Madison Mills

"Of course, whenever you want," Nick answered. He knew how much Williams had done for him. He'd given him his life back—not exactly the Nick he'd been, but a new, equally good Nick.

"You can be here or New York. I have a small house here, in Madison Mills. Or I can set you up in an apartment in New York. I know you want to be a model again. I can make that happen. I can understand that you might want to continue to work as an escort. That would be fine with me. I won't promise not to sleep around myself."

"I think I might like it right here—at least for now," Nick answered.

"I'll give you a key to the house. It's just off the square over by the creek. It's not large, but it is well appointed and I have a management company to take care of everything. All you will need to do is call."

"Any hunks in the management company?"

"Yes. You'll be well maintained too, if you want to be. This is a gay town. That's why I keep a house here. Oh, I see. You were testing me. Did I pass?"

"Yes, with flying colors," Nick answered. They both laughed.

"Have you enjoyed the attentions of Kumar?"

"So, you know he has been fucking me."

"Yes, he made clear he would if he took your case. I wanted the best for you. He's the best plastic surgeon. I know he's very good in bed too."

"Yes. Yes, he is . . . not better than you are, though. And I'm not shitting you about that. You know he's good in bed because you have shared young men with him, right?"

"That's right. And you are good with that—with Kumar and me sharing you?"

"Yes."

"Thanks. I would like to watch Kumar fuck you. Are you good with that?"

"Yes."

"Then I'd would like to share you with Kumar—like I did with Steven Saylor in New York on New Year's Eve—except with Kumar being able to get hard. Would that—?"

"That would be fine. I'd like that."

"Now?"

"If Doctor Singh is available and can get it up," Nick said, with a smile.

Doctor Singh was . . . and could, and unlike Stephen Saylor, he was quite hard when it came to sharing.

* * * *

The route to Harvey's Madison Mills village house went by Sami Hulagu's smithy. He was there, working at his furnace, hammering out something in metal as Nick approached. He was shirtless, his muscles bulging at the strain of his work, his chest glistening with honest sweat. He looked up as Nick slowed in passing.

"Hey, you. Come here," the blacksmith called out, and Nick's steps were arrested and his heart leaped up into his throat. Try as he might, he hadn't gotten over that one lay by Sami.

"Here, over here," Hulagu repeated. With faltering steps, Nick walked over to the smithy, its sides to the street and to the creek open, and stood just outside the concrete floor of the shop.

"No, I said here. Right here," Sami said, pointing to directly in front of him. Nick gave a little moan but he moved into the shed to where he was standing directly in front of Sami. His eyes went to the angry red, wrinkled burn area on the right side of the man's face. Sami had been achingly handsome before whatever accident caused that. He was achingly handsome in Nick's eyes even now.

Sami reached out with a hand placed behind Nick's neck and pulled the young man's face in to for a deep kiss. Aching for it, Nick went with it. Opening his mouth to the insistence of the Turk's tongue—letting the blacksmith have whatever he wanted, trying to make clear that Sami could have whatever he wanted.

"I haven't seen you around," Sami said when he freed Nick from the kiss, "but I've been thinking of you. I was afraid you left Madison Mills and went back to wherever you came from. I was afraid to ask Kumar, though. I understand he was laying you."

"A lot of men have laid me, including you—once," Nick answered. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for that to sound so catty."

"It didn't. You were a great lay. I keep thinking of it. Uh, sorry, I'm all sweaty, or I'd give you a proper welcome."

Nick had, in fact, wondered why they'd been standing so separately. But he was too afraid to take the initiative on anything here. It would have to all be Sami—whatever Sami wanted.

"It's OK," Nick said. Then he blurted out, "Anything you want. I'll give you anything you want. If you want to lay me out on this table over here like you did the night of the party and fuck me in broad daylight, you can. Do anything you want with me. I've been told you're 'one and done,' but I can't stand the thought that you won't fuck me again. You can do it here, now, as long as you do it."

Sami laughed. "I think I can do better than that. We can go to my house. It's just up the street. I can shower first. You said anything I want. Will you shower with me?"

Sami fucked Nick up against the tiled wall of his shower under a stream of water, Nick's back being pushed up and down the soapy tiles and his knees hooked on Nick's hips. And then, before he came, Sami made it interesting, growling that he wanted Nick's total surrender to him, and turning Nick, bending him over, and holding the young man in front of him under the cascading water, bent over, both torso and arms and legs, dangling in front of Sami, without touching the tiled floor, while Sami pulled him on and off the cock to his climax.

The Turk took the young rent-boy every way from Sunday on his bed, ending up with Nick half on and half off the bed, his arms spread and hands palming the floor, with his torso streaming off the bed, and Sami knelt on the bed between Nick's legs, and pulling the young man's channel on and off his cock.

Later, as they lay in each other's arms, stretched out on the bed, Nick propped up on his side, looking down into Sami's face and tenderly tracing the wrinkles of the burned area on the blacksmith's face, Sami asked, "Does my face disturb you?"

"No, certainly not," Nick answered, fully knowing how far he'd come to be able to say that. "It gives you character. I'd say that it makes you sexier, but you couldn't get any sexier than your sex techniques."

