The big redhead eyes the two of us, and I see he is disappointed. He takes his time before he speaks, then says it’s okay with him. “Would have liked to keep you with me,” he tells Jesse, “but I respect you’re a grown man and can make your own way. Knowing Frank here will keep an eye on you will allow me to rest easy.”
“I’ll keep him out of trouble,” I say to Abel. “Myself, too,” I add, which lightens things.
We plan to ride back to Merle’s in the morning, which gives us a last night in the canyon. Heat lingers, so Jesse and me climb up to the outcropping with our bedrolls, make us a bed, then strip naked and lie together. And I pet him all over as the light dies away, kiss his lips. We are slow to get to the rest. His prick is hard from the first, but I don’t hurry to it and he chuckles as my fingers play in the hair down there, then get under to cup his balls. Finally he moans, so I turn him onto his side and put my prick into him, and there we lie, me and my beautiful palomino boy.
A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC
Tom Mendicino
The charms of Prague are fading as the temperature plunges to minus six centigrade. My face is raw and chapped, my toes are numb in my boots, and a polar fleece vest and Carolina Tar Heels hoodie are poor insulation against the bitter winds whipping through the sloping streets of the Hradcany district. I stomp my feet, trying to generate enough body heat to survive as I wait for the night tram to roll down Keplerova. It arrives after an eternity, at least twenty minutes, its bright electric lights and a crush of bodies promising a haven from the cold. But when the doors close behind me, I’m trapped in an overheated, humid prison that reeks of stale Pilsner and body odor. A small dog—or maybe a large rat—scampers across my feet. I grab a pole, steadying myself before I topple into a filthy Rasputin muttering obscenities through his black teeth. The tram grinds to a halt, and one group of drunk students trying to disembark elbows and jostles another group trying to board. The hollow-eyed blonde next to me squeezes a ripe pimple on her forearm. Empty beer bottles roll under the seats as the tram lurches toward my stop at the doors of the department store, Tesco, the end of the line.
The brittle air is a tonic. One block ahead, on a narrow street that curves around the stone walls of an ancient church, is my refuge from the inhospitable Czech night. The boy at the reception desk takes my crown notes and asks in ungrammatical English if I want a locker or a cabin. The changing room where I peel off my clothes is spotless. I wrap a towel around my waist and slip my feet into a pair of clunky rubber shower shoes that I quickly shed after tripping on the stairs to the wet area. I hurry across the cold tile floor in my bare feet, enter the steam room and grope my way through a meandering maze, drawn toward the shadows lurking in the wet nooks and crannies and the promise of slick, wet skin. A hand reaches out and strokes my chest. My suitor, a middle-aged German businessman looking for quick orgasm after a long night of drinking, pushes me against the wall and grabs between my legs. I brush him aside and hurry away, slipping on a patch of liquid slicker than mere water. I take a long, hot shower. My clipped American penis is unimpressive compared to the flaccid uncut European cocks of the men lingering under the showerheads. There’s a beauty swinging between the legs of the Cossack soaping his armpits; it’s as thick as naval rope with a spotted mushroom head. I wonder what it looks like hard and ready for action. Only one way to find out. The fucking son of a bitch brushes my hand away. Cocksucker. Who the hell is he to be so choosy, with his receding hairline and double chin? I knot my towel around my waist and go in search of a wet mouth and a willing hole.
It sounds like a day at the zoo in this place: grunts, groans, guttural noises.
Put your cock in my mouth
, an Englishman begs as I hurry past his cabin.
Sorry, Lord Brideshead, nothing personal
. Everyone who wants me isn’t my type, and no one I want is interested. Coming to Prague was a mistake. The guide-books promised a nonstop orgy (at an hourly rate if all else failed), the perfect antidote for being dumped via email by my transatlantic partner of seven years back in DC, who informed me that absence did not make the heart grow fonder and that he’d met the love of his life, a twenty-four-year-old White House intern with a full head of hair and a virgin ass. Discouraged, disheartened, disgusted, I convince myself to make one more round through the bathhouse. If nothing more promising—or willing—materializes, I’ll drop off my key and my towel and splurge on a cab. Better to be held hostage by the extortionist Prague taxi mafia than suffer another adventure on the night tram back to my hotel.
The door to Room 41 is ajar, inviting any curious hand to open it. A pot-bellied bear mounting an eager cub is willing to share his bounty, but frowns when I ask for a condom. I shrug and step back into the hall, resigned to the night ending in frustration.
“Hello.”
I turn and stare into the face of an angel sprawled across the mattress of his brightly lit cubicle. I look to my left, then my right, thinking he must be speaking to someone better looking, more ripped and chiseled, than me. He strokes his long brown penis and offers a blazing smile. I take a tentative step forward, crossing the threshold of his room, still expecting him to shake his head no when, after getting a better look, he realizes he’s made a mistake. But he spreads his legs and cups his round balls in his hand, tugging at his scrotum.
“You like?”
“You speak English?” I ask, confirming the obvious.
“Yes. Of course. Come in. Please.”
He tosses aside my towel and takes my cock in his mouth. His tongue teases me to a full erection, then he slides his lips up and down the shaft, nibbling on the head.
“Is it nice for you?” he asks, his blue eyes twinkling, confident in his skill.
“Oh, yes.”
“Please. Close the door.”
