Chapter 13 – Another kind of sex slave in Santa Fe.

The cook had fed us with steak and cleaned up and left, leaving the two of us alone. My host put some soft music on and lit the fire. The wine had been excellent and I was feeling it in my head. The white bear-skin rug in front of the fire looked so inviting, and I wanted my head to stop spinning, so I laid down on that on my belly, facing the fire, staring into it and becoming quite mellow. My host left me there for a short time, letting the fire and the music and the soft rug and the buzz from the wine float me away.

He was back, in a short cotton robe. He must have been at least in his late forties or early fifties, but he'd aged well. His leg muscles were firm and I thought that he must have been an athlete at one time—and probably still worked out. As he leaned down to me, the front of the cotton robe opened and I saw a well-developed chest with a matting of salt-and-pepper curly hair running from his chest down in a thin line to where the lapels of the robe met.

"Some port or cognac?" he asked in a rich baritone. His face was distinguished. A lawyer or a banker or corporate CEO. Even after two weeks, I didn't know. He spoke little about himself, showing more concern for me. So kind. If he hadn't found me at the side of the desert highway, brought me to this big house on the ridge above Santa Fe, and had a doctor in to look at me after what the beating and the hours on the sand by the highway had done to me . . .

The steel gray hair was expertly cut, a perfect-teeth smile. A slight scar under his left eye—his eyes were hazel and so alive—only serving to emphasize how handsome his chiseled features were. Model handsome. A healthy Santa Fe tan smoothed out the laugh-line wrinkles.

"No thanks, Mr. Grimes. Another drop of alcohol and I'd go right to sleep."

"We couldn't have that, now, could we?" he answered, the low laugh conveying his mood. "And I've told you, it's Bill."

"I have trouble with that . . . Bill. You've been so kind, and there's such a divide between us."

"We must see what we can do about that too. Here, take a look at these. I work with photography. I'd like to know what you think."

He was handing a folder to me. I opened the cover to find a set of loose photographs. The ones on top were art shots—nudes—of a young, handsome youth. A bit younger than me. About nineteen, I'd guess. The photos were expertly done, although it wasn't the artistry of them that took my attention. Toward the bottom of the pile, the photographs were more explicit—much more explicit as I leafed through to the bottom of the stack. And the youth wasn't alone. Grimes too was in these photos. I turned my head toward the sofa to see the cotton robe fall onto it in folds.

I shuddered and stiffened as his body came down on top of me, covering me full length. My torso was raised on my elbows, as I was fanning through the photographs. His hands laced in underneath me and he was unbuttoning my shirt and then pulling it off my arms.

"Relax," he whispered in my ears. "Just concentrate on the photos and let your body drift with me."

I did what I could to let the tension in my body flow away. "Mr. Grimes. Bill," I whispered.

"Sure you don't want to try the Cognac? I still have the taste of it in my mouth," he whispered back at me. He cupped my chin and turned my face toward his, and, when he kissed me, I tasted the rich, full-bodied nectar of the wine.

His hips were moving against my pelvis, and I felt the hardness of him through the material of my jeans and briefs.

I felt the palm of a hand on my belly and fingers working at the buttons of my jeans. Instinctively, without conscious control, I lifted my butt into his crotch as the zipper of my jeans was being pulled down. I wanted him to know there would be no struggle, no indecision, no holding back for whatever he wanted. He had paid for this in full. All of the hardness went out of my jaw and I opened my mouth totally to him.

The moaning I heard was almost detached, but I recognized it as mine.

He wouldn't release the hold of his lips on mine and in the wake of the taste of the Cognac, his tongue had invaded my mouth cavity. I could hardly breathe. But I didn't care if I couldn't. He was still possessing my mouth as he was pulling my jeans and briefs below my hips.

Skin on skin now below the belly. A hard dick inside my butt crack, stroking up and down on the rim of my hole. I shuddered and groaned and he released my mouth and gave a low, comfortable laugh.

"The photos. Concentrate on the photos," he said.

I returned my attention to the photographs, pushing through the ones of the handsome youth solo, down to the ones of the youth with Grimes. He was moving down the line of my back now. Kissing and licking my shoulder blades, while one hand pulled my jeans and briefs down and off my legs and the other one worked my nipples and then came down to palm my belly as his lips reached the mounds of my butt cheeks.

His teeth nipped at the sensitive skin of my rump and I groaned as I heard the low, appreciative laugh again. I felt a light slap on each cheek and they were being squeezed and nipped again. A hand went between my thighs and pulled my cock and balls through. I tried to widen my stance, but he moved his forearms to trap my thighs close together, tightly against my dick. A hand possessed my cock and slowly stroked down. I raised my buttock further, presenting to him in supplication—for whenever he wanted to mount me.

"Bill, Bill," I whispered.

"Ah the divide narrows, doesn't it? Surely there will be no trouble with first names now," he answered back. And then that arousing laugh again. He clearly was enjoying this.

"Do you like the photos?" he asked. "Don't the two of us in these photos make the smashing pair?"

"Yes." It was a whisper.

"Does the lad look happy? Am I fucking him well?"

"Yes." It was a whimper, followed with a moan.

He had taken both hands and was spreading and squeezing my butt cheeks with them. When he blew across my hole, I shivered and groaned.

"So nice. Such a rosy bud. And already opening."

