Silas's Choice Expanded

Then he took me up the stairs. The second floor only stretched across the arm of the building parallel to the sea. The first room, roughly two-thirds the length of the living-dining room below, was obviously Silas's workshop, as it was chockablock with canvases in various stages of completion and scattered painting supplies. Beyond this were two guest bedrooms and a bathroom. Again, as on the first floor, the only windows of any size faced the sea—but these windows were enormous. Doors from the second-floor landing in the foyer and from the most distant guest room led out onto broad balconies that stretched across the roofs of the two wings that reached out toward the sea.

Marcello guided me into the nearest bedroom, which directly overlooked the courtyard from French doors that led out onto somewhat flimsy-looking iron balconies. The one outside this window proved to be quite strong, however. The room was richly appointed in maroon and gold brocade on the windows and the corners of a canopy bed that was draped with a white gauzy mosquito net. The floor was of red terrazzo squares, and the only furniture in the room other than the massive bed was an equally massive armoire facing the bed and two sturdy Spanish-looking arm chairs.

Marcello left me then. When I heard him clomp down the stairs, I went back out into the studio to check on the impression I had gotten when I was ushered through that room. I had been right. Some of the paintings had covers over them, and I didn't look at those. But those I could see were shockingly arresting. Most of Silas's paintings were of young men. Naked young men. They were excellent, of course, but they were evocative and provocative. And they raised stirrings that I had been feeling for many years but had been fighting. I could not work where I did and have those sorts of feelings. But it also was hard to work for long periods of time under stressful situations with the type of men who did what I did—and had to keep themselves in the shape I had to keep myself in—and not have these types of feelings. I had long felt that a man had to be basically narcissistic and adventuresome and risk taking to be in the business I was in—and to survive.

All of the young men in the paintings were beautiful and were perfectly formed—or at least depicted as such. And it didn't take me long to realize that some of the paintings were of Marcello. Silas had captured his engaging, open, trusting smile perfectly as well as that teasing come hither look in his eyes.

The paintings were fascinating—and disturbing at the same time. Silas had been right, though, in assuming I would be exhausted after my plane trip. So, after a cursory glance at the paintings, I pulled myself away, took a long, cool shower and dropped, naked on the bed. As I drifted off to sleep, my mind was in a muddle. This was a side of Silas that perpetually confused me. Were the paintings just what sold well here or were they something Silas used for release, or did he paint these because he looked for the beauty in whatever he was painting? Perhaps his last series dealt with the beauty of misformed pumpkins. I did know that Silas fucked men. I'd seen him do in during an operation in Colombia.

I couldn't get those paintings out of my mind, and as I drifted toward sleep, my hand involuntarily traveled down my chest and across my thankfully still flat belly and found that I had engorged. And, as I had done countless times while hunched down in a jungle waiting for something to happen, I began to stroke myself. And to think of those paintings and of those young men in the paintings. And of Marcello. And at last, as I climaxed, more surprisingly—and honestly—of Silas himself.

The sun was almost directly parallel to the bed and sinking toward the horizon of the sea when I awoke. My hand was still wrapped around my cock, which was dormant now, but still a handful, and I had spilled my seed on my thighs in big globs. It had been some time since I'd gotten off, and I still felt horny from the memories of Silas's paintings. I could feel myself stirring again. But I would have to shower again before dinner, and there may not be time for me to indulge myself a second time. I wondered how long it would be before dinner. My alarm clock was in my kit in the bathroom, but neither it nor my watch was set to the local time, and I was too groggy to make the calculations. I knew, though, that I'd have to get up soon and shower again.

Then I heard it. Moaning and groaning. I wasn't so woozy that I didn't recognize that sound. Someone was being fucked and was enjoying it immensely. I rose from the bed and moved over to one of the French doors, which I had opened to the sea breezes before taking my nap. The sounds were coming from the courtyard just below me.

