Primal salt from the sea of me.
Chapter Ten
Constellations of Pleasure
Pluto, Neptune. Neptune, Pluto. Our two fathers were also brothers. As they were immortal, surely Mother’s wasn’t the only quim they had both deigned to dip their celestial wicks into. I wonder how many other related whelps they had unceremoniously sired? Brothers begetting brothers. Barring some truly unimaginable mishap, we are the last of our line, at least. I’m pretty sure Mother was past birthing age to give the world another pup. I can’t imagine her plumbing, so frequently and consistently plumbed, could host anything more than another watery shot of senatorial sperm. But who knows what happened after I was whisked away from the Baths of Caracalla? Did she mourn me? Did days pass before my absence was even noticed? Did she have the slaves scour the city to see if I had taken up with some pale pathicus who had lured me to his home with the promise of a well-stocked library? Not that I dwell on such thoughts. I cannot. Really, my all-empowering thirst is my sole compass. I have no need to ruminate. When these moments arise, it is usually after I have banqueted on a bouquet of cock. Satiated, the mind wanders, but it always loops back to the essential task at hand. Scratch that. Not hand; I rarely use my hands. The essential task at mouth. My impious mouth, needing to be filled, pummeled—a thirst never to be extinguished.
Oh, how the gods dole out their gifts.
Incest came quite naturally to my brother and me. At no point did we have a moment’s hesitation, a second thought about using one another’s bodies for pleasure. The gods have always fucked each other, fucked their own with a rutting, blind abandon that titillated the mortals who worshiped us, served us, so it makes perfect sense to me that one of us remains to serve them. Though it so enraged Father, seeing his son teething on human penis, I can’t help but think his response was prophetic. For sometimes, when I travel far into the future, I have no sense of the immortal. I feel, then, that I am the only such being left. Yet loneliness doesn’t assail me. I never long for fellow beings. I never flag, for a forest of dick awaits always. I scale them all with my tongue, never looking back, never thinking that my supposedly astonishing lineage makes me too important to grovel. The opposite is true: I grovel like a god. All that I give, I give without any thought toward compensation. I give with the kindness that begets worlds and moons, stars even. That work can only be accomplished on your knees.
My travels do seem constrained, as unbelievable as that seems. I sense barely conceivable boundaries. For instance, I rarely call on the bathhouses of ancient Greece and never earlier periods. Likely, none existed prior. Moving forward, if something lies beyond the electric age, with its mesmerizing cell phones and ubiquitous music, I’ve yet to discover it. One time, however, I did slip though a strange curtain, beads of plastic that dissipated with my touch into silvery sparks of nothingness. Though completely dark, I could somehow see the outline of the men passing through the corridor. All were naked, honed, and muscled. Or not. Each body shape was the perfection of design. Some possessed tiny cocks locked within cages of shocking black light, others sprouted huge, engorged members that shot upward, veritable spears of flesh. This was a new adventure, but one that I was up to, so I joined the groping line of men. Every time the path turned, new subtle scents wafted through the air, laden with nearly indiscernible chemicals. Everyone took rhythmic, deep breaths. Apprehensions melted away. Lust simmered.
In one room, men stood patiently in line, tugging on their cocks or absentmindedly fingering a nipple. Curious, I got in line. The wall before us was lined with large, mouth-like openings. Men stepped into these seemingly organic pink, radiant maws and were immediately swallowed whole. From behind this wall of apertures, I heard orgasmic cries and panting. Before I had time to decide if this was an avenue I wanted to pursue, my turn before the mouth came, the line of men behind me restless, shifting foot to foot, so I stepped in.
A lolling, endless tongue conveyed me forward as the fleshy interior pressed down. Rather than feel claustrophobic, I felt welcomed, embraced, likely the effect of the vapors I continued to be exposed to. Undulating fingers rose from the conveyor-tongue and expertly massaged my shoulders and the soles of my feet. I felt an exploratory nub rub at my ass, and I squeezed my sphincter shut in response while opening my mouth wide, to test just how well this device could intuit my tastes.
