pumped me harder and harder, the raft rose and fell, sending our cocks sliding in and out of each other's throats with every thrust.

As the raft rocked back and forth in the water, we became like one big wave, rolling and swelling inside and against each other like swirling water, filling mouths and assholes with inch after inch of white-hot heat. Each time Brad's dick pressed into me, my own prick swelled inside Craig's throat as the fucking filled my balls with a churning load. I knew it wouldn't be long until I came, and I began to pump harder at Craig's face. As my shaft slid against his lips, I felt Brad's poker stiffen inside me. His hands clamped on my shoulders, and he pushed himself as far as possible into my churning butthole, his belly slapping against me like a hand across the face.

Having Brad's cock up my tight ass and Craig's in my mouth made me lose all track of where we were, and I didn't notice that the river had sped up. Suddenly I realized that we were moving along more quickly now, rolling over gentle swells. Behind me, Brad was groaning softly as he deep-dicked my aching hole. His motions matched those of the raft; he slammed every inch of his prick home as the raft slid over another wave, then pulled out as we rode the crest back up.

Just then, the raft slid into a narrow gully between a row of stones and shot quickly down the rapids like a bullet. Water splashed off the rocks and over the front of the raft onto our fucking bodies. The sudden rush shoved Brad against me, and with a loud grunt he began to fill my butt with load after load of cum, his cock spurting wildly, stretching my ass walls. At the same time, he pushed me deep into Craig's mouth. I felt his face against my stomach, and his lips clamped around the base of my cock. The combination of his warm mouth, Brad's spewing prick, and the motion of the raft was too much. I felt a comet of spunk roar up from my balls and explode into Craig's throat.

As my juice flooded his mouth, Craig began to pump his rock-hard jock meat furiously. His fist flew up and down the shaft, his cock beating heavily against my cheek. Suddenly he pulled up hard, gripping his swollen head tightly, and let out a loud moan. Through the spray from the river I saw his balls pull up, and then my face was bathed in waves of sticky cum. Craig continued to jack his piece, sending more whitewash over my chest and neck until it dripped down onto his stomach like rain.

As the raft exited from the end of the rapids, Brad slipped his still-hard prick out of my ass and sat back. He looked at Craig and me, exhausted and covered in each other's juice, and grinned. “Not a bad ride, boys,” he said, stroking his cock. “And by my calculations we have about another hour until the next run of white water.”

W
hen I finally met Lorenzo Maschelli, he was eating oranges while a man with black hair and full lips sucked his cock. This took place in the back garden of Lorenzo's house in Rome on a summer afternoon shimmering with pale golden light. Lorenzo was sitting in a wooden chair in the shade of an ancient birch tree surrounded by the bright bobbing heads of scarlet and pink poppies. He was naked, and the man, also naked, knelt between his legs with several inches of Lorenzo's prick in his throat.

Lorenzo was patiently separating the slices of an orange he had taken from a large blue bowl that sat on the table next to his chair, peeling the fiery curves one from another and slowly placing them between his lips. Holding the orange in his long, thick fingers, he looked like a giant pulling apart the various pieces of a small world and devouring them. His eyes were closed, and as he sucked the juice from each segment, the lines of his face registered his pleasure at the sweetness of the fruit.

Not wanting to disturb him, I said nothing. The man looked up at me briefly when I first entered the garden, his dark eyes heavy with lust, and then went back to his work. Lorenzo himself took no notice of my presence, and I leaned against the trunk of the tree to wait. Despite the shade, enough light fell through the birch's leaves to make me sweat through the thin white cotton shirt I had put on that morning. It was beginning to cling to my skin, and I was thinking wistfully about nightfall, when the city would be washed in the cool of evening.

I had come to Rome to see Lorenzo and speak with him about art. A friend had shown me Lorenzo's drawings, delicate pencils of men going about various activities in the nude, the previous spring. I had been enchanted by the strength and beauty of the figures and found myself drawn to them again and again. His subjects were the men of everyday life—a carpenter lifting a hammer to strike a nail, a farmer bending to check the soil, a priest about to settle a crucifix around his shoulders. Except for their nakedness, they appeared just as they would in life.

But the most intriguing thing about Lorenzo's men was that they themselves were not beautiful. Many were well into middle age, their bodies long since past the time when they would have been the objects of attention because of their youthful grace. Others simply had features that normally would have rendered them ordinary, eyes set too far apart, hands scarred by work, a nose slightly off center. They were the men that lifted nets of fish from the holds of ships wrapped in the mists of early morning, handed drinks to partygoers who never looked at their faces, polished the windows of buildings hanging on thin threads of steel above the heads of oblivious passersby. In a world of the young and beautiful, they went about their business unnoticed.

