Cock-Sucker: The Greek Invention

by TRISTAN TROTSKY

Greece didn't invent Gay sex, but it's still something special here...

Do you believe in magic? We have an open-ended schedule, with just an'Island-Hopper's Rough Guide To Greece' to work our way south, until at last we're coasting through the open-arms of this harbour into the port. Not one of the new catamaran high-speed ferry-links either, but an ancient rust-bucket heaving with locals, grizzled nitty-whiskered Greek men sucking pipes, assured coiffured girls in endless mobile-phone conversations, leaning on railings that betray the granular texture of painted corrosion. The tang of diesel oil. First there had been a two-and-a-half-hour delay at Iraklion for the overdue ferry out to Thera. Lost time we fritter through bars in the curve of the harbour where back-packers doze or eat sandwiches out of silver foil. Then further. Until eventually me and Anton find ourselves here, some magical off-trails near-forgotten island... and it's breath-taking.

Mountains rise steeply to the back, a tumble of white cream and lemon houses straggling down through the greenery of fir trees and dark groves of ancient olives gnarled into ghoul-faces like those from Arthur Rackham illustrations, spider-webbed with nets to catch falling fruit. Houses that grow out of the rock to face the sea, as if one element with the land and sky. A gradual descent divided into terraces enforced by rings of dry-stone escarpments, down into the crescent-sprawl of the town itself, tavernas and bars scattered around the sparkling sea-rim deluged in oleanders and bougainvilleas. Fishing-boats sleep in the certain sun, barely rocking on the lap of tide. Their names are Pygros, Spiradon, Meandros, or they're in that indecipherable old Greek blocky script that hints at but never quite gives up its secrets. The leisurely activity they suggest barely disturbs the old town's basking serenity. And a line of five calamari-bound octopus hang suspended like descending aliens above them.

This, I decide, is the place. We'll spend some time here, settle in. Weeks perhaps. Even months. We'll see how it goes. Wasn't Odysseus snared by sexual sorcery on a lost Greek island? Entranced by this realm of myth and sensuality? We only have what's in our backpacks. With dwindling Euros. We drink chilled Mythos in the shade of the 'Babis Plase' tabepna where a mynah-bird harangues us. The proprietor doesn't speak much English, why should he? But he directs us – 'Accommodation? Zimmer? Sure,' up the steep narrow cobbled alleyways past the orthodox church. To the 'Blue Monkey Apartments'. Fairly basic, but adequate. Inside, a white arch leads into a shaded bed-space, two low beds which we pull together. An antique bedside unit grooved and cratered with old cigarette burns. It comes with a small kitchenette equipped with utensils and two white moulded-plastic chairs. It'll do. There's even a view out over the headland to the west, to where a single white church delineates the extent of the wide blue bay before it vanishes in rocky promontory into the tide. We can be happy here, sure we can. He grins up at me from the bed.

We've been together some months now, clear down the Peloponnese. I like him a lot, and I guess it's time to demonstrate just how much. I slouch down there beside him and start unfastening his frayed stonewash-denim shorts, reaching inside to find what I need. He arches his back, and lets me. Laughing softly as I seek him out. Then shucking off his Green Day 'T'-shirt as he catches the playful mood. Moving round to divest me too. Soon our naked bodies are slither-gliding together, licking our way down, nipple, toned tanned stomach, navel, pubic tangle, his sweat so sour – yet so sweet, navigating each other's geography to those most singular points of fixation where they burn hard with quivering anticipation, until we're suction-locked into the most perfect closed energy-loop, a soft fusion feeding on each other's cocks in immaculate reciprocation.

I suck until his cock merges into a natural extension of my mouth, as he becomes a natural extension of mine. And we have become extensions of each other. If the world has a more powerfully intense experience to offer than this, I've yet to discover it. If this is not what we're destined to do forever, why does it feel so perfect, so right? I think of all the centuries of pain, warfare, torment and suffering that men have inflicted upon each other, if only they'd done this instead it would solve all the problems of history. The universal panacea. I imagine all the races of men linking together to form one continuous daisy-chain of nude cock-suckling bodies circling the Earth, girding the entire planet, all interlocked one to the next, all sucking each other's erections, the bishops and mullahs, prime ministers and presidents, generals and field-marshals, politicians and diplomats, criminal masterminds and warlords, princes and paupers, black and white, Asian and Eskimo, heroes and villains, lovers and losers, catholic and Hindu, professors and students, cops and junkies, gay and straight... me and Anton, and it's a breathtaking vision of global harmony with the potential to save the world... until the passion comes sharp and hot to rip and scald with those near-simultaneous trapped detonations of warm fluid gush-bursting in your mouth like raging narcotic.

