I Met a Man

My mouth wanted him, and I raised up as he came down to meet me, his eyes dark and glittering as if they were moist, and we kissed long and slow as I stroked him back to hardness. Finally, he lifted my legs and sat back and raised my hips and pushed his pillow under them. Then I watched as he entered me and began to fuck me again, a long slow fuck with his hand on my dick as my hands reached up and ran over his body and arms feeling the strength and power of him. I came again and felt satiated and suddenly half asleep.

At some point I must have gone to sleep, because I woke in the morning feeling slightly tired but good and with him still buried in my ass. I stirred and he stirred inside me and moved.

"Good morning," he said. "You feel good still?" he whispered in my ear.

"Yes, fine," I sighed

He was already moving, growing inside me and moving about, back and forth in short strokes.

Then he withdrew and I rolled on to my back again. I reached my arms up and rested my hands on his golden skin and felt the heat of it and the silkiness of his hair with my palms as I slid them down his body. I lifted up and took his left nipple in my lips and tasted the salty sweat that had dried on him in the night and nipped and tongued it hard, before moving my lips to the other one. Searching in that glossy dark hair for the pink hairless circle. He hung there above me, as my mouth explored his chest, and then I pulled his face to me and we kissed. A slow, deep, long kiss, timeless. And when it ended, I wondered how I had been so lucky as to have this incredibly beautiful man in my bed.

Then he was between my thighs and entering me again, and I watched him. The expression on his face, his hooded eyes and parted lips, the way his tight belly moved and the way his cock disappeared as I arched back and whimpered in glorious acceptance of it.

The next night he didn't go to the café after we had eaten dinner; instead we went to bed together, early. The sex was gentle but deeply satisfying for me, and we seemed to fall into a perfect routine where we fucked and then he held me to his belly and I slept. I was sure he was not as satisfied as he wanted to be by our slow lovemaking. For me it was lovemaking, but for him? For him I imagined it was not so interesting, a chore perhaps. But I was incredibly grateful.

Chapter Seven: Erol

I had never seen the American as excited about his writing as he was that evening after dinner when he suggested I go down to the Tree of Idleness for a coffee and a visit with my friends. I had been devoting most of my time to him, which he had seen as a sacrifice for me—and, for that reason, resisted it—but that I knew was a reflection of my increasing affection for him. I didn't really want to go, but I didn't want to be in his way, either. So, I took a packet of cigarettes from on top of the refrigerator and dug into the drawer for the money he kept there for my own use and strolled down the street.

As I neared the square and saw the fairy lights hung in the overspreading branches of the Tree of Idleness and heard the hubbub of the men gossiping as they sipped their coffee and brandy, I felt a pang in my heart. This was my Cyprus. My life, and yet, since the American arrived, I had been increasingly distancing myself from it. But one day he would be gone and I would return to my nightly presence at the café in the square. Would this life be enough for me then? I wondered. Increasingly the American . . . Cliff . . . my Cliff was becoming my life. Increasingly I could not understand a life without Cliff, and I couldn't think of Cliff dying here, in Cyprus, in the full bloom of his life. He seemed most worried that he would be gone before he had written what he wanted to write—and because that worried Cliff, it worried me as well.

None of my friends were sitting at the tables when I entered the café. I took that as a good sign—as an indication that they were having a profitable night.

I hadn't been sitting there long, however, when I sensed something in the air—some evil force about—and looked up to see the Israeli, the man who had manhandled Tabib so badly a few weeks previously, slinking under the archway of the entrance into the courtyard beyond the café. He looked guilty about something and was sliding from the archway sideways into the shadows and moving away from the light as quickly as he could without raising too much notice.

In an instant I knew.

I leaped up from the table and headed for the archway. The Israeli saw me and turned and fled into the night, toward the maze of ruins of the old abbey. But I let him go. He was of no importance to me. I ran through the archway and strained my ears, listening for the rough music of the bedsprings, seeking out cells that were silent.

I found Tabib on the floor of the first cell I entered. His naked, crumpled body lay on the hard-packed dirt, his limbs at unnatural angles, his eyes closed, and a small pool of blood under his head.