Yet Lorenzo had managed to catch his subjects at points where the movements of their bodies were at their most natural and, as a result, the most beautiful, filled with an unconscious masculine strength that had the power to rouse the most sensual and unexpected responses from the viewer. The farmer, the head of his cock nearly touching the ground as he squatted in the familiar crouch of a man who works the earth, was even more connected to his element by the fact that he wore no clothes. The priest, his cross hanging against a bare chest, drew even closer to the God he served by virtue of coming before Him naked.

Not everyone was pleased by Lorenzo's work, and there were several outcries when public exhibitions were mounted. Still, his works elicited a fury of attention as word of their beauty spread throughout the art world like fire through brittle autumn leaves. His sketches quickly became the stuff of dreams as collectors tried to buy them up, only to find that they were not for sale. Lorenzo, who seemingly supported himself from what was assumed to be a family fortune, would not offer his work for money, refusing all requests for purchase.

Satisfying my interest in his work by buying the several books that contained his drawings, I studied Lorenzo's style feverishly, hoping to capture the essence of his figures and discover what connection he had to them that enabled him to render them with such exquisite effect. I attempted to copy what he had done, but my efforts resulted in lines that failed to leap off the paper in flesh and blood, and shading that suggested sallowness rather than the flush of muscle rising over bone.

Finally, convinced that he held some secret that I had not been granted knowledge of, I set about finding him. After much searching, I was able to locate someone, a friend of a colleague's sister, who knew Lorenzo, and had thus acquired his address in Rome. I wrote to him, telling him of my desire to learn from him, and he had responded with surprising generosity.

Over the next months, we exchanged letters regularly, becoming as good friends as is possible when acquainted only by mail. But although asked several times what his method was, Lorenzo neatly avoided answering me time after time, instead writing vague comments about knowing his subjects and suggesting that his technique was not one that could be explained. I took his reluctance as an unwillingness to share his secret and stopped pressing him for information.

Then, in the spring, Lorenzo suggested that I come to visit him in Rome and see his studio firsthand. I responded enthusiastically, convinced that if I hesitated even for a moment he would retract his offer, and we had arranged for my visit. After landing in Switzerland, where I had business with an art dealer who wanted to show some of my work in his gallery, I boarded a train for Rome, my excitement at finally meeting Lorenzo mounting steadily the closer I came to Italy. As the mountains slipped away outside my window and faded into the flat golden expanses of wheat fields, I created an image of him in my mind, erasing it several times and starting over as I decided upon new details.

But any images I might have had of Lorenzo vanished when I entered the garden and found him with the black-haired man. I was surprised, certainly, to see him as he was. But something about the naturalness of his posture, the ease with which he and the young man made love, prevented me from leaving in embarrassment or training my eyes elsewhere. I felt as though I had his unspoken permission to watch, and studied him carefully.

I guessed that he was almost fifty. His hair was rinsed through with silver, and his skin was tanned the color of stained wood. Tall and trim, his body was neither heavy nor muscular, settling about him comfortably like a familiar coat. His skin was brushed with thick hair that swirled over his chest and abdomen, and his cock, long and thin, stood up proudly between his legs as the man ran his tongue over its considerable length. The man himself was very large and muscular, with the body of a laborer. The smooth mounds of his ass cheeks rested on his heels as he rocked back and forth. He also had a good-sized erection, which he was stroking slowly as he sucked, his balls swinging with the motion of his hand.

Lorenzo continued to eat the orange, every so often reaching down to rub the man's neck and push him farther onto the flesh that slid in and out of his mouth. He pulled gently on his hair, and the man moved his mouth to Lorenzo's heavy balls, mouthing them softly as Lorenzo jerked himself to climax. A splatter of white spewed from his cock like a net cast out by a fisherman, landing on his chest and on the man's wide face. Several more strands of heavy cream streaked over the hair of Lorenzo's belly, falling in thick lines across his torso as his hand pumped the last drops from his balls.

The man looked up, a smear of Lorenzo's cum on his cheek, and Lorenzo motioned for him to rise. Standing between Lorenzo's legs, he fisted his cock while Lorenzo rubbed his balls and the tender spot just below his asshole. When he came, it was in a series of short spurts that rained down on Lorenzo's chest and stomach. Picking up an orange slice, Lorenzo wiped it along his stomach, coating it with the man's cum before lifting it to his mouth. A string of pearly white hung from his lips as he swallowed the fruit. He did the same with a second segment and fed it to the man, who eagerly accepted it.