Later, I leave him to sleep it off, still tasting the aroma of his body on my tongue, while I check out some of the tavernas and bars, hoping to find casual work. Enough to cover day-to-day living expenses at least. A moment later I'm lost in a labyrinth of backstreets, a maze of steep ways where the cobbles are worn to a treacherous shine by generations of feet, narrow steps leading up to brightly coloured courtyards where washing hangs out of the windows and crones in black wish you 'kalispera', dozens of plants lined up on haphazard display, and vines run across terraces to provide zones of cool shade. Where old men with bristling moustaches play prayer-beads from hand to hand. The streets have a sickly pungent aroma. The rich smell of sun-baked rubbish in the corner-bins, blended with jasmine and pomegranate. The ochre-earth between them with its consistency of baked clay. But there's little response from Vasilis, Yai Sou, Minos, trade is slack, off-season, all jobs are filled locally. There's an expensive colony of villas and millionaire yachts moored further down the sea-line, a few hidden coves down the coast, but...

Until eventually I find it, a small book-shop, dark and packed to the ceiling with volumes, just off the main strip, down a brief tumble of steps, behind spiralling wire-racks of foreign-language newspapers and magazines. Do you believe in magic? Or something very like it. I come across it almost by accident. Meandering around crammed shelf-space, German literature, a section of French and English, some tourist guides to classical sites. Dense wedges of Greek poetry and myth. Byron, of course. There's even a Gay section which naturally draws my attention.

'Yiasou,' the owner, Frederick, is a large guy with long beatnik hair and a beard, late forties, he notes my interest and strikes up conversation. 'Work? a job? Well – you speak English, that will help you sell English editions. Sure.'

We talk terms. He's not offering much. But then again, we don't need much. I return back to the apartments where he's still sleeping, high on enthusiasm. This is going to be wonderful. Evenings, we drink each other's sperm washed down by cheap local wine, trading mouthfuls wet and delicious. Beneath dusty grey-green leaves of olive trees. While behind the houses, a donkey brays mournfully, a lament to poor working conditions and the unbearable harshness of life. We'd met in an Athens bar. He's blonde and attractive in that lazy laid-back San Francisco way, a face you can't help but watch, but intense and torrid when it comes down to sucking cock, and being sucked. We backpack together down through Corinth, skinny-dipping in blue secluded coves with such an incredible sense of freedom, rising naked from the surf he looks amazing, an athletes body, a figure from mythology, from the age of heroes, a rising shipwrecked Odysseus climbing the surf onto the beach of another fantastical isle. Then slaking on each other's lean bodies. Until we gravitate to here.

Weeks spin by. I enjoy working for Frederick, although it's hardly demanding work. I re-organise his shelves, file away piles of scattered books. Sit in the shade reading from his stock, Sappho, Thucydides, Aristophanes, as he talks animatedly to surly dark-haired friends. I wonder how he ever makes the place pay, the tourist-trade is infrequent, a rare cruise-liner that calls off for an hour, but they're more interested in the bars and restaurants where they lay on extra places than they are in perusing literature. I know he has mail-order clients, 'special' collectors he contacts through a website. And above, he tells me, he has a photo-studio which he uses to generate cash. Portraits of local people mostly.

Until that day I come back to the 'Blue Monkey' apartment. No-one there, at first, just sounds. And the sight that meets my eyes as I duck beneath the white arch into the bedroom claws my breath away. Anton, in just his 'T'-shirt, laid on his back but propped up on his elbows so he can watch, his legs nude-spread, and crouched between them, sucking lustily there's this dark tousle-headed Greek, his gypsy-brown body squirreling half-way down the bed. As I enter, the head comes up out of Anton's groin, leaving that saliva-wet erection quivering redly. He looks so young, the age of consent sure, plus a few years. Little more. Flashing me a big lit-up grin before returning to his interrupted fellatio. I hunker down, throwing my bag of groceries onto the table. In a sudden barb of jealousy, it should be my head between Anton's legs.

'Where on Earth did you find him?'

'Jeee-sus, but he's good. Best ten-euros I ever spent.'

'You paid him? That's what... seven quid for a blow-job? You need it that bad?'

