SLOUCHING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM Part 2
By Dolphin Dan
*** WARNING *** This story contains descriptions of sexual acts between consenting adults of the same gender and of opposite genders. If it is illegal or morally objectionable for you to view this material, please do not continue.
*** This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is completely unintentional. ***
June 11, 1990.
OK, I have to start writing in this journal more often, because just keeping up with the peep show in my closet is becoming a full-time job. I was at an outdoor bazaar here in Berzy the other day and managed to pick up a working portable TV set for $20 US, which is a fortune for the locals. I snatched it up immediately. Under the Communists you'd be on a waiting list for months to get a TV. Even though there's virtually nothing to watch here--in Communist days there was only one channel, and filling air time isn't high on the new regime's priority list--I decided to set it up on a little table in my room at the Metropole and keep it on a lot, so as not to get my neighbors curious about why I'm always quiet and in my room.
Mill and Mara are absolute nymphomaniacs. The other day he had anal sex with her. Anal's not my thing, but it was pretty hot to watch it, and he's lucky to have found a woman who enjoys taking it in the ass. Then yesterday they 69'd before breakfast, went for their usual epic roll in the hay after dinner and watery beers down at the cafe, and then they went at it at least once in the middle of the night. I wouldn't say they do anything that's really kinky, not like whips or anything, and I'm actually glad because that kind of crap turns me off anyway. But I don't think I've ever seen them do it missionary style, and they like to change positions a lot. This morning they banged on a chair. Mill sat down in one of the old dusty chairs that litter the Metropole--I sure as hell wouldn't let my bare ass touch that old moth-eaten fabric!--and Mara sat on him, facing away from him, pumping up and down on his dick. It's called a "reverse cowboy," I think; guys can do it too. He didn't cum inside of her. For some reason when he got close she pulled him out of her, sat on his lap and squeezed his penis between her thighs. His cum shot out like three feet and splattered on the dusty floor as well as all over her legs. I came too just watching them. I think Mill really likes her thighs. He strokes them every chance he gets and often rubs his dick between them. I can't blame him. They're bronze and perfect, soccer player's thighs. I don't know if Mara runs or cycles or whatever but she's damned hot when she's naked.
And then there's Mill's other action, that being Pauli. Aside from the first time they were together last week, Pauli's been over one other time that I've seen. It was the day it rained so hard--I forget which day. When it comes to sex Pauli is a babe in the woods. He seems so timid. Mill almost has to coax him into bed. On the rainy day they brought a whole bunch of bottles of Zlotny, the cheap Moesian beer, up to his room and I had to sit and wait while they drank themselves silly. Then they finally got each other's clothes off. I'll never get tired of looking at Mill, but Pauli really is kind of grotesque. His legs are just too damn long, and hairy too. When I saw Mill go to a drawer and pull out a package of condoms I kind of rolled my eyes. I don't have much experience with male-on-male sex--I've only been with two guys, compared to four girls--but I know enough to know that anal really isn't my thing, and watching it is considerably less arousing than doing it. Still, I was curious who was going to pitch and who was going to catch. Mill spent a long time buttering up his boyfriend, figuratively speaking, kissing him and stroking his hair and probably whispering "I love you" in Moesian, before he finally rolled on the rubber and went to work. I've got to hand it to Mill. He's smart. Pauli's obviously a virgin, but the AIDS situation is so out of control in this country that you really can't be too careful; you can get it from blood transfusions or medical needles here a lot easier than in the States, so even virgins aren't that safe. By this time I really wasn't even jerking off. Seeing them blow each other is way hot, but I could do without the rimming. Nevertheless I didn't leave the peep hole. Mill was extremely gentle. I don't know if he came or if they decided to bag the idea, but they eventually stopped, cuddled some more, and then Pauli finally got hard, straddled Mill's stomach, and Mill jacked him off and Pauli came on his chest. They lay together for a long time after that, had some more beers and ended up listening to a Pink Floyd tape that Mill had.
Despite the amount of time they spend sweet-talking each other, I doubt Mill and Pauli are that into each other emotionally. I really wonder who came on to who and how each of them figured out that the other liked guys. Just looking at him Mill is the most straight-looking, straight-acting guy you could imagine. Pauli's a little more effeminate, but since I don't imagine the neo-Stalinist regime that was in charge until last fall was very accommodating toward homosexuality, I would imagine most gays in Moesia are pretty repressed and timid by nature. From my own conversations with Pauli I know he worships the ground the exchange students walk on, but I still can't quite imagine him putting the moves on Mill. For one thing, his English is still appalling--something I'm trying to remedy--and for another, he's shy except when you're talking to him about music or gangster movies. So I really wonder how they got together in the first place.
