A Love Like Fireflies

"On Friday nights Karvaly and I like to visit the baths," Imre announced. "Come, join us."

Pete and Nick climbed out of the car, and stood before the marble edifice that loomed above them.

"Baths?" asked Pete. "You mean, like swimming?"

"Yes, there is swimming. And baths for soaking in," explained Karvaly. "We meet many friends here, and talk. Come."

"But I don't have a suit with me," said Pete, rooted to his place by the car.

"A suit? You swim wearing a suit?" Imre replied in disbelief.

"Not a suit like a suit of clothes. Like trunks, you know, shorts for swimming in."

"Ah! I see," said Imre. "No worries, Pete. No one wears a suit in the baths. Come now."

"But," Pete answered, to the backs of the other three as they walked briskly up the steps to the front door. He really had no choice but to follow.

He reached the others just as they made their way through the huge arching doorway. Imre paid for the four of them to enter, and then guided them to the dressing room. In the distance they could here splashing and animated conversation in the strange, crackling tongue of the locals.

The dressing room was functionally designed, with cubbies along all four walls and benches in the middle. Imre and Karvaly immediately began undressing, placing their clothing in a single cubby. Nick joined in immediately, never one to let a chance to get naked slip through his grasp. The three of them were completely nude before Pete even had his shirt off.

Pete had never been all that comfortable being naked around others. He had competed in gymnastics since grade school, but in all those years he still felt some anxiety when changing in the presence of his teammates. And now he wasn't just changing, but rather going completely naked. It's not that he had anything to be ashamed of--he was in the best shape of his life--but nudity just made him anxious.

"Come on, Petey, let's see that hot body of yours," cat-called Nick, who was impatient to get to the water.

Pete had by this time figured that the best way to deal with Nick was simply to ignore him, and so he turned away and slipped off his last remaining item of clothing, his underwear. He placed them neatly in the cubby and then turned to follow the others out in to the main bathing area.

Here the architecture of the building opened up into a paradise of smooth marble, blue water, and bubbling fountains. It was looked less like a bath house than a set for an aquatic production number in a 30's musical. And everywhere Pete looked there were naked men. Everywhere.

It suddenly occurred to Pete that the only thing that made him more anxious than being nude was seeing other people nude. But there was nowhere to look where he couldn't see naked men. They lay on chaises talking, they jumped into the water, they paddled lazily in the pools. They were everywhere, and they were all about Pete's own age. This struck him as a bit odd.

"Damn," Nick breathed, as he took in the scene. As anxious as Pete was, Nick was elated to just the same degree. He loved being naked, and he loved being around naked people. "Look at these guys. I don't see anyone here over, like, 21."

"Friday nights are for the young men only," explained Karvaly, helpfully. "It is when our friends are here."

They made their way to the largest pool, and Imre, Karvaly, and Nick jumped in immediately, joyfully. Pete stepped in cautiously. He wouldn't even attempt a naked cannonball like Nick had done. Who knew what that might do to one's testicles? Pete shuddered. As he paddled about in the warm water, he realized what it was that struck him as so unusual--every single penis he saw, and he saw dozens, no matter where he looked, was uncircumcised. Pete rarely saw an uncut dick in his high school locker room, but here it was clearly the norm. There was something about penises in their natural state that made Pete even more anxious. He just wanted to get out of here.

Meanwhile, the other three guys were playing like kids, jumping in, dunking each other, splashing. They tried to engage Pete in their games, but he glided off into a calm corner of the pool to sit and soak and sulk in solitude. It was during one of their more boisterous games that Karvaly slipped on the marble pool deck and fell into the water, his head smashing against the edge as he went in. The noise was horrifying, and Imre immediately rushed to where Karvaly had slid under water. With Nick's help he hauled him out of the pool and lay him down on the floor. Karvaly was not conscious, and Imre, clearly agitated, crouched over him, his hands on Karvaly's cheeks. He slapped them gently, hoping to stir consciousness in his unresponsive friend. Finally, he leaned in close to listen for breathing; Karvaly suddenly grabbed Imre's face and pulled him down to kiss him sloppily on the mouth. Clearly, Karvaly was going to be okay. The boys resumed their play, only slightly less recklessly than before.

After an hour or so of watery abandon, the foursome showered, dried, dressed, and headed out to the car.

