Chapter 2 – Chapter 2

I woke at the sound of a snort. As my eyes flipped open, I assumed that had come from me. But then I realized it hadn't. There was a well-muscled chocolate-brown arm laying across my chest—my naked chest—and there was nothing familiar about the part of the room I could see. It was close enough to dawn for me to pick out shapes if not exact colors. But this definitely was not the loft bedroom in the carriage house I was renting on Savannah's Oglethorpe Square.

I turned my head toward where the snort had come from. God he was good looking. Maybe my age or a little older. Certainly not much older than thirty. I didn't think he was full back, as his facial features were more European—and the skin tone was definitely milk rather than dark chocolate. We were both naked. I could tell that because he had his left leg bent and thrown over my midsection, the knee on my belly and the meat of his calf covering my genitals. His cock, flaccid, was pressed into my hip. I could feel the curly hair of his pubes but other than that his body seemed to be hairless—other than the hair on his head, which was shoulder length and done in dreadlocks. The arm laying over me was tattooed in a colorful design all the way down to his wrist and up to his shoulder and covering his left pectoral muscle.

OK, so I'd been fucked last night by a black man—a black man with a big tattoo. I'd never been fucked by a stranger before, let alone one with a big tattoo. I did been raised to think of such men as scary crazy. Being fucked at all didn't happen all that often that I should be feeling so calm about it as I was. But I just couldn't work up the concern. My head was throbbing whenever I concentrated on my pain centers, so I tried not to concentrate on my throbbing head. Not doing that brought out the soreness in my ass, my muscles there still contracting and expanding. That's how I knew I'd been fucked. I knew how it felt to be fucked in the ass. This was it. And by something big.

He wasn't at all the kind of man I'd usually go with. I hadn't been with black men before. Julio was dark skinned—almost as dark as this man—but he was a Brazilian. This guy didn't look like the black guys Avis liked to go with either. Other than the tattoo he wasn't thuggish or poor-looking like Avis liked, but, God, he was built.

I felt a moment of panic. I couldn't remember anything about what put me in this man's bed. It certainly wasn't my bed and it wasn't a hotel room. It was some sort of studio apartment. Neat, but Spartan in furnishings. A working man's place. The bed was only a double, and he wasn't a small man, so him being almost on top of me probably was a necessity if we were both were going to be on the bed. There wouldn't be much of a reason for us both to be on this bed if not for sex. And I knew we'd had sex—that he'd been inside me. And on top of me—and with vigor. Our bodies were knotted in sheeting. There still was a pillow under the small of my back. I was a bit sore, which only happened when the man was built big. My legs were slightly raised, my feet flat on the surface of the bed, and my legs were spread—a sure sign I'd been fucked and that he was built big. He was significantly longer than I was and heavier of body, although perfectly proportioned.

I was sore and confused enough that I didn't want more this morning of whatever we did last night—although he was a real hunk and I regretted not having a memory of what we'd done last night and how we'd gotten here. I'd let him do me again, though—when my head was clear. He was that much of a hunk. A rain check. No, I'm not promiscuous. I'd just like to know what I missed.

I'd gone out in the early evening to meet David at a club. That much I remembered. I'd finally gotten up the courage to let David know I was in Savannah on a six-month house lease—just to get my bearings, I told myself. I'd at least pretended I wasn't chasing David down now that I was free. When I called him, he professed delight that I was here, because he had something he wanted to propose to me. My first thought had been that he wanted me to move in with him and maybe I'd been precipitous to rent the carriage house in Savannah's historical district near the river. But then something was in the back of my mind about that thought not having panned out. Something very disappointing. Something that made me angry—both at myself and at David.

Something, maybe that brought me to this black man's bed. This black bull's bed. I wasn't able to help myself. I let a hand move to my hip and take the measure of his cock, a procedure that made me draw in breath. He'd had that inside me—surely even thicker and longer in erection. No wonder I was sore and my ass muscles were still having slight spasms. It was hardening just from my light touch.

He sighed in his sleep and the cock responded to me. I let loose of it like it was a hot potato.

As carefully as I could, I extricated myself from under his arm and leg. He snorted again but was asleep enough that he turned toward the wall, smacked his lips, and began a soft snore. He had his bare buttocks turned to me. They were bulbous and muscular, with deep hollows between the cheeks and hips. I resisted the urge to run my hand over them, and now I really regretted not remembering the sex.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed. A foot came down on swishing film. A spent condom on the floor. No, two spent condoms, both sea slug fat with contained cum. We must have had some night—and he must have worked hard to be as dead to the world as he was now.