Another thing I wonder is if Mara knows her boyfriend is bi and that he's fucking Pauli. I suppose it's not too much of a stretch to think that she might know at least the former. As I said they're not that kinky, but they do have a few accessories. The other night she used something on him--it was really dark in their room and I couldn't see well but I was pretty sure it was a butt plug. He was whispering stuff like "put it in my ass," and moaning contentedly when she did. She seems fine with it, and I can't imagine a hetero girl who DIDN'T know her boyfriend was bi being as cool with it as Mara seemed to be. As to whether she knows he's doing Pauli, I have no idea at all. In class or on trips with the Moesian students I keep a careful eye on all three of them. Pauli seems to avoid her, so he obviously understands the relationship between Mill and Mara, but Mara seems to like Pauli a lot. Whatever the relationship is among those three, it's complex--and certainly none of my business, although the peep hole in the closet kind of makes it my business.
I ran into Radulesci at the cafe last night and we had some beers. I'm becoming quite a beeraholic--it's cheaper and safer to drink than the water here. "So, you like room?" he said, clinking a mug against mine. He put his arm around me and winked suggestively. "Best view in Berzy, eh?" He laughed heartily. I nodded. "I like American friends!" he sang. "Maybe I come to America someday. You like that?"
June 14.
Strange, I was just talking about Radulseci at the end of the last entry. Here's a bit more on him.
Radulesci certainly seems to have his fingers in a lot of pies. He runs this place and obviously makes a fortune from it. I also figured out a couple of days ago that he runs a craps game in one of the back rooms on the first floor. It's a lot of smelly geezers in stained undershirts playing for virtually worthless Communist-era cash, and Radulesci says it's harmless. "Just something to do," he told me one evening at the cafe. "You know, lots of men unemployed since government fall. They need something to do, something to get their minds off it. Being out of work can be very depressing." I had a feeling that the craps game on the ground floor is a front. Radulesci comes and goes at all hours. And there's a labyrinth of stairways, corridors and rooms in the basement of this old joint, none of which I've ever seen. Strange men tramp in and out of the lobby at all hours of the day and night. So I think there's another game somewhere else in the hotel, a high-stakes game where people play for real money--probably American money. In fact, I bet the cash I gave Radulesci for my "room with a view" went to that game the day I gave it to him. He obviously cleans up on it. He's talking about buying a new car, and Radulesci is more well-dressed and less worn-down looking than most Moesians, which means he has to have money.
He also has another business, I found out by complete chance. We made a field trip to a plant in downtown Berzy where this brand-new company--originally started by an American--is breaking down old jiks, grinding them up and turning them, get this, into potting soil. The jiks are environmental nightmares, and they need something to do with the thousands of pounds of pale-yellow fiberglass that the things are made out of. So at this factory, which used to make jiks, they're now crushing the cars and breaking down the panels, and they ship bags of this potting soil all over the ex-Commie world. Guess who runs the plant? You guessed it--Radulesci. "I like green like Americans!" he told us on the plant tour. I didn't know whether he was talking about money or environmentalism. "So I grind up old Russian cars and make flower gardens for Moesia! I love democracy!" Wacky.
At breakfast at the cafe this morning I got talking to Mara about him. "Yeah, he seems like a good guy," she said, "but I'd watch my step around him. Word is it he's connected to some Russian gangsters." She also hinted strongly that he does some black-market business with lots of ex-Communist officials here in Moesia, and that he carries a gun on his person at all times. I would think somebody who does business with Russian mafiosi would be smart enough to travel armed.
June 17.
The plot thickens. There's a lot happening and it's all weird as well, so this is going to be a long entry. I don't know if I crossed over into the Twilight Zone or something on the way to Moesia, but it's like the rule book to "normal" life has been totally chucked out the window.
Mara DOES know that her boyfriend is fucking Pauli. How do I know? Because they got a little menage-a-trois action going--the very night that Mill came on to ME pretty unmistakably.
It was last night, the 16th. There was a party at the cheesy hotel/barracks where all the American students (at least those who haven't paid Radulesci for more luxurious accommodations at the Metropole) and the Moesian students got together. There was plenty of Zlotny to go around, and everybody made pretty merry. Pauli was there of course, as were Mill and Mara. The Moesian students started doing a lot of their native dances, which involves clapping, squatting, whirling around in a big circle, and drinking heavily. This was the first real opportunity the Moesian students have had to cut loose and show their talents. Pauli, who had about eight Zlotnys, showed us his real hidden talent: breakdancing. I guess you can't blame these kids for being a little behind on their American fads. He whirled around on the floor like a dead cockroach with his gangly legs in the air, and then he leaped right back up, staggered out of the circle and downed another Zlotny in five or six swallows. "Where'd you learn to do that?" Mara asked him.
"Breakin' 2! Electric Boogaloo!" Pauli cried. "I learn from movie!" You've got to hand it to him. The kid may be ugly, but he's got balls, and a lot of spirit.
So naturally he started dancing with Mara, and I wound up sitting on the stairs with Mill watching the party all around us. We were both drinking fresh beers. "You like this country?" Mill asked me.