"Would you wish to return home, or have a drink at our pub?" asks Imre, when they are all piled back into the sedan.

"Oh, hell, yeah, let's get a drink," Nick answered, without a moment's hesitation.

"Nick," whispered Pete. "We're not supposed to drink while we're here."

"Come on, Petey, we're legal here, remember? And who's going to find out?"

"But we signed the contract that said we wouldn't."

"Pete, I swear. You need to live a little, bud. And I'm the guy who's going to help you do it. Imre, my good man, drive on. To the pub!"

"To the pub!" shouted Imre and Karvaly in unison.

They were shortly parked in front of the bar, which was as shabby and dark as the bath house had been grand and airy. Inside, the Good Americans were treated to the local alcoholic speciality: the coarsest moonshine, perfumed with exotic herbs that grew high in the surrounding mountains. The effect was something like jasmine-scented gasoline. Pete and Nick were handed engraved shot glasses brimming with the thick, kelp-green liquid, and the four touched their glasses together before slamming the shots down in one burning gulp. Immediately another set of glasses appeared, and that's about the last thing that Pete remembered about his evening on the town.

CHAPTER FIVE

Pete awoke with a start at the cawing of a breathtakingly ugly bird perched on the balcony. First light was just starting to break, and the room was filled with the pinks and oranges of the rising sun.

Pete blinked, and blinked again, wondering at what point in the evening his eyelids had been replaced with sandpaper. Then he looked around the room.

It was with some surprise that he noted that he was in bed. It was with some alarm that he noted he was naked in bed. It was with a rising sense of panic that he noted that he was not alone in bed. What the hell happened last night? The bulk next to him shifted, and he saw Nick's face looking up from the pillow.

"Morning, sunshine," Nick sang out, smiling, as he rubbed his eyes. "How's Petey this fine morning?"

"Nick, I'm naked."

"So?"

"I don't sleep naked," Pete explained.

"I do," replied Nick. "I would have asked you your nighttime apparel preferences last night, but you were a little out of it. Actually, since you hurled all over the inside of Imre's grandma's car on the way home, I had to get you out of those clothes."

The enormity of what happened dropped on Pete like a safe in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

"You got me out of my clothes?"

"You're welcome. Like I said, I would have asked you what you wanted to wear to bed, but I was afraid if you tried to talk you would puke again. So I just stripped you down and carried to you to bed."

"Carried me?"

"Well, I had to get you up here from the bathroom somehow, right?"

"Why was I in the bathroom?"

"Pete, I just told you that you horked all over yourself in the car. I had to clean you up."

Pete's mind was racing. In the two minutes he'd been awake, here's what he had learned: that Nick had stripped the clothes off his unconscious body, washed him, then carried him naked up the stairs and into bed, and then climbed in next to him, naked, where they then slept all night together, naked. Oh my god.

"Nick, I don't know what to say. I'm so embarrassed."

"Ah, man, don't be. See, I'm naked too," and with this, Nick threw the covers off his side of the bed and confirmed that he was, indeed, naked--and that his morning erection had yet to subside. It throbbed angrily on his abdomen, reaching nearly to his navel. "Heh. I get kinda boned up in the morning."

Pete ignored Nick's rude tumescence. "I didn't mean I was embarrassed about being naked. I meant I was embarrassed about how I acted last night."

"Oh, don't worry about that. It probably wouldn't have happened if we had given you a little more time to sober up before we left the pub. But once Mr. Patronus showed up we kind of had to run."

"Mr. Patronus was there last night?"

"Yeah, funny coincidence, huh? Out of all the bars in the city, he goes to that one. But don't worry, we slipped out the back before he saw us."

Pete hung his head and wondered how he had managed to fall so far so fast. He was always the good kid, the solid one. Now he was being spirited out of bars, throwing up in cars, and sleeping naked next to this amoral thing with the huge morning wood. Fuck.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and got to his feet, stumbling a bit as his sense of balance returned from taking the night off. He wasn't sure what he was going to do; it was clearly too early to go downstairs for breakfast, but he couldn't stay here with naked Nick, who had drifted back into dreamland with the covers wrapped around his knees. His cock still stabbed the air as he dozed. Pete had to get out of this room.