"Bill," I whispered. "Bill." And then "Bill!" as he kissed the hole and his tongue started working into me. I writhed under him for countless minutes as he tongued my hole and worked my cock with his hand. Intermittently he moved his mouth down to my cock and balls and gave suck, and during these intervals his fingers invaded my channel and found my prostate.

"Bill, Bill! I'm gonna come. You're gonna make me—"

"Oh, I hope so, Rick," he muttered. "I certainly hope so." And then he laughed again.

And I came.

He covered my back fully with his body again and his cock was rubbing inside my butt cheeks once more. I raised my pelvis further to him. Fully presenting to him. Wanting him. Wanting him to know I wanted him. "Bill," I whined.

"Ah, are you ready? Do you want me inside you? Permission to fuck, my young lad? Jeff wants his daddy?"

"Yes," I whimpered, all of my senses focused on the shaft rubbing across my hole, not even catching the reference to a Jeff.

He went up on his knees, reaching over to the sofa. I heard the slight rustle of the condom packet as he opened it, and then I felt the coldness of the lubricant he poured liberally between my cheeks and worked into my opening with probing fingers. My chest was flat on the floor, my cheek against the photos of Grimes fucking the youth, my arms splayed out at my side. I was up on my knees, though, with my quivering butt raised high to him, my legs spread.

Fuck me, fuck me now, was what I was trying to convey.

He crouched over me, pulling my chest up, me now on all fours. The cock was rubbing inside my crack again, sending electric impulses as it stroked again and again against my hole.

"Please. Bill, Please!" I begged.

He laughed. And then I felt the bulb presented at my hole and he was slowly pushing into me. I gasped and my eyes started to water and both my elbows and my knees began to quiver and to give way. But Bill, crouched over my midsection and continuing to enter me, held me up with strong arms wrapped under my rib cage. I felt his lips at my cheeks, and I turned my face to him, letting him possess my mouth again—masking my groans and moans.

Who would have known he was so thick and hard—and that it would take so much length of my channel for him to bottom?

Coming out of the kiss, my face was suspended over the photographs. The one on top was of Grimes crouched over the hips of the young man, who was on all fours—on a white bear-skin rug in front of a fireplace; this fireplace. The expression on the young man's face was one of ecstasy. Bill was looking into the camera with an expression that almost conveyed, "At last; in at last."

Only half hidden below that was a photo of the young man on his back on the same furry rug and Grimes kneeling between his thighs, knees under and raising the young man's buttocks, Grimes fisting the youth's slim ankles and holding his legs up and out, wide. I could see a good two inches of the root of a thick cock at the young man's channel opening. And again, that "gone to paradise" expression on the young man's face.

A third photo was of Grimes completely sheathed, the youth's legs running up Grimes's torso now, his hands reaching around Grime's thick waist and clutching the older man's thin butt cheeks close to him with fingers digging into the flesh, obviously trying to take in every centimeter of the cock. Eyes wild, mouth gaping open, and tongue hanging out. I trembled in anticipation.

He stroked me so long and hard that my elbows and knees did give out and, with a laugh, he rode me to the rug and kept on riding. He was babbling as he fucked me, and I occasionally heard the name "Jeff" spoken. But never the name "Rick."

Fucking me at such depth, and so filling. My channel walls undulating across the shaft as it mastered me. Throbbing, hot, relentless. Strong hands pulling my thighs in tight. Oh, god, the tightness. The almost despair as he pulls back. Oh, no, don't leave me! Oh, shit, yes! at the long hard plunge back to the depths. Yes! Again. Oh, yes! And again. Oh Shit! And AGAIN. Paradise. Faster now—stroke, stroke, hold, stroke—making me pant and writhe against his strong hands and moan—and beg for it to go on and on.

I felt him tighten and take in a long breath and then—with my channel trying, unsuccessfully, to close on his cock and keep him inside me—he pulled out of me, and I groaned at the loss of him and heard the condom being ripped away and then felt the flow of him on the small of my back.

He covered my back with his torso again and continued moving on top of me, stroking the small of my back with his cock through his cum. He hands glided along my arms and took my wrists. I turned my lips to him again. His prisoner for as long as he wanted me.

"I'm sorry if you weren't expecting that this evening," he whispered in my ear when he once more let loose of my lips.

"I don't know what took you so long," I answered, with a sigh.

"I thought perhaps I assumed so much. But you are so beautiful and sexy. I couldn't help myself. Hardly a good host."

"You saved my life," I whispered back. "And . . . and the perfect host. Almost too polite, I was beginning to think."

"I have given you every reason to think otherwise, even if you weren't consciously aware of it."

Rick didn't comment on this. At the time he assumed the man was referring to the current move to seduce him.

He turned me on my back, my head resting in the pile of his photographs. He covered my body with his, his cock lying against my own between our still-heaving bellies. I looked down the line of his body. His barrel chest with the matting of salt-and-pepper gray standing out in moist curls and below that a still-flat, hard belly—even at his age. I wanted to run my hands through the matting on his chest, to search out the taut nipples I saw hiding there between the curls of the hair. But he had his fists wrapped around my wrists and they were trapped on either side of my shoulders. So, instead, I dipped and raised my face into his chest. I found a nipple almost immediately and sucked it in hard as he gasped and then I nipped at it, which produced a yelp from his mouth and an engorging surge in his cock.