Our clothes were in the center of the room—or most of them were. I didn't see my briefs, but then I felt them on the bed where the heel of my hand was pressed into the mattress. I lifted the briefs. They had been ripped down the middle in the back. A memory flashed across my brain. Belly to bed with a heavy weight on top of me. The sound of ripping material and a deep laugh. An arm snaking under my waist, lifting me to my knees. My chest flat against the bed under the pressure of his chest. The initial searing pain of a cock the girth of a baseball bat entering me, through the slit in the briefs.

I dropped the briefs. He could have those as a souvenir if he was into such fetishes. He probably had a drawer full of ripped briefs from the men he had ravished.

Our clothes on the floor were mixed with each other. His trousers and polo shirt were of as good quality and name brand as my trousers and dress shirt. We obviously had undressed quickly, though, anxious to be on the bed—him anxious to be inside me; me anxious to have him inside me. I felt no bruising other than the sore channel. He hadn't forced me—hadn't been violent. Of that I was sure. I had wanted to be here—to be with him.

Something about David. There was some reason why I'd drunk too much, had wanted this black hunk to fuck me too much.

I almost fell down when I stood up from the bed. My legs were cramped. I'd had this feeling before after sex with a guy—a guy who had held my legs spread and raised and pumped me interminably. All of the signs were that I had been totally taken by this black bull—both from the back and from the front. If I wasn't so freaked out at not remembering much of anything from the previous night . . .

But I wasn't really promiscuous. I could count on the fingers of one hand the men I'd slept with in my life, starting with David and ending with . . . whoever this black bull was. This was all unfamiliar and scary ground for me—the part of having different partners—I'd slept with David and Julio on too many occasions to count. Best thing would be if I managed a retreat without him waking up. And then forget this ever happened. Not that I could remember what happened.

I found myself on East Jones Street when I found the stairs and descended to the street. The studio apartment I'd left was over a gray-stone double garage in what had been a carriage house to a larger house, now gone, and replaced by four wooden shotgun houses. I wasn't in one of the better parts of town, but I was still within the edge of the old city. And I'd lived in Savannah before, while attending SCAD, and some of the college buildings were on West Jones across town from here in a tonier section, so, once I saw the intersection of East Jones and Price Street, running north-south, I had some idea where I was.

I was nearly twenty blocks from home and on a side of the city I'd rarely have reason to be in—the rundown side of the historical district.

Savannah had been laid out in straight-line streets within a pattern of thirty park squares. The squares now had been reduced to twenty-two squares, with the line of squares on both the east and west side of the pattern having disappeared over time. I was on the east edge, where squares were missing. My rented carriage house, on Oglethorpe Square, was in the middle of the second line of squares from the river and thus in the center of the historical district and in the high-rent district. It also, unfortunately, was nearly twenty blocks toward the river from where I was standing, so I was going to have to hoof it a good way. I didn't have a car in Savannah; most here didn't keep a car in the downtown area.

I started off, headed north, toward the Savannah River, on Price Street, but within a couple of blocks, I cut west into the center of the historical district because Price Street wasn't looking too safe. I'd only gone those two blocks, though, when I saw a sign over a step-down door in an old brick building. The sign advertised a bar, Louie's, which was familiar to me. And then I started remembering how the previous night had unfolded so that by the time I got to Oglethorpe Square I had most of it worked out.

David had told me to meet him for drinks at 8:00 p.m. at a bar—a gay bar, it turned out—named Louie's. He had given me directions. I took a pedicab there, giddy with anticipation of hooking up with David, my old SCAD professor and lover, again. I had realized within days of retreating to Savannah from Chicago that this was what I wanted—to return to David's bed, which I had abandoned when I married Avis. I wanted the SCAD life again. I wanted to live under David's protection again. I even had visions of teaching art there. I had learned so much from Avis, and my connection with her would help me anywhere I went in the art world.

David was already there when I arrived. So was Kevin, a young, willowy, more pretty than handsome blond student at SCAD. That's how David introduced Kevin to me—as one of the students at the college. All it took was to watch them interact and the way they touched each other and inclined their faces to each other as they spoke to know that Kevin wasn't just David's student. Kevin was also being fucked by David. I could clearly see that, because six years previously, I had been Kevin. And being fucked by David most likely meant living with David too. That's what it had meant for me my last year at SCAD. SCAD was so liberal, eclectic, and off beat that no one raised an eyebrow—at least to my face—when I had moved in with David.

