The Blue Cat

by Roland Graeme

  I went inside and found myself in a small, dimly lit vestibule. A cashier’s window took up most of one wall, flanked by two niches set into the masonry. A plaster Madonna and Child adorned the niche to the left, with a flickering votive candle set in front of them. This was typical of Italy, where every whorehouse or other den of iniquity displays crucifixes or images of the Virgin or the saints. Occupying the right-hand niche was the Madonna’s unlikely male and pagan counterpart—a tabletop sized marble resin reproduction of Giambologna’s Neptune, nude, with flowing long hair and beard underneath his crown and wielding his trident, which was made of brass and detachable. He, too, had a candle. Nearby was a poster advocating safe sex. It showed two naked men embracing and kissing.

  A friendly, laid-back young number in a tight-fitting T-shirt and jeans, who put down the paperback book he’d been reading to attend to me, manned the window.

  A few minutes later, I found myself walking down a low-ceilinged, softly lighted corridor, carrying a room key on a wristband and a towel. I’d wondered whether this would be like some of the older bathhouses back home, with their peeling plaster, burned-out lights and overall damp, musty smell. However, once I’d passed through a second door into the inner sanctum of the locker room, I realized that this was an unpretentious sort of establishment, one that was well maintained and immaculately clean. The atmosphere was intimate and relaxing. Soft pleasant music seemed to be all around me, playing just above the threshold of audibility over some sort of built-in sound system.

  I had no idea what the building’s original function might have been. I could not tell if they had altered much of the interior during the conversion to a bathhouse. It was somewhat of a labyrinth, with brick walls everywhere and long narrow hallways leading to the various more open areas.

  As I explored, I encountered about a dozen men wandering around, some of them young, others more mature but obviously well preserved, and many of them very attractive by my standards. They were manly looking, well muscled, with the bath’s white towels tightly wrapped around trim tanned waists. One or two of the patrons I saw were clean-shaven and shorthaired, including one strapping youth who’d shaved his head completely, but some of the others had longer hair, moustaches and even beards.

  Guided by signs with arrows on the walls, I went up a narrow stairway, then turned down another long hall, passing open rooms where men lay on their small beds. Some lay on their stomachs, with firmly-rounded white asses contrasting with the tans on their legs and backs. Other men propped themselves up on pillows against the back walls of their cubicles, legs spread, casually fondling themselves. Men were strolling along in the hallway, moving in and out of soft pools of light, pausing to look into the open doors. There could be no doubt whatsoever that everyone there was looking for sex, but the atmosphere of complete, nonchalant openness, plus the preponderance of virile young bodies, gave me a feeling of anticipation rather than depravity. It was quite unlike the thinly veiled desperation one experienced in a gay pub as closing time approached and the patrons went to any lengths to hook up with one another before last call. Here there was no heavy cruising, no forced laughter, no loud strident voices—in fact, it had been some time since I’d heard any voices at all, only that gentle undercurrent of the piped-in music.

  My cubicle was small and its brick walls lent it an incongruous resemblance to a monastic cell. Near the door, on the wall opposite the bunk-sized bed was a framed mirror, tilted toward the bed and above that, a light fixture controlled by a dimmer. Lying on the bed, you could observe yourself—and any partner you might invite into the room—in action.

  On the wall alongside the bed was a framed photograph depicting two naked bodybuilders fucking. The management presumably meant it to be inspirational, and it certainly had that effect on me.

  I stripped, folded my clothes and tucked them away on a little table beside the bed. I wrapped the towel around my waist and put my room key around my wrist. I dimmed the light fixture until it emitted no more than a discreet glow.

  I sat and relaxed for a moment on the edge of the bed, observing myself in the mirror. If I may be immodest, I didn’t look so bad. My hair was tousled and I had a sex-hungry look on my face.

  I’d left my door open by way of invitation, and it wasn’t long before a young Italian man stopped in the hallway to check me out. He was handsome, in that slightly rough way that always appealed to me, and I encouraged his attentions with a smile.