Having finished, the man walked away, disappearing into a doorway at the rear of the garden. Lorenzo turned and looked at me, his cum-stained hand shading his eyes from the sun. “Hello,” he said. “You've come a little early. I would shake hands, but as you can see, that might not be a good idea at the moment.”

“I see that,” I said. “I hope I didn't interrupt.”

Lorenzo laughed. “No,” he said. “As a matter of fact, Antonio seems to perform better when there is an audience. Why didn't you join us?”

“It seemed more appropriate to watch,” I answered. “Not that I didn't enjoy it.”

“Ever the artist,” Lorenzo said, standing up and leading me into the house. Showing me to my room, on the top floor looking out over the garden, he said, “Why don't we both wash up, and then we can have a drink.”

Leaving me alone, Lorenzo retreated to his room at the other end of the hall. I washed in the small bathroom off my room and put on another shirt. By the time I was done, Lorenzo was waiting for me. Leaving the house, we walked into town and settled into chairs in the piazza. Before long, a waiter arrived bearing two glasses of iced tea, which I decided must be Lorenzo's regular drink.

Almost immediately, Lorenzo turned to me and said, “You would like to know the secret of my men, correct?”

I looked at him and saw that he was smiling, not angry. “Well,” I began, “it is something that fascinates me. I have never seen drawings with such life in them before. Your subjects are ordinary men, yet they hit me here,” I said, indicating my stomach, “as though they were the most beautiful young men. I don't fully understand why.”

Lorenzo laughed lightly. “I will tell you the secret,” he said. “But it will take something more than my saying it for you to understand.” He leaned forward, and I waited breathlessly for his words.

When all he said was, “It is because I am in love with them,” I felt disappointment flood my insides.

“That is easy when the men are beautiful,” I said. “But your men are not so beautiful. How do you fall in love with them?”

Lorenzo laughed. “Every man has something about him that invites desire, one trait which, when brought forward, causes the person looking on him to want to look forever. The puzzle is in finding what that thing is. It could be the way his hands hold an apple as he eats it, the way his mouth turns up to show his teeth when he smiles at a private joke of his own, the way the hair on his forearms lies against his skin as he sits reading with his shirt sleeves rolled up.”

Lorenzo took a drink from his glass and returned it to the table. He looked around the piazza and pointed to a portly waiter busily removing dishes from the table of a young couple. “Take that man, for example. When you look at that scene, your first inclination is to notice the young man sitting down. He is very handsome, and it is easy to become aroused by thinking about making love to him, about what his body would look like without clothes. The waiter you would not think twice about. He is overweight. His face is not beautiful. But look again at him carefully, and what do you see? Observe the way his apron is tied around his waist. Look at the way he moves so confidently about the table, knowing where everything is without looking. Notice how he is in command of what he does.”

I watched the waiter picking up dishes and putting new ones in their place. There was something about the way he performed these ordinary tasks that was mesmerizing. As he sliced a cheesecake and put it before the diners, he knew just how to hold the knife to get a perfect edge, just how to place the slices on the plates. Although I wasn't fully convinced, I began to see what Lorenzo meant about finding the beauty in him.

“He is very confident,” I said.

Lorenzo nodded. “Now, imagine making love with him. Think of him taking the same time with lovemaking that he is taking with his service. Imagine his hands stroking you as deliberately.”

I thought about this, and was surprised at how easily the image came to me of the waiter in my arms, and even more surprised at how the thought of it excited me. I imagined his prick, short and pink and thick, in my hand, the heat of it beating against my palm. I pictured myself fucking him, the round curves of his ass beneath my fingers as I pumped, the sound he would make when he came and the way his mouth would soften as he shot his load over his belly.

“You are thinking about it,” Lorenzo said, knocking me out of my trance. When I looked at him, he was grinning. “You see,” he said, “it is, as the saying goes, all in the eye of the beholder.”

We remained in the piazza for several hours, until the sky began to fade in upon itself and dusk came creeping over the stones of the square. Lorenzo paid and we returned to the house, which was lit with the warm cinnamon light of outdoor lanterns and scented with the sweetness of oranges from the trees in the garden. I was fully prepared to sit and continue our conversation, but Lorenzo led me instead through the garden and up a flight of steps to his studio.

The small space was cluttered with pencils and paints, discarded cloths stained with multicolored bruises and papers with half-completed drawings scattered over the large wooden table that was the centerpiece of the room. The roughly plastered white walls were covered with rough sketches, some of which I recognized as the earliest incarnations of finished works I'd seen in books. Smells of turpentine and pipe smoke lingered like the perfume of a woman who had just walked through moments before.

“I thought that you might enjoy seeing the process firsthand,” Lorenzo said, clearing a space on the table and setting out a handful of pencils and a clean pad.