The Lover (It's Just Us Here Book 4)

by Christopher X Sullivan

  Mark carelessly threw our bag in a locker. He grabbed me and brought me in for a rough kiss. “Damn, that was hot,” he said.

  “I didn’t like it,” I lied.

  “Everything’s going to be fine. Let me take control. If anyone gets too close to you, I’ll fight them. I’ll push them off. I’ll scream in their faces.” He wrapped me in his beefy arms and humped my backside while sliding the jeans off my thighs again. “But I am going to show off my boy. These dudes won’t know what hit ‘em.”

  “I’m not your boy,” I complained.

  He grabbed my chin and turned my head so that I was staring into his face. “Tonight, you are my boy. And you are going to be a good boy. And you are going to like it.” He flicked my cock lightly through the speedo. “Now get out of those pants and let's get in the sauna while it’s still early.”

  I gulped, obeyed. I wore that stupid freaking speedo, then slipped my black trunks over it. Mark glared at me, but didn’t comment.

  We took our time and relaxed in the sauna. Just as we were ready to leave, the door opened and a rather large man entered. He had a strangely shaped mustache and a face that looked like it had been slammed in a door a few times when he was a child. His body was bloated and covered with patches of wiry hair. He had an extended widow’s peak and a slight reddish tint to his facial hair.

  “Leo was right. There’s two handsome Americans.” The man’s thirsty gaze lingered on Mark’s chiseled, sweaty body before tearing into mine. “So sweet,” the man said. “How much?”

  Mark looked at me. “What’s your going rate, boy?”

  I nearly shat my pants. My eyes flared and my heart raced. My head spun from the heat in the sauna. Mark laughed at me.

  “My boy ain’t for sale,” Mark said with a smirk. “We’re just here to relax. But we don’t mind letting guys look, do we, boy?”

  I gulped and looked down. I kept my gaze focused on Mark’s feet the entire time and refused to look at the large, Italian man who must have been thinking dirty thoughts about us.

  “Take off those trunks, boy,” Mark commanded.

  “Oh yes,” the Italian said. “I’ll watch. I do like to watch.”

  I nervously stuck my fingers in the waistband of the trunks, feeling the flowery speedo underneath. I kept my side to the stranger and my gaze locked on Mark. I silently begged him to get me out of this situation.

  “My boy is new to this,” Mark explained casually, then his voice dropped. “He can be shy. If he doesn’t take them off, I’ll have to take them off for him.”

  Horrified, I lowered the trunks below my knees and wiggled out of them.

  “Oh, now that’s pretty,” the man said. “Would you look at that.”

  Mark bent over and picked up the trunks. He massaged my speedo pouch. “You’re doing great,” he encouraged, keeping his voice low and for my ears only. Then, he kissed me lightly on the lips—right there in front of that creep.

  Mark tossed the trunks to the man and winked at him. “We’re heading to the pool.” I followed Mark so closely as we exited the sauna that I nearly tangled my legs with his.

  “How ya doing, babe?” Mark asked when we were alone.

  “I’m wearing a fucking floral washrag over my crotch and I just got ogled by a stranger who was told two ‘hot Americans’ were in the local gay hookup joint.”

  “So you’re doing good?”

  “Fuck you,” I shoved him, then jumped after him when he pulled away. “Don’t leave me,” I said frantically.

  “We’ll do everything together. We’re just here to look and relax.”

  Relax! Relax? RELAX! Laying naked on a random beach on Lake Como was relaxing compared to this. This is me walking on pins and needles—excuse me, walking barefoot over germs and loose fecal matter. This is my nightmare!

  “You did so good. You like being on display. But I won’t let anyone touch you. I’m the only one that gets this,” he said, squeezing my ass. “You can leave at any time. You are in complete control.”

  “Then why do you keep calling me ‘boy’ and commanding me to do things.” As if I have any control!

  “You like it,” he said simply.

  I blushed and the fire of embarrassment coursed through my body, deflating my cock. “That doesn’t mean I want to be here. This place is disgusting.”

  “Shh. Quiet, boy. There’s someone in the pool.” Mark nodded his head to the older gentleman walking in the water. “Boys are meant to be seen, not heard,” Mark said sternly. My cock was back to rock hard.