"It's all right," I shrugged. "I kind of miss the States sometimes, but I'm getting used to it."
"It's funny, in some ways I feel a lot freer here than I do in the States," he said.
"How so?"
"I feel like I can do anything here." Then he did a weird thing. He put his hand on the back of my neck and pulled my face close to him. We were close enough to kiss. "And I do mean ANYTHING," he said.
Just written on the page the words he used don't seem that provocative, but it was more the way he said it, his body language, and the look in his eyes. I think Mill was coming on to me. If I had leaned over to him and whispered that I wanted to blow him in the bathroom that minute, I don't think he would have had the slightest problem with it. But, stupid shy, ham-handed Dan, I said nothing. We went back to drinking our beers and watching Pauli make an alcohol-fueled fool of himself.
Finally Mara decided we ought to go back to the Metropole. "Hey, Pauli, why don't you come with us?" she suggested, as if this idea was spontaneous. Naturally he agreed. The four of us shared a jik taxi back home. We were like clowns packed into one of those little circus cars. I was sandwiched in the back seat between Mill and Pauli; Mara was in the front seat. Mill and I were both wearing shorts, and the hair on our legs rubbed together. It was incredibly hot. I was hard instantly. Mill leaned his head against the back seat and rubbed his eyes. "Man, too many Zlotnys," he moaned. He shifted a little in the seat, which itself wasn't that unusual because we were very cramped. But now his right calf was completely up against mine, our skins in contact all the way up and down from our knees to our socks. He shifted again and I felt his hairy calf move against mine in a motion that seemed extremely familiar--and extremely deliberate. Suddenly I wasn't just hard, but I could feel a little damp spot spreading into my underwear. This was too much of a coincidence. Some suggestive talk at the party, AND a convenient game of let's-rub-our-hairy-legs-together-in-the-car-and-hope-Pauli-doesn't-notice? Mill was definitely trying to communicate with me, but I didn't know whether he wanted me to join Pauli in the harem, or replace him.
I'll cut to the chase. I stumbled back to my room, Pauli, Mara and Mill to theirs. My clothes were off in about ten seconds and I was perched on my trusty cum-stained chair in the closet, gripping my hard dick and wiping my precum off on the palm of my hand, hoping against hope that I was going to see some threesome action. They went into the room, started reaching for the case of warm Zlotny that Mill keeps in there, and the first thing that happened was Mill stripped off his shirt. OK, good start. His chest was still smooth as a baby's ass, so I knew he'd been shaving religiously. "So, you boys still want to party?" said Mara, kicking off her shoes. Excellent! I was starting to roll my balls in my left hand, getting ready for some major action. This could be the highlight of the summer--as long as Pauli didn't fuck it up by being all timid and shy and not being able to get it up.
I think Mill must have had the same fear, because even after nine beers Pauli was standing in the center of the room, almost shaking, looking first at Mill unbuttoning his shorts, and then at Mara stripping down to her bra and panties, and the guy looked like he didn't know what the hell to do about it. In addition to being a gargoyle and a timid closet case, Pauli is evidently a moron. Mill didn't waste any time, and he and his girlfriend certainly got Pauli's attention. Mara came up behind Pauli and tickled his armpits, enough to get him to raise his arms, and whoosh, she whipped his shirt off in like half a second. Then Mill got up right close to Pauli--Mill's eyes come about to the top of Pauli's chest--and, still holding his bottle of warm Zlotny with one hand, he unbuttoned Pauli's jeans, pulled down his ridiculous green underwear and yanked out the tall guy's dick with the other, in one fluid motion. OK, maybe he wasn't a total moron--at least he had sense enough to be hard. Mara dropped to her knees--she was behind Pauli, remember--and pulled his jeans down to his ankles. Pauli's attention was so focused on Mill, who was slowly massaging Pauli's rod, that he probably didn't even realize that his feet were responding pretty much reflexively to Mara's touch as she pulled off his jeans, then his shoes and socks. By now the head of my trooper was totally covered in precum, and I was going crazy wiping it all over me. I didn't know what else to do--I didn't want to start cranking and shoot my load before the main action started, and it looked like Mara and Mill had a pretty long haul planned for Pauli.
Mara got on her knees behind Pauli and started kissing his ass. If she didn't get his tongue into the tall guy's holiest of holies, then she came damn close. Pauli must have liked getting his salad tossed because he suddenly broke out into a smile and he was biting his tongue between his teeth. Mill then did something kind of weird. Still holding Pauli's rod in one hand, he brought the bottle of Zlotny to his lips, took a bunch in his mouth, then let go of Pauli, raised that hand in front of his face and spat his mouthful of warm beer on it. Some of the stuff sprayed on Pauli's white chest--Mill licked some off his nipples--but Pauli didn't seem to mind. Then Mill reached down, put down his beer bottle, straightened back up and started jerking Pauli off with his beer-lubed hand, squeezing Pauli's balls with the other. Finally the tall guy started to loosen up and enjoy himself. Getting worked on by Mill on the front end and Mara in the rear, he finally seemed to understand how good he was getting it.
