Ritual of Honor

After fighting the current and deciding there just was too much of an undertow for me, I ran back up to the beach and flopped down on my back on the oversized towel, propped myself up on my elbows, and gazed out into the water, trying to see where Clare had swum to. As I watched, she slowly rose up from the surf, no evidence of the bikini now, and walked in deliberate, undulating strides up onto the beach. I was riveted to the spot, eyes centered on the dark patch of hair where her legs v'd and on the pinkish oval peeking out of the fur. Clare crouched down and parted my legs as she reached me, and knelt between them. Her fingers went to the tight waistband of the Speedo, and she rolled that down and freed my engorging cock and leaned over and gave me the most wondrous blow job of my life, bringing me to the brink again and again and then holding me off, until at last she settled that oval of pink on the throbbing head of my member and sank down onto my lap, carrying me away in waves of shudders in the undertow of her, bringing up ejaculation after ejaculation and ending months of celibacy.

I resigned my commission with the Air Force and moved into Clare—both the gallery and the woman. All too soon it became obvious what Clare's real interest in me was. Some of her patrons were a harder sell than others, even with me floating around the gallery oozing charm and charisma and making them want to come back frequently for their art fix. Some of her richer patrons expected fringe benefits. It didn't take Clare more than a week after I'd moved in, having given up my previous life entirely, including the option of a free trip back to the States on Uncle Sam's expense, to let me know in no uncertain terms that I was a fringe benefit. I was virtually penniless, a kept man. And soon I was being pimped—no less than Steve Benton had pimped me.

Women and men alike. Clare set up a signal between us to convey to me which patron had shown interest in me as a fringe benefit to their purchases, and when she gave the signal, I homed in and played nice-nice. And before the patron left smiling, wrapped print under her or his arm, I spent an hour with her or him—in the back bedroom, on the beach, or in the backseats of his or her automobile or Clare's van, fucking and/or being fucked.

And, having gotten what she wanted, Clare spent less and less time with me in bed at night.

Late in the summer, she declared that we were going up to Tokyo. She had some really expensive prints she wanted to sell up there and several patrons who had shown interest but weren't completely decided. She said there were a few she wanted to introduce me to—and I had no trouble figuring out exactly what that meant.

Clare's Akasaka gallery was quite a setup—gallery on the first floor of the three-story townhouse that had risen from the ruins of the bombing of Tokyo just after the war, with a party room with extended art exhibits on the walls on the second floor, and two bedrooms and baths, a small sitting room, and a kitchenette on the top level.

The better-heeled patrons were taken up to the second floor where they were wined and dined and stroked and given the history and provenance of any print that they were even remotely interested in. And the top select of these were introduced to the third floor and to the charms of either Clare or me—or both—depending on their proclivities or fetishes.

I learned that the Japanese women—in stark contrast to the wantonness of the American and European expatriate patrons of Clare Tokyo—carried their reserve into the bedroom. At least up to a point. All of the preparation and seduction was mine. But then, when they had demurely surrendered at last and I was well sheathed, they became tigresses. Great heavings and writhing and crying out and slashing long, sharp nails along my shoulders and back and buttocks, and multiple, noisy orgasms as I held steady and long and thick inside them, only releasing myself after they were spent and quiet once more. And they loved it.

In contrast, the Japanese men who came to me were in control and attentive from the first moment, dividing into two categories—the older men, who invariably were out to avenge themselves on the Americans for past indignities of national honor dominated and took me in repeated, sometimes cruel ravishings and then bounced out of bed and were gone. And then there were the younger, more sensitive men, who had studied hard what to do and how to do it and played me like a musical instrument and drew every last ounce of satisfaction from me and laid there inside me afterward and rocked me and hummed to me like I was a baby.

But all were the same in the end—all were paying for sex, and I was providing it for some form of payment.

It was the latter who reminded me how much I missed the piano. I had begged Clare to buy a piano for me, but thus far she had ignored my pleas. I knew, if she didn't, that this ultimately would be what built the barrier between us.