A small, probing penis-shaped projectile extended from the surface above and tapped on my tongue, as if it were seeking permission to enter. I nodded assent and gave it a tentative swallow. Sure enough, it stiffened into a more traditional cock shape: the ridged flange, the plump undercarriage of a heavy cock, my favorite contour. So supported in this womblike atmosphere, I curled into a natal ball and teethed and sucked, parting my lips as wide as possible to signal to the machine that I was open to its most advantageous offerings. Soon I felt the head of the simulated penis expand at the slit, so I focused my attention there as a generous amount of ambrosia-like semen flowed forth. The tip of the cock divided in my mouth as it grew, until my tongue was wrestling with a two-headed serpent. The wonder of which elicited a surprising orgasm of my own, which was vacuumed up by a thousand tentacle-like minuscule penises. Normally, I would have worried that the potency of my spunk would gum up the unseen machinery, but I was so comfortable that I stretched and yawned instead, spreading my legs and opening my hands. The funnel responded by playfully lacerating me with countless cock. Elsewhere, I could hear men moan in pleasure, laugh in surprise, cry out in ecstasy. Eventually the lot of us were deposited into a series of interconnected tubs bubbling over with a variety of colors and subtle sensations. This black room was seemingly endless, with men leaping from one pool to another. Though I couldn’t sense the ceiling, I imagine anyone looking down would see constellations of pleasure.
Men have their gifts as well.
Chapter Eleven
The Pounding Hearts of Suns
Obviously, I think a lot about time.
In the past, time was frequently measured by sand. The Egyptians invented the hourglass, or clepsammia, as it was called in my youth. We had one in our kitchen. One of my tutors carried it with him from house to house—a large, comical thing to keep his students on task. Sand. Sun-bleached bits of bone and shell ground into fine sediment over the eons. Deserts and beaches are really vast and deep bone yards. And the metaphor is far from apt. If I have learned anything in my travels, it is that time is water. Trust me. I know. I follow the flow, expunged from one filthy hollow and into another by oceanic forces. The darkness that presses bone into sand, that greedily clasps the stars, is a tidal thing. That, my friends—and we are friends now, right? I mean, we have seen each other naked and all—is what I ride: the aquatic tides of time. The contours, the push and pull of galactic waves, is by now completely familiar to me and yet awe inspiring. Please understand I have tasted it, it clings to my body when I enter whatever new scene I am meant to explore. In addition, just like the sand on the shore, it tastes of salt. The salt limned from countless bodies. Animal into mineral. This is the river of life. And isn’t this what we do with our mouths? Taste what life offers, until we, too, dissipate, and join the loam? Foaming, roaring and then quiet, still and black beneath every star that has existed or will exist.
Therefore, I say to you, new friends, run to the river with me.
* * *
Having departed a nondescript, rather barren bathhouse in an unidentifiable era, I again slid through the watery whirlpool of time. Frothy waves pulled me toward my next destination, and even before my wet feet hit the slippery tiled floor, I was elated, having heard the familiar silvery tinkle of what I had long ago been able to identify as “disco” music. I was back. At some point in history, man discovered the ability to capture and record the music of the spheres. The celestial sounds, the circular rhythm of planets and moons and explosive comets, the pounding hearts of suns, were a vibrant part of the bathhouses in New York City and San Francisco. Eventually, these waves of s
ound became ubiquitous; I knew I had landed in some far future land by how the beat coursing through the air matched the beat of my heart. But of course, my heart beat fastest when I arrived in that new Rome of free men, New York. How that city was lit like the heavens. No wonder these mortals were able to capture and display such vivacious sounds as well. As much as I have marveled at the cultural differences I encounter while traipsing through these glorious grottos, none make me so happy as when I visited the Continental Baths. In a word, these boys know how to party.
* * *
Exiting the steam room, I grabbed a dainty, discarded towel and made my way to the dance floor. A gyratory ball of mirrors spewed slivers of throbbing delight across a bouncing bevy of boys and men. The music was both dirty and divine, and it summoned from within my bacchanal desires to dance. Ecstasy swept across every face, some with eyes closed in deep contemplation, others staring toward the silver center of the cosmic orb that spun above. An orgy of movement, of seductive, joyous celebration, the scent of liberated sweat, hands on each other’s hips, kissing strangers, lovers, friends, all beneath the glittering rubric of musical joy. For thousands of years prior, the sauna was an escape, and with this new foundation, it became a destination.
I joined in.
