Chapter 3 – Chapter 3

August 28, 1940

Like so many rich Americans before him, Paul Stainer's life in Paris revolved around the Paris Ritz hotel, opened by Charles Ritz in 1898, and from its first night the center of the arts and intellectual life in Paris as well as political intrigue. The opening of the Ritz was couched in the blowback to the anti-Jewish movement of the Dreyfus affair by the novelist and political commentator Victor Hugo, who mobilized support from the cream of Paris' world that revolved around the hotel.

The hotel was a magnet for expatriate royalty from the capitals of Europe, headed by the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, formerly England's King Edward VIII and the American socialite Wallace Simpson, as well as stage and movie stars, like Sarah Bernhardt, artists such as Pablo Picasso, and novelists and journalists of the like of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Jean Cocteau, and Jean-Paul Sartre. The comment of Hemingway, who returned to the hotel as soon as Paris was liberated from the Germans, was, "When I dream of an afterlife . . . the action always takes place at the Ritz Paris." Winston Churchill was almost perpetually a guest of the hotel in the months preceding the fall of France as he attempted to bolster France's resistance to Germany's invasion.

For a decade in the 1920s, the premier social maven, Elsa Maxwell, earned her international reputation by putting the queens and kings of society together in the party room and salons of the Ritz Paris. Future celebrity even held forth at the other end of the social class scale at the Ritz. A busboy in the hotel's dining room in the 1920s eventually became a superpower defeater by the name of Ho Chi Minh.

Whereas some evacuated from the hotel during the Second World War, such French luminaries as the fashion designer Coco Channel; the journalist and leading politician, Georges Mandel; and sultry French film star Arletty, stayed on through the war. In the case of Channel and Arletty—and Paul Stainer, as well—this decision would come back to bite them.

Unlike most of Paris, the Ritz Paris, fronting on the beautiful Place Vendôme in a former royal palace backed by a more modern addition, didn't miss a "social heights" beat or a champagne and lobster dinner during the 1940–44 German occupation of the city. Several of the permanent hotel residents stayed on, continuing to attract the cream of the artists, literati, movie stars, social leaders, and politicians who remained in the city, but these were moved from the premium rooms in the former palace to the hotel's back section. In their stead, the military leaders and administrators of the German occupation moved into the front of the hotel, ensuring that the Ritz remained at the center of what was important in the life of the city.

Even more significant, the hotel became the center of the various competing spy and resistant forces that was so convoluted that even a guide to who was doing what to who couldn't be deciphered.

Until late August 1940, following the June occupation of the city by the Nazis, the leading socialite in residence, occupying the Imperial Suite of living room, dining room, kitchen, and three bedrooms and three baths, taking up an entire floor of the old hotel wing, was Laura Mae Corrigan, one of the world's richest women, who had come from nowhere to marry an American tycoon who conveniently died early in the marriage. When Laura Mae, until recently a waitress in a diner, wasn't accepted in American society, no less than Elsa Maxwell, having previously termed Laura Mae the woman who had gold dug her way from waitress to queen in six months, joined Laura Mae's corner when she left the United States and made her the leading society hostess in Paris.

As more than symbolic of the Ritz' refusal to accept that the occupation of Paris would mean a belt tightening at the Ritz, on August 28, 1940, barely two months following the fall of the city to the Germans, Laura Mae threw one of the most lavish parties of the 1940s in the Imperial Suite, amid a décor of packing boxes. The boxes represented her banishment to the back building pending the arrival on September 1st of who would be the hotel's premier resident for the next three years, Germany's top-echelon military leader, Luftwaffe Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring.

Along with many of the other artists still in the city, Noell Giroux was invited to the party, as was Paul Stainer, partially because of his American connections and Laura Mae's interest in having her victory in Paris passed back to the American society that had shunned her but mostly as the ornamentation for the party his youthful beautify and sensuality provided.

"Of course we're not going," Paul had said.

"Of course we are," Giroux had countered.