  Not like I wanted to talk to these people, anyway. As if!

  We waded into the water and I didn’t let Mark get more than five feet away, even when he talked to the greybeard. The older man looked us over and indulged us in conversation. The other man we ‘met’ in the sauna arrived at the pool. My trunks that Mark tossed to the Italian were nowhere in sight—those were the same trunks that Mark had bought for me and I initially complained were too small and too tight... and now that I was in a speedo, I mourned their loss like it had been a beloved pet. I didn’t make eye contact with the sauna man and kept in Mark’s wake.

  A third man arrived in the pool. He, too, was older and apparently knew the other two men because he eagerly spoke to Sauna Man in rapid Italian, using words I hadn’t learned—I hadn’t studied slang or sex talk.

  A fourth man quickly followed the third and eagerly walked in the pool beside us. I clung to Mark’s hand under the water and desperately thought of three different ways I would escape this Hell if the ceiling suddenly collapsed and blocked the main exit.

  “Getting crowded in here,” Mark commented, as cool as a cucumber. The men laughed. Mark had been making small talk with them as we waded by—Mark was always a talker. I was overwhelmed and wanted—needed—to get out of there. I wasn’t shaking, I wasn’t screaming... but I was screaming on the inside.

  I thought of the me from two months ago—that me would never have been caught dead in a gay sauna, much less a gay sauna in a foreign city wearing nothing but a skimpy piece of fabric over my crotch (and just barely covering my butt). Why did I go along with this? Do I really like this?

  “We’re heading to the hot tub. Come along, boy,” Mark said, as if he were tugging an invisible leash that connected us. Mark strode from the pool proudly and didn’t bother to dry the water running off his muscles. He waited for me at the top of the stairs, much more than five feet away. I pleaded with him to hand me a towel so these sharks behind me wouldn’t stare at my ass.

  Mark shrugged and turned away, heading to the hot tub.

  I exhaled loudly and trembled. I was stuck in the water and unable to follow him—Mark, my savior, my protector, my man, the one who said he would never leave me alone.

  I flicked my head sideways and looked at the sharks. One approached. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t escape! I was done. I was about to die.

  “He say you don’t like ta be touched?” the man asked.

  Not touched! Not talked to! Not being here! Not being gay! The fuck am I doing!

  “You can get to the hot tub by swimming through that door,” another man said—it was the man from the sauna. I turned so that I could just see Sauna Man out of the corner of my eye. I tried to hold in my whimper and didn’t dare make eye contact with any of the men.

  I swam/walked past the men quickly, praying that they wouldn’t comment on the bright color of my ‘swimsuit’. If they touched me... I didn’t even pray for them not to touch me... if they touched me, then it would all be over. Screams and tears, that’s what I would be...

  I swam through the small gap in the wall to the hot tub room—the pool traversed the two rooms so there were steps out of the pool and directly into the hot tub. Mark and I had walked past this room earlier, but I had been completely sealed inside my turtle shell. I was normally hyper-observant, but not that night.

  Make it go away! Everything about this place, go away!

  I swam into the shallow steps area an
d looked for Mark. He wasn’t in the hot tub room. The three sharks from the pool room followed me through the gap in the wall, blocking me in this darker room.

  Oh, God. I’m alone and I’m going to die here. Wearing a floral speedo.

  “How ya doin’, boy?” the greybeard asked me. I looked away from him and kept my head down. “Such a handsome boy like you, do you really want to stay with one man? You can explore so much. If I had that body...”

  Thankfully, I didn’t have to listen to what that creepy old man would do if he had my body, because Mark chose that moment to saunter in the room. He had a drink in either hand and a gaggle of admirers following his still glistening body. He looked at me huddled in the corner with an older man on either side. Mark tilted his head—a clear invitation to get out of the pool and walk up the steps to the hot tub. Oh shit. Oh shit, oh shit. I counted seven men who were in the room and looking at us. Two of the men were maybe in their thirties. One of the new, younger men knew the Sauna Man. Sauna Man lifted his hefty weight out of the pool and joined Mark as he got ready to hold court in the hot tub.