Nazim was crouched over Tabib's body, and when he looked up at me, I'd never seen such fear and anger in his face. Sobbing, I sank to the ground and lifted Tabib's broken body into a mournful embrace.

Chapter Eight: Clifford

"Hello," Rick's voice answered.

"Hi Rick, it's me, Cliff," I replied. It had been a major decision to make me turn on my cell phone and call someone back home.

"You OK? You sound good. Geez. We have all been trying to call you, but your phone is always turned off. Don't do . . ."

"Well, it's turned on now, Rick, and I need to ask a favor. I—"

"Anything for you, man, you know that. Just name it."

"I want to change my will."

There was silence. "Rick? You there?"

"Yes, sure. You just shocked me. I mean we spent three months working on it. So, what do you want to change—if it's minor—"

"I want to leave something to . . . to someone here." I knew this was going to send Rick into a spin.

"To who?" he asked.

"Someone." There was a long pause.

"Who is someone?"

"A young man."

"How much?"

I told him, and was met with prolonged silence from the other end. "Someone. A young man. Christ, Cliff. Is this some holiday romance thing with some beach boy over there? I mean . . . I am coming over. We all worried about you taking off like that. And to somewhere so out of the way. It's OK, Cliff. We'll sort it out, I am coming—"

"You don't need to save me, Rick," I replied, annoyed, but also loving him for caring. "You don't have to come over. I can go into the consulate in Nicosia and sign whatever needs signing there. You just have to send it over."

"Beautiful. Jan is right on it, Cliff. I'll be there in a few days. I won't ask anything else. OK. I'll just come."

"I know what you are thinking, but it's not—"

"I am coming, mate."

"Don't tell anyone, Rick. I'd rather you didn't come either," I added angrily. "I am very happy I came, Rick. Very happy. Don't spoil it."

There was silence again.

"It's your money, Cliff," Rick said in his conciliatory voice, "and you can do what you like with it. It's certainly not my place to tell you what you can do with it. It's quite a big amount, though. But I am coming over there still. See you in a few days and take care of yourself."

"It's not what you think, Rick," I had to say again before he hung up.

And it wasn't really. No, I hadn't met some beach boy who fucked like a god and drugged my senses with sex and flattery. Yes, Erol was beautiful, and, yes, I wanted to spend my nights cradled in his lap. But it was what had happened when Tabib was beaten up that had made me call Rick.

Erol hadn't gone down to the cafe after dinner for several weeks, but I was unusually engrossed in my writing that night, pursuing a sudden flash of inspiration that I didn't want to lose, and it was I who suggested that he take a break and spend a bit of the evening at the Tree of Idleness down in the square.

It seemed like only a few minutes later, though, when I heard the distinctive sound of a Turkish ambulance siren no farther away than the Bellapais square and Erol's cries rapidly approaching up the cobbled street from the square. He was shouting "Cliff, Cliff, come out. It's Tabib."

Erol burst through the door, white faced. "Fucking Mehmet," he hissed. "Tabib is hurt. I have to go. I have to get to the hospital. Tabib has no money. No one. Nazim is trying to find a taxi, and we will go. . . ." He was distracted and his eyes flashed with anger.

I had met Tabib a couple of times. He had come by for dinner on his way to the café. He was younger than Erol by a couple of years but looked even younger, and Erol seemed to be fond of him. I felt a pang of jealousy when I saw them together but knew I was in no position to be jealous. In a few months they would be together anyway however much I wanted Erol, and I wanted Erol to be happy.

"I'll drive you there," I said, quickly grabbing my car keys from the desk in the living room.

"No, this will be a long night, and you need your sleep," he said angrily. "No, you stay here. I will deal with this."

"I am driving," I said, heading out of the courtyard for the car parked a short way down the alley. "I will sleep in the car while you are in the hospital," I added, to stop his resistance.

He still tried to argue with me, but then we were in the car and drove to the square, where we found Nazim arguing with the driver of the lone taxi in sight. I gave a blast of the horn and Nazim came running and jumped in.

"What has happened?" I asked. "Did he fall?" thinking of the scaffolding at the hotel building site where Tabib worked.