"But you despise what the Ritz and people like Laura Mae Corrigan represents" Paul said.

"I have my reasons. We're going. And you will be nice to people there,"

"Yes, sir," Paul had said.

They didn't go straight to the party; they stopped at the hotel's bar, the rue Cambon bar, famous for all of the celebrities who had once hung out there, still hung out there, and would continue to hang out there in the future. Even more than the Ritz lobby, the rue Cambon bar was the center of activity in not only the hotel but the city at large. And now, as throughout the occupation, it was the center of spy activities, from all sides.

It was later to be revealed that the Operation Valkyrie plot to assassinate Germany's führer, Adolph Hitler, in the summer of 1944 that was hatched among German military leaders convinced that the German leader had gone crazy, was birthed and nurtured in the rue Cambon bar. The principle courier of messages between these military leaders and the French Resistance as well was the senior bartender, Frank Meier.

It was Meier who Noell Giroux had come to see under the guise of attending Laura Mae Corrigan's glitterati party upstairs to mark her eviction from the Imperial Suite, and when they came into the bar, Giroux established Paul at a table and went off to confer with Meier.

Paul wasn't alone very long. He never was alone very long where the hedonist members of society gathered. In short order, he had on the one side of him the novelist Michel Paquet, a permanent resident of the Ritz, whose novels were fed by the gossip in the hotel; on the other side of him sat Paquet's current boyfriend, the expatriate Polish count and dandy, Jan Bukowski; and, across from Paul, the count's "wanted to be and sometimes was" boyfriend, the darkly handsome French stage actor, Bres Moulin.

The three, notorious bisexuals all, flirted with and propositioned Paul shamelessly, and it wasn't long until Paquet and the count each had a hand on one of Paul's thighs and Moulin was rubbing a toe on Paul's ankle.

Paul was flattered. He knew of all three of them through the network of artists he floated on the edge of, but he had not been with any of them sexually yet. He was packing in as much experience with the leading artists and intellectuals of France as he could. Paul was in France to grasp the Bohemian lifestyle. He knew he was a strikingly handsome and sexy young man, and to him sex had become nothing more than a pleasurable body function and an "in" with the glitterati. Having the cock of a novelist, count, or famous actor inside him was his idea of ecstasy and achievement.

Paul had been trembling with the anticipation of being handed to an ejaculation right there, in the bar of the Ritz, below the surface of the table and then carried off and debauched by three men in one of the fabled hotel rooms above. He didn't need to take his men sequentially; he could handle them in consort. Grasping hedonism, he'd previously sheathed two men at once. Paul was long past protecting his virtue, and he was never as much alive as when he had a desirable man's cock—or two—churning inside him, knowing that he had enthralled and reduced to a level of primeval want and need some of the most brilliant and celebrated minds of the age.

Here he was, in the Ritz Paris, the seat of the intellectual glitterati of Europe, about to add one or three more notable names to his list of experiences—maybe in tandem; maybe in consort.

He would have gone with the dashing and handsome count in a moment, having heard he was a superb cocksman, and he had a hand on the exiled—exiled from Poland because of his sexual excesses with young men there—nobleman's inner thigh, moving it higher toward the royal jewels in assurance the count's intentions were welcome. And he had exchanged kisses with both the count and Paquet, when Giroux returned and virtually jerked Paul out of the middle of what was becoming a tryst.

"If you are going to open your legs for anyone tonight," Giroux said as they mounted the stairs to the Imperial Suite, "it should be for someone of use to us."

"Use to us?" Paul said. "I don't understand."

"There's no reason for you to understand yet," Giroux answered. "I will introduce you to anyone of interest to us at the party."

The room was crowded when they arrived, the noise was raucous, the drinks were free flowing, and the upper level of the room was covered in a fog of smoke. The packing boxes strewn around were a bizarre touch.

