Platres Conclave Ch. 04

Spiro came with a long sigh and withdrew. Later I decided this was the point that I should have taken some charge, but I didn't. As Spiro withdrew, the hard, lust-laden face of Nemo swam into view. He took my hands and stripped the thongs off the knuckles. Then, with a strong, firm, no-nonsense, no-questioning grip, he pulled me up and turned me and laid me back down on the bench on my belly.

I didn't struggle—possibly I should have—as he used the thongs to tie my wrists and ankles at the four legs of the bench, spread-eagling me on the bench on my belly. It was all a haze, though. As if it wasn't happening. As if it was, I'm ashamed to say, what I wanted to happen—what I wanted Nico to see. I think I wanted Nico to step in, to save me, to carry me off to our love next in the Forest Park and to reclaim me. To fuck me silly.

But he didn't. Nemo was being rough, manhandling me as he bound me in place, on my belly, my ass presented for all comers.

And all comers it was. Nemo crouched over me from behind and reached around and grabbed my chest and brutalized my nipples between thumbs and forefingers while he thrust his thick cock into me and I writhed under his hard, pistoning fuck.

Thanos was next. I could tell by the cool clay feel of the hands on my hips as he slowly stroked me, leaning over and thanking me and telling me how beautiful I was in whispers near my ear after he had come. The poet, Costas followed. His cock was curved and he knew how to find the prostate with it, and I moaned and came as he also leaned his lips close to my ear and whispered love poetry, in praise of beauty—or so he said.

Even the transvestite composer, Xanthos, took his turn, which I could tell by the feel of the folds of the bunched-up silk dress on my lower back. although with him it was tentative and weak, half-hearted irregular, off-beat strokes, which I believed, confirmed by the two separate tones of grunts and groans behind me, were controlled by Nemo being inside Xanthos from his rear while Xanthos was mounted on me.

Could this be any more demeaning, despairing than this, I thought, as Xanthos pulled out of me, not having ejaculated as far as I could discern. And then the answer came. Yes it could. Nemo was forcing himself inside me again, pistoning me hard. And someone was on the other side of the bench now, cupping my head in the broad palm of his hands, lifting my mouth to his cock—a cock with a thick silver cock ring in it.

While Nemo was taking me a second time, Nico was working my mouth with his cock. My savior had arrived. But not to save me. When Nemo was finished, the hard ring of Nico's cock was working my channel—almost endlessly—before he came with a huff and a little cry of release.

By then I was drained, drained and bereft, and totally cowed, my limbs just flopping down along their imprisoning bench legs. I knew that the thongs would not have been strong enough to hold me if I had wanted to just pull away and gather up my clothing and walk out of the bungalow. But I had wanted Nico to save me. I had wanted him to make a choice, and for that choice to be me, not the conclave.

But the choice he made wasn't me.

The ultimate insult of all—ironic considering the circumstances—was that Elias did not take a turn. To the end he was insulting, above me, disdaining, dismissive.

I don't know how I came to be in Elias's bed, but that's where I was taken, with Spiro embracing me from one side and Thanos from the other, and both of them, using their artists' hands to explore and memorize and bring to life from the earlier despair a body that responded to their baser needs, one after the other, until finally I drifted off into the stupor of wine-drenched sleep. I participated fully in each of the fucks this time. I had no reason to hold back. I was totally free—more free than I obviously had wanted to be.

In the end, I knew this would be good for me. I could go back to Nicosia having gotten what I thought I had come to Platres for—a wild, hedonist weekend. A final fling before Carolyn descended on me and my cage was shut once more. I had almost gotten more. It was a blessing, I told myself, that I hadn't gone there—or if I'd gone there, that I'd been jerked back from the brink.

When I woke, it was dark outside and I felt a crushing aloneness. I could hear the festivities in full swing across the street at the Plaka. I could hear Nico singing there and Spiro playing his guitar and the boisterous voices of various members of the conclave. They had moved on. Without me. What a surprise.

I struggled off Elias's bed, feeling squeamishness now at having had sex in the same bed Nico had fucked him. I padded out into the main room. Both Spiro's painting and Thanos's sculpture were unfinished, but were well on their individual ways. Both were fundamentally rendered, only needing polishing and touchup up, and both would, I was sure, be masterpieces.

Elias's painting, in contrast, was completed, although still wet. At least I couldn't see what further stroke would make it more arresting, masterful, provocative, or awe inspiring than it was. He had chosen abstract, with everything being just strokes of color and oblongs and swirls until one looked at it closely. Even at this level, it was full of life and a brilliant, completely balanced combination of shape and color. But for those who were discerning—who knew—there was a deeper level that was disturbing and foreboding. I was no art expert, but for me the giveaway, the clue on how to begin seeing the painting for what it really was, were the criss-crossed markings along the oblongs that projected out, left and right and toward the viewer, from the center of the painting, their intersection interrupted by another, v-shaped blob with rounded corners and two globular circles at the base. The criss-crossed marked: unmistakingly the leg lacings of the sandals I still was wearing.

Given those reference points, I could see the figure in the background, legs splayed open, and reclining backward on a golden surface. And then the figure in the foregone materialized, crouching between the oblongs with the criss-crossed leggings. For those who knew, the coupling pose would be obvious.

What was just as obvious, though, was that, study the painting as I would, I could not lose the sense of femininity, vulnerability, and subservience of the figure with the splayed legs. Elias had accomplished my total emasculation. He had painted me as a bitch, just a casual lay, a couple of hours entertainment, for the boys of the club. I was nothing else than that to him and I never would be.

And the love that Spiro and Thanos had made to me—not just in the mutually impassioned coupling we had enjoyed on Elias's bed in the end but also in the art they had produced from my posing for them—contrasted in how Nico had treated me. It was obvious to me that I had only been his bitch for weekend—just as Elias had painted me.

At least Elias had been honest from start to finish.

I picked up a painting knife from the table next to the painting. I raised my hand to slice through the painting, to make it go away. But then I couldn't do it. It's artistic value was obvious, as was its honesty. More important, I didn't want to give Elias the pleasure of knowing he had insulted me to the quick.

I gathered up my clothes and dressed and went out on the road, walking away from the raucous noise of the Plaka taverna to my car. I drove up the hill to the Forest Park, packed, checked out of the hotel, and drove back to Nicosia. I had to drive down the main street of the village, between Elias's bungalow and the Plaka taverna to reach the main road down the mountain. I had intended to look neither left nor right at this point, but a movement to my left caused me to look up and I saw Nico there—not at the taverna, but across the road from there. He had been coming out of Elias's bungalow. When he saw the Jaguar drive by, he let out a yell and started moving out into the road. But I applied the gas and was quickly beyond the village—and didn't look back.

And once I got to Nicosia, I turned my full attention to preparing for the arrival of my wife and in learning what I could do that was constructive in my new position at the embassy. I turned my face forward and didn't look back.