It was during one of the afternoon cocktail parties for the more important patrons in the second-floor salon that I saw him for the first time. He was standing across the room, talking to several other patrons, but he had his eyes on me. Tall for a Japanese and ramrod straight. A military man without a doubt. Movie-star handsome, well built, graying at the temples. Perhaps a banker instead. No, I decided, a military man. I somehow knew my first instinct had been correct. And a man who commanded troops, who dominated masterfully. A chill of anticipation—and even of pleasure—went down my spine as I saw Clare join his group and both look over at me.

Sure enough, only moments later, Clare brushed by me and said, "I have someone I want you to meet."

"Now?" I asked. I already was talking with a real Japanese banker who was half-interested in one of the Hoshi tree prints but who was nearing full interest in seeing the third floor with me.

"Yes. The general said he's pressed for time, but he is interested in two of Saito's 'Winter in Aizu' prints." I drew in a breath. This would be a purchase that would go into the high five figures.

"The general," she had said. I had known it.

Clare introduced us and then discretely moved away.

"You were looking at me from across the room," I said. "I couldn't help but notice." If the general couldn't stay long, there wasn't much time to seal the deal.

"Yes, pardon me. It was forward of me. But your hands."

"My hands?" I said, nonplused. I'd never received a come-on line like this.

"Yes. Long, strong figures. And the way you move them . . . Tell me, are you a musician?"

"Yes, I play the piano," I answered, suddenly pleased that he had so deftly reached into my heart. Melting to him. Wanting it already. A whole different plane from where I had been set.

"Classical or popular?" He asked, not hurrying, drawing me into him.

"Both," I answered. "But mainly popular as that's what people mostly want. But I'm afraid I haven't played in months."

"Such a pity. I am a player of instruments too—and somewhat of a master and connoisseur, or so I've been told—but not of musical instruments, alas." He paused and his hand traveled down his side, taking my attention with it—purposely so, I'm sure—and brushed down along his thigh. My eyes, though, lost contact with the movement of the hand and were drawn to the bulge in his trousers. He was hard, and quite obviously was well endowed. "But you'd like to play . . . and be played, would you?" he whispered. There it was. Both subtle and direct. I felt my cock hardening. He had me. He could have taken me right there in the middle of the cocktail party crowd, fucking me wildly on the carpet in the center of the room, if he had wanted to.

"Yes," I whispered, turning my eyes up to his. "Yes, I'd like that very much."

"Another pity, alas," the general said in smooth, baritone tones. "When I play, I prefer a concerto over a short tune." I shuddered deliciously at the implication of that. "But I must be at the palace in an hour. I trust you will be in Tokyo again soon?"

"I can make a point of it," I answered, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice.

"Now, perhaps we can find Clare and have those Saitos wrapped?"

"You are buying the Saitos?" I asked, almost incredulous that he was settling the deal without making prior use of the fringe benefit.

"Yes. I enjoy my art . . . and my other pleasures . . . separately, and totally, and hours at a time. Each is given its full measure; one does not depend on the other," he said. And then he left me there, knees weak and cock throbbing, as he glided over to Clare.

The Japanese banker was getting the fuck of his life by transference twenty minutes later on the third floor—and wound up buying three Watanabes.

Playing the encounter with the general over and over again in my mind helped get me through the next few weeks after we had returned to Okinawa. But the longing he had resurfaced and strengthened in me to have access to a piano equally tore at me those two weeks. Ever the two forces working in opposite directions with me.

And when I was approached about the opportunity to play the piano in a newly opening nightclub down in Naha, the only regret I left behind from my time with Clare was that I wouldn't be making another trip with her to Tokyo and thus wouldn't be encountering the general again.

* * * *

The out-of-the-blue offer to play at a new club opening in Naha seemed almost too good to be true, and, as it turned out, it was. I learned soon after hauling what little I had in life into the capital city of Okinawa and finding a tiny apartment near the port that the new club was owned by Steve Benton, who had shed himself of service commitment shortly after I had and who, like me, had decided just to stay on in Okinawa.

