Chapter 2 – Chapter 2

The king's Hua Hin summer palace was a surprise to Lars Krieger. The engineer in him was fascinated, as he followed Amnad Pramoj from one parallel building complex to another, followed by small, but strong, male servants lugging their suitcases. Walking through the palace was like peeling an onion of history.

The first bank of buildings from the auto park was a string of painted teak pavilions, with shining orange, red, yellow, and green roof tiles set like snakes' scales, on a long platform raised off the ground one story by pillars. Behind this, connected by a covered corridor, was a early nineteenth-century style rambling two-story wooden building that was austere in appearance, a marked contrast to the ceremonial buildings in front of it. It appeared to have been built quickly and cheaply to accommodate the maximum number of rooms for the cost. When seeing this, Lars thought back on being told about the large number of children Amnad's grandfather had fathered by multiple wives. Beyond this, though, against the shore of a shallow cove off the Bight of Bangkok, perched a modern steel and glass building Lars was to find housed an entertainment complex, including the small concert hall he was to be helping Amnad to prepare for the Chopin performances.

Walking to the curved floor-to-ceiling windows at the back of the concert hall that overlooked a cove, with crystal-clear water over gleaming white-sand, Lars saw that the complex didn't stop at the water's edge. The luggage bearers passed him by, though a door out onto a deck, and then down a pier out into the water bearing platform pads on pillars along its sides.

"Those are the guest huts," Amnad said, as he sidled up to Lars. "I'm sorry to say that we are in separate rooms. Propriety and all that. But we can find time for each other."

"Good," Lars answered, purposely being unclear on what was good. He wanted Amnad to think that it was good that they would have opportunities to fuck, but what he actually thought was good was that they were in separate huts. He was here to do more than construct a sound shell around the stage for the Chopin concert. Having his own room would help him complete the assignment Heinrich Heller had entrusted to him.

Lars and Amnad were the first to arrive. The concert wasn't for ten more days. Krit and Somsri Thanawat wouldn't arrive to start practicing for nearly a week, and stage construction was to be finished by then. The king's family and guests wouldn't filter in until the day of the concert. Other than the servants, those preparing for the concert would have the complex all to themselves.

Lars' bit would be the first to be completed—the sound shell. Amnad would ensure it was effective by practicing his sonatas both in front of the raw shell when it was completed and then after he had transformed it into a dreamy backdrop reminiscent of Chopin's time—something that would evoke Chopin's world to the Thai royal family. It didn't have to be faithful to Chopin's environment. This was Amnad's specialty in his stage work—creating "realistic" fantasy backdrops for operas.

This was a specialty that Lars was here to create as well—to create a fantasy to serve the purpose for which he was sent—to bring dissonance to harmony without those involved being aware of what was happening in the greater scheme of things.

When Amnad was satisfied with the balance of art and acoustics, Krit and Somsri arrived. For the five days before that, Amnad and Lars went to their separate huts on the platforms over the shallow waters of the cove only for one to steal into the hut of the other in the middle of the night to fuck in the various refined positions of the male Kama Sutra, an activity that kept Amnad enthralled with Lars, but one that didn't completely satisfy Lars. Male servants had quickly made themselves available to the hulking, muscular Farang, Western foreigner, and Lars had no lack of small, berry-brown men available to fuck roughly in his own bed or in various other locations around the palace compound after leaving Amnad.

Amnad had said that, if Lars had pressing business, he could return to Bangkok once assurances were reached that the sound shell was complete—but that he was welcome to stay on for the concert. He probably wouldn't be introduced to the king, though, of course. The Thai architect was delighted when Lars said he was happy to stay on.

Amnad no doubt thought the reason Lars was staying was because of him—he had no illusions that it was the music that held Lars. But Lars knew that he would stay because of his mission—because of Krit Thanawat and what he wanted from Krit.