I definitely was jacking off by this point, but trying to hold back. Part of me was pissed. Mill had been coming on to me at the party and rubbing my leg in the taxi and he didn't look like he gave a damn about Pauli. So what the hell was that freakozoid doing in the middle of a Mara-and-Mill sandwich while I was the one hiding in the closet choking my choad?
Mill didn't let him cum, though, and I think the look of disappointment on Pauli's face when he let go of him was intentional. Mill stepped away from him, dropped his shorts and his boxers, and then he climbed up on the bed so he was standing on it. "Come on," he said to Pauli. "Up here. Come on!" It sounded like he was coaxing a dog. Pauli got up on the bed. He was so tall that, now standing on the bed, his weed-eater haircut almost touched the ceiling. I was getting the strong impression that Pauli was totally gay, not bi. Mara was doing stuff to him, but it looked more like she was trying to be felt, not seen or heard. She and Mill obviously knew what they were doing, and it seemed they were trying to keep Pauli's conscious attention focused on Mill. Who knows, maybe chicks turned him off.
So, here's how they ended up. Mill kept Pauli in a standing position on top of the bed but made him stand with his legs apart. Then Mill dropped to his knees and started licking Pauli's balls while Mara got in position. She got up on all fours and wiggled between Pauli's legs, her head facing the opposite direction Pauli was facing. It was a nice little threesome. When she was ready, Mill took Pauli's dick into his mouth and the tall guy tipped his head back and gasped. Mill maneuvered his girlfriend so he could slip his rock-hard piece into the soft wet pussy she was offering him, and he started to bang her doggy-style. He kept one hand planted on the small of her back, the other hand gently stroking Pauli's tightening balls and I even saw a stray finger probe into Pauli's butt a few times. Soon the three of them developed a terrific rhythm, Pauli sliding his rod in and out of Mill's lips, Mill pounding on his girlfriend's snatch at the same time.
The whole thing was so unbelievably erotic that it almost blew my mind. I suddenly envied Mill more than any person should ever envy another. He had his own dick in the business end of a scorching hot woman, while at the same time he had a guy's hard penis in his mouth and his middle finger up his ass. I don't think a bisexual guy could ask for anything more. If I were Mill I'd probably jump out the window as soon as it was all over, because I'd know life would only be downhill from there.
I'm not sure who came first, but I know all three of them did. Mara was gasping and tearing at the bedspread and banging her booty against her boyfriend's hips. Pauli had a fist full of Mill's hair in each hand and was moaning something in his native language. Mill finally took his right hand out of Pauli's rear end and his left hand off Mara's back and grabbed Pauli's butt cheeks and pulled him in close and hard, forcing him to stop moving, and his lips were pressed to the base of Pauli's dick. Mara arched her back and gasped. Pauli started shouting these Moesian curse words and I could tell he wanted to keep pumping in and out of Mill's mouth, but Mill wouldn't let him and I knew he was coming, firing his hot milky load against the back of Mill's throat. The tight way Mill was gripping Pauli's cheeks I knew he was coming too, shooting his seed seven inches deep in Mara's body. There weren't just three of us coming though, but four--I shot literally the wad of my life. My jets were so powerful they felt like gunshot blasts coming out of me. When it was over I had to look down and make sure my dick was still there because it felt like it exploded into a million little microscopic pieces, like the Death Star at the end of Star Wars. I could imagine what the three of them felt like.
I could tell they were pretty wiped. Pauli lay down on the bed, reached for another Zlotny, drank about two swallows of it and then totally passed out. The Zlotny bottle dropped from his hands and spilled on the floor. Mara and Mill lay together on the bed next to him--I think they were joking about Pauli, because I saw Mara wiggle his soft dick in her hand and then she and Mill laughed--but suddenly Mill was hard again and they went at it. This time he slid his dick between her tits, which she pressed together, gentle at first but then he started tit-fucking her like crazy and when he came he shot on her face, her neck and the pillow. I can't believe he had anything left in him but his penis was like a cannon just firing these long beautiful pearly ropes of semen all over the place. I'd already gotten off but I was hard again just thinking about that stuff sliding down my throat--I wanted to go in there and suck the pillow dry. Pauli never woke up, didn't even stir. They all fell asleep, and I finally went to bed too. When I got up this morning Pauli was gone, but Mara and Mill's room was wrecked--clothes and empty Zlotny bottles everywhere.
Writing this description got me so hot I had to put the pen down and go jerk off AGAIN. Unbelievable.
Crap, I've already used so many pages in this journal, and it's late, but I have to keep going. See, this uber sex fest last night wasn't the ONLY thing that happened. Tonight was unbelievable, but in a completely different way.