Their lovemaking was already well in progress. Marcello was on his back on top of a patio table, his head toward me and his legs stretched up and out toward the sea. He was gripping the edges of the table with his hands. Silas—a still-magnificently built Silas—was standing at the seaward edge of the table between Marcello's legs. Both were stark naked and heavily tanned. Silas was holding Marcello's legs up and out with his hands and his hips were moving in rhythm, as he split the young Portuguese houseboy with what I knew was a prize-winning cock.

Marcello was moaning and groaning in ecstasy. And as the rhythm of Silas's fucking increased in intensity, the young man began to give little cries of pleasure and was writhing around on the table top. His head flopped back and his eyes picked me out, standing right up against the open second-floor, full-length window—not intending to, but mesmerized by what I was watching. And he smiled for me that big, beautiful toothful smile and his eyes slitted, telling me how much he was enjoying the fuck. And acknowledging with that teasing smile of his that I seemed to be enjoying it too.

I should have withdrawn into the room and not made my presence felt or seen, but I was glued to the spot. And, involuntarily, one of my hands went to my rising cock and the other to my nipples.

As I watched, Silas leaned down into Marcello, heaving chest to heaving chest now, and he kissed the young man deeply on the mouth and then lowered his head and nipped and nuzzled at Marcello's nipples. Marcello was writhing under him and giving little chirping sounds. When Silas raised back up, he released his hands from Marcello's legs, leaving the young houseboy to hold them up on his own and took Marcello's hard cock in both hands and stroked him relentlessly until Marcello gave a little scream and ejaculated up onto his own chest.

Silas then lifted the lithe young man off the table and, while maintaining purchase of his cock deep inside Marcello, stood there on the courtyard stones, holding the younger man against him. He took a long black leather strap from the table top, and, wrapping that under Marcello's butt cheeks raised and lowered him on his prodigious tool by the action of his fists holding handles on each end of the strap. Marcello flung his arms around Silas's neck to hold himself in place and, between pants, put his mouth to Silas's ear and whispered something to him.

Silas turned then, never losing stride on pumping Marcello's tender ass on his tool, and looked up and, for the first time in three years, made eye contact with me. And there I stood, in full view, in a full-length, open window, naked and stroking myself and not being able to stop. I was fascinated by the rippling of Silas's arm and chest muscles as he worked his willing houseboy up and down on his pole. Silas's musculature and curly black chest hair had always held a fascination for me, and I had often found my dick dripping after watching him in action either in the gym or in the field. I just hadn't been smart or "in tune" enough to make the conscious connection that Silas, another man, could be sexually arousing to me. I had just thought it was envy and had always doubled my own efforts to develop the muscles he had.

Marcello gave a little cry and a lurch and collapsed against Silas's chest, gasping for breath, as Silas undoubtedly flooded his insides with cum. I could tell from Marcello's twitching and the rhythm of his gasps that he was getting multiple gushings of Silas's seed. But Silas stroked on, still watching me with hooded eyes and a half smile—until I could take it no more and withdrew to the cool water of the shower—wondering if this is what I had come for. If my subconscious knew what I would find here—and welcomed it. I was confused and scared and excited and aroused all at the same time.

A shy and demure Marcello served us a calamari and salad dinner with excellent red wine by the pool on the terrace at 8:00 that evening as the sun went down. Silas was playing the welcoming host of a long-lost friend, and both he and Marcello were pretending that nothing had happened on this very patio table this afternoon and that I hadn't seen it and that they hadn't seen me or my revealing response to what was happening.

But Silas didn't maintain the pretense. Over brandy and his favorite Robusto Vegas de Tabacalera Esteli Premiem Cuban cigars afterward, he was as open as I would want him to be—in fact, more shockingly than I could ever have imagined.

"No, I didn't just resign and walk out on the job because of those two assignment choices I was given, Ward," he said. "The assignments and what they symbolized reflected where I was with the outfit, of course. I was disgusted with the red tape and the dumb decisions and them continually just hanging us out to dry and to survive as we could. And then giving us little pats on the hand when we brought home the bacon for them and acting like they could all do it just as well as we did. And my disgust was showing through and undoubtedly was what led to the assignments. But, no, it wasn't because of that. It was because of you."