I dove into the crowd as if they were the priestesses of my mother’s divine cult. How they danced to similar drums, the moon was their disco ball, the flutes and drums commanding their feet in similar fashion. Obsidio and I spied on their midnight ministry from behind the fallen columns of a forgotten temple to Cylene that bordered the family villa in Baiae. I danced. We danced, these men took me up in their arms, hip to hip, we danced, and fingers gracefully traced my shoulders and up and down my spine and soon my towel was off, and an erection bounced against my shimmying ass. I turned to find my suitor tall, a mass of red hair exploding from out of his towel and roaring up his broad chest into a fiery maze. He wore glasses, steamed from the soup of body heat that stewed on the dance floor. He leered down as I stroked his thickening penis through threadbare towel, and he pulled me in the direction of the cabins. However, a younger, handsome man with dark skin put his hand on my shoulder insistently; his lithe form all muscle and movement, the light playing off his body outlined anatomical perfection. My initial paramour, now wide-eyed, quietly begged me to stay on the dance floor. I reached beneath the other towel as well and gave his impressive member a gentle tug. It was slippery and exciting, a silky length of cord I desperately wished for him to drop down my throat slowly, inch by inch. I would dance with them both privately and willed it so. The other man nodded in eager assent. I kept my hands on their cocks as we first wove between the other dancers to join the more elaborate dance within the dark, labyrinthine hallways. Here men posed to impress upon passersby their preferred positions. Cabin doors were opened to reveal men on their stomachs or up on their backs, legs spread. Men all ready to mount or be mounted. The air was thick with the fog of amyl nitrate and beery breath, with a lingering undercurrent of semen cooling on the sticky cement floor. Both men kept close with me in between, as if I were a prisoner being marched to his cell, and the slim room was cell-like. An amber light bulb lent a dusky battlefield air to the confined quarters as we piled in and shut the door behind us. I squatted down, planning to spend my time pivoting back and forth between the serpents released before me, but as I licked Red’s shaft, Night leaned over my head to kiss Red, who returned the kiss with a surprised fervor. Night lifted me up and placed the head of his cock within the notch of my now-spread legs. I wrapped my arms around Red’s waist as his penis plunged down my throat and Night entered me from behind. As their parries and thrusts found a rhythm within my being, I felt as if their sword tips might clash, igniting internal sparks that would fly out of the corners of my eyes, choked out from around the large muscle filling my mouth, drip from my nose and pool on the floor like moonlight on still waters. Night possessed my ass, spitting on his dick any time enough of the length was exposed. He maneuvered me just so. My feet hung over the curve of his shoulders and so I was levitated. Sweat dripped from Night’s forehead, and Red’s moss-like pubic hair was in my eyes so I could not properly look up, but I heard the men continue to kiss and share a bottle of poppers. Our tripled body heat, the music filtering in through the door’s edges, expounded on the rhythm of the men entering me in tandem. As a suspended Icarus, I melted feather by feather, falling away into a torrid wax that the men before and behind me used to lather and join their forms, painting us into one hot being, a solar thing, beneath the earth but about to break out. With that, Red’s semen issued forth while Night poured himself into my ass. I pulled both of their fluids into me, a reverse volcano of molten hunger. Both men let out a cry and fell into the other, pressing me closer to their slick bodies. Night’s cock fell out as Red twitched and went limp across my tongue. I dropped to my knees and turned, thrilled to finally take Night into my mouth, to clean his hot length with my tongue, all while alternately turning to nip and suck at the head of Red lest he feel out of favor. However, Night came back, as night always does, and his full girth compressed my tongue as his blunt thumbs stretched my lips and I nursed his penis slowly, lovingly, with a cadence to match the beautiful music pulsing from outside.
* * *
The steam room is practically empty. A favorite singer has taken the stage, and the men and boys all rushed to crowd around her, Red and Night front and center, singing along. The wet tendrils of time loop around my wrists, tempting me to withdraw and reappear in another such establishment. But I resist. Simply by standing up and casually switching seats, I can stave off transport. Music seeps in as the door opens and a tired, satiated soul joins me. An older man, well-tanned, gold chains draped across a wide chest bounding with silvery hair. He sighs as he reclines on the wooden bench beside me. His towel parts, and his limp, extended penis dangles from beneath his large belly. He doesn’t bother to pull on it as I reposition myself between his legs. I can tell this organ has received quite the workout already, so I sit and admire it, absently stroking the tufts of hair encircling his ankles. He relaxes more as a fresh burst of steam consumes both of us. We are mere heated shadows, conjoined by the lightest of touches. Whenever I feel that portal of steam opening, compelling me to leave, I dismiss it by shifting from one foot to the other. Soon this man’s penis will need my attention, and after the singer takes her last bow, men will come, patiently lining up, gossiping, flexing in the mirror, all waiting for their turn on my tongue.