So, as Amnad worked in the concert hall with the curved glass wall overlooking the shallow cove and the line of sleeping huts along a raised pier jutting out into the water, Lars remained nearby in case further work was needed on the basic sound shell, which it wasn't. He had done an expert job from the beginning. Growing bored with sitting in the concert hall and feeling the siren call of the nearly transparent water of the cove and the shifting pristine-white sands underneath, Lars moved to the deck beyond the glass wall during the days, changing into swimming trunks, taking in the rays, and occasionally stealing away to fuck one of the willing berry-brown, small-bodied male servants there permanently to serve whoever was in residence and satisfy whatever needs they had.

It was here, sunning himself on a bright-colored mat set in a section of the decking, that he was to become aware that Krit and Somsri Thanawat had arrived. He learned it first in the sounds of piano music coming from the concert hall that were of a different strain and touch from Amnad's slender, sensual fingers. Krit was practicing the Chopin etudes. And not long after that, the awareness came as well, as Lars noticed that Somsri, in a red bathing suit, was swimming in the cove beyond the edge of the sun deck he was lying on.

Sensing that she was watching him as she swam, Lars struck several poses that could both be construed as natural and would show off his musculature to the best advantage. He did not discount the possible importance of this diminutive Thai beauty, with the enchanting soprano voice, to the mission that he had to perform.

Lars stayed long enough to be sure that Somsri was swimming to see and be seen—with them being the only ones out in the sun on the cove. Then he stood and stretched, and, not looking at her—giving the impression he wasn't even aware she was there at all—he reached down and rearranged his package inside his swimming trunks, conveying the impression he was so well-endowed he had to have it "just so," which wasn't far off the truth. Having done that, he languidly walked around the curve of the glass wall on the external deck and then over to the pier and down that to his hut on a separate platform.

Having rounded the corner of that, he waited for a half minute and then peeked around to the corner to see if Somsri was still in the water. He smiled to himself when he saw that she wasn't. She'd pulled herself up onto the deck curving around the back of the concert hall and was drying herself off. She had been swimming just for him.

Lars wasn't sure how he'd use the knowledge that Somsri was taken with him—or whether he needed to use that information—and he didn't usually do women, but he was happy that the option was there. And Somsri Thanawat certainly was a sexy little thing. If he had to do her, he'd have to be careful not to break her.

Dinner that evening was in a cavernous, high-ceilinged hall on the ground floor of the palace's middle wing. It only appeared to be the ground floor, though. Like all of the other buildings in the complex, in fact most buildings in coastal Thailand, the first floor was raised and rested on a platform. This was because coastal Thailand was at or below sea level and just the tide coming in could flood a building sitting anywhere near the shore. In the case of the drab wooden rectangle that was the middle wing, though, the open area under the first floor was skirted with wood latticing to make it appear to be an interior space, and this was where the small boats the royal family used for excursions on the water were kept.

With only four people at the end of a table that easily would seat fifty, eating under wavering candlelight in a drafty hall, the dinner conversation seemed to echo. This didn't bother Somsri, Amnad, and Lars, though, who discussed this and that and not much of anything significant in a convivial mood in which both Somsri and Amnad hung on every word Lars uttered. Although polite, Krit remained a bit aloof, entering the conversation only when it dabbled with classical music or travel in Europe. Even then, he remained a little distant and avoided looking at Lars or querying Lars about anything. Somsri and Amnad were both looking at Lars and vying for his attention enough that neither seemed to be aware that Krit was maintaining a barrier between himself and the German engineer.

But Lars noticed.

"Krit," Somsri turned to her husband and said after the remains of the mangos and sticky rice desert had been swept away by the padding legion of barefooted male servants with rustling Thai silk sarongs knotted around their waists, "I should like to practice the lieder this evening if you will accompany me."

"I have practiced the etudes enough today that I fear my knuckles are swollen, but—"

"Perhaps Amnad could accompany Somsri then," Lars interjected. He had been looking for just such an opening to be alone with Krit. Although Krit had studiously been trying to avoid looking at Lars for days, he had not been thus guarded before Lars had mentioned knowing the Cologne Symphony conductor, Heinrich Heller, and Lars, ever watchful, knew that Krit still gave him interested looks when he thought he wasn't being seen to do so.