  “Buona sera. Siete straniero?” Without waiting for me to respond, he switched to lightly accented English. “You must be a foreigner.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “You’re so blond, so fair. Are you an Englishman?”

  “Yes, I’m from London.”

  “You have come all the way from London! I live here, in San Floriano.”

  “Do you come here to the baths often?”

  “Once a week. And you? Is this your first time here?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourself. I’m going downstairs to the steam rooms. Would you like to join me?”

  “I’d be delighted to.”

  Back in the hallway, with my towel still modestly wrapped around my waist and the elastic band of the key around my wrist, I followed my new acquaintance to the steam rooms. There were small signs on the wall that indicated they were downstairs. I found myself in a long narrow room. At one end, a door let to the dry sauna. At the other was the entrance to the wet steam room. Two naked men were standing there in this antechamber, towelling themselves. Both men looked up as we came in, studying my companion and me openly, making no attempt to disguise the fact that they were appraising us sexually.

  I had the feeling I was moving into, becoming part of, some fantasy, far removed from the humdrum world that still existed outside these walls. Some semblance of reality lingered, even here. I was real and my body was real, the men watching me were real and our mutual desire was undeniably real. Yet there was a dreamlike quality to our activities, as though we were all drugged, floating just beneath the surface of full consciousness.

  There was a long railing secured to the brick wall, which was damp with condensation. I knew that few patrons of bathhouses retained their towels for long once they entered the steam room. Therefore, I shed mine and added it to the display. So did my new friend.

  “Wet or dry?” my guide asked.

  “Wet, I think.”

  We pushed open the door that led to the wet steam room. Immediately, a dense cloud of hot mist, saturated with moisture, enveloped us.

  We were relaxing nude on one of the tiers of wooden platforms and in fact had begun to caress each other intimately, before my companion and I finally got around to exchanging names. He was Carlo, and he wasn’t shy about telling me what he liked to do with another man.

  “Ah, you have a nice big dick. Would you like me to suck it for you?”

  “Please be my guest.”

  “Jerk mine while I suck yours,” he suggested.

  I did so. He was very skilful with his mouth.

  “Now suck mine while I jerk yours.”

  I obeyed. His hand was equally adept.

  “Now we will suck each other.”

  Carlo was kind of bossy, but it was an enjoyable bossiness, which I could live with. We had been sixty-nining for some time and our bodies were flushed red from the heat and wet with sweat, when the two men we’d seen before came into the room and joined us. At first, they limited themselves to putting their hands on various parts of our bodies as Carlo and I continued to blow each other. Their light caresses added to my pleasure and I did nothing to discourage them.

  Soon things began to get interesting. One of these gentlemen announced that he liked to take two cocks in his mouth at once and he demonstrated this ability on the three of us in all of the possible combinations. First Carlo and I formed a pair, then Carlo and the third guy and finally the third guy and I. In each case, th
e avid fellator used his hand to press the two cockshafts in question tightly together, then he worked his wide-stretched mouth up and down on both of them at once.

  Next, all four of us got into a circle jerk. My three companions all declared their desire to come. As excited as I was, I didn’t want to ejaculate so soon. I suggested that they get into a bukkake scene, with me as the target.

  These Italians had never heard the term bukkake, but with gestures and a few terse words, I was able to get the general idea across to them. They seemed intrigued by the concept.

  Soon I was lying on my back on the platform, with Carlo and the other two men kneeling beside me, aiming their pricks at me as they masturbated in a fury. It became a playful contest to see which of them could shoot first. Carlo won. He sprayed me with an awesome outpouring of thick wet semen. Grunting, cursing, the other two blokes fired their seminal volleys onto me as well, one after the other. I lay there drenched.

  I excused myself, retrieved my towel and went in search of the shower room. It was nearby. There were three men under the showers, one of them with an erection, the other two well on the way to mimicking him. We cruised one another as we exchanged pleasantries.