Yes, the Continental Baths, too, is also one of my favorite shores on which to land.
Chapter Twelve
Pausanias Made Richer
I was a lover of books before I was a lover of men.
Our lone family trip to Greece was a marvelous adventure for my young mind: to see where the heroes of my scrolls had trod, battled, consummated affairs with no scant number of demure boys and portent women, all while assuming an unusual variety of animal shapes. Mother was both amused and angry when she realized I had packed nearly the entirety of my personal library, the plan being I would just wash and wear a single toga, so as to have my scrolls at hand to verify historical data and the like. The slaves repacked my bags, and I was allowed a single copy of Hesiod, The Works, as approved by my sternest, most drab new tutor. Obsidio, in a rare show of sympathy, packed his copy of Pausanias, famous for his travel writings detailing the Seven Wonders of the World and more, knowing I would pore over it at each stop.
Mother had planned a far-from-ambitious tour. A languid cruise to a handful of islands that mattered, more time in Athens than the typical tourist allots, a side trip to see the sibyls that was destined to be canceled, but I was thrilled, to say the least. The idea that I would have days to explore the libraries of the university more than made up for the loss of my scrolls. Though in overhearing her gossip with a friend over wine late one evening, I was able to discern that the real motivation for the trip was the rumored size of the oars that swung between the legs o
f the sailors navigating the ship Mother had booked for the voyage. In fact, later I learned at the Baths of Caracalla while licking the paddle of one such seaman that once the tour operator had gotten wind of this rumor, he only hired cooks, entertainers, and seamen who were thus equipped, guaranteeing bored and wealthy matrons would fill his Grecian cruises to capacity, even in the off-season. So while the staff plugged Mother’s holes, I was free to traverse the deck of the boat, which bore the ghastly name of Trimalchio’s Feast, constantly scouting the horizons for sea monsters. I looked for distant islands bespeckled with statues and temples of note, hoping that maybe, just maybe, the form of my father would pass beneath—a celestial shadow that the mere mortal would think a robust school of fish, but with a touch of his ichor in my veins, I would know that it was him, expressing fatherly concern for one of his many offspring. I stared hard at the sea, until the sun reflecting off the waves hurt my eyes. My neck was hot, the boards beneath my bare feet rough, unsteady. I was unsure if he was actually down there or up on Mount Olympus, though either way, I had no proof he was concerned about my whereabouts. Neptune had uncountable children. I was but one minnow in a vast school of fish, a shred of shadow, a meager droplet of the prodigious seed he had spewed across eternity.
Obsidio’s battered copy of Pausanias was made richer by the dueling notes of two previous owners. One was a dry, overly intellectual student from the Stoic school. The other was a rather randy tutor traveling on the cheap, forever belittling the notes of his newfound foe and traveling companion, as well as scribbling in the margins humorously culinary descriptions of the wide variety of ass he screwed on his grand tour. His offhand description of every hole he plundered caused a tightening in the lap of my toga far different from the erections I woke up with every morning. This I could purposely incite and thrilled in doing so, for this was before my dual discoveries of incest and the baths, so scrolls were my only erotic outlet. I stole the scroll from Obsidio’s luggage as frequently as I could. Barred from Mother’s room, which reverberated with panting and moaning, the cramped bathroom below deck barely afforded any privacy, so I was forced to read out in the open, doing everything I could in order to disguise my burgeoning erection. My titillating travels in literature alit upon an exciting fact. Near the house we had rented in Athens was an unremarkable cemetery where an unmarked grave was believed to hold the remains of Aristogeiton. This hero, along with his lover Harmodius, had slain a tyrant. Harmodius was killed on the spot while Aristogeiton was tortured for his role. Men who loved men long made pilgrimage to this grave in hopes that paying respect would reward them with a brave companion of their own. Both the student and the tutor had visited. However, while the student dryly recorded a description of the hero’s grave, remarking that it was sad commentary on today’s society that their story was on its way to being forgotten, the tutor noted that after sunset men gathered among the tombstones for secret assignations. He had himself bent a small Assyrian over our champion’s tomb and fucked him while other Greeks and assorted tourists gathered to watch. I was driven to distraction by the idea of hiding behind a sepulcher and watching men touch other men. I wanted to touch some myself.
The Lurid Sea Page 6