Chapter 2 - The out call

Ever since I´d made my latest career move I no longer had to spend my evenings, especially on Sundays, fretting over the early wake-up call the next morning. I could sleep as late as I wanted, usually getting up at leisurely one o´clock in the afternoon, sometimes even later if I felt particularly slothful and had earned well the previous days. Having gone through my slow-motion morning routines of high-protein breakfast and reading the daily papers on line, I set off for the gym, looking forward to my daily dose of male flesh in various stages of undress and, fairly regularly, arousal. Even the first whiff of the locker room as I entered, with its mixture of soap, detergent, and the strong underlying male scent, was often sufficient to give me a quick stab of a hard-on that subsided only when my nose became accustomed to the smell. The situation wasn´t much easier in the weight room, where most Italian men seemed to shun baggy sportswear and most of them wore outfits that were designed to show off not only their muscles but their sturdy genitals as well, and in great detail.

On Monday evening, after the workout, I got a call from one of my favourite clients on my way home. Marco was a handsome Italian financial adviser in his early forties, always impeccable in his Armani suit which hinted at the muscular gym-trained body underneath, and he never took off his wedding ring before visiting me. It was always a turn-on to watch his strong hand slide up and down my shaft, caressing the bulging veins and the leaking head, while the pale golden ring glinted wickedly in the dim light of my apartment. He wanted to book me for Wednesday evening, and I certainly had no objections. In addition to great sex, each of his visits paid half of the monthly rent, and so I was in quite good mood when I got off the antiquated yellow tram and dropped by the corner store to buy some pasta farfalle and pesto genovese. With Marco visiting on Wednesday, I could easily afford a night off and either rent a DVD or check out the new bathhouse – although unfavourably reviewed - that had recently opened only few blocks from my place. A movie with Angelo was out of question, as Luca had just returned from Rome where he´d been visiting his parents for a couple of days.

There was no elevator in my building, and I climbed the four floors to the small loft apartment I´d been renting for almost a year, ever since I moved to Milan after my brief and unlucky stay in New York. The furnishings were still far from complete; there was nothing but a low couch of minimalist, white design which had been unreasonably expensive despite being second-hand, and an old 1950s metallic reading light I had found in a thrift shop. The white walls were bare as I never seemed to find anything that I wanted to see staring back at me day after day, and likewise there were no carpets on the gleaming hardwood floor. There was no table either; my laptop computer lay on the floor next to the couch that doubled as my bed, along with a small acquarium Angelo had given me for my birthday. The kitchen was hardly any more practical than the living room, as I had spent my money on two period barstools by a Scandinavian designer and continued to use the countertop as a table. However, the few pieces of furniture I had were all first-rate, and I happily ignored the remarks on my weird unfinished choices by guests who frequently risked stepping on my computer.

I prepared the farfalle al pesto, and turned on the TV to see if there was anything interesting on while I wolfed down the pasta. Despite the networks´ best efforts to keep their viewers watching, and most of all to keep them awake, the programming backfired miserably as my eyelids began feeling heavy after clicking through channels showing an Italian TV series about the tribulations of a particularly full-breasted Roman actress, a footballer´s girlfriend guessing the number of beans in a glass jar, and something that resembled celebrity karaoke. Admittedly, my lassitude wasn´t all due to the lousy programs, as Angelo had decided that an afternoon in Como hadn´t been enough and had stayed over in my place until the early hours. I wondered if he´d had trouble staying awake during all those mind-numbing meetings about procedural pitfalls or something similar in his family´s law firm where he was going to be a partner in not too distant future.

The ring of my phone woke me up, and apart from the flickering blue light of the TV set, now showing a rerun of Get Smart, the apartment was in the dark. My phone was unable to ID the caller, but as far as I could tell the prefix belonged to a residential line in Milan.

“Am I speaking with Erik?”

“That´s me,” I replied, rationing some professional good humor into my voice since I had discovered, to my surprise, that most clients preferred someone who sounded nice instead of a single-minded sex maniac.

“You gave me your number in Piazza Trento some time ago,” he said. The voice was matter-of-fact, and not very friendly. “I´d like to see you tonight, if that´s fine with you.”

“Sure.” I only gave my number to men I liked, much to the chagrin of Sebastian, my Brazilian friend who had put the idea of hustling into my head. It´s unprofessional, he kept telling me, as if choosing one´s clients were comparable to a priest sending away people who wanted to confess.

“You said you do both in and out calls,” the man continued. “Could you come over here, let´s say, in a half an hour? I live near the city center.”

“Sounds fine to me. What´s your address?”