"Me?" I was incredulous. What had I done to alienate him. We'd been best buddies. I had worshipped him and would have done anything he told me to do, would have gone into the jaws of Hell just on his assurances that we could pull out of it—and I always believed he could get us out safe. And he always had. What had I done?

"I grew to love you, Ward. More—and much more dangerous than that—I wanted to have you. The urge was almost uncontrollable. And we couldn't have that in the outfit, could we?"

"Love me? Have me?" I still didn't get it. But he just sat there and looked at me with those sad eyes and it began to dawn on me. "Oh."

"So, I can't tell you what to do with the job offers, Ward. Because your situation isn't what mine was. For me, the third choice—just getting out and evaporating—increasingly became the only logical choice. As hard as just getting out is with those folks. They want to make the decision when a man's usefulness and the relationship is at an end."

The hair was standing up on end on my head. I had never felt this way or been in a situation like this before. I was confused. Scared, confused, and aroused all at the same time. This was all just too new, going too fast. I couldn't speak. I couldn't have formed words even if I had known what to say. I certainly dared not say what was swimming around in my mind just now.

I looked up and Silas was giving me a long, hard stare. "As I said, your situation isn't the same as mine. . . . Is it?"

It seemed to be a very important question, and there had been quite a pregnant pause before Silas had pinned the question down, almost as if this was a decisive point he was trying to make. But my tongue wasn't mine to control. I felt like I had cotton in my mouth. I could feel that I was slightly trembling and getting sweaty. Me, a hardened behind-the-lines, boots-on-the-ground agent, trembling and sweating at the mere thought of what could be and what a cataclysmic change doing what I was thinking of doing would be. I couldn't say a thing. I just sat there.

Silas watched me for a while and then he sighed.

"Gone but not forgotten, you know, Ward. The opposition has a long memory, and the outfit has an even longer one for those who disappoint it. So, I'd advise that you lock your door tonight. We're ever vigilant here. If you don't lock it, this could be the night something happens. I'm going to bed now. After breakfast, I'll have Marcello drive you back to Seville. I can't really tell you which choice to make. You have to make your own choices." His voice had gotten a little hard—hard but, at the same time, sad. And I could feel a chasm opening between us. I wanted to scream for it to stop widening, but I just couldn't say it.

And then he was gone. Lights went on behind tightly curtained windows in the French doors of his wing of the house and I just sat there, watching the last pink and purple of the sunset fade out at the rim of the sea and the dotting of twinkling lights begin to glow along the sides of the cliffs to the west and east.

When I entered the foyer, I briefly paused at the door into Silas's rooms, desperately wanting to take up the conversation again, not wanting us to end on this note. But the closed, iron-studded doors looked just too daunting.

I was exhausted—and not only from the long plane journey—but I was reluctant to go to my room. Somehow, when I entered that room and closed and locked the door behind me I knew this would be a closing out on an important choice. I lingered in the art studio, drinking in the paintings of Marcello and of other beautiful, sexy young men. It was clear now that Silas had had more choices available to him than those the outfit offered and that he had gone for life rather than one form or other of death—or even of convention and safety. Having had my fill of the uncovered paintings, I moved on to those with coverings over them, still terrified at the thought of entering the bedroom and closing and locking that door, erasing for me the choice that Silas had hinted at, even if ever so remotely.

I uncovered one of the paintings and then staggered back in shock. I moved quickly around the room, uncovering the rest. And then I just collapsed on my haunches in the middle of the room and trembled as I drank them in. The paintings that had been covered—they were all of me—in the nude—and accurate down to the mole on my inner thigh. Silas had memorized my body from those years of working and living together in intimate circumstances. He was even more intimately aware of my body, amazingly so considering the distance in time and location that these must have been painted, than even I was. He had that little up curve of my shaft just below the mushroom cap just right, a characteristic I previously had not been fully aware of myself. And that small chameleon I had impulsively had tattooed on the small of my back one drunken night in Bogotá was something he'd seen and memorized that I myself would never get a good look at. He had made me look like a real, alluring . . . stud—and maybe in his eyes I was.