Releasing one of my wrists, his hand grabbed my head under the chin and forced it back into the pile of photographs and his mouth was hungrily attacking mine, his tongue invading, every bit as filling and probing as his cock had been. I gasped and nearly gagged.

I wrapped my legs around his, my heels rubbing up and down his hard calves. His free hand snaked between our bellies before I could completely push in as close as I could to every inch of him. The hand wrapped our two cocks together. And he stroked our shafts and worked my mouth with his until, with a lurch and a shudder, I came again.

He released my mouth and cock then. I could feel he was fully hard again. Amazing for his age. Not so much, though, considering the strength and power of his fuck. He raised his torso off mine a bit and looked down into my eyes. He was smiling that melting smile of his—the one I saw in the photographs when it was clear that he had mastered the young man to exhaustion.

"That's not fair," he said in a tone of false pout. "You've gone twice and I only once. Would you mind terribly if—?"

"I hoped you would," I whispered breathlessly, my mind possessed by what I'd seen in the photographs, as he knelt between my legs, pulled my buttocks up on top of his thighs, and reached over on the sofa for another condom packet. I lifted one of my legs up his torso to hook an ankle on his right shoulder while I watched him roll the Golden Ticket on his cock and prepared to raise the other to his left shoulder when he was crowned, positioning myself to roll up my rump to receive the deepest thrusts I could eke out of him. I spied three more condom packets on the sofa and shivered in anticipation. I had seen other photos of other fuck positions the young man obviously had enjoyed.

But who, I was wondering, who the fuck was Jeff?

* * * *

"Hey, guy, are you OK? Here, here. I brought some water. There, let's get you up and . . . for the love of god, you look just like . . . is it a mirage? There for a second. . . . Here. Yes, drink some of this . . . not too much at first. Later more. Are you OK?"

"K," Rick said. He'd been on his side, curled up, the pain in his side grinding away as the only clue that he was still live. The man turned him onto his butt and raised his torso, supporting him underneath with a strong arm. And he was offering a plastic bottle of commercial water for Rick to sip from.

Rick groaned from the pain in his side when his body was moved, but his hand with the bottle of water was at his lips and he almost had to be restrained from gulping down too much of it.

"Sorry, are you hurt? More than just the heat in the desert?" the man asked.

"Side," Rick answered. "Hurts." He looked up at the man. A handsome businessman type, slim build but good strength. Gray haired. In his forties or fifties. Beyond him, at the side of the road, Rick saw a late-model Mercedes sedan. Not the cheapest model.

The man had lifted Rick's shirt. "It's bruised. Have you been in a fight or something? Are you from around here? Anyone I can call?"

"No one. Just walkin' . . . walkin' to Mirage," Rick said.

"Mirage?" the man said and looked at Rick funny. Rick thought there was something else he was going to say, but then he didn't. "You going east or west?"

"West. Mirage, Arizona," Rick said and then he grimaced and reached for the water bottle. "Sorry. Can I? Mouth feels like cotton."

The Man looked like he understood better. "Ah. Arizona. Got to get through New Mexico first, and you're obviously in the need of a doctor—and to get out of this sun. I see there are other bruises. Someone's worked you over. The worst of them yellowing, though, not that recent. Here, I live in Santa Fe. In a bit of a hurry. There aren't any hospitals around here that I know of. I can take you to Santa Fe and have a doctor who I can get to look at you. That OK?"

And then when he saw that Rick wasn't responding. "That OK, son? Oh, lord, don't zone out on me now. I swear the resemblance is . . ."

But Rick wasn't listening. Rick had lost consciousness.

When he regained consciousness, he was lying along the backseat of a luxuriously appointed car. He wondered if this was his chariot to heaven.

"Where? What?" he muttered.

"Oh good, you've come to. I couldn't leave you there out on the desert between nowhere and nowhere else. We're on the way to Santa Fe. But if you want me to leave you somewhere—"

"No, that's . . . that's fine," Rick murmured. "No place better than that. And . . . thanks."

"There's a water bottle on the floor of the car by your head," the man said in a rich baritone that exuded relief. "Just don't try to drink too much too fast. We'll be home in about four hours."

"Perfect," Rick muttered. And although his throat was parched, he drifted back off to sleep, dreaming of a knife cutting into his side. Feeling the pain of it; ruminating on the thought that one wasn't supposed to feel pain in a dream. Home, where was home for him? This was Rick's last thought before blacking out.

* * * *

"It's a bruised kidney," the doctor said. He was standing over Rick, who was tucked into a queen-sized bed in a rather large room that must have belonged to a young boy, one who had enjoyed athletics and Spider Man, although the Spider Man stuff mostly had drifted to the floor to be replaced by Rock band posters. The baseball and football trophies had obviously held their place of honor, though.

"It's on the mend already. I've seen to some other cuts and bruises that should have been taken care of a week or more ago, but are managing pretty well on their own now. You were in some sort of fist fight, were you? More than one maybe?"

"There was something like that, but I never had a chance to get into it."

"I see," the doctor said. "Ganged up on, were you?"

"One was enough."

"I'd say one was more than enough. A relative of Bill's, are you?"

"Bill?"

"Bill Grimes. This is his house. He called me in."

"No. He's just a good Samaritan," Rick answered. "Picked me up on the road outside Amarillo."

"Texas?" the doctor said with surprise.

"Yeah, I guess that's where Amarillo is. I've come from back East."

"Walked the whole way?"

"No. I was with some other guys."