  I showered, then went exploring again and soon got lost. I could hear voices and other noises coming from the far end of a hallway. I went in search of the origin of the sounds. I turned a corner, pushed open a door and found myself in a dimly lit space. It was an orgy room, and on a low platform bed that took up most of the floor space was the most intricate jumble of naked bodies I had seen in some time, six or seven men, sucking each other, masturbating each other, caressing each other. Slightly apart from the main pileup, two longhaired men had twisted their bodies into an embrace, kissing passionately, apparently oblivious to the two others who knelt before them, both faces buried in the kissing men’s crotches, heads bobbing in unison.

  I noticed that high up on one wall near the ceiling were small open spaces in the brickwork. Steam was coming from these apertures. It formed a cloud under the ceiling and from this hovering indoor fog bank, hot drops descended like a fine rain. A black rubber-fitted bottom sheet covered the mattress on the platform bed, which was wet and slippery from the combination of the drizzling mist and the mingled sweat of the naked bodies writhing on top of it. I’d never seen an orgy room quite like this one. It gave new meaning to the phrase “wet and wild.”

  I stood observing at first, leaning back against the warm slick wall, watching the men on the bed and feeling my own cock beginning to rise. The sight was engrossing—there was no other word to describe it. It was the embodiment of total sexual freedom.

  The door I had come through opened and I glanced sideways—and felt my heart suddenly pause, skipping a beat, then rise up into my throat. The man who stood there in the doorway, naked except for the towel wrapped around his waist, was tall, broad shouldered, lightly tanned, with wet-curled black hair matted over his muscular belly and chest. His long black hair almost brushed his shoulders and he wore a neatly trimmed, shining black moustache and goatee. At the risk of being irreverent, it was almost as though a divinity—and a Christian one, not necessarily Neptune—had deigned to descend among us mortals and join in our revels. The dim lighting and the steam drifting through the air conspired to conceal his true identity from me for a moment. It was only when he looked at me and smiled that I recognized him as none other than Rick!

  He approached me. “Hello, stranger,” he said, facetiously. “Are you new in town?”

  I matched his tone. “Yes, I just got off the bus.”

  “Well, welcome to San Floriano. I’m the reception committee. A one-man reception committee, here to take care of your every need.”

  “How nice. What I need right now is some information. You see, I’ve heard there’s this place here in town called The Blue Cat.”

  “Yes, it’s rather notorious.”

  “Notorious? For what?”

  “For its owner’s behavior. He’s been known to frequent dens of iniquity like this one.”

  “I can’t say I’ve seen too much iniquity taking place in here so far tonight. Just a lot of men having themselves a good time.”

  “Are you having a good time?”

  “So far.”

  “Good. Is this your first time here at the tubs?”

  “Yes.”

  “I treat myself to a visit here about once a month. It helps to relieve my tension…and it keeps me sane.”

  “Sanity is good. Although going a little crazy, every now and then…that never hurt anybody.”

  “Yeah. I know what you mean. Did you get a room here?”

  “Yes. Did you?”

  “No, just a locker.”

  “Would you like to go to my room so we can get a little crazy together?” Even as I asked the question, I couldn’t believe my boldness. I hadn’t been quite so direct with Rick during any of our previous encounters, but this was a bathhouse, after all, where formality would have been a waste of time.

  “Sure,” Rick replied, easily. “Or…we could just stay here. Sometimes I like to have an audience. How about you?”

  “Me, too.” By now, I was so hot for Rick, so eager to be with him sexually, that I was willing to take him on any terms whatsoever. If he’d suggested that the two of us get it on together in San Floriano’s main piazza, in the blaze of noon, with the whole town watching, I’d have agreed to it!

  He raised his hand and rested it on my shoulder, giving it a light caress. He continued by running that hand up the side of my neck, which made me shiver, and finally he stroked my chin and cheek. One of his fingertips grazed the corner of my mouth.

  “Let’s have ourselves some fun,” he whispered. “And show these dudes how it’s done.”