“There´s something I´d like to explain to you first. We´re a male couple, both tops, and sometimes we do a threesome with a friend who likes it rough. What we´d like you to do is to come here and fuck him while we watch.”

So there would be two men I hadn´t seen before. I hesitated a moment.

“You´d find us wearing leather, and our friend already tied to a bed,” the man continued. “It´s an unusual scene, so we´d pay double. For each of us.”

That was six times my regular fee. “Would you want me to wear leather, too? Or restraints?”

“No, that won´t be necessary,” the man assured me.

“All right. I´ll be over in half an hour.”

The man gave me the address. “I´ll add the taxi fares to your fee. We´d like you to get here as soon as possible.”

Keeping an eye on the clock I quickly swallowed a few cookies and a yoghurt, thinking back at the conversation. I felt uneasy about a bondage scene with total strangers, but at the same time the idea was making my heart beat faster. If everything went right the job could be particularly exciting, and then there was the not inconsiderable amount of money they´d pay me for topping their helpless friend. I put on a t-shirt and a pair of cammies, stacked a side pocket with lube and condoms, slipped my cell phone in the other, and called a cab.

I hadn´t known there were mansions with private gardens so close to the very center of the city. When the cab driver turned away from one of the main thoroughfares I was quite surprised by the lavishness of the small street he had entered. The houses looked like something one might expect to see in Côte d´Azur facing the Mediterranean and not in the center of a major industrial city. The sidewalks were lined with huge trees that engulfed the streetlights until they became merely ornamental, glittering uncertainly through the foliage and doing little to illuminate the street itself. I paid the driver, and as the car vanished into the darkness I stood still awhile, studying the place. All the houses were surrounded by inhospitable spiky fences, or brick walls with their tops undoubtedly sprinkled with broken glass, and many of them were unlit since, I presumed, the inhabitants were presently either residing at the Paris Ritz or relaxing in the Caribbean. The air smelled fresh and at the same time of moist earth, like in a large city park, and the sound of the traffic was reduced into a distant hum. The house I was standing in front of had two floors, and it had been built noticeably later than the others, perhaps replacing an older mansion that had been hit during the Allied bombings during the World War II and deemed irreparable. Less ornamented than the others, it bore the marks of postwar architecture although by no means could one call the building modest. All the curtains were drawn, letting only faint suggestions of light through to indicate that someone was home, and to get my libido up and running I spent a moment imagining what was happening behind the darkened façade of the house. Then I pressed the gate buzzer.

The lock clicked open almost immediately. I stepped through, and the heavy gate swung back with suprising force and clanged shut, making me jump. No neighbors opened their windows to protest, though, with the trees stifling the noise as efficiently as they hid the other houses from view. Privacy was clearly highly appreciated in this enclave of privilege. The garden was rather narrow but skillfully designed, with its two large maples among the culprits smothering the street lights, and to compensate the effect there were several dim garden lanterns to draw attention to the some of the best features: a rosebush that seemed to be bursting with deep red blooms, another one with delicate white flowers, and an ancient marble fountain sprouting water from the jug of a rather mouldy female figure. A stairway, lined with potted palm trees, lead to a porch that ran the width of the house and served no other purpose but to accommodate another extensive array of plants, some of them creeping up the pillars to almost hide the terracotta roof of the porch, and others dangling down to the ground, their blooms swaying in an occasional breeze. I pressed another buzzer, and cranked the old-fashioned handle after hearing the click of the lock. The door was so heavy it had to be armored, and it took some effort to push it open.

I found myself in an empty vestibule, with the host apparently unwilling to risk a glimpse of his leather kit to any neighbors despite the protection provided by the trees. I closed the door behind me, and walked into the living room, an expression that seemed inadequate for such a large shadowy space. The most prominent feature was a large fireplace of grey marble, with a massive leather couch and two matching armchairs facing it. Generously proportioned oil paintings hang on the walls, mostly portraits, each with its own muted spotlight, the only source of illumination in the room. There were various antique tables, vases with enormous flower settings, and three potted trees between the front windows, but any further details were lost on me as my attention focused on the sole figure standing in front of me.

He was an inch or two shorter than me but obviously no stranger to steroids, and he wasn´t in full leather drag as I had expected. Instead, he was wearing a pair of black jeans and a black t-shirt that showed off the beginnings of a gut, but given the thick muscular arms and legs the overall effect was proportionate and, undeniably, quite stimulating. Adding to the perverse appeal was a pair of black kid gloves, which had always been a turn-on for me, and a perfectly fitting executioner´s black leather hood that removed all expression from his eyes. The skin of his powerfully built arms was tanned, and of a shade that suggested him being from the south of Italy. I felt a sudden rush of blood into my groin, building up a pleasureable heaviness against my cammies.