Paul met many of the celebrity residents of the hotel in passing, most of whom showed an interest in him and became prospects or useful contacts, even though Paul didn't have a notion what they were useful for. The artists, of course, were useful to Paul himself. He wasn't in Paris just to fuck around. He was a serious art student and was quite talented at it. There was much he was learning from Giroux, which, in addition to the size of the man's cock, was why Paul was staying with him. But Paul was open to liaisons with equally talented artists in exchange for help with his art. He would have died to be taken under the wing of Pablo Picasso, who was known to frequent the hotel and Laura Mae's parties, but he wasn't in evidence this evening.

The champagne was flowing, a rarity in occupied Paris, and Paul had lost count of how many he had and that the buzzing in his head was really in his head and wasn't being produced solely by the conversation in the crowded room, when Giroux introduced him to Claude.

"Just Claude," Giroux said. "No last name needed in Paris. You should get to know him. At some point he probably will be a lifesaver for you."

Giroux didn't say what Claude did and why he'd be of use to Paul. Neither did Claude after Giroux had wafted off and left the two to talk with each other. Claude was a handsome, gray-haired man. Tall and elegantly dressed in his evening dress, he could be a movie star, in Paul's view. His hands were expressive, the fingers long and supporting several expensive-looking rings.

He had a talent of touching Paul on the back or arm and coming in close to talk with him in a way that made Paul tingle a bit and that, in his near drunken stupor, Paul found arousing.

One moment Claude was drawing Paul away from the party and down a corridor of the Imperial Suite, mumbling about something he had to show Paul, which Paul didn't fully grasp because of the buzzing in his head from the champagne and that Paul saw no reason to guard against because of the same buzzing. The next moment they were both naked, on the bed in one of the three bedrooms of the Imperial Suite, Paul on his back, his legs spread and bent, and Claude lying on him, between his legs, Claude's hands caressing Paul's marble-white thighs, causing them to spread wider for him.

Paul, in his haziness, struggled a bit in a perfunctory way, but once Claude had his long cock deep inside Paul's ass channel, the young man just lay still, head turned to the side, while Claude began to pump him. The vigorous pumping brought Paul to life after a few minutes, and he raised his hips to Claude, grabbed Claude's waist, and began his own counterthrusting.

Laughing, Claude raised more up on his knees, held steady, and let Paul fuck himself on the cock, with upward thrusts of his hips and revolving them on the cock, panting and whispering, "Yes, yes, give it to me. Come inside me," as Claude kissed and chewed on the hollow of his throat.

Paul arched his back, and came up Claude's belly. Claude came almost simultaneously and rolled over to the side, Paul leaned down and licked his cum off Claude's stomach and then licked lower and cleaned off Claude's cock.

Standing over Paul and looking down at him as he dressed, Claude said, "You are a very sexy young man—and a very good lay. If you're ever interested, there is room for you in my stable."

After he was gone, Paul lay there, legs bent and open, working on getting rid of the champagne buzz in his head before going back to the party. There was little doubt that the party down the hall was still going on, even though it must be 2:00 in the morning.

It wasn't long before the door opened and another man walked in—a man who lit up the room with his imposing body; his handsome, square-jaw, golden blond features; the elegant way he filled out his evening clothes; and the broad smile he gave Paul when he saw him lying naked on the bed.

He retained the smile, his gaze not leaving Paul, who, warily remained in the provocative position he'd been in when Claude had left the bedroom, as he untied his tie, removed his cufflinks, unbuttoned his dress shirt, and pulled it open.

Paul took in a great gulp of air. The man, who had to be no older than his late twenties, had a magnificent torso, brushed lightly with a pattern of blond hair on the pecs and running down his sternum toward the waistband of his tuxedo trousers. The only thing that marred the perfection of his torso were the evidence of two puckered bullet wounds four inches below his left pectoral as well as the slightly red and raised line of a sword slash from his right shoulder down to between his bulging pecs. Both wounds just made him more mysterious and arousing to Paul.