  My heart was pounding insanely as he drew me into a dark corner, then turned to face me. By then I could feel the hot steam collecting all over my body, my pores opening, sweat seeping out and merging with the hot droplets of steam, the combined moisture beginning to inch downward in trickling rivulets. His hands took my arms and pulled me toward him and our bodied pressed together, slick and warm. He reached for my face and held it cupped in his hands as he brought his lips down to mine, pressing his tongue gently between them. I shuddered deliciously, feeling that fantastic energy unique to sexual arousal flushing through my entire body. I was glad I hadn’t come yet. I had saved myself for Rick. Judging by how I felt, he was going to coax quite a load from me, in one way or another. I abandoned myself to him. I opened my mouth as clasped him to me, meeting his tongue with my own.

  I couldn’t see them too clearly, but I sensed men slowly gathering around us—touching us, watching us. Some of them were breathing hard as they masturbated. I felt hands on my leg, creeping upward like little animals. Fingers found my balls and others wrapped themselves around my cock, tugging it, stretching it, kneading it. I could feel Rick’s cock hard against my stomach—it felt huge. A mouth took the head of my dick, sucked it avidly, swallowing, tugging my cock into a fleshy sheath of wet heat. Hands worked over my stomach and back, down my spine, gripped the cheeks of my ass. A finger rubbed over my sphincter, then penetrated me. Rick kept on kissing me, ever more passionately. My body became pure sensation—no longer merely a body, but a tingling, burning mass of restless agitation.

  Rick broke our kiss and smiled at me. His hands on my shoulders were now urging me downward and I lowered myself slowly and carefully, twisting as I did, the anonymous mouth on my cock following all the way down. I pressed my face against Rick’s wet muscular body, slipping down his slick hairy chest and his stomach until at last I could feel the thick head of his cock touching my cheek. I grasped his tight buttocks and turned my head slowly until the head of his cock rested warmly against my lips. In the gloom of the orgy room, his cock seemed incredibly long and thick. As I took it into my mouth, it seemed to relax suddenly, to remain firm, but without being totally hard—just limber enough to bend and accommodate its
elf to each curve of my lips and mouth and tongue. My pulse pounded in my veins. His cock became more than a cock. It became the most personal extension of his perfect body, the conduit for an ultimate unspoken communication between us. I wanted to make love to him, using my mouth on his penis to express myself, in a way I had never made love to anyone, ever. I wanted to make him feel the same dizzying rapture I was feeling. I wanted to take him into me, to make that part of his body also a part of my own. I urged my head closer and closer toward his groin and the fat head of his supple cock inched teasingly toward the back of my mouth—slid down into my throat. I experienced no discomfort, no gagging—only a hot lust to keep that cock in my mouth and throat. Sensations of pure desire engulfed me. He was moaning above me, his hands clutching my shoulders, his hips starting a gentle tentative thrusting.

  Oh, how I wished I could have sucked him and been able to speak at the same time! Yes! Yes, Rick! I wanted to say. Give me your cock. Give me all of it…fuck my face with that big beautiful hard thing! Fuck my face until you shoot! Oh, give me your hot cum…let me feel it pouring into me! Drown me in it!

  As though he could read my mind, he was fucking my face. Not roughly, although I would’ve enjoyed that, but slowly and deliberately, as though he was trying to prolong the pleasure for both of us. With each slow controlled drive his dick made in and out of my mouth and throat, that hot flame smouldering away deep within me blazed up higher and hotter, until it seemed that my body could not possibly contain it without melting.

  “Stop, oh stop,” I heard Rick plead.

  He pulled his cock free from my voracious lips. I drew badly-needed moisture-laden air down into my lungs.

  Rick lifted me up and kissed me again, pressing his tongue into my mouth where his cock had been. His hands slid down my back to my ass. One slick finger travelled down into the crack and touched the tight opening hidden there. He twisted me slowly against him, rotating my body in his embrace, running his tongue down my neck, over my shoulders, then down my spine.