"Do you mean that?" Sami asked. "I was told you were a male whore. Are you saying I have good sex techniques?"

"The best," Nick said. He could see that that pleased the blacksmith. "I want you to show me more of your techniques."

Sami groaned. "Maybe in a bit." And then, after a kiss and a bit of fondling, he said, "My face. I got too close to the furnace one day and stumbled."

"You don't have to tell me anything about it. It's fine with me." Nick did wonder, though, why he hadn't had Kumar Singh work on it. One of the best plastic surgeons in the world, so both Williams and Singh himself said, was right here in the village.

As if he knew what Nick was thinking, Sami said, "I could have had Kumar work on it. He offered to do it—for almost free—well if I let him watch me fuck guys. But he couldn't promise much improvement. A burn is different from a slice. And I decided that if a guy didn't want me inside them because of my face, I didn't want to fuck them."

"Every part of you is beautiful to me," Nick said.

They lay there in silence for a few minutes before Sami spoke again. "You know I was thinking . . . over the last two weeks when I hadn't seen you . . . how long were you planning on being in Madison Mills?"

"As long as you want me to be here." It wasn't just because Sami was here. Doctor Singh and Harvey Williams were here, and Harvey had said he could get the new Nick modeling jobs. George was here, with a proposition letting Nick do the same as he could do in New York with sex for pay. And New York was feeling too big, too overwhelming for Nick for now. And, not least, Erick Bradford was here to work with Nick on his novel. Nick ached to write novels and have them published.

"I was thinking. I have this house and all . . . I wouldn't ask you to just be with me. It's fine with me if you want to be a male whore. I couldn't promise I wouldn't fuck other men. But I thought maybe—"

"Yes," Nick said, rolling over on top of Sami, putting himself in position, lowering his channel on the man's cock, and beginning to rise and fall on it. There was the issue that he had a house to go to of his own, just down the street. But there was no need to bring that up until they were settled right here.

* * * *

It was the last few minutes of 2018, in Times Square New York, below the CNN tower, where, as in the previous year, Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen were trying to fill in time on national television, Cohen with even more gay suggestive patter than the previous year. It wasn't as cold as the previous year, but gays had gathered in this section of the square, drawn by the CNN tower, and were taking advantage of the license to cuddle under the pretense that it was a cold as ever it was on New Year's Eve.

Nick Daniels had a special reason to celebrate. His agent—the agent Erick Bradford had introduced him to—had sold the manuscript of his first novel to a good publisher. He'd gotten a "celebration" advance on the coming hefty advance as his agent said he should do something special for New Year's. So, Nick had spent that on something special. He'd also gotten a hefty paycheck from walking the runway for a fashion show Harvey Williams had gotten him booked for. But Nick had banked that. He was being prudent with his money, knowing now that life could serve up a double whammy without notice. His values had changed in other, maturing ways, in the past year too.

After the show Nick had asked if Williams would like to do the Times Square ball drop with him this year, and Williams had been pleased to be asked.

"You could have any number of handsome young men go with you," he'd said.

"I'd like to celebrate it with you. It's been an eventful year since I was in Times Square last year. That had started out so well, including with you, and turned tragic too soon. I'd like to wipe out the memory of later that night. And I'd like to do it with you."

"In that case, I'd be delighted to go with you," Williams had said.

And now, when they were down in the crowd, approaching midnight, Williams was a bit more apprehensive.

"You are causing quite a stir. Many men are watching you and envying me," Williams said, looking around. And it was true, Nick was getting a lot of attention, and he'd gotten several obvious propositions, men brushing up against him and whispering in his ear as well as giving him long, inviting stares. None of this was lost on the older, not-handsome Williams.

"I hope you will take this interest you're getting as final proof that you are a very handsome young man, Nick," Williams says. "Don't let me control you tonight. This is a night for total pleasure. If you see a man you want to kiss at midnight and go off with, feel free to do so. I don't want to inhibit that. I'm just so pleased you spent the last couple of hours with me down here."

Nick grabbed the lapels of Williams's cashmere overcoat and turned the man toward him, face to face. Where he once winced to look at the older man's time-ravished face, Nick didn't flinch now. The ball was already starting to drop, and the crowd had picked up the chant: Twenty . . . nineteen . . . eighteen.

"I see the man I want to kiss at midnight, Harv, and I see the man I want to control me."

Ten . . . nine . . . eight.

"And after the ball drops, I want you to take me to a hotel and fuck the hell out of me—all night. No sliding car rides in the snow tonight. I've booked—and paid for—a room at the InterContental tonight. Not the suite you booked last year, but it's got a bed and a bath, which are all we need. I want us to stay in the hotel room that night, not go out on the road half plastered. Stay in the hotel, safe. Can you understand that?"

"Of course I can," Williams answered.

And, although he didn't say it, the hotel booking had been paid for from money Nick had earned entirely himself with no intervention from Harvey or from what Nick made as a model or an escort. He wanted there to be no doubt that he was going with Harvey Williams entirely on his own decision and his own, nickel.

Even though when the moment came that the ball dropped, there were still men near them trying to make the handsome young Nick Daniels, it was the older, not-handsome-of-face Harvey Williams Nick was kissing at midnight and then taking to a hotel room.