I wedge my body against his on the narrow mattress. He throws his leg over my hip and grinds his cock against my belly.
“Will you be happy to fuck me now?” he asks.
His ass is already slick with lube. He watches with almost clinical interest as I roll a rubber over my hard-on.
“It is good. I am safe, too,” he says before pressing his open mouth against mine and plunging his tongue deep into my throat.
A sweet, fleeting romance with this blue-eyed boy would be nice, twenty or thirty minutes of gentle touching and soulful glances ending in a passionate climax. But his body language says he wants to get straight down to business. He flips on his back and raises his legs, grabbing my hips and pulling me close enough for the head of my cock to tease his puckered hole.
“You will fuck me good?” he asks, less a question than a command to drive my pole deep inside his ass. I slip inside him easily and he thrashes against the mattress, challenging me to pump him harder, faster. He’s not the shy, quiet type; pleasure is an experience to be shared at full volume, with grunts and moans and harsh, blunt syllables that need no translation. I shoot quickly and my penis shrivels in a condom full of wet semen. He bites his lower lip and frowns, obviously expecting better from a broad-shouldered, hairy-chested American. But disappointment is fleeting and he flashes a toothy smile. The boy is clearly an optimist.
“Let’s have a cigarette. Then you fuck me again.”
I haven’t smoked in years and almost decline then decide to test whether tobacco is as seductive as it is in my fond memories. The first puff makes me light-headed, inexplicably happy. I cough and flop beside his lean, smooth body.
“We will rest,” he says, squeezing my limp, sticky penis.
It’s pleasant lingering here, basking in the heat pouring off his body for a few brief moments before it’s time to brave the bitter cold. I fold my arm under his neck and he cuddles against my chest, drawing circles around my nipples with his long, tapered forefinger.
“Where are you from?”
“I’m an American.”
“New York?”
I’ve lived abroad long enough to know that most Europeans believe that the entire population of the United States resides in California or the isle of Manhattan—except for Mickey Mouse, who lives in Orlando.
“Washington,” I say.
“Ah,” he says, intrigued by fantasies of proximity to prominent names in the international press. “Do you know the Clintons?”
I laugh at the presumption then admit I have, on occasion, been introduced to the former Leader of the Free World and his charmless former First Lady.
“Bill Clinton is very sexy,” he insists.
“You think so?” I smile, being blind to the appeal of our nation’s Seducer-in-Chief.
“Yes. Like you.”
Meaning, I suppose, we’re both husky old boys gone slightly to seed.
“Talk to me some more with your Bill Clinton voice.”
Obviously, he doesn’t hear the difference in intonation between an Arkansas and a North Carolina accent. To a Czech boy, a drawl is a drawl.
“Where are you from?” I ask.
“Brno. In the South. My family come to Prague after Havel for me to study music.”
“What’s your name?”
“Antonin. Please call me Tony.”
“Antonin. Like Dvorak.”
He sits up and stares as if he’s astonished an American provincial is familiar with a national icon.
“Yes, of course,” he says. “You like his music?”
“I don’t know it that well,” I admit.
“What is your work?” he asks.
How do I explain the mundane responsibilities of a Department of State civil servant with a Juris Doctor and a current assignment to the delegation in Brussels? I simply say I’m a lawyer.
“You like music?”
“Sure.”
“You would like to hear me play?” The cubicle door is unlocked and a bald man with an enormous, lumpy head enters and starts stroking Tony’s leg. The two Slavs have a brief exchange and the intruder leaves, closing the door.
“I tell him we are resting. He will be back,” Tony giggles.
“I should go,” I say. “It’s a long ride back to my hotel.”
“Where are you staying?
He whistles approvingly when I tell him the name of my hotel. Apparently, it’s a destination for celebrities visiting Prague. Tony says Cher has stayed there. I mention a minor American television star drinking in the hotel bar last night, but the name means nothing to him. I ask if he’d like to stop by for a drink before I leave town.
“Oh, yes, of course. Tonight. Then we make love again. I will drive us.”
His car isn’t much of an improvement over the night tram. The heater’s broken and the ashtray hasn’t been emptied since the fall of the Communist regime. He doesn’t seem to have mastered the art of braking, accelerating instead of slowing down as he navigates the hairpin turns on the narrow streets leading to the Castle District. I try to persuade myself that vehicular tragedy is impossible while the radio is broadcasting the serene
String Quartets Dedicated to Haydn
. But when he reaches for his ringing cell phone, I’m resigned to an obituary announcing I expired in a one-car collision while traveling in the Czech Republic. But Tony appears dexterous enough to drive and carry on a breakneck-speed conversation while lighting his cigarette. I recognize isolated words—he’s speaking Russian now—and I know I’m the topic of discussion when he glances in my direction and giggles.
“My friend Yuri thinks you are very sexy.”
“Does he like Bill Clinton, too?” I ask, bracing as we veer toward a delivery truck racing at us. Tony jerks the steering wheel with his palm and curses at the driver, who’s blaring his horn, either a warning or a threat.
“Yuri would like to meet you.”
The boys of Prague, butterflies they call them, have a reputation worldwide for seducing middle-aged tourists, lavishing them with attention until they’re too enchanted to foresee that the none-too-happy ending of their little fairy tale is going to involve a black eye, broken nose and stolen wallet. The angel in the cubicle with the alabaster skin and innocent eyes is sprouting horns and a tail as he speaks.