And Lars well knew there was foundation for Krit to be interested in him. That, in fact, Krit had trouble maintaining control around certain kinds of men—men very much like Lars was. That's why Lars was here.

"Yes, that would be fine with—" Somsri started.

"No, that's OK, I'll—" Krit broke in.

"That actually would work well," Amnad said. "I haven't practiced today, and playing the lieder for Somsri would warm me up for running through the sonatas."

"Well, that settles it then," Lars said jovially. "Krit and I can stay on here for a bit to have our brandy. Right, Krit?"

Krit's expression reflected that it was anything but all right, but he acquiesced with a shrug. Still, he watched his wife and architect friend leave like they were going to close a prison door on him in their wake.

When they were gone and Lars had poured brandy in snifters for both he and Krit, he gave Krit an intense gaze as he handed him a snifter and said, "You can hear Amnad doing scales to warm to the piano, Krit. They are safely away in the concert hall. You can look at me now."

Krit sheepishly turned his handsome face to Lars, his long eyelashes fluttering.

"Heinrich wants you to return to him, Krit. I have felt that you knew why I was here from the moment I said that Heinrich was my friend—that I worked with him."

Krit didn't respond.

"So, you know why I'm here. Why it was someone like me who Heinrich sent to bring you back."

"Yes, I know that's why you're here," Krit now said in a small voice. "And I know why he sent someone like you. But, as you can see, I can't go back now. I'm a married man, with a calling here in Thailand. You know I can't—"

"I'm going to come over there and kiss you now—and embrace you," Lars said in a low voice.

"Yes," Krit answered in not much more than a whisper.

"And we're going to find someplace very private."

"Yes," Krit murmured softly.

"And I'm going to fuck you."

"Yes."

They fucked in one of the small, outrigger-style boats stored underneath the building. Krit lay on his back in the hull of the boat, his arms and legs slung over the gunwales on either side, his neck propped at the bow where the tongue of the boat jutted out. Lars knelt in the hull between Krit's spread thighs, held Krit's slim hips in his hands, and pulled Krit's channel on and off his hard, thick cock, while Krit moaned that they couldn't be doing this—that Krit didn't want this. But as Lars pulled back from the killing thrust as Krit, hard himself, was about to burst, Krit cried out of his need to be finished and grabbed for Lars' buttocks, pulling the cock deep inside himself again.

Heinrich had told Lars that Krit liked to be fucked roughly, and Lars found that to be true.

Lars started pumping while they still could hear Somsri's lilting soprano on the floating breeze. Such was his stamina and virility, though, that he didn't finish, with Krit moaning and sighing in exhaustion to the deep, brutal thrusts, until Amnad had started into the second of the sonatas.

Laying there, panting, collapsed onto the top of Krit, Lars murmured. "After this concert. You can return to Germany with me. Heinrich wants you, needs you, back in his bed."

"I can't." Krit was near to sobbing. He was struggling to get out from under Lars and out of the boat, and Lars was laughing and half-heartedly countering Krit's efforts—but only half-heartedly. Both men knew that Krit only was able to rise from the boat because Lars had permitted him to do so. "I'm married now. I have created a whole new life around my music. Heinrich is a musician. He should be able to appreciate that even if you can't. I can't go back."

"Are you that sure of the harmony you have struck here with your wife and your music?" Lars asked when Krit had gotten out of the boat and started to escape from the dimly lit storage space under the building. Krit stopped and turned. Lars had risen from the boat and was displayed in all his muscular beauty, his huge cock and low-hanging balls now swinging low between his meaty thighs. "Do you really believe you can run away from what a man has to offer you."

With a half sob, Krit turned and fled.

"You'll want me again," Lars called after him. "We both know you will."

Lars was still arranging his cotton pants and pullover cotton shirt on his arm when he reached the open doorway from underneath the building. One of the young male servants was standing there, his eyes going big at the vision of the sexy god emerging, naked, from under the building.

Lars laughed, reached over and unknotted the sarong around the servant's waist, scooped the young man up in his arms, and carried him back to the boat for another round of—even rougher than he had dealt Krit this time—personal pleasure.