"No. It was the Israeli. I knew he would get into trouble. Young men who look as pretty as Tabib, they always attract the worst type of man. And Mehmet, he has thoughts only for the money they pay him, not for Tabib's safety," he said. "What is money if someone dies? Or is beaten so badly he can't work at anything and no one wants him," he said with real anger in his voice. "Mehmet knew what would happen for the amount of money the Israeli gave him."

I drove to the hospital down in Girne and dropped the two of them off at the entrance while I tried to find a parking space. When I returned, they had disappeared, and the dingy and dismal emergency waiting area held only a collection of old men and women sitting in pairs, and parents with small children.

"Tabib," I said in English to the woman on the desk, not knowing any Turkish even after over a month. "I dropped two young men off at the entrance. To see a friend, Tabib. Tabib from up in Bellapais."

Although she had no trouble understanding my English, she looked at me blankly, no doubt shocked at seeing an American standing in her ER reception area late at night, until I reached the word "Bellapais." Then she gestured up a passage to the left and offered to show me the way. I could see from where I was standing that there was little danger of losing my way, so, throwing a word of thanks over my shoulder, I headed toward the passageway.

I found Nazim and Erol both standing about a trolley with a bandaged and bruised, hardly recognizable Tabib lying on it.

"They don't think anything is broken, just bad bruises. They do not want to keep him in tonight, but I will pay for him to stay. He cannot leave like this," Erol said, his expression worried and his face still pale. And looking at Tabib, I could understand why. And I wondered it he had other injuries we could not see that were more serious and that the ER doctors just hadn't checked carefully enough to discover.

There were discussions with a doctor who arrived soon after, animated discussions that would pass as arguments anywhere but in a Turkish community. Then Tabib was wheeled off, and we trailed behind him.

"It is not good you are here, Clifford," Erol said to me, the concern clear in his mind—concern that was for me in addition to the natural concern he had for Tabib. "You need to rest, and your meds are at the house." He put an arm about me as if I were too weak to walk myself.

"I will be fine," I said, knowing I might not be but that I was not going home till I knew what was happening.

They wheeled Tabib into a ward and moved him onto a bed, and Nazim and Erol hugged him. But then he started whimpering, and a nurse came and gave him an injection. In a few minutes he seemed to have settled.

There was some whispering between Nazim and Erol, and then Erol was guiding me out of there. "Nazim will stay here; I will take you home," he said, "and come back in the morning."

In the car all he said was, "Tabib finally told the Israeli no. He had had enough. Luckily Tabib said it loud enough for Nazim to hear from another of the rooms before it was too late. I don't know when or if Mehmet would ever have intervened."

We got home late, and I was asleep instantly. Erol slipped into bed beside me and took me in his arms.

The next day we brought Tabib back to the villa. I was sure that now it would be Tabib who Erol spent his nights with, but he didn't. It was my bed he still came to.

And a few days later, I heard them arguing, and discovered Erol was telling Tabib that if he expected to be fed, he would wash up and clean the kitchen after meals. That he had to repay me. I had paid for the medication he had brought back with him, not caring if it was paid back or not. But then Erol had gone white when he heard how much it was. Some Tabib got free, but the rest he only got if he paid for it, and Erol had already spent most of what he had on the hospital room. It was Erol who had nursed both of us for the first couple of days.

That was when I called Rick.

Chapter Nine: Rick

When I got off the plane from Istanbul, I was seriously afraid of what I would find there in Cyprus. Cliff and I went back a good twelve years. We'd met while I was at the University of Virginia doing graduate studies in law and he was a guy I met in a bar in town one night. He lived nearby, in a small old farmhouse on a few acres outside Charlottesville. He had been left the money for the house and got by on selling a few stories and working at the local supermarket at night while he submitted his novels to anyone and everyone.

He had been the best-looking guy in the bar, and he'd been the hardest to seduce, even though it was a gay bar he'd been sitting in. I never liked to give up on anything I wanted, one reason I was now a top-drawer lawyer in Washington, D.C. So, I finally got him back to my small apartment and fucked his brains out. He had been indecisive and not sure that's what he wanted when we were getting into it, but once I was inside him, he gave it all up to desire.