I got back from classes, changed clothes and then went down to the cafe, where all of us who stay at the Metropole usually eat dinner. (Incidentally I wonder if Radulesci has an angle going there too--it's the only cafe for blocks that gets regular shipments of meat and coffee, which you probably can't get in Berzy without bribing somebody). Mill was in there eating but Mara was nowhere to be seen. "Hey, Dan," he said as I walked in. "Want to join me?" Well, of course I did. We ordered a round of beers, and as I was picking at my boiled cabbage and radishes, I got curious and asked him where Mara was tonight. I didn't specifically want to bring up his come-ons at the party or the way he rubbed my leg in the taxi, but I wasn't adverse to starting a conversation that might eventually lead there, and I wouldn't do that unless I understood a little more clearly what the dynamic was between the two of them.
"Oh, she's off banging that Dmitri guy," Mill shrugged, hoisting his mug of beer. "What the fuck do I care?" Dmitri is this tall, dark, really good-looking Moesian student who's working with the American exchange students. Evidently he used to be on the Moesian national football (soccer) team, which, like everything else, disbanded when the government fell last November.
"She is?" I guessed I shouldn't have been surprised, but for some reason I was.
"Yeah. I'm solo tonight." Mill smiled as if he wasn't a bit concerned.
"Your girlfriend is banging Dmitri and you don't care?"
"Why should I?" He leaned in a little closer, put a hand to the side of his mouth and said, softer, "She doesn't care that I fuck Pauli, so why should I care if she fucks Dmitri?"
I almost choked on my beer. I guess in retrospect my reaction was strange. I mean, I knew from very intimate observation that Mara obviously DID know her boyfriend himself had a boyfriend, but hearing Mill talk about it so casually to me--someone whom he did not know knew what the real score was--was pretty shocking. And I guess it would have been a terrible double-standard if Mara let Mill screw anybody he liked, even a six-foot-four, short-dicked Moesian college student with gray circles under his eyes and tacky underwear, and Mill got pissed off if she screwed someone else on the side. I just wasn't used to this kind of open relationship. I thought these people were upper crust upstate New York college kids. Did they DO this kind of thing in Westchester County, or only when they were halfway across the world in some dogshit ex-Communist cesspool?
Then I remembered how to react properly to what Mill had told me. My shock was real, but not for the reasons I thought it best to let on. "You're...uh, bisexual?" I said softly.
"Yup." He drank some beer.
"And you're banging Pauli? PAULI, the dude who thinks I'm like a roadie for Metallica because I have long hair?"
"He told me I look like Jim Morrison," said Mill. "I mean, how can you argue with that?" He drank some more. I hadn't thought of it before, but Mill DID sort of look like Jim Morrison--if Morrison had worn steel-rimmed glasses, that was.
"I'm shocked," I said, even though I wasn't. I was trying to think of how I reacted when I first saw Mill and Pauli together. "I mean--it's fine and all, I'm not--I mean, I'm cool with it--"
"Somehow I figured you would be." Mill winked at me in a way that was very strange, almost like he didn't believe me. Then he leaned forward. "You want to see something tonight that will totally blow your mind?" he said softly.
I came a lot closer than I would have liked to actually replying with the words, "Like what, your dick?" But I held my tongue. I didn't dare hope that Mill suspected I was also bi, though his behavior the night of the party seemed to suggest he did. I had to play it cool. I told myself he might not even remember what he did at the party--he'd had a lot of Zlotnys, even before he started lubing up Pauli's dick with the stuff. "Um, sure," I shrugged. "What do you have in mind?"
"You like wrestling?" he said.
"Wrestling? What, like WWF and stuff like that?"
"Ehh, sort of. Not really." He finished off the beer in his mug and slammed it down on the table. Using the soft tone again, he said, "Look, you're cool with stuff that's a little--well, how shall I say, off-color?"
I had no idea what he meant by that, but I didn't want to close off any avenues here. "Yeah," I shrugged. "What are we talking, like a fetish club or something?"
"Umm...well, not really. But maybe same ballpark."
I already knew how wild Mill could be and wondered what he was getting me into. I'm just a country boy from New Mexico. "Is Pauli going to be there?" I asked.
"This has nothing to do with Pauli, nothing to do with Mara. Trust me, it's cool. If you don't like it, we can leave."
"Well, sounds...interesting."
Mill sat back with an almost arrogant air, and stuck his tongue into his cheek, his mouth slightly open. It lasted only a second. "You got ten bucks on you?" he said. "U.S., I mean."
"I'm starting to get a little low on U.S. Treasury specie, but yeah, I think I can find a Hamilton somewhere in my other jeans."
"Go get it. Meet me in the lobby of the Metropole in ten minutes."
What could I do? I admit, I was motivated by the possibility--however remote--that Mill was getting me to do this as an entree to something sexual. It seemed like he was attracted to me. I also thought, however cute Mill thought he was, however many favorable comparisons he made with Jim Morrison, that Mill could do a lot better than Pauli. If he wanted dick, he could have mine--he could do whatever the hell he wanted with it and I'd cooperate; I wasn't into anal but if Mill really wanted my butt I'd probably let him take it. I wondered if whatever he had in mind was part of him getting ready to ask me for it. So, I got to my room, rifled my clothes, my wallet and my suitcase for the secret stash of U.S. cash, and peeled a ten-dollar bill off the roll.
