Heart Knot Mine

by Lily Velden

  In my mind, I likened Robert to the angler and me the fish. By leaving me the key to his home movies, I felt as if he’d thrown out a line to snare me, but in moments of honesty, I knew it was me who had leaped out of the water and impaled myself on his hook.

  Each movie featured Robert with a different man, and I was glad of that. For reasons I couldn’t—wouldn’t—explain, even to myself, I didn’t want him attached to any of the men he fucked.

  We’d fallen into the habit of Skyping on an almost daily basis. Some days that meant staying late to accommodate his teaching schedule.

  I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind at all. I was getting to know him, which made my viewing of his movies an even greater invasion. Despite the guilt and regret I experienced after each failure in my resolve, I still ended up succumbing the next time. I couldn’t seem to help myself. I was addicted to him. The way I clock-watched from four onward made me feel like a student again—I couldn’t wait to hear the ping of an incoming message.

  I found myself hungry for any and all information about him, eagerly absorbing any snippet revealed by his colleagues or Mrs. Higginbotham when we shared what was fast becoming our regular late-afternoon-cum-early-evening cup of tea.

  It didn’t take me long to learn he was out and proud. Unapologetically so. I discovered he was unfailingly honest, when perhaps a white lie might have been more acceptable to the listener. According to Mrs. Higginbotham, he was kind, loyal, and generous to a fault, and couldn’t stomach bullshit or pretentious crap. I didn’t need anyone to tell me he was brilliant at his job—that was obvious from the way his students positively revered him. His colleagues respected him, though there were a few among them who, I sensed, resented him. People seemed to either love or loathe him.

  Me, I was endlessly fascinated by him.

  COLLAPSING IN my office chair, I stretched my arms out before me and dropped the stack of essays on my desk. I opened the top drawer, trying to locate my pad of Post-it notes. I scrounged and scrounged, but couldn’t lay my hands on them. Concluding they must have fallen down the back to the drawer beneath, I pulled the entire drawer out. The one below was overflowing with Robert’s things that he’d apparently shoved in there to provide me with an empty drawer for my office supplies.

  I found my Post-its.

  I also found a business card for a gay sauna and bathhouse.

  The card joined Robert in haunting my dreams, taunting me with images I didn’t want to be turned on by. Images that scared me and made me almost sick with arousal.

  A gay bathhouse. I’d heard of them… and now I’d Googled them. Googled this specific bathhouse. I could scarcely believe the gossip and innuendo I’d heard about such establishments was true… more than true. Did men really visit these places… engage in such acts with complete strangers? And in front of an audience?

  And why was my dick hard at the idea?

  AFTER PAYING for my cider, I stepped outside and took a seat at one of the pub’s sidewalk tables. The metal seat of the chair felt cool against my jeans-clad butt, and I shivered, rewrapping my scarf around my throat and then drawing my jacket more firmly about my body. It might be the first day of spring, but winter wasn’t quite ready to relinquish her hold yet.

  It was a quaint pub, the way so many were in England, even in the heart of the city. The façade was painted black, a startling backdrop for the hanging baskets suspended from its eaves which were overflowing with a profusion of pink and white flowers interspersed with ivy. Tall terra-cotta pots, brimming with the same flowers, stood like sentinels by each of the entries. England might be a small country, but it was rich in history. It could be found on every street corner; something ancient nestled between something modern wherever you looked. I loved it.

  I’d partaken of many tours on the weekends as part of my research for the student-exchange manual I was required to draft upon my return to Chicago, the most interesting being a walking pub tour run by an aspiring actor named Garry. It was Garry who introduced me to cider while regaling me with tales about each of the historic pubs we visited. He’d made me laugh with his story about Churchill during World War II. According to Garry, Churchill famously declared in the midst of the bombing of London that should there be a pub on a street that was on fire, it should be the first building saved. Apparently, without their pubs the community would lose morale! He was probably right—the English certainly enjoyed a pint or two.