'Sure, this is Spiro, isn't it my insatiable one, oh child of wishful sin.' The sounds they're making are arousing. Their breath coming hard and fast. Yet I watch spellbound as it goes on. Eventually Anton begins showing the signs of increasing excitement I recognise from our own... bouts, I almost said 'love-making'. His hands reach down to smooth Spiro's head, he whispers 'Kali oreksi (good appetite)' with a grin. There's a low grunting, Anton's head rears back, eyes closed, and there's disgusting slurpy-gurgly noises from the back of the Greek's throat. After a moment's pause he comes up, wiping traces of sperm off his chin with the back of his hand. His grin as wide and open as before. He wears short cut-off jeans. Nothing more. His smooth olive-skin dark as a berry.

'You want suck-cocky too?', his hand coming up with the fingers-to-palm money gesture. Probably he has sex with all manner of tourists, kneeling for them, Germans, Americans. A beautifully adept young slut, but someone must have trained him, must be pimping him.

'You like to suck-cocky, Spiro?'

He shrugs, grins, shrugs again.

'You like suck-cocky with Anton?'

A nod. A glance at Anton, with the first trace I've seen of coyness. And another more emphatic nod.

'You're local, you live here?'

'In the... town, yes.'

'And you have a boyfriend, Spiro?'

'Not boy. Man... friend.'

And you do this for him?'

His eyes huge and dark. 'White spunky-gobble, sure. Big cock, yum-yum. Plenty white spunky-gobble and suck-cocky. You want I do suck-cocky with you now?'

Anton slides his legs off the bed and sits up. 'Hey, cool it, what's gotten into you? why do you want to know all this stuff? What's it matter?'

'It doesn't matter. But I'd still like to know.'

Anton turns to face me. 'This is no big deal, you know. It's not as though we ever pledged to monogamy, to fidelity. I'm a travelling man, born to ramble. Wherever I find myself, I want to be outta here, someplace else. I'm not too into this cosy domesticity. That ain't the reason I came to Greece. New lands, new experiences... new bodies. Man, that's what it's all about. So don't go getting all heavy on me.'

That's when I walk out, and keep walking. I'd only been gone a matter of hours, and already he's spreading it around... with euros I've earned. But we were always different. He's probably right. And I'm wrong. To Anton, sex is instant gratification with no guilt, no strings or consequences. A mere physical function. Like pissing. Orgasm is an end in itself. He's never pretended anything different. Just that I'd assumed things I had no right to assume. If a thing of beauty is a joy forever, his body was a joy to me, and if I took the 'forever'-part a little too literally, that was my error. Was it love? Love is a small word with lots of big meanings. Perhaps it wasn't love, but at least I'd expected a little more. I keep walking, my head full of bitter rage, until I find my way back to Frederick's.

The evening is wearing on by now, he's preparing to close up, but he invites me into his apartment behind the premises. I've nowhere else to go. Bitterly I think of Anton. Where is he now? Still with Spiro? As he pushes past me to show the way, Frederick traces the shape of my cock through the material of my shorts, clicking his tongue approvingly.

'Your heart may be broken, but everything else seem to be in pretty good condition.' For a moment I'm startled. He's twice my age. But he has a quiet educated confidence that I'm drawn to. The webs of little wrinkles which crease up around the corners of his blue eyes are due to an irrepressible sense of humour. I like him. And once inside, after a few moments, his wine is local, raw, sharp, with its rich warmth, our chat gets increasingly playful. He tells me about the book-store he once owned in Hamburg, about how there were unspecified problems and fallings-out with the authorities. He came to the conclusion he could take his client-list anywhere, and operate mail-order through website connections. So he relocated. To here. The internet means you can do business wherever you happen to be

And I confide in him, my hurt about Anton. 'Is that all there is to it? What about loyalty, belonging?' I almost use the 'love'-word, but stop short, 'does it all come down to raw sex, that urgent ache in the groin.'

'Hey, don't denigrate it. Affectionate sex between men is what humanises us in a brutal world of chaos. Uncluttered by the procreative imperative, it frees us to express only the mutual pleasure and joy we give to each other. To connect souls through our joined bodies. Of course, the love of man for man, the desire for same-sex relationships did not originate here. It's common to every culture that ever existed. But Greece was the first culture to recognise and celebrate its beauty...' He has classical Hellenistic reproduction-prints of ancient naked male athletes and priapic lovers, and, of course, 'no pretty slave-boy was safe was Alexander The Great's lustful prong' he chuckles. He goes on in this warm erudite vein that has me fascinated, as I'm drinking his wine.