It was hot this evening and the low-stakes craps game was in full swing, those hideous Moesian guys in their stained undershirts, smoking smelly Russian tobacco. Mill was waiting in the lobby, totally buttering up this ancient Moesian woman. "You look so nice tonight, Mrs. Vyshinsky," he said to her. He saw me. "I have go now, Mrs. Vyshinsky. But you won't go walking in the moonlight with other boys, now will you? Because I get mighty jealous!" The old woman smiled, revealing she had exactly one tooth left in her head, which was pretty corroded and probably not long for this world. Mill seemed like a natural charmer. You couldn't help but like him. I showed him the ten-spot, just the corner of it sticking out of my jeans pocket. He took my elbow and led me toward the back stairs of the lobby.
"Where is this place?" I asked. "I thought we were going to a pro wrestling match."
"We are," said Mill, clomping down the stairs in his Nike hiking boots.
"It's in the basement?" My heart skipped a beat. Was I finally to witness the strange things that went on in Radulesci's basement?
"Yeah. Listen--the password is 'Gorbachev boozhni.' You got that?"
"Password? What do you mean?"
"There's a password to get in. 'Boozhni' is Moesian for 'balls,' by the way."
I grunted. "I KNOW what it means. I'm not totally ignorant."
We got to the bottom of the stairs and went through a long smelly corridor. There was a set of double doors at the end. A bellman wearing an old uniform--probably a bellman's uniform from the Communist-era heyday of the Hotel Metropole--stood in front of it. We both gave the ridiculous Gorbachev's-balls password, paid our ten dollars, and he opened the doors and let us in.
It's going to be difficult for me to describe what I saw down there. I was totally unprepared for it. We walked into a basement that was lit with bare light bulbs and a few beams of dusty, dying sunlight from slots in the upper part of the wall. The stench of sweat was overpowering. The whole place was filled with men. I mean, there wasn't a chick in sight--at least, not a real one. There were some people with long hair and dresses and big busts, but the five o'clock shadow on their faces betrayed the telltale presence of Y chromosomes. There was rock music playing from an old jukebox, and guys--some queeny, some butch--dancing on a dirt dance floor in the center of the large room. As we passed through a crowd of guys, I felt a sudden sharp pinch on my butt. I turned around and saw a man with heavy eye shadow and rouge winking at me, receding into the crowd.
"What is this, like a secret gay bar?" I whispered to Mill.
"Yes, this is like a secret gay bar," he replied. "You want a drink? Best bar in Berzy. Of course, generally you don't get to know about it unless you have a thing for dick."
I was astonished. I've been living in this hotel for almost three weeks and never realized there was a black market gay club in the basement.
Mill led me to a bar that was stocked with as many gleaming bottles as you'd find in any bar in the States. They had beer on draft, and even a bronze statue of Stalin's head that had been ingeniously modified as a pornographic beer tap. A metal penis had been installed to protrude from between Stalin's lips, with the spigot at the end of it, so whenever anyone ordered a beer it looked like the dictator was spitting hot foamy cum into a glass. Mill bought me a beer--I didn't have to be told that this bar accepted only American money--and we clinked glasses. "Power to the people," he said as a toast. He looked around, and then laughed. "Quite a kick, huh?"
"Yeah, it's pretty bizarre."
"You know this is Radulesci's doing?"
"What, he runs this place too?"
"Of course. Dude, if the Moesian black market published a business journal, Radulesci would be their man of the year. He's been running this place for years. Evidently it was even wilder under Communism than it is now."
"Radulesci's not gay, is he?"
"No, of course not. He's got a wife and like three mistresses. He's just greedy. He knew gay guys in Berzy would pay top dollar for a place they could hang out and not get hassled by the secret police. Where there's a demand, Radulesci wants to be the supply." Mill drank some more beer, and then motioned over to the side of the bar. "Come on, check this out. I think there's a match starting."
We took our beers--which were in real pint glasses--and took me over to another area of the bar. It was a ring of some type, with a set of bleachers on one side. One wall of the ring was draped with Communist flags--Soviet, East German, Chinese, and the old flag of the Democratic People's Republic of Moesia, which has since been changed. The floor of the ring was covered with sawdust. In the ring, two guys were wrestling. They were both wearing white jockey briefs. One of the guys was in his early 20's, well-built and attractive. The other was about 35, much bulkier, bald, and pretty grody-looking. The spectators on the bleachers were going nuts, shouting and whooping, waving American bills in the air, cheering on their champion and jeering the opponent. A man in a black leather B&D get-up stood back at the end of the ring. I guessed he was the referee. There were three cheerleaders, all cross-dressed men, wearing classic poodle skirts, sweaters and carrying pom-poms. They looked like a Saturday Night Live sketch. The guys in the ring thrashed and grappled, but there was a decidedly homoerotic vibe to their actions. I could tell the young guy had a massive hard-on. I could see it poking through his underwear.