But he was as focused as I was on getting where he wanted to go; one of us had to give something up to make it a relationship, and neither or us was willing to do that back then. Now I knew that I wanted him back home. It might have been a few years since we had last fucked, but I had missed him too much over the last seven weeks. And I still had some vague fantasy of saving him, sure that in a great hospital in the States they would find a miracle cure before it was too late.

Now I was afraid of how he would look, how sick, and how not the Cliff I loved. And I also had visions of saving him from whatever trouble he had got himself into, whatever grasping young bit of trade was after him. I was sure I was his white knight.

"Hi, Rick," he called out, and I was flooded with relief when I spotted him there at the arrivals gate. He looked so good. Thinner, but tanned a golden honey color, his hair lighter, thanks to the effect of the Cypriot sun, and smiling a big wide-open happy smile, giving me a close hug without caring what anyone around us might think.

"You look so good," I said softly into his ear.

"Thanks," he said, and when we fell apart, he said it again "Thanks, I was worried you might not . . ."

"So was I," I said, not needing to lie, because he knew I'd told him the truth.

And then I saw them, the two young men. Both were beautiful in their own way, the dark brooding one who followed me with his eyes, and the other one, the one who looked too young and almost too pretty but with a fading red mark on his face and a frame bent a bit to the side, revealing that he was protecting injured ribs. By the time we reached the villa in Bellapais, I knew which young man was the "someone," but neither was what I had expected Cliff's someone to be. One was too masculine and wild and the other was provokingly slight and feminine for him.

As soon as we got to the villa, the dark young man hurried the younger one away, and in a few minutes they reappeared with coffee and fresh orange juice and sweet syrupy cakes.

"Baklava," Cliff said, "nuts and honey and filo. Erol makes them. Wonderful."

Cliff devoured two of the cakes and drank the juice while the rest of us nibbled and drank coffee. The younger one, Tabib, had been silent at first but was all eyes and wonder and awe by the end of the meal as he greedily asked me questions about life in America and about my work and my personal life. Some of his questions were quite personal—but he was so much like an ever-curious child, with the mind of a thirsty sponge, that I found myself luxuriating in talking to him. Seeing life in America from the perspective of his interest and probing questions opened my eyes to how privileged I was to live there.

The other young Turkish Cypriot, Erol, listened quietly with a smile on his face. He also appeared to be interested in the talk of America, but his attention obviously was torn between that and whatever Cliff was doing. Erol watched Cliff's every move for signs that my friend needed something. After he had finished eating, Erol hurried Cliff away to bed, and Cliff apologized for needing a nap and went with him. I already knew from the looks Erol cast in Cliff's direction over the luncheon table that neither of them would be coming back out of Cliff's bedroom anytime soon.

Suddenly I felt like an intruder and jealous and abandoned all at once.

The younger one, Tabib, cleared the table and disappeared into the house for a few minutes before returning. I watched his swinging hips as he moved back into the villa, and I was surprised to feel myself attracted to him to the point of arousal. I didn't usually go for the lean, pretty ones. He moved slowly and there were nasty bruises, now fading, on his arms and also on his neck, the ones on his neck looked almost liked fingerprints, as if he'd been choked. I remembered then that I'd been told he'd been assaulted, and that made me feel all the more sympathy with and attracted to him.

"Would you like to see the ruins of the abbey?" he asked, smiling shyly.

"Yes," I said, "I might as well."

As I followed Tabib down the cobblestoned street toward the Bellapais square, I couldn't stop looking at him and was struck with his graceful movements, even when bruised, and the swing of his hips that sent perfectly orbed buttocks in motion. I was astounding myself. I had never been attracted to an effeminate man before—and certainly not by female flesh—but there was something in the healing face and the way this slight figure of a Turk moved that made my chest clutch. It was, I think, the natural vulnerability—in addition to his almost-too-perfect beauty, accentuated by the marring bruises. I wanted to protect and, yes, I had to admit to myself, make love to him. And just at the moment, I wanted to reach out and cup and stroke one of those quivering butt cheeks of his.

We stopped at the bottom of the hill, at the edge of an outdoor café under the tremendously spreading boughs of an ancient tree and looked across the square at the ruins of the Byzantine abbey perched precariously on the edge of a vast drop-off down to the Mediterranean Sea.