  “Boy. Out. Now.” Mark locked eyes with me and I felt the room stare at me, humiliating me. I felt aroused, scared. I wanted to be by Mark and hug him tightly, not barked at like a toddler.

  My neediness won and I stepped out of the water, walking quickly and with a hunched back, trying not to notice the men staring at me. My feet slapped against the concrete. My cock and balls bounced in their tiny fabric holster.

  I navigated around the new men and into the hot tub, then sat with half my body pressed against Mark and I refused to look more than twenty degrees away from him. He wasn’t going to be out of my sight ever again!

  We sank in the water together. Mark handed me a drink... vodka and lemonade. “This man was kind enough to buy us drinks,” Mark said, pointing to a rectangular man sitting with his legs in the hot tub.

  “You weren’t joking. He’s a tight boy,” the geometrically-designed man said. “But he must learn to stand proudly. He has the body. He should be happy to show it off.”

  “I know,” Mark said gruffly. “We’re working on that. Aren’t we, boy?”

  What the fuck are you talking about! What are we working on!!! Nothing. I know nothing of this. OMG. Please let me get out of here alive. Please let me make it back to the United States. I won’t ever do anything bad ever again, please... just let me live.

  Mark scuffed the back of my head. “He must want his discipline in front of you men. We’re working on this shyness, aren’t we boy?” Mark asked again.

  I nodded and gulped. He commanded me to drink my vodka. I took a sip. The men around the tub laughed at me. Mark praised me and wrapped a meaty arm around my shoulders, protectively. I sunk against his arm and clung to him, trying to bury my head in his chest.

  “You weren’t kidding, Fab,” the man who bought the drinks said to the Sauna Man. They shared a look and then wistfully looked at me lying on Mark’s chest. I shivered against my lover and prayed for this to be over. Mark engaged them in conversation. I let it roll over me and kept mute. There was an American in the hot tub. He was in his forties and from New York. Mark laughed and talked with him after they exchanged basic identification information—where we were from, what we were doing in Italy.

  “You boys are much better than the usual fare,” the American said. “And tourists, it’s a shame. The rent boys that show up around here... if they looked like you, we would get more visitors to our sauna.”

  “Leave me the ugly ones,” one of the Italians said. There was then a comment about someone not having any standards and then the conversation spun away into unidentifiable Italian dialect.

  The American displaced the man that was on my right. The first man had been very respectful of my disinterest and Mark’s territorial arm—but the American was not so accommodating. His leg pressed against mine and his hand slid up the front of my body. I gripped Mark and dug my hands into his muscled chest.

  Fight! Fight him off! Kick his ass! Get me out of here!

  Mark was on the case immediately. The arm that was protectively around my body slid down and removed the stranger’s hand from my body. “No touching,” Mark snarled. “My boy will leave if you make him uncomfortable. And I want to stay.” Even though my head was down, I felt the heat of Mark’s stare as he pinned it on the American. My face was pressed against Mark’s chest and my eyes were closed, but I could feel the intensity in his body—every muscle was strung and ready to spring. If Mark had to defend me, he would.

  “Your boy should be better behaved and listen to his dom,” the American said. “No bottom twink would tell me when I could leave.”

  The Sauna Man (oddly) came to my defense: “If the skinny one told you to get your ass out the door and meet him in the alley, you’d do it any time, any day.” The other men laughed.

  “Only because I would want to,” the American agreed. “He’d never get me to do something I didn’t want.”

  “What if he said take me back to Oklahoma and meet your parents?” These guys apparently all knew each other. The men had a good laugh at the American’s expense when he agreed that he could be convinced to leave Italy, for an ass such as mine. I knew that was supposed to be a compliment, but I kept my head down and my eyes averted. Mark stroked my back as I tried not to shiver.

  The man from the sauna, the one they called ‘Fab’, asked us if we wanted more drinks. I had finally lifted my head off my lover’s chest and was slowly observing the crowd, but I had yet to untangle myself from Mark. I shook my head slightly to answer Fab’s question because I remembered how Mark had been so easily drugged that one time we went to a club. I didn’t think I could handle that in Milan... I never wanted to go through that again.