“Hi Erik,” the man said. “You´re looking good.”

“So are you,” I said, sincerely.

“Let´s get this part over and done with.” He handed me a few banknotes which I pocketed without looking at them. “Let´s go upstairs.”

Most of the house was in the dark, and I had to pay attention not to stumble as I followed him through a library with floor-to-ceiling shelving and a massive mahogany writing desk, and all the appropriate paraphernalia including an large-sized antique globe held in an old-fashioned wooden framework. Then we climbed a wide staircase, and continued along a corridor with several doors, some of them open, others closed, and I caught a partial look of several lavishly furnished bedrooms and a home theater. Only one of the rooms was illuminated; the master bedroom, at the end of the corridor. It was decorated as the rest of the house, with dark gleaming wood and rich, embroidered fabrics that shimmered in the dim light of two bedside lamps. For a moment, I paused at the doorway, taking in the view.

Leaning against a rococo writing desk, arms crossed across his chest and in harsh contrast to the delicate piece of furniture, stood the other top. He was wearing a pair of black trousers and a t-shirt as well, and the same type of gloves and hood as his friend. He was taller, with a more average build, and perhaps because of him standing still and not talking, only staring at me with the deadened eyes through the black mask, I reckoned him as the more aggressive one, the one I´d have to watch out for. Next to him, on top of the desk, almost hidden by a black gym bag, I noticed an open beer can. Then my eyes were drawn to the man tied to the canopied bed.

He was lying on his stomach, spread-eagled, his ankles and wrists tightly secured to the bedposts with smooth hemp rope that drew his body taut and left him utterly powerless. He was completely naked except for another black leather hood, but this one was more elaborate than the others. It fastened tightly in place with a belt around his neck, and it included a snap-on blindfold and an efficient leather belt gag with either an extra large or inflatable rubber ball that completely filled up his mouth, judging by the pitiful, muffled groans he was fighting to let out. The muscles of his back flexed as the blinded man vainly struggled to free himself, and there were signs of rope burn already as he alternatively bunched his hands into fists and then tried to reach out with extended fingers, searching for leverage or help that couldn´t be found. He looked uncommonly agitated, giving the impression of being truly afraid, and I glanced questioningly at the two tops.

“He´s good, isn´t he?” the one who had paid me said.

The man in the bed was in good shape and clearly worked out regularly, but I pegged him between fifty and sixty years old, whereas the two men were probably the same age as Angelo, in their early thirties. The setup made me wonder if the two men were in fact my colleagues.

“Want something to drink?” the beer guzzler asked, and picked up a can from the bag. He threw it at me, without waiting for an answer, and I caught the can in midair. It was a popular energy drink I liked, and I popped the lid open and took a sip.

The words had an alarming effect on the captive. Realizing I had arrived, he began squirming frantically, choking on the gag as he repeatedly tried to shout. Again, I looked at the men, and they smiled at me smugly. I turned back to the slave, and watching him fight the bondage I sipped at the drink, letting my hard-on grow until it visibly tented my cammies and I had to unzip them. Even behind their masks I could tell the men were impressed by what they saw.

“We´d like you to fuck him bareback. For extra.”

I inhaled sharply. “Sorry, guys. I´d like to, but that´s just something I don´t do.”

“That´s OK,” the more talkative one responed. “But we want you to come inside him, even if you´re using a condom.”

“That I can do,” I said, setting down the drink and pulling off my t-shirt. “Do you want to see him take my cock down his throat first?”

“No, we just want you to fuck him,” the one next to the drawer said, and turned to his bag. “But first you have to open him up.”

He pulled out a spectacular chromed dildo with massively ribbed shaft, and a bottle of lube. I had stripped off all my clothes now, and the man gestured me to climb on the bed between the spread legs of the man. The victim went into another fit of convulsions when he felt my weight settle on the bed behind him, and, smiling, the hooded topman handed the dildo over to me. It felt cold and heavy, and at close range the shaft seemed disproportionately thick. Unless the captive was accustomed to something that size it would take a long time and a lot of effort to work it in, and it would be painful.

The prop master snapped open the transparent bottle of lube. I expected him to slowly rub the thick liquid into his slave´s ass, and then play a little, slip in a finger or two to tease the man´s prostate and make him squirm, perhaps while lubing up my hard-on with his other hand. Instead, he simply poured the liquid between the man´s cheeks, and stepped back to watch the effect it had on him. Now the man was fighting even harder than before against the restraints, but it only helped the lube to seep deeper in between his buttocks and as he felt the touch of the slick liquid on his anus his whole body went rigid, and he let out another choked whimper, shaking his head. With one hand, I spread his asscheeks, and nudged the tight little opening with the blunt head of the dildo. Watching the man struggle had made my cock so hard it was starting to ache from within, and I felt an early drop of precum force its way along my pisstube. A glistening bead of liquid appeared on the tip of my cock, grew in size, and in slow motion dropped between the man´s legs.