He pulled on a pair of shorts, afraid that rifling through the dresser for a clean pair of underwear would awaken his bedmate, and a conscious Nick was the last thing he wanted. He pulled the door open silently, and walked into the hallway and out the door to the balcony. The morning view was breathtaking, the air a bit chilly. The freshness of the breeze brought Pete back to himself, and he started to reflect on what had happened to him in the last several days. One thing he knew for sure: wherever Nick went, trouble followed. How was he going to make it through the coming three months?

Pete was startled by a creak of furniture and a voice talking, somewhere, quietly. Someone else was awake at this ungodly hour. Pete wasn't really up for company, as he was just starting to calm his jangled nerves in the solitude of the placid morning. He stood a statue, listening.

The sounds were coming from the room opposite his and Nick's. He looked in that direction, and saw that the window of their room was separated from the balcony by a trellis with a flowering vine growing up its side. Pete approached the trellis, intending to take a closer look at the intricate flowers that pinkly dotted the vine; when he reached it he realized, to his horror, that he could see through the trellis directly into Imre and Karvaly's room. His first instinct was to dodge back onto the other side of the balcony and pretend he had seen nothing, but it was what he saw next that froze him in place.

Karvaly was lying on the bed, in a recumbent pose much like the one Pete had left Nick in: lying on his back, the covers pulled off, and, yes, fully erect. Imre was walking back toward the bed, having just pulled the curtains open--that must have been the noise Pete had heard. Imre was, of course, naked. My god, Pete thought, does no one in this country wear clothes?

Imre reached the bed, and stood for a moment looking out the window. Pete panicked as Imre looked right at him, but he seemed not to notice that he was there. Perhaps the trellis hid him, Pete thought, relieved. It would be difficult to explain why he was looking through his hosts' window while they got dressed in the morning.

Except that they weren't getting dressed. In fact, Imre seemed to be getting back into bed. He put one knee on the bed, and craned over to where Karvaly lay. He lowered his had down to Karvaly's and then ... and then.

"Oh, fuck," Pete tried not to say, but it slipped out in a whisper anyway.

Imre leaned down to Karvaly, and he kissed him. Not a "good morning we're European so we kiss even though we're both straight men" kind of kiss. This was an open mouth, full tongue action, mature-audiences-only kind of kiss. Pete, who had stopped breathing when the kiss began, was about to pass out from lack of oxygen to his brain when something happened that made him suck in a lungful, all at once. Imre reached down and wrapped his hand around Karvaly's cock.

Pete desperately rationalized that perhaps Imre had lost his balance and had grabbed Karvaly's erection to keep himself from falling off the bed, much as he had grabbed Nick's hand by accident in the car yesterday. Except that Imre's hand was stroking up and down Karvaly's shaft, rising and falling slowly, making the already sizable appendage grow even more.

Pete wanted to leave, but he couldn't. He would tell himself later that it was because he didn't want to make noise and give himself away as some kind of pervert voyeur, but he knew that the guys on the bed wouldn't have noticed him even if he had started playing the trumpet. They were simply in their own world.

As Pete watched, Karvaly wrapped his arms around Imre and pulled him close. The two embraced, their entire bodies coming into contact, and they rolled around as if contesting good-naturedly for the upper hand, coming to rest sideways across the bed. It was Karvaly who ended up on top, and he neatly swiveled around, which brought him face-to-prick with Imre. He leaned forward, mouth open, and captured the head of Imre's now-erect penis. His tongue danced around the tip, and he kissed up and down the length of it. He wrapped his hand around the base of Imre's cock, and then stroked up, making the foreskin gather over the tip. That extra skin, which Pete was so conscious of lacking last night, disappeared into Karvaly's mouth. He pursed his lips around it, and pulled back, stretching the foreskin until it thinned, veiny in the morning light. He then lunged forward and stuffed an impossible amount of Imre's long, gracefully arching cock into his mouth. Pete could hear Imre moan and babble with pleasure.

Not to be outdone, Imre took advantage of his position between Karvaly's powerful legs. The rather massive cock and balls of his friend dangled above his face, but that was not, apparently, what he wanted. He reached up, joined his hands around the small of Karvaly's back, and pushed him forward so that his groin pressed down against Imre's throat. That left his buttocks spread open wide, directly in front of Imre's face.

Who'd want a view like that, Pete thought. He's looking right at the guy's asshole.