  My study of the bar complete, I did what I’d really come for: I cased the bathhouse.

  Not that I admitted that to myself. No, I just happened to decide to be having a drink at a pub at least twenty minutes from where I lived, when there were umpteen bars between my front doorstep and this one. And, of course, it just happened to be on the same street as a gay sauna whose name and address had haunted my every moment for the past week—sleeping or awake.

  Self-deception… such a powerful thing.

  I just happened to notice its entrance was discreet—no one would ever guess the whole other world hidden behind its sedate façade.

  And I also just happened to notice, while I sat and watched and sipped my cider, that several men entered.

  I didn’t know what I expected, but their… normalcy wasn’t it. What had I expected? Raving queens dressed flamboyantly à la Priscilla, Queen of the Desert? Butch men with shaved heads, clad in leather? Young, boyish-looking men being led in by sugar daddies? Perhaps… okay, yes. The stereotypes had proliferated. I certainly hadn’t expected to see men who resembled me, who looked like the men I worked with, my neighbors, teammates, sparring partners.

  My stomach sank. My “research” hadn’t helped me cure myself of my addiction… no, it hadn’t helped one iota.

  And same as my feelings toward Robert were ambivalent, so too were mine for the bathhouse and its patrons. I alternated between resenting them for the way they aroused me and wanting to thank them for reawakening me.

  THE MORE I thought about Robert, the more I felt trapped in my life, my safe, always-do-the-right-thing, conventional life. I was like a caged bird. And like a caged bird, my song was a stifled, watered-down trill. I wanted to be free. I yearned to sing with wild abandon, my song an honest and true reflection of me.

  The problem was, I wasn’t sure what my song was. All I knew was that I longed to escape the labels. I didn’t want my whole life defined by a label, especially one given to me rather than one I’d chosen for myself.

  I was petrified of finding out exactly what my tune should be—there was no denying it—but no matter how terrifying, I wanted the unknowable. At least I’d be my own man.

  But wanting and finding the courage to act were two different things.

  And so I stalked the bathhouse in much the same way I stalked Robert in his home movies. Week after week, I sat outside the pub and watched the entrance, watched it with almost the same intensity as I did Robert in action.

  I knew it was only a matter of time before I succumbed to my weakness, or depending on how you looked at it, found the strength to breach this next hurdle.

  6

  MY STOMACH muscles clamped down as they fought against the nest of vipers writhing in my belly. I couldn’t decide if they were seeking their freedom via my belly button or my esophagus. All I knew was my body was too small and too rigid to contain them. I wanted them to leave my body. They made me feel ill.

  My head was too full and overflowing, my limbs too heavy. I couldn’t hold onto a single thought. Hell, I couldn’t hold on to the smallest of breaths.

  I was more nervous, strung tighter than I’d ever been for any exam I’d sat for or job interview I’d attended. What was I thinking? What on earth was I doing? Did I really want to open this can of worms?

  While my mind tied me in knots, my legs hastily carried me of their own volition across the road with my head down and shoulders hunched.

  While my inhibitions crippled me, my hand acted of its own accord and turned the doorknob that would take me into a foreign w
orld… a gay world.

  I hesitated with my hand still on the doorknob, unable to resist, quickly scanning up and down the street, needing to make sure no one I knew was around to witness what I was about to do. Seeing no one I recognized, I gave the door a small push.

  After stepping inside the discreet entrance to the bathhouse, I paused and took a deep breath, scanning the room. The first thing that struck me was how quiet it was. Other than some softly playing generic background music, I couldn’t hear a thing. It was only as that information registered that I realized I had anticipated hearing something.

  The room appeared innocent enough, with a rather plain wooden reception desk immediately in front of me and some comfy-looking armchairs and coffee tables to my left. Glancing behind the reception desk, down a long corridor, I could see a sliver of what appeared to be a bar. To my right, beyond the L-shaped desk, was a closed door I assumed led to the rest of the complex—to the areas that made me in equal parts nervous and excited.