"So, the room comes with a bed warmer," the man said, with a pleasant little laugh, at he opened an armoire door, took out a hangar and neatly hung up the various items of his tuxedo as he took them off. There was nothing of surprise or embarrassment in his demeanor in finding a man in his bed, which he made very clear was his bed as he undressed.

"We find ourselves in my bedroom, at least temporarily, in case you wondered," the man said. "I have a busy day ahead, so I've left the party early. It looks like perhaps I haven't left the party early, though, or that I'll be getting all that much sleep tonight. You are a sexy little piece. They could not have chosen better for me." He said all of this with a matter-of-fact cheeriness in his voice. Paul said nothing, he just looked on dumbly, still fighting the champagne buzz in his head, and half wondering if he was in a dream.

If it was a dream, it was one of heaven, he thought, though, as he gasped and sucked in air again, as the man stood beside the bed and slipped the last item of clothing he'd been wearing, his underdrawers, off his legs. The man was hung, with a giant, uncut sausage of a half-hard cock and heavy, low-hanging balls.

"This is the moment when you could dress and leave if you don't want me to fuck you," the blond Adonis said.

In Paul's first response of the encounter, he answered in a low voice, "I believe I'll stay."

"You'd best think twice," the man said, "As small and young as you are and with those slim hips, I could split you in two."

"I'm looking forward to it," Paul murmured.

The man sat down on the side of the bed, beside Paul's prone figure, leaned over and took Paul's mouth in his in a deep, sweet kiss. He reached down, encircled Paul's cock, and began to languidly stroke it. Paul managed to hand the man's cock, listening to him take his breath in as Paul pulled the foreskin down off the bulb and pressed in on the piss slit with his index finger.

As he kissed and licked down Paul's body and eventually through Paul's silky and trimmed platinum-colored bush and then to swallowing Paul's cock, the man raised his muscular, hard legs onto the bed and turned his body toward Paul, the man's now huge, erect phallus was pressed into Paul's cheek, and Paul just turned his head, opened his mouth over the angry-red bulb, and started to suck it.

The man had magnificent control, making Paul come in his mouth without giving up his own seed. But then it was his turn. Nudging Paul over on his belly, his body stretched out on the bed, the athletic man saddled himself on Paul buttocks, in reverse, worked his cock inside Paul's channel, in reverse, grabbed Paul's ankles and pumped Paul's ass with his cock, Claude's cum from the previous fucking acting as a lubricant for the deep slide of the thick cock until the blond hunk had ejaculated inside Paul.

Paul moaned deeply. No man had taken him in a position like this before. No man had filled him like this before—stretching his walls until they shimmered, the muscles of his passage undulating over the throbbing cock, caressing it, waiting for Paul to adjust to it before the man started to pump him. The bulb reached deeper inside Paul's gut than any man had reached before. And then Paul was crying out, "Shit! Oh, shit yes! Fuck me hard; fuck me deep," as the throbbing cock started to pump him. Faster and harder; faster and deeper, with Paul's own hips involuntarily going into motion, the two becoming one, groaning and grunting, synchronized, finely tuned fucking machine.

After a brief respite, the man carried Paul over to the bedroom's dresser, where Paul held onto the edge of the dresser with his hands, his arms stiff behind him, while the man folded Paul's legs around his hips, held Paul steady and suspended over the floor with arms linked under the young man's waist, and fucked him to a second release of his load.

The small, young, slim-bodied American was putty in the embrace of the big, strong, monster-cocked blond god.

Before the two drifted off into an exhausted sleep in each other's embrace, the man fucked Paul for a third time, more languidly this time, with Paul's buttocks pulled into the man's groin in a side split and, Paul's face turned to the man's, the two kissing deeply and whispering endearments to each other. As they were both speaking French, each unaware of how foreign the other's French was, the nuances of the words of the lovemaking and the fuck could be quite poetic and graphic and they both maintained an aroused half hard, the man's lodged in Paul's passageway, after having come for the third time.