"Guys with bruised fists?"

"No. But it's complicated."

"And now you are here in Bill Grimes's house." It was said like there was some meaning behind it.

"Yeah, I guess. I feel like I've slept forever."

"Bill said you got in late last night. He couldn't get me until this morning. I just got home this morning from Vegas."

The doctor looked at Rick for a long minute before he spoke again. He was putting medical stuff back in his bag and snapped it shut. "And you say you aren't a relative of Bill's?"

"No. He just stopped for me. I was down on the side of the highway."

"I see," the doctor said. That tone again of there being more than just seeing. But then he got up. At the door, he turned and said, "I'll look in at you again tomorrow. Another couple of days, and I think you can get out of bed without much pain."

Only when the doctor was gone did Rick realize he was naked under the sheets—and clean. He blushed, suddenly bringing to mind the only thing he had remembered about arriving here. They've driven up the slopes above old Santa Fe, and Rick had the impression of a long, low adobe building that went on forever. And then an elegant, open space of an entryway with a sunken living room below, beyond which, through a great expansion of glass, the twinkling lights of a low-lying city could be seen. The wall of windows was broken by a gigantic fireplace with a white bear-skin rug in front of it. A large dining area was off to the right upon entering the front door, opening to a similarly large kitchen beyond with gleaming black glass fronts on the appliances. To the left of the door was a corridor leading back to what must be a bedroom wing and an adobe-encased staircase leading to a second floor area above the bedroom wing.

The man who had brought him here in his Mercedes—who Rick only now knew was named Bill Grimes—had half carried Rick to a Leather sofa near the fireplace and gently lowered him down into the corner of that.

"I'll be just a few minutes," he'd said. "I'll prepare a room for you and be right back down. And I'll bring you something that will help with the pain."

The man disappeared up the stairs to the second floor. Rick looked around and it didn't take him long to find out something important about the man who had saved him in the desert. There was considerable art work around. Bronze and silver sculptures and oil paintings. All large and showy, and obviously expensive. The sculptures were all of men's muscled torsos and the paintings were male nudes. There wasn't much more bric-a-brac around except for along the tops of the bookcase balcony rising in a semicircle around the inner side of the living room, separating the sunken area from the corridor and dining room on the raised level. This space was devoted to framed photographs. They were too far away for Rick to see, and his eyes kept going back to the nearer artwork anyway. Two art books lay on the huge, glass-topped coffee table, both with black-and-white photos of artfully posed male nudes on the cover.

When the man returned, he had changed to a short cotton robe and was carrying a glass with fizzing liquid in it. As Rick took this down in several long gulps, the man asked him what his name was, how old he was, and where his family was and, it seemed, told Rick his own name. But none of this stuck—neither the specific questions nor the answers. Almost before Rick had finished drinking the medicine, his eyelids were drooping and he was drifting off to sleep.

The next face Rick saw was the face of the doctor in that room with the posters and the athletic trophies.

After the doctor left, Bill Grimes appeared with a bowl of soup and a glass of milk, and Rick's nearly two-week period began of healing his wounds from his beating at the Big C ranch and his heat stroke from the stumble on foot along the highway out of Amarillo.

Grimes gave Rick plenty of time to rest and sleep and during that time, all conversation, which was terse and relatively rare, was focused on Rick and on making him well. Grimes said little about himself and Rick didn't press him. For most of the first week, Rick was in a semiconscious state, often almost in a coma, induced by whatever medicine the doctor had left to be given to him. The doctor only visited three times—covering the first three days. Whatever he left for Rick to take was of such a strong nature that Rick spent more time sleeping and when he was sleeping, he slept as the dead.

Each morning when he came back into a semiconscious state, he was naked and clean under the sheets.

Twelve days after his arrival, Rick made his first journey down the stairs and to the living room. For two days prior to that, he had made sojourns out onto a balcony off the bedroom he was in, the bedroom also having its own full bath and a massive walk-in closet with just two hangars—his neatly cleaned and pressed jeans, cowboy shirt and briefs hanging on one and a cotton robe similar to the one he'd seen Grimes wear on the other. Rick's duffel bag was on the floor. There was very little in the duffel bag; just some clothes. Whatever money Rick had once had was now gone, and it took Rick a few minutes to remember the Hispanic men who had robbed him by the side of the road.

Feeling well enough to move about, Rick put on the cotton robe and went out on the balcony, which was oriented out toward the west and hovered over a steep slope down the ridge side. He shivered when he looked down into the ravine. It must be a drop of five stories or more down to the rocks in the dry stream bed.

When he decided to go down to the living room for the first time, he put on his jeans and cowboy shirt. When he got to the bottom of the stairs, which required some effort as weak as he was, he found a rather rotund Mexican woman in the kitchen cutting up food and humming. She smiled at him and he smiled back. He went to the window by the fireplace in the living room, which turned out to be a French door—all of the space on either side of the fireplace was devoted to the same sort of door—Rick turned the handle, wanting to go out onto the portal beyond and take in the fresh mountain air. The door was locked, as was the one beside it. He didn't see any knob or anything to unlock it from the inside.

He turned to ask the woman in the kitchen about going out onto the portal, but he saw, instead, Bill Grimes walking briskly toward him from a room beyond the kitchen.

"Ah, Rick, it's good you're up and about. Come on back to the den and let's have a drink and I'd like to show you the book of Ansel Adams photographs I was in Dallas buying before we met. Do you know who Ansel Adams is?"