  The guy at reception wasn’t what I expected, though what I’d expected was somewhat vague—I just knew a six-foot-four hulk of a guy with a shaved head and pierced ear through which he’d hooked a dangling, almost chandelierlike earring, wasn’t it. My gaze traveled down to his thickly muscled chest, covered by a tight white T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase “I’m only here for the spa and sauna.”

  I smiled, the tension flowing out of my limbs. At least the management had a sense of humor.

  Still feeling very unsure of myself, I slowly approached the guy, who watched me with an amused grin on his face. He was, it seemed, an expert at spotting newcomers.

  “Let me guess,” he began with a big, rather toothy grin. “You’re only here for the spa and sauna.”

  “Yes,” I squeaked. Hell, I sounded like a pussy. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Yes, I am.”

  “First time at a bathhouse?” At my nod, he continued, “Thought so. Okay, I’ll give you the rundown, then. Entry is fifteen quid, and that gives you free run of the place. If you want a massage, though, you’d be better off booking and paying for it now, ’cause I can combine it with the entry fee, and that’ll save you a tenner. It’d be fifty quid for both.” He raised his eyebrow at me questioningly, and like an obedient child, I retrieved my wallet from my overcoat pocket and handed him a fifty-pound note.

  “Great. How about I book you in with Sven for about twenty minutes from now—that’ll give me time to show you around and for you to have a quick shower.”

  Once again, I nodded. After ringing up my fee on the cash register and making a quick call to Sven, he motioned for me to follow him, pausing to grab a folded white towel from the shelf by the door that led to the scary bits of the establishment.

  “Okay, continuing on. Straight ahead, as you can see, is our bar. We charge standard pub prices. It’s very popular. You can stay here for up to twelve hours and do whatever you like, as many times as you like, but if you need an extra towel it’ll be 50p.” He smiled at me knowingly. All I could do was gape. Twelve hours? My mind boggled.

  “There’s a heated pool, a twenty-person spa, two saunas—each capable of housing about twenty to twenty-five guys—and a dozen triple-hole glory holes.” He paused to gauge my reaction to the last bit of information. I tried to look blandly back at him, but his smile told me I failed miserably.

  He stopped at a bank of lockers and passed me a key on a black lanyard. “This is your locker. Generally, you’d make a pit stop here first, strip your gear off, and then head to the showers, which are just through there.” He motioned to a set of double doors at the end of the long corridor of lockers. “We encourage all the men to shower first. Just common courtesy to start your visit off all squeaky clean, wouldn’t you say?” he inquired, winking at me broadly.

  And again, I merely nodded.

  My silence seemed to amuse him—he gave me a beaming smile. He led me in the opposite direction to the showers. “Through here are the private rooms. Anyone can use these. They have locks so you can keep it, um, private and intimate, but if you want something a little more exclusive that no one else can use, you can get a deluxe room for two hours for an extra three quid.”

  He looked at me over his shoulder, his eyebrow quirked.

  “That won’t be necessary,” I murmured shyly. “I’m just here for the—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. You’re just here for the spa and sauna.” He proceeded down the corridor, pointing things out as he went. “As you can see there’s screens playing porn pretty much everywhere, and if you do end up feeling adventurous, we even have a sling room. There’s also a mile of mirrors. They’re in every room, by the pool and spa, and so on.”

  “Right. Great.”

  He laughed at my attempt at nonchalance. “I’m Vince, by the way, and if you have any questions, or if you need anything, I’ll be here until ten. After that, Terry will be on. I’ll lead you back to your locker. The massage room is the door off to the left at the end of the shower block.”

  Upon reaching my locker, I turned to him. “Thanks, Vince. I’m Noah—”

  Before I could finish my sentence, he’d placed his index finger over my parted lips. “Sweetie, you really are new to this, aren’t you? No names. Everyone here is ‘cutie,’ or ‘sweetcheeks,’ or ‘honey bun.’” He chuckled. “Or, if you’re feeling generous, ‘stud’ or ‘big boy.’ If you want to hook up with someone outside these walls, you can swap names and phone numbers, but within these walls no one needs to know your name unless you want them to.”