"There's small fortunes wagered on this every night," Mill said to me. "See, each guy, under his skivvies there is wearing a red tinfoil star on his ass. The first player to rip off the other guy's star is the winner. Naturally the hotter the show they give, the more money they win. Sometimes they fuck right there in the ring. That really gets the crowd going."
I had to admit there was something kind of fun about it, but on another level it was sort of tawdry and appalling. But I have to admit I watched with pretty rapt attention. The two guys continued to fight. The bald one seemed more aggressive, the young guy much more queeny, making a big show of it. But at the end it was a sucker job. The young guy goaded the bald one into pinning him, when suddenly he let loose with a bevy of WWF-style moves that left the older guy sputtering in the dust, including a pile-driver maneuver that had the whole crowd on their feet screaming. The bald guy, who had been knocked right on the head, didn't recover. When the young one let go of him he went down like a sack of potatoes. The young guy rolled him over on his stomach, reached into his underwear and tore the red star off his ass. He held it up like a trophy, and the crowd cheered.
"I saw that same guy win the last time I was here," Mill giggled. "With Pauli."
"You were here with Pauli?"
"Of course. I ran into him here one night, by complete chance. How else do you think I found out he was gay?"
Well, that explained a lot of things.
The young guy who'd won the wrestling match was collecting his prize--a roll of American bills--when suddenly the crowd hushed. Everybody rose to their feet. Mill tapped me on the arm and stood up. I had no choice but to follow suit. Walking through the crowd was a perfectly ridiculous-looking man. He wore a Communist-era military officer's uniform complete with greatcoat and hat bearing the red star and hammer emblem that used to be on Moesia's flag. But his face was totally caked with makeup, especially rouge and lipstick, and his eyebrows were patently false. He looked like a wax doll. And he was very, very, VERY queeny--so light in his jack boots that he seemed he'd float away at any moment. Compared to this guy, Richard Simmons was a smoldering volcano of testosterone. He was flanked by two guards in secret police uniforms, but it was obvious they were gay too. One of them was wearing a pink feather boa.
"That's Comrade Podorevsky," Mill whispered in my ear. "Everybody's scared shitless of him. I'm not sure what he does now, but he used to be some big shot back under the Gaenescu government. Sent people to labor camps."
"I have a feeling that not a lot of attractive well-hung guys ended up in labor camps in this country," I whispered back.
Podorevsky stepped into the ring, followed by his swishy attendants, and walked up to the wrestler who had won the match. The young man was positively petrified. Podorevsky approached. He had a leather riding crop under his arm. But Podorevsky merely stood there, looking over the wrestler from head to toe. Then he readied the riding crop. For a moment I thought he was going to get all BDSM with it--which wouldn't have suited me at all. But he merely poked its end under the waistband of the wrestler's jockeys and pulled it aside. He stood on his toes to peer over the elastic band and see the wrestler's package. Whatever he saw must have been satisfactory, for he withdrew the riding crop, snapping the underwear band back against the wrestler's belly. Then he leaned forward, kissed the wrestler on both cheeks, and exited the ring. The crowd shouted and applauded.
"C'mon, let's follow him," said Mill, nudging me in the direction Podorevsky had gone.
"Hey, man. I'm not sure I want to have anything to do with that guy. He seems pretty--weird."
"No, we're not going to talk to him. There's another event. If you think the wrestling is extreme, wait 'til you see THIS."
I was starting to get a little uncomfortable with all of this, but Mill obviously thought it was a lark, and I trusted him. It didn't seem like he was going to throw down and fuck one of these guys randomly, which was obviously something that happened at this club, and not something I particularly wanted to witness considering, if the stats on AIDS in Moesia were to be believed, probably half the guys in this room were HIV-positive. I took my beer glass and followed him to the very corner of the large dingy basement. Another crowd was gathered, and the American greenbacks changing hands showed me that more wagers were in place. Comrade Podorevsky was in the front of the crowd. Luckily we kept our distance from him. If he was some kind of Communist Party big-shot, I doubted he'd take kindly to Americans, even if they were young, cute and bisexual.
A long metal trough had been erected about three feet from the back wall of the basement. It looked like an agricultural feed trough of some kind, or a low-slung version of one of those old-style urinals you see in cheap bars. Five men were standing in front of it, their pants unzipped, dicks in their hands. None of them were especially attractive, though the young man at the end, who was about nineteen, wasn't bad-looking and was pretty well-hung. They all looked like they were about to take a piss, except their dicks were hard, or they were trying frantically to get them that way. One man in the middle, a pudgy moon-faced guy in his mid-forties, was slapping his penis against his hand trying to get an erection. Another guy in bondage gear, like the wrestling MC, stood next to the trough, holding a stopwatch and a starter pistol. A murmur went through the crowd as Podorevsky daintily took a roll of American bills from the pocket of his greatcoat, peeled some off, and handed it to one of the men walking through the crowd who I guess must have been bookies of some kind. Podorevsky pointed to the young man on the end, obviously indicating that that was who he was betting on.