"Yes, I studied him in a photography class," Rick answered. The reference brought Groton and the movie he was making to mind. It all seemed eons and continents away now.

They entered a room almost as large as the living room. All of the artwork here was of Southwestern art—and most of it consisted of photographs. There were bookcases lining two walls. These cases were packed with art books, most, that Rick could see, of Southwestern landscape oils and lithographs—Georgia O'Keefe type stuff or of landscape photography. One whole section, though, caught Rick's attention. They looked like photographs of male nudes. He started to gravitate toward those, but Grimes took him by the arm and led him toward a leather-covered sofa with a glass-topped coffee table in front of it. A large book was open on the table, and even Rick could see that the photo shown was an Ansel Adams.

"Here, this is the book I wanted to show you. And here's a drink. I'm sure it will be OK for you to drink this now. You're almost fully well, I think."

Rick could tell from the delicate touch of the man's fingers on his arm and from the way he looked into Rick's eyes—the flash in his own hazel eyes, and the curve of his mouth when he smiled—that he wanted Rick. Rick had now been into this sort of thing for quite a few months—going back to Tony, who had given Rick the exact same look before fucking him.

Although the artwork in the living room had alerted Rick, he would have known from how the man touched him and looked at him now that this is what the man wanted. What the artwork had done for Rick, though, was to give him time to think about the circumstances. The fact that the guy had stopped for him and brought him here and gotten a doctor to see him and nursed him. This all made Rick feel like he owed the man something. Beyond that, the man was quite handsome and well built. And overriding everything else, Rick liked to be fucked and hadn't been for two weeks.

Rick would like this Grimes guy to think he was seducing Rick, if that's the way he wanted to play it. But Rick was already prepared. He was ready to play.

Rick started drinking the drink as he sat next to Grimes while Grimes turned the pages of the Ansel Adams book and spoke in that rich baritone of his about this nuance and that of lighting and location and time of day. Rick had no idea when either the drink or the photography show was finished, though, as the strain of a first trip downstairs had gotten to him and he drifted off to a deep sleep.

The next morning he awoke in the room on the second floor. He was clean and naked under the sheets.

The next night, Grimes himself decided that Rick was well and strong enough to come down to the dining room for a full meal. The cook prepared them a delicious steak dinner with excellent wine. As they ate, she cleaned up the kitchen and was gone before they were finished.

Grimes invited Rick to go on down into the living room and to take his wine glass with him. Rick felt hazy from the wine, but it was so good that he took another drink of it at the table. He didn't feel steady enough, though, to carry his glass down into the living room, so he left the glass on the dining room table and carefully negotiated the stairs down there with the use of both hands.

Rick perched on the sofa as Grimes moved about the room, dimming the lights, putting soft music on the CD changer, and lighting the fire.

As Grimes was doing this, Rick looked around, sensing that there was something different about the room than from the time he'd first sat on this sofa two weeks previously. It wasn't the artwork; that was all still in place. Then, he noticed that the photographs were gone. The living room bookcases were now empty of all photographs. In their place were some replicas—or genuine as far as Rick knew—of black and white Southwestern native pottery.

Rick didn't dwell on this find. His head was spinning from the first alcohol he'd drunk since coming here. But that wasn't completely true; he'd had a drink in the den with Grimes the previous afternoon. Of course he hadn't been able to hold that very well either.

He wanted his head to stop spinning. The fire and the bear rug looked so inviting. He slipped down onto the rug on his belly, facing the fire.

Grimes entered from the bedroom wing, dressed in his short cotton robe. He offered Rick some port or Cognac to top off the evening, but Rick begged off. Then Grimes was leaning down to Rick, with a portfolio in his hand.

"Here, take a look at these," he said. "I work with photography. I'd like to know what you think."

As Rick fanned the photographs out—artistic nude shots of a young man, and more explicit photos below those in the stack of the young man with Grimes—Rick turned his face to the sofa to see the cotton robe fall onto it in folds.

And then Grimes was lowering his naked body onto Rick's back.

They fucked for an hour and more, in several positions—all inspired by the photographs Grimes dropped on the rug under Rick's face. As the logs in the fireplace were being reduced to glowing embers and Grimes was on his side, with Rick cuddled into his chest and Grimes holding Rick's leg up for access to Rick's channel as he was still stroking him deep in a side split, Grimes put his lips to Rick's ear and said, "It's so nice. You're such a sweet fuck."

"Yes, yes, it is nice," Rick whispered back with a mellow sigh.

"It's so much nicer fucking you when you are conscious," Grimes said.

"Conscious?" Rick responded, in confusion.

"Yes, we have made loved more than a dozen times already. Even asleep, you responded fully and openly to my fucking you. You are a sweet lay."

"But . . . but I was asleep."

"And your sweet vulnerability enhanced my enjoyment of you. I assure you that you were able to move your hips in rhythm with me and moan in your sleep."

Rick froze in shock and instant realization. Going out like a light after being given a drink; waking up naked under the sheets and clean—it all fit into place with just that one statement from Grimes. Rick gasped and tightened up and shuddered, marking this as the start of his need to be out of this house, to escape the insane clutches of this man.