  Heat flared in my cheeks at my stupidity.

  Vince sighed. “Sweetie, you are too adorable. The boys are going to love you. Watch they don’t eat you all up on your first night.”

  With those words, he sauntered off, leaving me to shed my many layers of clothing. Feeling a little shy, I quickly draped a towel around my hips. My body was nothing to be ashamed of—years of tae kwon do had kept me trim and toned, but by no means did I have bulging biceps or thighs. At five ten, I was neither tall nor short, but in truth, it wasn’t my height or build I was worried about. It was my dick. In the brief tour Vince gave me, I couldn’t help noticing that every guy in the porn flicks showing on the multitude of screens had a huge cock. Mine was only seven and a bit inches, which I’d previously thought was a respectable length, but compared to the monsters they sported, it was a mere tadpole.

  What does it matter? You’re only here for the spa and sauna….

  Walking through the double doors to the shower area, I copied what the other men had done and left my towel on the slatted wooden bench opposite the bank of showerheads. Feeling the gaze of several men on me, I broke out in a sweat. It was just as well I was about to rinse off.

  I made quick work of washing myself, keeping my gaze trained on the tiles in front of me or down by my feet. None of the other occupants of the shower seemed to feel the need to avoid staring. I could feel their gazes running over every inch of my body, lingering on my groin and butt. No one seemed to mind the less than humongous size of my bundle. In fact, several offered to show me the way to the sauna or spa—I politely declined.

  I must have “newbie” tattooed in neon across my forehead.

  Sven, it turned out, lived up to his Scandinavian name. He was at least six foot four and built like a Norse god. At the sight of him in his tight tank and skimpy shorts, which did absolutely nothing to conceal either his bulging muscles or his equally bulging package, my fears returned, and with them, the nest of snakes trying to escape via my belly button.

  As it turned out, my fears were unwarranted. He had me start the massage on my back, thoroughly kneading everything but my cock, before he urged me to turn over. Other than him spending more time massaging the globes of my ass than any massage therapist I’d previously visited, he was the soul of propriety. My dick and crack remained virgin territory. Well, at least as far as other men were concerned.

  My pulse might have been thundering and my breath leaving me in sh
ort pants, but my limbs felt so loose and relaxed, I loped rather than walked to the nearest sauna. The steam was quite thick, and at first I could hardly see a thing. I paused just inside the entryway, trying to gain my bearings, but before I could, a figure loomed before me, blocking my view of the room.

  “Need a hand, cutie?”

  He reminded me of Robert with his height and long lanky build. His chest, like Robert’s, was lightly muscled but strong looking, his torso flat, but it was mostly the way he held himself that made me think of my teaching counterpart—the effortless confidence, the ease he felt in his own skin. He was sexy, and he knew it.

  “I’m just here for the spa and sauna,” I croaked.

  “Sure you are. That’s why your cock is as hard as one of the stone pillars holding this joint up. We all say that the first time. And this is your first time, isn’t it?”

  I nodded, despite willing myself not to. I was mortified to see he was right—I was rock hard.

  “Guys like you come here all the time. Men who tell themselves they’re straight, but they have this curiosity, this need to know what it’s like to be with another man. To have a guy suck their dick, maybe slide his cock up their arse. It haunts them day and night. It won’t go away. Maybe they don’t like their curiosity, perhaps it scares them, but it’s an itch they just have to scratch. I was once that guy, so I’ll give you the same bit of advice I was given: leave your hang-ups and inhibitions at the front door. They have no place here.”

  With those words, he moved behind me, and with one practiced move, he relieved me of my towel and slung it over his shoulder. I could feel it against my shoulder blade as he pressed against me, same as I could feel the texture of his towel mashed against my bare buttocks. I swallowed, my heart thundering.