It would be immodest of me to think that Steve had opened the club just to lure me back, but that was a distinct possibility. I could tell as soon as I walked into the club that it essentially, despite its luxurious fittings, was a pickup bar for men. Steve's interest in pimping men obviously overshadowed any interest he had in running a nightclub. But I had burned my bridges with Clare, and the club had a Steinway grand prominently staged for me, so I decided to give it shot—at least until I had saved enough money to fly back to the States and start yet another new life.

I was determined, however, to keep Steve at arms' length and not to slip back into letting him sell my body. This didn't last for over a couple of weeks.

The club was quite a success from its first day. Lots of patrons from as far away as the U.S. bases up island. The club was always full. And from the opening night, some subset of those showing up regularly—both men and women—somehow knew that the waiters were for sale and that there were rooms available at the rear of the club room through a beaded curtain.

And from the beginning I was a constant draw for attention and suggestions as well, with fewer of the suggestions being song requests than for visits beyond the beaded curtain. I fended them all off in as friendly and polite way as I could—and still they stuffed the glass on the piano top with big tips and whispered their hopeful "maybe laters," with most taking our dance of availability in good stride.

There was one most persistent U.S. Army colonel who came down from Camp Hansen regularly who didn't really want to take no for an answer and who was becoming increasingly belligerent about it. I feared that I would have to be more direct and less pleasant in my rejection of his propositions before too long.

The turning point was one Saturday night after the club had closed and I was at the piano going over a new collection of songs to introduce in the next week. It was heaven to be at the piano again, and I found that I hadn't lost my touch or my memory of songs in the months I had been away from it. This was my element, however, and I never wanted to lose touch with this aspect of me ever again.

The club lights were dim, but I'd left on the spot over the piano so that I could check scores. I'd been playing for some time and was gliding through "Deep Purple"—"When the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls . . ."—before I realized that Steve was standing in the shadows next to the beaded-curtained doorway, listening to me play. He was wearing a robe and the bareness of his calves below warned me that this was all he was wearing. He was smoking a cigarette and held a liquor glass in his other hand—and staring at me with those bedroom eyes of his.

I tried to bury myself, my eyes, my entire focused attention in the piano keys in front me. I was playing away furiously, now not even aware of whatever tune I changed to—especially since "Deep Purple" had been a special fuck song for the two of us—willing Steve to go away. But not wanting him to. Remembering, as I played, how expertly and totally Steve took me. How much I melted at the smell and taste of him and churning of his cock deep inside me. I had not had sex for weeks. I had come to want it and expect it nearly daily.

I was ripe for Steve. And somehow he knew it. Having started into "Deep Purple" in the first place probably was my unconscious saying I wanted it. Steve always seemed to know me better than I knew myself.

I heard the robe hit the stage floor behind me and saw naked, well-muscled arms reaching around me from both sides. The cigarette, still burning was placed, ash end hanging precariously over the side of the piano on the ledge next to the keyboard on one side, and the glass, still half full of ice and an amber liquid, was being set down on above the keyboard on the other side. And then, hard, muscled thighs were swinging over the piano bench on either side of me and Steve was sitting precariously at the back of the bench with me huddled between his thighs, my hands still furiously running across the keyboard. My mind, however, was in a hundred places at once: trying to identify the tune I was playing, trying to remember if I'd eaten supper, concerned that the cigarette would burn down to the wood of the precious piano lacquering; equally concerned that the condensation from the liquor glass would leave a ring on the piano; wondering if I'd brought that score of Gershwin tunes with me, feeling Steve's hard cock running up the small of my back, trying to remember whether I had picked up my other tux from the drycleaners that morning, wanting Steve to leave me alone, wondering how I could get through the night if he did leave me alone, feeling Steve's hard cock, smelling the essence of Steve, remembering how much I loved the smell of Steve, feeling Steve's hard cock, feeling Steve's hard cock.

"I've missed you," Steve whispered in my ear, then taking the lobe of my ear between his lips.

"Well, I haven't missed you," I said in a strangled voice, still banging away on the piano.

"Yeah, well you lie," he murmured, and then gave a little lap. "Your body tells me you lie." He was cupping my dick and balls through the fabric of my tux pants. He was right. My body was betraying me.