If Grimes noticed the change in Rick, he didn't signal it. He just kept on stroking deep inside Rick's channel. And ultimately Rick gave into the fuck fully and lay there panting and moaning, arms and legs spread in full supplication for anything else Grimes would want to do and with a sloppy grin on his face. When Grimes was finished inside him, he withdrew and stood and went to the kitchen for another bottle of wine. He came back into the living room with a photography book on Mapplethorpe nude male models and sat on the sofa, leafing through the pages. At length he looked down at Rick again, still sprawled on the bearskin rug, completely open to him. Grimes smiled and got up from the sofa and went over to a table and retrieved a camera. He came back.

"Don't move. You look lusciously vulnerable and open."

Rick did as he asked, watching Grimes circle him, snapping off shot after shot. This was something Rick was accustomed to; this was of the world Douglas Groton had initiated him into. Gradually, Grimes narrowed in on Rick until he was kneeling between the young man's open thighs.

"You. You do it," he murmured.

Rick reached down and took Grime's reengorged cock in his hands, crowned him with the Golden Ticket condom taken from a packet on the nearby coffee table, and guided the sheathed cock into his hole, as Grime's fired off camera shot after shot of the entry and then panned up to catch the pain and shock in Rick's eyes as Grimes slammed his cock home deep and immediately began to stroke hard.

* * * *

Rick hadn't thought about escaping Grimes's house nearly fast enough, and the more he just drifted along, the harder thoughts of escape became. The easiest time to try to split and run would have been at the point of learning that Grimes had already been fucking him while he was unconscious—probably from the first night Rick had been here. Thinking on it retrospectively, Rick remembered that the first thing Grimes did when they arrived at the house was to strip and put on one of those skimpy cotton robes of his. He'd then given Rick something to drink that had put him out like a light. There was every reason to believe that Grimes fucked him as soon as he was unconscious—that first night. Most of the reason Rick wasn't quick off the mark was that, when conscious, he loved Grimes's cocking. He loved seeing the photos of what the man was going to do to him—and then having it done—and then, sometimes the photos Grimes took while fucking him. Groton had taught him to love this.

And at the same time he found that escape wasn't going to be easy, he began to see what the rhythm of life was going to be like around here.

Grimes had fucked Rick so silly on the bear-skin rug in front of the fireplace that he let Grimes help him upstairs to his bedroom. While Rick showered, Grimes stripped the bedroom bare of all of Rick's clothes. And when Rick came out of the bathroom, he found he had been locked into the bedroom. So much for a quick exit.

And then, late in the night, Grimes came back into the room and woke Rick in mid fuck.

"No, no, go back to sleep," Grimes whispered. "Fucking you in your sleep is more arousing for me."

Rick relaxed and closed his eyes, let his limbs go limp, his torso arched back and his arms dangling at his sides, as Grimes shoved his knees farther under Rick's buttocks, wrapped an arm around the small of Rick's back, and slow pumped Rick's channel.

This was a more gentle, loving fucking. Always the taking in other parts of the house was exotic, lustful. But here, in Rick's bedroom, it was slow and attentive to Rick's needs—almost loving. It was this fucking, too, when Grimes dispensed with the use of a condom. It was then, at the height of passion, as his ejaculation started and Rick felt the strong flow of Grimes inside him, that Grimes murmured the name that wasn't Rick's: Jeff. They then settled down to sleep, their bodies entwined. In the morning, Grimes was gone and the door was locked.

He appeared with a breakfast tray.

"I think it best for you to rest up here during the day, Rick," he said. He made no mention of the missing clothes. And believing the man unbalanced and set on a short fuse, Rick said nothing about the missing clothes either. He was more concerned that Grimes didn't mention not using a condom the previous night. This gripped Rick like a hand tightening around his throat. This brought permanence to this ritual of the night that caused the ringing of trap doors shutting in Rick's mind as nothing else had.

The man wanted to fuck him when he was unconscious and without a condom—and while murmuring the name of someone other than Rick. He clearly was bonkers.

"I'll bring you your breakfasts and lunches. The housekeeper will make enough for you to eat a dinner she's prepared after I have done so in the evening, and then you can come down and we'll enjoy ourselves. I have so many interesting photography books to show you—so many ways I want to fuck you."

Rick thought of trying to get to the housekeeper while she was here, but he already knew she only spoke Spanish, and, from the evidence of what he saw that Grimes kept around the house, Rick could only assume that she already knew about Grimes's "arrangements" and perhaps was paid enough to not help Rick even if she could. And then there was the part that Rick could only come into her presence in the nude.

That night, after dark, when Grimes let Rick come downstairs to eat dinner, the first thing that Rick noticed were that two video cameras had been set up—one in the dining room and one in the foyer corridor, that were panned down to the bear-skin rug in the living room.

He knew what these were for. And, strangely, they were more calming than shocking to him. This had been what he had associated with the sex act as Doug Groton had brought him across the country toward Mirage, Arizona. Being on camera would give him a role. He had experience in that.

As Rick ate, wolfing the food down both because it was good and also because fucking taxed so much of his energy and he was being taken multiple times twice a day now, Grimes, in one of the several short cotton robes he had, sat patiently at the table, looking through a book of pornographic male art, showing Rick images Grimes liked or thought that Rick would.

"This is the art of Dan Saba," he said as he turned the book toward Rick. "Can you see the sensuality of it? The time they obviously are taking in his posings? The arousal and love in their eyes?"