Within fifteen minutes of my arrival at the bar, David had a hand on Kevin's thigh and they had kissed. It was obvious that David was making a statement about David and me. That's when I stopped counting my drinks. It hadn't occurred to me that I'd grown too old for David to be interested in—until now.

It didn't take David long to tell me why he wanted to meet. "There's a lecturer's position for you at SCAD, Ethan, if you are interested. That's why I came to Avis' funeral in Chicago. I had a proposition for you, but I chickened out, deciding that hitting you with an offer when you were burying your wife was the worst of taste. I was going to send you a letter, but here you are in Savannah already. You contacted me."

Burying my wife. David was talking like he didn't know that I was gay and that my marriage had been one of convenience. I left Savannah, sure, but just because I married Avis hadn't meant that David and I couldn't continue sleeping together. He was the one who declared that our arrangement had to stop dead in its tracks. He'd been the one who introduced me to Avis. In hindsight, it almost was as if he had purposely jettisoned me—that he had been handing me off. In that sense, he had deserted me rather than me leaving him. He just resented someone other than him directing my life, even if he'd been the catalyst in that happening.

"A lecturer position?" I asked. "That sounds interesting. I wouldn't mind teaching a course on the Impressionists. Maybe their sense of color and light."

"We rather thought you could teach one on Avis' work," David said. "Having her husband teaching such a course would be a draw for students, we thought."

Teaching Avis' work. Remaining in the shadow of Avis. I'd done all of this preparation in my own field and what I was wanted for was my connection with Avis. It was one thing to use her as cachet to get a position, but it was another thing altogether to continue living in full service to her glory.

That's when I ordered my third drink.

I was somewhat blurry eyed when a handsome, well-built black man came over to our table and greeted David as an old friend. David made the introduction. "Ethan, this is the Louie of this bar's name. He's a sculptor at SCAD too. A very old friend. Louie, this is Ethan Pender. I've told you about him. He was one of my best students—and closest friends—before Avis Blair stole him from me and took him off to Chicago."

"One of your closest friends?" Louie asked in a smooth deep bass voice, turning a winning smile toward me and taking my hand in a firm and prolonged grip. He was one of the most handsome black men I'd ever seen—certainly of those who had dreadlocks down to their shoulders. I didn't think I'd ever be attracted to a black man with dreadlocks, but on him they looked good and natural. The same with the tattooing that showed through the white, gauzy, tight-fitting polo shirt stretching over a heavily muscled chest. The tattooing was in several vibrant colors and covered his left arm, shoulder, and pectoral muscle. I'd always thought of tattooing as being gang member related, but on him it looked sexy and stylish. And a little dangerous and adventuresome. "How close?" he asked.

"Very close," David said, giving Louie a wink.

This was a gay bar. David had his hand on Kevin's crotch who, in turn, had an accepting hand on David's hand. The signaling going on between David and Louie on the relationship I'd once had with David was blatant—as, I'm sure, was the declaration that David no long had a reservation on me.

"Ethan has just come back to Savannah," David continued, "and has, he has told me, taken a six-month lease on a carriage house. I'm trying to convince him to do some lecturing at SCAD. He's a SCAD graduate and an artist in his own right in addition to having studied with Avis Blair."

And married to Avis Blair, my mind screamed, but obviously David didn't want to muddy the waters on possibilities and preferences. I knew David quite well. I knew what he was doing. He was trying to pass me off. He knew I'd come back to reconnect with him and that wasn't in his plans.

Well, fuck David. I tossed off my third drink, as he finished what he had to say. "Nearly everyone Ethan knew here before has moved on. I'm sure he could benefit from making new contacts and friends—having someone to take him on. Ethan is very good . . . a very good friend."

Fuck you in spades, David. I can find my own hookups, thank you very much.

"That would be the distinct pleasure of anyone lucky enough to do that," Louie answered, giving me that stark-white-toothed smile in a handsome chocolate-brown face again. "But look, Ethan—and Kevin here too—need refills. I think a round on the house is in order."

I remembered waving David and Kevin good-bye sometime later—flashing a flip of the bird to David that I was pretty careful not to let him see—and moving to the bar with Louie for another round of drinks. And I remember Louie standing very close to me at the bar. I dredged up the memory of Louie's hand on my butt and then Louie's hand on my crotch as he brought on another drink for me.

I remember him saying he wanted to fuck me. I don't remember saying yes, but I obviously I did.

And then I really couldn't remember much of anything else before waking up in Louie's bed in a studio apartment above a double carriage house garage in an alley behind shotgun houses on East Jones and Price Streets.