The most arresting painting, the one that took my breath away, was a big one on an easel right in front of where I was sitting. Whereas most of the paintings in the room were of solo subjects, this one included both me and . . . Silas—in an intimate embrace. We were facing each other and I was reclining back on something that Silas hadn't chosen to graphically depict, no doubt wanting all of the attention to go to our bodies. We were nearly pelvis to pelvis, him inside my spread thighs. But we were on a bit of an angle and there was enough of a separation to see that he had his cock buried inside my ass. He wasn't all the way in, and I could feel the heat inside me rise, as my eyes were glued to the root of his cock and those bulbous balls of his resting against my thigh, suspended in time, intending to bottom inside me but never destined to do it.

At the back of the studio, in the corner, I found a two-paneled painting. In the left-hand panel of what was obviously the first tableau of a continuation in time, Silas and I were in a rowboat on an expanse of water, with no land in sight. I was sitting on one bench at the bow of the boat and Silas was kneeling on another bench toward the stern. I was sucking Silas off. In the next painting, I had laid my torso back in the boat, with my head resting on where the gunwales met at the bow. I was still sitting on the bench, but my arms and legs were draped over the gunwales on each side and Silas was kneeling between my legs in the bottom of the boat and his cock was nearly totally buried in my channel and he had his hands covering on my chest, covering my nipples. The expression on both of our faces was one of matched total passion and being lost in our shared form of paradise.

Yet another painting aroused me even more, especially because I remembered Silas taking a young man that way back when we were working together—when I was conflicted in my feelings for him myself—and had seen the same position with Marcello earlier this afternoon. It was the two of us again. And he was using that black leather belt sling I'd seen him use before. My body was lifted off the ground, suspended in front of Silas, and my buttocks connected at his pelvis, by a sling cupping my belly and holding me to him, him fisting the edges of the belt, which would give him leverage to raise and lower me on his cock. The expression on both of our faces revealed the utter depths of lust and passion.

I willed my eyes to pull away from that painting, but that only pulled my attention to the previous painting. I was trembling and feeling an arousal I've never felt before. My eyes traveled up Silas's well-muscled torso, and a little jolt of desire went through me as I saw the curling of the black hair on his chest, trailing down in a wide band across his belly and into his pubic hair.

I wanted Silas. I probably always had wanted him. The realization came as a shock. But it came as full-blown knowledge that I had always wanted Silas—embracing me, possessing me with his cock, the two of us united in a single being. I remembered now how much pleasure I'd always had at seeing Silas bare chested. That curly black hair and that beefy musculature. All man. I'd always thought it was just admiration for a perfect man. But, if I was prepared to be honest with myself, I now had to admit that it had been more than that—even then, back on the Amazon.

The answer was in how Silas had drawn our faces. Intent on the fuck, lost in each other, our eyes glued to each other's. Just the two of us. Just the two of us, as one, against the world, blotting the world out as we melded and made love to each other.

I couldn't take it anymore; I raised up off my haunches and lurched into the bedroom.

I didn't even think about it when I got to my room, but this was when I made my choice. I left the door unlocked; I didn't even close it. I searched the room, in the closet and through all the drawers. Somehow I knew it would be there. And it was. In one of the bottom drawers of the bureau. The black leather belt sling—one of Silas's plow belts. I hadn't misinterpreted the hints. Silas had planted this, just in case I understood what he said—and wanted the same thing he was telling me he wanted. I took the plow belt out and very carefully laid it under the bed. I had no idea—no real hope—that he'd ever use it on me. But I felt somehow closer to him, and more fully aroused by the thought of him just to have it there, under the bed.

Then I stripped and showered and opened the French doors to the cool sea breezes and lay spread-eagled and naked on my belly on the bed under the netting, silently sobbing myself to sleep. Damning myself for not having found voice to answer Silas on the terrace—to respond to him. Why couldn't I cross that chasm? What choices, really, was the outside world offering me?