"Umm, muh," Rick responded. Yeah, right, it looked like the younger guy was enjoying the older one fucking him. And, yeah, the shot of the young guy leaning back and his legs raised on the bench and spread and giving a good shot of his hole, cock, and balls was pretty good too. And the one of two guys fucking in a shower.

Rick looked away when he saw a well-thumbed image of a man being fucked in his sleep on a bed.

"And here, in this book, Tony Caperton's 'On the Beach'—obviously mimicking that famous pose from the movie. Don't the two lovers look totally taken with each other?"

Grimes was holding the book open with one hand and already stroking Rick's cock with the other.

"Oh, god, yes, I like that painting. It's a lot like the one you have on the wall over in the foyer, isn't it?"

"Yes. You've a good eye. That's by the same artist."

"I think I've eaten enough now," Rick said, as he laid a hand on Grimes's chest and ran his fingers through the curly hair there. His eyes told Grimes that Rick was ready and open to him.

Grimes fucked Rick slowly and sensually on the bear-skin rug, murmuring that Rick should think of the artwork he had seen. All the time the cameras were whirring. The slowness and total taking of the cocking did recall in Rick's mind the artwork.

On successive evenings, the two played wrestlers on the rug for the cameras after the form of a Thomas Eakins painting of that name and Rick was introduced to a psychedelic drug for a wild, full-color and high fantasy taking in the style of Jon Smith. An image of a fucking bent over a table was played out in the dining room and another series of art photos inspired a scene where both just stood in the middle of the living room, and Grimes spiked Rick's ass from behind and wrapped his hands around him and Rick arched back to him and they kissed while Grimes gave Rick a rocking fuck.

A Tom of Finland portfolio moved them on to Rick's wrists being tied to two pillars in the foyer, and Grimes gripping his butt cheeks and standing between Rick's spread legs and swing fucking him roughly.

They even explored Japanese art, where Grimes produced two brocade robes and Rick sat in his lap facing him, and the fuck started inside the robes, with nothing provocative seen other than the expressions on their faces and knowledge of the movement of their bodies assuring the camera-aided voyeur that they were fucking. And then slowly, ever so slowly Grimes opened up Rick's robe to expose body parts that Grimes would tease with his lips and teeth, until Rick's body was revealed fully at the height of the fuck. The film would be cut to focus in on root of the cock lengthening and shortening as it moved in and out of Rick's hole, surrounded by the folds of the soft brocade of two Japanese robes, ending in a shudder of the cock root marking the ejaculation.

And then once, when it appeared Rick was completely under his spell, Grimes produced the photos of him fucking an unconscious Rick in the shower, often letting the slick tiled wall of the shower support Rick's back while Grimes stood and held Rick's legs around his hips, and pumped up into his channel—or Grimes holding Rick's hips up to his cock, while Rick's shoulders were on the wet tiles of the shower floor and his head resting on a rolled-up, soaked towel, Rick's legs akimbo, and Grimes fucking down into his channel.

"These are of the first time, that first night," Grimes said in a low voice dripping of arousal. "I will always cherish these."

And Grimes wanted to repeat all of that for video cameras on tripods too—adding the effect of a Rick who was actually aware of what was happening to him.

The nights were more private, Grimes making complete love to Rick's body in the darkness, with no cameras rolling. At these times Rick frequently heard him murmur the name "Jeff." Always when he was completely lost in passion—and often in a mournful tone.

Grimes was often away during the day, the sound of the Mercedes backing out of the garage and then returning hours later, alerting Rick to the fact. The first few times this happened, Rick tried the door and went out on the balcony unsuccessfully considering lines of escape. But he became dizzy and his heart raced each time he saw the drop off the balcony to the rocks in the ravine bed. His imprisonment seemed to be tight, and other than his host's obsessive behavior, Rick's motivation to escape was minimal. He wasn't all that outraged at what Grimes was doing with him when they were fucking, and, without clothes, he doubted he'd get very far in this desert environment even if he did manage to escape.

Only once did Rick see an opportunity to do something toward a plan to escape when he was in the mood to take any action. Once when Grimes was fucking him on the kitchen counter in the evening, Grimes turned from him and upset a bottle of red wine down his midsection and thighs. Without thinking he went off to shower it off, leaving Rick alone for a short time in the house.

Rick knew it was dangerous, but Grimes's room was the only one where he thought he could get a set of clothes to hide against the day he could escape. So, when Grimes went down the first-floor bedroom hallway, Rick followed and waited to hear the click of the bathroom door and the shower being turned on, and then he entered the bedroom and picked out the closet door and got there as fast as he could. He would have gotten there faster, but as he entered the room, his eyes were assailed by photographs set up all over the room. He thought back to the photos that had disappeared from the living room the night he'd arrived.

He looked at some in passing and they almost stopped him in his tracks. They were all of Grimes and a clothed version of the young man in the fuck photos Grimes had shown Rick that first night they'd had sex on the bear-skin rug and Rick had known they were having sex.

Time was of the essence, though, so Rick slipped into the gigantic walk-in closet and grabbed for a pullover sweater and a pair of trousers and old sneakers from near the back of the racks. They weren't his size, but he figured they'd have to do. He'd taken them to his room and hidden the clothes between the mattress and box springs and the sneakers behind a standing bureau and had gotten back into the kitchen and perched back up on the counter before Grimes returned to resume where he'd left off in the fuck.