“Wait,” the more muscular man said. “I really want to see you fuck him. Do you mind?”

He stepped next to me, and lifted the dildo from my hands. I gave it to him, naturally, but now I was getting a little annoyed by the inaptitude of the two. There was also the consideration of putting on a good show to ensure they´d call me again, and so far the scene had been remarkably dull except for the captive´s performance. So I picked up a condom, and made sure they noticed how difficult the girth of my dick made the task of slipping it on. Once ready, I slapped the man´s glistening asscheeks with my hard-on a few times, to lube up the rubber, while forcing a finger into him to seek out his prostate. He was very tight, fighting my entry, but when I reached the goal the clenched ring of muscle suddenly loosened up, and I instantly took advantage of the fact and slipped in a second finger. Then I couldn´t wait any longer. I grabbed the root of my shaft with one hand and pointed it at the opening, and began the penetration, very slowly, enjoying the tightness and heat engulfing my cock. The man let out muffled, throaty whimpers, and his body opened up to me. I slipped in all the way. For a moment, I stayed still to savor him, and to allow him to adjust to my size, and when I felt him start to relax I began the fuck.

Almost immediately, the more muscular topman moved to my side.

“Can I touch you?” he asked.

“Sure,” I grunted. Finally things were going right.

He stepped behind me, and I felt his strong gloved hands grip my trapezius muscles and start to massage them. I reached out and took his left hand, bringing it down to cup my pectoral and tease the nipple. He did it for a while, unenthusiastically, then pulled his hand back and continued with my shoulders. I restrained myself from making a face, aware that his friend was watching, and decided to give up on the two and focus on the man I was fucking. He had stopped squirming, and I could feel him start to respond to my long, slow thrusts.

“Are you close to coming?” the man behind me asked.

I felt an urge to turn and slap his face, hard. “Already?”

“I want to see you come,” he murmured. “To fill that scumbag.”

If that´s what you want, I thought, completely put off by his manner. They were paying me so well it didn´t matter if this was just a one off job. I picked up speed, hoping he´d stop massaging my shoulders as his touch had become truly annoying. Then I realized he wasn´t enjoying it either, and that he really didn´t know how to touch a man, nor was he familiar with men´s bodies. I knew the kind, a bisexual married man with little or no experience on the subject. Most often the clumsiness was endearing - and they learned fast - but this one I judged a lost cause, among those who even kept compulsively rubbing me between the balls and the anus, unable to kick the habit, as if that was where the pleasure lay for a man as well. Or perhaps they were afraid to actually touch men´s genitals, I didn’t know; there was no way to ask one politely why they were such incompetent lovers. In any case, I was now glad that this one was limiting himself to my shoulders.

So the whole setup made no sense, unless the sub intentionally sought out straight thugs to rough him up, and a gay one to actually fuck him as the others weren´t up to it. Theoretically it made sense, but my instincts told me something was wrong with the scenario. The details didn´t add up. My annoyance began to turn into preoccupation and I decided I needed to finish the job as soon as possible and get the hell out of the house. I picked up speed and tried to muster a fantasy that would do the trick, but believing me close to coming the man moved his left hand to my gay buttock and squeezed. It felt as if he were checking out a loaf of bread at a bakery, instantly postponing my orgasm, and I removed the hand as gently as I could, under the circumstances. I closed my eyes, and conjured images of Jan in the place of the tied up client, which worked wonders. I groaned out loud to let the men know what was happening, and let go. My pleasure was as faked as the thug´s caresses, and when I was done and he wrapped his arms around me from behind I almost shuddered.

“Pull it out,” he coaxed me. “I want to see.”

I complied. The slave went silent, pressing his head against the mattress in sign of abject fear, his body shaking, as I slowly slipped out of him.

“Very good,” the thug said as he saw the full condom.

His embrace became tighter, and when I made a move to step out of the bed he suddenly squeezed me hard, forcing the air out of my lungs.

“Now,” he said as I tried to throw myself sideways to break his grip, and I now realized the other man had moved out of my sight towards the end of the fuck.

A foul-smelling rag was pushed to my face. I fought to free myself but the man holding me was too strong, and in seconds the room turned into a blur. I flailed inefficiently as my muscles lost all their strength and he set me down on the bed, and then darkness fell and I slept.