"Come, give us a kiss," he said as he cupped my chin in his other hand and turned my face toward him. I was still playing the piano, but even my hands were betraying me, having returned to the strains of "Deep Purple." He needed no other signal that he had me in his power again. The hand that had been at my basket was now struggling with my belt buckle and zipper and with forcing my trousers and briefs down over my thighs.

My lips betrayed me by meeting his and opening to his searching tongue. My shoulders betrayed me by trembling to his touch. My hips betrayed me by rising and letting him slip the trousers down to my shaking knees. My channel betrayed me by seeking the hardness of his cock helmet and then by opening to his invading cock and rising and falling on him, fucking myself on his familiar pole—the indignity of wanting it so much that I fucked myself on his cock—all the time playing that song he liked to fuck to as he softly laughed at how easily I had returned to him.

After I had quickly come, his hand squeezing and pulling at my cock and me ripe for the taking after weeks of unaccustomed abstinence, he pulled me up from the piano bench, stripped me completely of my trousers and briefs, and led me back beyond the beaded curtain. Taking me into one of the rooms off the darkened corridor, he pushed me down on the bed on my back and spread and held my thighs wide, and fucked me to my exhaustion.

I had nearly dozed off when he pulled out of me and left the room. I heard murmuring in the corridor and looked up in time to see the colonel from up-island, the one who had been pestering me for some time, enter. He was naked—hairy and cock hard and curved up from a thick bush of curly hair. Steve stood at the door, money in his hand, smiling, as the colonel moved quickly to me and pounced. I tried to rise, to escape, but the colonel back handed me across the face and I fell back on the bed, shocked and stunned. He flipped me over on my belly, at the edge of the bed, my feet reaching for, but not quite gaining a foothold on the floor. He had one hand buried in the hair at the back of my head and the other one had a grip on one of my wrists and was twisting one of my arms cruelly across my back. I lurched and cried out in surprise and pain when he thrust his dick inside me and began to piston me furiously. He let lose of my arm, but arched my back up to him by pulling my head up and back with the fist in my hair. His other hand was groping and slapping and pinching and digging fingernails all over my body as he hooted and imagined himself a cowboy breaking in a new horse. He rode me until I simply didn't care anymore. And then left me alone, panting, on my belly on the bed. When I struggled up, I was alone in the half-lit club.

The next day I told Steve I wanted the pay I had earned thus far at the club and that I was leaving.

"You'll get part of the money after each client you've fucked," Steve said. "I didn't like it that you left me high and dry with an angry Marine general to satisfy. You can earn your way out of here and back home."

His harsh words slashed directly to my gut. But I was weak. Whenever he told me he wanted me to go behind the beaded curtain with him, I went. And whenever he just laid on his back on the bed, with that long, thick pole of his pointed at the ceiling, I mounted my pelvis over his hips and fucked myself with moans of ecstasy until I had drained him dry.

Nearly every night too, in hour-long breaks between my time on stage, I gave my time in one of the rooms beyond the beaded curtain, fucking and being fucked by men and women alike, developing a following that just couldn't get enough of me. Being so much in demand that I was assigned a room exclusively, whereas the waiters and bartenders had to settle for whatever room was available at the time.

One night, between sets, Steve came over and told me there was someone he wanted me to meet. This only meant one thing. He didn't even try to hide the wad of bills he held in his hand. I had already been bought and paid for.

My hands started to tremble and my knees turned to jelly as I approached the table back in the shadows and saw—the general from Clare in Tokyo.

Steve started to say something, but the general said, "No introductions required. You may leave now." The dismissiveness and slight distaste in his voice were unmistakable, but Steve had gotten the money so had no qualms about taking the hint and pissing off.

"So, you didn't come back to Tokyo," the general said as I sat down beside him. He was turned toward me and placed an arm around behind me, laying lightly on top of the banquette. The fingers of his hand rested lightly on my shoulder, but they felt heavy and possessing to me. His other hand rested on my thigh, just above the knee. I willed it to move higher.