Then one day Grimes came into the room in mid afternoon—not when it was a mealtime—and handed Rick a set of clothes. Trousers, but no briefs; a white, short-sleeved dress shirt; and a pair of socks and Rick's own loafers that Grimes had confiscated.

"My lawyer is coming for you to sign some papers," he said, not identifying further what these papers might be. "We'll have snacks and drinks in the dining room. You should be aware that I'm the only client of this lawyer, and we have a very close and full-knowledged relationship."

Rick was no dummy. He knew that meant he needn't try to enlist the lawyer to help him.

But the lawyer, Kevin Morton, ultimately did that on his own.

The three of them were sitting at the time, just starting their drinks, not much past introductions, when the telephone rang and Grimes was forced to answer it. The housekeeper was nowhere to be seen, and Rick assumed she'd been given the day off because of the change of routine. Grimes tried to end the conversation quickly, but whatever the problem was seemed to be a big one, and he got up from the table and took his cell phone into the den.

As soon as he left, the lawyer turned to Rick and said in a low voice, the concern in his tone not matching the smile he was wearing in case Grimes suddenly reappeared, "He's holding you here, isn't he? And he's molesting you."

Shocked, Rick couldn't answer. He just looked down at his hands in his lap. He even considered that this must be some sort of test.

"When I heard what Bill wanted these papers drawn up for, the first thing I thought was that he'd had a gold digger move in on him. He's been erratic for months, and I've been worried about his stability—and, frankly, his susceptibility to a young man like you. He's been through a lot in the last several months, and it's taken a toll on him—mentally and emotionally. But now that I see you, I understand. He's holding you as a sex slave, isn't he?"

"Yes," Rick finally answered in a whisper.

"Do you want to get out of here?"

Rick hesitated for a moment but then he steeled himself and murmured, "Yes, yes, of course. But I don't know—"

"I know this place can be locked down like Fort Knox, but have you tried—?"

"These are the first clothes I've had on in weeks," Rick answered in a dismal tone. "He keeps me naked and locked in a bedroom."

"Ah, I see. Yes, I see. That will be hard. I'll have to come back. Sign the papers I have today, but I'll say there are more that have to be signed. These papers will be just fine for you. The ones I bring next I'll never file. But I'll have a key for you then—and some money and a way for you to get something to wear. If you go to the back of your closet, you'll see there's a trap door with a lock."

"A trap door? You know this?"

"I supervised every step of the building of this house. Bill couldn't be bothered with the details. He'd asked for the concealed door—and others too—but I'll wager he forgot he did or could remember why he wanted them put in. I have a key that will open that door and you'll then be in the closet of another bedroom. After you've gotten the key, it will be a day or two before you can use it. When I'm able, I'll set up a meeting downtown for Bill to attend. It will be on a day that the housekeeper has off. Take what you need from his room and leave. Don't steal anything but clothes you'll need to wear and I'll see to it that you have no trouble with the law. I'll give you another key to the side door. Don't try to leave until I've come back again, though."

"How do I know you can do all of this?" Rick asked.

"I have him in the other room on the phone with someone I set up now. We couldn't be having this conversation if I hadn't thought something was going on that needed fixed. Now that I see you, it all fits."

"You've said that before, about it all 'fitting'," Rick said. "I don't understand."

"Have you seen the photos of Bill's son?" Morton asked.

"Yes." Rick remembered the photos he'd seen in Grimes's bedroom—the ones that probably had been moved there from the living room right after Rick arrived.

"Have you looked at yourself in the mirror?"

"You mean?"

"Yes, you are a near ringer for his son."

"What's his son's name?"

"Jeff. At least that's what his son's name was. The young man is dead."

"Jeff? Grimes was fucking his own son?"

Morton looked shocked, but his expression quickly turned to just plain weariness. "I won't ask how you supposed that. But, yes, it's true. It happens," Morton answered in a tired voice. "We did what we could in the office, but he's too powerful, too important. He was obsessed by his son. Jeff wasn't his natural son, though. Bill adopted him. But it's why I will help you. For his sake as well as yours."

"How did his son die?"

"Suicide. Five months ago. Jumped off the balcony off his bedroom upstairs."

Rick shivered, struck by the will power—and the sense of despair—that the young man must have had to propel himself from that balcony.

"What are the papers for?"

"The ones I'll bring next are adoption papers. Grimes wants to adopt you. Shhh, now, here he comes back. Just sign the papers and don't ask about them. Let me get out of here as soon as possible."

True to his word, Morton came back within a week with papers for both Grimes and Rick to sign—and while the three of them were sitting in the dining room, a car smashed into the stone wall at the top of Grimes's driveway, and Grimes rushed out to see what was happening. While he was gone, making quite clear that he had set the "accident" up to occupy Grimes's attention and time, Morton went over escape directions again and gave Rick two keys, one for the trap door and one for a side door out of the house. He gave Rick something else too.

"Here's a prepaid cell phone and some money. Take them to your room right now and hide them and hurry back before Bill returns. Keep the phone with you always—my card is also taped to the back. My number is programmed in the number-one slot. Call me when you get out of here whenever you need help before you get settled again. And good luck."

The next afternoon, Grimes went into his lawyer's office at Morton's insistence to discuss the adoption procedures further, and Rick went through the trap door to the bedroom beyond, where he found his duffel bag with his own clothes, so he didn't need Grimes's clothes in larger sizes. He was dressed and out of the house and down the road and into old Santa Fe well before Bill Grimes returned home.