And then it became clear why Imre wanted that view. He lifted his head and jammed his tongue directly into Karvaly's anus. Pete retched involuntarily, but luckily his gasping was completely obscured by Karvaly's own as Imre attacked his ass. Pete watched helplessly as Imre pressed his mouth again and again into the cleft between Karvaly's smooth, round cheeks. Until now, kissing someone's ass had been a figure of speech. Now Pete had seen someone do it. And apparently enjoy it. This was fucked up.

Karvaly now pulled Imre's legs up into the air, and he dove down between them to root out Imre's own asshole. The two of them writhed on the bed, each attached by the lips to the anus of the other, clearly in a transport of delight. Suddenly, Karvaly released his lips from Imre's ass and swiveled around again. Pete was astounded to see them kissing again. Didn't they know where those mouths had been?

The two ground against each other on the bed, their cocks rubbing wildly together. Each time Karvaly slid his cock up Imre's hard stomach, his foreskin would roll back, exposing the glistening head of his prick. Then as he slid down, the skin would slide up to cover the tip, bunching up, while Imre's longer, thinner tool did the opposite. The continued this for several minutes, and then Pete noticed both men stiffening. Their muscles stood out in stark relief as they gripped each other even more urgently, and then it happened. From both cocks at once jets of semen spurted out, as they continued to rub up and down each other. Soon their torsos were coated with their mingled seed, and still they kissed, and slid up and down, until the cum was rubbed into their bodies. Only then did they roll onto their sides, still kissing passionately.

Pete stepped back from the trellis, panting. What the hell was going on here? Had the world gone completely fucking mad? Did people really do that to each other? And what was that dripping on his foot?

He looked down and saw, to his horror, that the front of his shorts was darkening; a growing wet spot radiated from his crotch while drops of white landed on his bare feet. Pete staggered, loosing more of his own semen from inside his shorts, which rained down onto his feet. Holy fucking shit, what had just happened?

Pete numbly made his way back into the hallway, and opened the door as quietly as he could. Nick snored softly, still naked, sprawled across the entire bed. Pete took off his shorts and wadded them up tightly. He would have to find a way to discreetly wash the sperm out of those later. He mopped up his legs and feet, removing the drops and tracks left by the hot fluid as it ran down his body.

It was with relief that he was finally clean, though he wasn't sure he would ever feel truly clean again.

Nick rolled over, and sniffed the air. "Nasty, dude," he mumbled in a sleepy voice. "Good for you, rubbing one out. You'll feel better." And he promptly resumed breathing the deep breaths of sleep.

Pete sat on the edge of the bed, devastated. He had no idea what to think, no way to process what had happened this morning.

Across the hall, Karvaly stopped kissing Imre for a moment to ask, "Was that Peter on the balcony?"

"Yes, I think it was," replied Imre.

"I would have expected that from Nicholas, but Peter surprises me."

"Well, you know these Americans," murmured Imre, drowsily. "Oversexed and repressed at the same time. I do not pretend to understand them."

"Mmm," grunted Karvaly, as the two boys drifted back to sleep.

CHAPTER SIX

At breakfast a couple of hours later, Pete searched Imre and Karvaly for any sign of the intimacy he had seen so exuberantly demonstrated in their dawn romp. He saw nothing unusual, which, as usual, made him start to doubt that he'd seen anything at all. He couldn't trust his senses anymore, it seemed, nor could he trust his own penis, which seemed to have developed a mind of its own lately. He had never, ever, had so much as a wet dream--at least before the one involving Nick, who was at the moment wolfing down another of Grandma's stony pancakes--and now his prick was burping up semen at the slightest provocation. Upon reflection, we was forced to admit that what Imre and Karvaly had done was hardly slight provocation, but still.

"You okay, Petey?" Nick asked, full of cheer.

"Yeah, fine." Pete was sticking with his resolution to provide as little as possible in the way of raw material for Nick to work with, and to this end he accented his assurance with a chipper grin. Three more months of this, he thought through gritted teeth.

The weekend lay before them, and with Monday being the official start of their YES! work assignments, all four boys set out to see the sights of the city over the next two days. Everyone stayed clothed, no one got drunk, and they learned a bit of history along the way. Entirely satisfactory, to Pete's mind; a horror show of boredom to Nick's.