When he suggests 'get your things off so I canreallysee you', I smile, should I? What will he want of me? Would he want to kiss? I don't kiss guys – at least, not above the waist. But I do what he says, feeling strangely shy at his obvious prurient interest as I shrug off my T-shirt and, after the merest hesitation, dropping my pants too, almost apologetically, in case he's disappointed. I've never really been into older guys, but I guess I was curious to see what would happen, and – I guess, flattered by his attention. Unsure what to think about the way I'm feeling, so different from what I usually experienced. Feeling like a stupid virgin, but oddly pleased at his soothing approval as he reaches out to fondle me. Why not, what have I to lose now? I let his hands go where they will, my body responding, stirring instinctively as his fingers firmly trap my shaft and the heel of his thumb teasingly traces its way around the rim of my glans. Igniting little sensual shivers as though someone is playing my spine like a flute. He's in control, he knows what he's doing. The body has its own agenda, independent of all reason or rational control.

For a moment I experience a surge of alarm as he also moves to undress. Older guys in general, and most young guys for that matter, don't look good naked. But as soon as I glimpse his body all fear and trepidation melts away to nothing. He's darkly pigmented, with white body-hair on his chest and gut, and a sumptuously stiff cock purpling with blood, a gnarled tree-root so big my teeth ache and my mouth waters in my eagerness to suck it. My eyes running all over it like a schoolboy on Christmas Day with a new Xbox 360, from its base all the way to a head the colour-texture of a ripening bruise. Genital endowment is a shallow superficial basis for appraisal of the man, I admit, but if it's good enough to be Wystan Hugh Auden's initial attraction to Chester Kallman, then who am I say that's not a literary precedent I'm respectfully content to follow? It's a temptation too great not to give in to, a spell too strong to resist.

He sits down, and with no hesitation at all I crouch nude between his knees... perhaps it was the wine. The romance. His air of mature authority. My sense of betrayal, and revenge. Whatever, it seems so right. A waste of raging hormones not to. But don't take it too fast, slow things down a little, for a moment I trace my tongue down his belly, flick-wriggling it back and forth, then across, sketching little saliva-trail geometric designs. Moving just a little lower, teasingly slow. When I encounter his pubes I ripple my tongue along the hairline edge, working the matty nest until it's glistening wet. His penis swells up even more in response. I take the weight of his balls in the palm of my hand, and close my mouth around each testicle in turn, lavishing them, then pushing them out with my tongue, licking all the way up the underside of the stem – and it's a long way, to finally lower my lips softly and wetly around the flared corona of his glans, there, that's it, feeding its big blunt snout into my mouth, tongue pressing into the slit-eye, ah sweet. I swear I can taste every wrinkle and ridged blood-vessel along his shaft as I work my way down.

He groans somewhere far above me, unable to repress the desire to move his hips upwards driving his prick deeper into my mouth. Obligingly I move my head down to receive it so the shaft goes in as far as it can. I suck at it greedily now, holding nothing back. The physical contact between cock and mouth doing things to my brain that hadn't been done before, flooding my brain with hormones. He sits there, like he's allowing me to oralise him, to gorge myself on him, a full five minutes. His balls, like fat plums, pressed into my chin. Will I be capable of taking it when he began unloading all of their contents into me? Will I – will I? Should I swallow – if I don't will he be offended, if I do will that make me seem cheap? Will he think I'm easy?

But just as I begin to anticipate his climax he playfully shoves my head away, and makes to move me around. Again I'm wary – anal has never been my thing, even with the right guy, but he's impossible to refuse. As I bend I can feel his saliva-moist glans forcing at my bottom. A momentary panic. He's so big. It might hurt. A slight resistance of pressure, but then he's a thrust of heat blazing into me, through me, inside me. A sharp intake of breath. Then a gasp out loud as he fills me as I've never been filled before. 'Phew, you're a tight boy' approvingly. His hands slide around me, playfully teasing my already painfully erect cock. And he begins to fuck me, as fireworks begin spitting sparks in my gut, flooding me with waves of hot sensation oozing up from beneath my spine, spreading outwards but focussing on the base of my penis, oozing up to fill it out so it rises straighter and harder. I'm moaning. His fingers squeeze and coax expertly, suddenly I'm spurting and jetting uncontrollably, gasping and sighing. He laughs low in a way that makes me feel both bashful and warmly helpless, totally in his control. I'm mewling, tensed and awash with a rage of sensation. He slows to a halt inside me, to prolong his experience. Until it's me that moves, impatient for him, using my anal muscles, tightening them around him, holding him deep, flexing my hips. He senses my need and reacts, begins again. I'm gasping and sobbing now, urging him on with a physical urgency I've never before known. Yet it's some time later that he comes off deep inside me in flows of jetting molten lava, and we collapse together.