  “Sure,” Mark said, not heeding my head shake or my desperate grip on his hand. “My boy will get mine for me, won’t you, boy?” OH God! I froze. Mark leaned in and kissed the side of my cheek. “You’re doing great, Cheese,” Mark murmured. “Have fun with it. We can leave at any time.”

  I slowly extracted myself from Mark’s limbs. I hovered in the water in front of him, then slowly lifted so my silly speedo emerged from the swirling water—I stared at my lover the entire time. Then I caught my breath and scampered out of the pool, away from the leering gazes in that room.

  I met Fab at the door and he led me to the bar. “What do you think he wants?” Fab asked. I was silent. “Fuck, don’t you talk? Where’s Pao? Still fawning over your boyfriend. He’s the one who ordered drinks first.” Fab waited for me, but I said nothing and waited. “Shit, kid, you’re shivering.”

  Fab disappeared and returned with a towel, which he hung around my shoulders. I dried myself and didn’t acknowledge him.

  “Kid. Are you alright? Is everything okay with you? Is that man... hurting you?” Fab looked at me intently. The barman watched us. I felt like falling in a hole and covering myself with dirt. Fab disappeared again and this time he returned with Mark.

  “Babe,” I heard. “Babe, what’s wrong?”

  Then Mark was around me again and I nuzzled against his neck. “Hey, you were doing so good. I’m so proud of you.” We pulled away and he stared in my eyes. “What’s wrong?” he asked gently.

  I hugged him again. “I’m scared,” I whispered.

  “Nothing to be scared about. You were having fun, too.” I nodded into his skin. “Do you want to go? This was too much?”

  I did want to go. But, oddly, I was thrilled and nervous and my heart was beating wildly from the excitement. I had an incredible mix of emotions to deal with, and I couldn’t sort out what was going on.

  “What’s your name?” Mark asked Fab.

  “Fabio.”

  “See, Fabio here is a nice guy. Isn’t he?” Mark nudged me to look at Fab. Fat. Ugly. Smashed face. Saved my life by finding Mark. I nodded quietly and hugged Mark tighter. “These guys are all here to relax after work. They’re just regular people. Nothing scary. If anything scar
y happens, I’ll beat the shit out of ‘em.” Mark flexed for Fab’s benefit. Fab, bless his poor heart, swooned and offered to order us more drinks.

  Mark caressed me. “It’s up to you, babe,” he whispered.

  “One and done for me,” I whispered back, finding my voice. “We can stay if you want.”

  “Yeah? You want to put on a show for the guys? That get you excited?”

  It did get me excited, and Mark knew it. His knee pressed against my cock. “We’ll be back to the hotel in less than an hour. I’ll finish this drink and we’ll leave. But you’re going to show them that fine ass before we go... no need to run away so quickly when you get out of the pool.”

  Mark took his drink from the bartender and then kissed me deeply. “Let’s knock ‘em dead,” he said confidently. “Keep your head up. They should be more scared of you than you are of them.” He walked back to the hot tub and I followed.

  That doesn’t make any sense at all. I’m in a new country—a new world... of course I’m more scared...

  I very self-consciously followed in Mark’s shadow, keeping my back upright and my head level. Our seats were (unfortunately) still available. There was a half circle of seating off to the side of the hot tub where six guys were chatting happily and lounging. The hot tub could hold a maximum of eight without lap dances. There were six people in the tub, and one of those guys was gigantic, so it was more like six and a half.

  Mark handed me his drink, then he hopped in the water. He slid out of his speedo and tossed the white fabric on the ledge behind our seats, keeping the important bits below water. “It’s nice to be free,” he said to our new ‘friends’. “Drink,” he said commandingly while holding out his hand. I handed him the alcohol, then waded into the tub.

  I kept my back straight and my face neutral. Fab found a seat in the half circle above us and watched from afar. Mark took the seat next to the handsy American. I sat against the wall and pressed against Mark, but managed to engage the man next to me in small talk (and it wasn’t as forced as I expected).

  “You are so handsome,” the man said at one point and held his fingers out as if he might stroke my chin. “I like them younger, but you and your friend are enchanting. I have a large flat not far from here.”