"You took the positions extremely well, and you have a ripe, young, flexible body with the capability of handling the cock like a champion," the man whispered when they were cooling off from both having come again and were about to drift off into sleep. "You must be at the top of your profession. Who provided you? Hermann?"

Who the hell is Hermann, Paul wondered. "No one," he whispered. "I was just in the wrong bedroom."

"I can't agree with that," the man said. "For me, you were very much in the right bedroom. I think I'm going to love Paris. Can you stay the night? Has that been paid for?"

The man wasn't going to be dissuaded from the belief that Paul was a prostitute provided for him, Paul thought. But in truth what was the difference between him and a prostitute other than the prostitute got paid and didn't choose his partner? Paul hadn't chosen this partner—nor the one before him. And he'd let both of them fuck him without the merest of objections. So the lines between him and a paid whore were nearly invisible. This hung hunk had no reason to pay anyone for what he gave, though, so Paul decided not to fight the impression. "Yes, the night is covered."

"And so are you," the blond giant whispered, as he turned Paul on his belly without dislodging his cock, and covered him close from above, his dick moving languidly in Paul's channel and Paul sighing his total surrender to it.

The man woke before dawn on his back to find Paul riding his cock sideways. The man laughed, twisted Paul around and brought the young man's shoulder blades down into his chest. He laced his arms under Paul's armpits and stretched the young man's back along his hard torso. Bending and spreading his legs, while lacing his ankles around Paul's and raising and spreading Paul's legs as well, the man took Paul hard again in deep upward thrusts in a closely controlled, athletic morning fuck.

Before rising from the bed, Paul heard the man murmur something he didn't quite understand, because it wasn't in French. But the man added, in French, "And I love your sweet ass," to which Paul responded, "And I love your huge cock." He almost added more in terms of affection than that, but he caught himself just in time. He'd never had a connection with a man before that he had with this mysterious stranger. It was more than the man's beautiful body and oversized cock. There was an attraction in him that went further for Paul. He had to think about that. He didn't want to be hurt.

It wasn't just the penetrative sex that was different and engaging with this man. The man held Paul and cuddled him, whispering endearments to him and kissing and fondling him. He took his time with Paul and made him feel special and appreciated. At the same time, he controlled and took Paul totally, athletically. That the man's attentions to him encouraged Paul to open his legs to him and draw him inside him was beyond the point. The attention he gave Paul was beyond what he needed to do to get his cock inside the young man—it was beyond what any other man had done to get his cock inside Paul.

Lying on the bed in much the same position he'd been when the man entered the room the night before, Paul watched the man dress. He took a uniform out of the armoire and started putting it on. Paul's heart rate and his fear and consternation increased as the man dressed in the white shirt, black tie, black trousers, black tunic jacket, and black billed hat. When the man had pulled on the black leather harness and belt, with the gun holster at his side, the bolt of lightning on the man's jacket right collar, the four stars in a square on his left collar, and the scarlet red armband with the Nazi swastika on it on his left arm told Paul more than he wanted to know.

The man was a captain in the German SS Gestapo, one of the elite occupiers of Paris.

It was only after the German had left the room that what he had been speaking in before he rose from the bed. He'd said, in German, "Ich liebe dich"—I love you. The fear gripped at Paul's throat. What he'd almost said earlier was the same. This was dangerous ground they were treading on. Paul couldn't see the man ever again or else he knew he'd be lost to him, war or no war.

But already Paul's body ached from the absence of the German SS captain. He lay there, legs spread, ass twitching, aching to have the master cocksman between his legs again, the man's monster cock filling him, possessing him, owning him. The German SS Gestapo conquering, occupying, fucking America.

Paul had seen the captain leave something on the dresser before he left. When Paul checked what it was, he found it to be a five-franc note. So, for the first time in his life he had been paid in cash—or tipped, depending on how the German saw it—for sex. If he later came to date when he had become a male prostitute in Paris, it would be today—if he took the money, which he didn't. He left it for the German to know that the sex had meant something else—something more—to Paul than pay for play.