Suddenly I got it. "Don't tell me they're going to do what I think they're going to do," I whispered to Mill.
"Oh, they'll do it. Minor fortunes are won or lost on this. There's guys that support their families doing this." Mill sipped his beer. He giggled. "That fat guy better throw a bone, or he'll be disqualified."
The MC took one last gander at the contestants. He looked at the pudgy guy, who was only about half-up, and shook his head and made a "you're outa here" motion with his hands. The man zipped up his pants and stepped away from the trough. The MC turned to the crowd, readied the stopwatch, and fired the starter pistol.
It was like a dog race. All you needed was the little electric rabbit zipping by. All the guys in the crowd shouted and cheered on their champions. At the trough it was a frenzy of flailing fists. It definitely looked like the young guy was ahead. He was jacking himself so fast his hand was just a blur. In thirty seconds he was pursing his cheeks and panting. A graceful arc of white spurted from the tip of his dick into the trough. He already had his arms raised in victory, basking in the cheers of the crowd, before the second guy came, followed by the third, and finally the last guy whose ejaculation was a feeble dribble.
"Man, these guys are pros," Mill commented. "Can YOU pop in thirty-five seconds? I sure as hell can't."
"I wonder what the record is."
"Whatever it is, I'm sure Comrade Podorevsky knows it."
Podorevsky had bet right again. More money changed hands. The young man who'd won the jerk-off contest received at least three bills from the MC. I couldn't tell if they were twenties or fifties, but given the black-market strength of the dollar, I knew the dude would eat on that money for weeks. Not bad for 35 seconds' work.
The crowd at the jerk-off trough began to disperse. I didn't expect what happened next, because it was completely apropos of nothing. Mill flung his arm around me, real familiar-like, and leaned close to my ear. "I know you watch us through the hole in your closet," he said softly.
I stared at Mill, my eyes wide. I didn't want to admit it, but I didn't want to deny it either.
"It's OK," he said. He regarded my expression, and smiled, as if amused. "How did you think I knew you were bi?" he said.
"You knew?"
"Of course," he scoffed, as if it was the most elementary thing in the world.
"How did you know?"
"Exhibit A. You jack off when I'm fucking Mara. Exhibit B. You jack off when I'm fucking Pauli. You think you're being subtle, slapping away at your salami in there? The walls in this building are made of toilet paper and spit. I can hear you. Shit man, even if you didn't grunt like an elephant when you cum, you know we bisexuals are like dogs anyway--we can always smell our own. Are you enjoying your little show?"
I drank a few swallows of beer. It was no use denying it. I nodded. I wondered if Mill could see the long bar growing in my lap.
Mill patted my shoulder. "I figured you were. Hey, I'd do the same thing if I were you. Come on, let's get another beer."
I was pretty stunned. I had no idea Mill knew what was going on, and it was even more shocking that he was totally OK with it. But he was. I wish I could say he came on to me tonight, but it didn't happen. We had another beer at the bar, and then we went up to the lobby. By that time Mara had returned, and suddenly Mill's attention was totally focused on her and it was like I didn't even exist--she had to say "Good night, Dan!" even before he did. It struck me that Mill treated me exactly the same way tonight that he treated Pauli the night of the party when he came on to me and rubbed my leg. Maybe there's only room for one guy at a time in Mill's mind, but whatever the explanation it was obvious that even if Mill was attracted to me, he was spending the night with her. That's OK. I've had more than enough action for one day anyway, and frankly, writing this right now I'm thinking about how I'm going to try to go to sleep knowing what's happening down there in the basement this very minute.
I swear to God I don't have a clue what I should do. This is the weirdest summer of my life, bar none. I have a feeling it's going to get weirder still.
TO BE CONTINUED.
Stories By This Author:
Last Days in the Dorm /nifty/gay/college/last-days-in-the-dorm (A student stumbles into an encounter with an attractive Native American college student the night before moving out of his dorm.)
Lust In Iraq /nifty/gay/military/lust-in-iraq/ (A war-weary sergeant becomes infatuated with a young PFC recently transferred to his unit.)
Rip the Jacker /nifty/bisexual/masturbation/rip-the-jacker/ (An outwardly well-adjusted high school student becomes a serial masturbator, causing a tremendous stir in the community.)
Shifter /nifty/gay/sf-fantasy/shifter/ (A college student's sexual fantasies have the unintended effect of transporting him backwards in time.)
Wet Lucidity /nifty/gay/masturbation/wet-lucidity (An exploration of the link between wet dreams and lucid dreams.)