Breaking Up is Hard to Do

The hints Moreno wanted him was what had caused Richard to set up the ESPN interview. The signals once they had met in Madrid, at The Magic Box arena, had been mixed. Moreno had come on to him, but there had been a reserve, even a bit of hostility there. What Richard came to think was that Moreno had developed an interest in rough sex, sex out of anger and hostility. Thus, he wasn't surprised when the tennis player suggested that they go clubbing after sharing a dinner and the clubs he named were all leather bars and clubs. Madrid had a large and kinky offering of gay lifestyle.

That was offered as a plan, though, after they'd gone to the locker room in the arena and to one of its private changing rooms and Moreno had lain down on his back on the bench in front of the locker and spread his legs for Richard. Of course Richard hadn't turned down the offer.

It was almost like Moreno was testing Richard to see how deep into kinky fetish he wanted to go as they made their progression through gay bars and clubs from the merely tolerant of same-sex couples, through transvestite clubs, and into leather underground when they reached The Meat Rack, on Calle Montserrat, not that far from Richard's Chueco gay district hotel, the Axel Hotel, on Atocha. The Meat Rack was a members-only leather and anything goes club in what had once been an underground parking garage. Now it was a maze of smoke-filled bars, dance floors, performance stages, sauna, indoor swimming pool, of noise, testosterone, leather, nakedness, and openly performed sex in underground activity considerably different from parking cars.

Moreno was either a member or had managed passes, and he had friends there or guys who had coordinated with him on how the evening would go. He and Richard wound up in a club room with Turkish décor, strobe lights, pole dancers, dance-floor writhing, flowing liquor, loud music, drugs, and a swirling crowd of muscular young men barely outfitted in leather, their boots, leatherman flat-cap berets, vests, and occasional leather cock pouch providing the most cover.

Richard and Moreno were already three sheets to the wind on liquor when they entered the room. Moreno maneuvered them to a couch in an alcove separated off from the room by beaded curtains that provided psychological separation only. They were very much a part of the hedonist sex going on in the room. A dancer came off the pole and came to where Moreno and Richard were slouched side by side on the sofa, fondling each other. The men had come in clothed, but, while working each other's bodies, they were down to their briefs. Moreno embraced Richard's torso and kissed and fed him drugs while the small Moroccan dancer gave Richard a lap dance. Sometime in the process, Richard lost his briefs and the dancer lost his thong and was bouncing up and down on Richard's cock as Richard grasped the young man's narrow waist between his hands.

Richard was going to near—but not beyond—the edge of consciousness from the drugs Moreno was feeding him, when the tennis player leaned over and whispered in his ear, "Remember Melbourne, four years ago?" he whispered. "I would have gone with you anywhere. But where you took me was into the lion's den. You lay there beside me, letting guys gangbang me. And you joined in. I wanted you—and I wanted to be with you. But you treated me like a piece of meat. Well, Richard, welcome to The Meat Rack."

Richard was semiconscious, aware of everything happening, powerless to stop it, as the pole dancer disappeared and, when Moreno signaled, three burly leathermen appeared. For the next hour, they went round robin with both Richard and Moreno, fucking them both, side by side on the leather sofa while the night life of The Meat Rack swirled around them. Richard was versatile, although he hadn't been active as a bottom for several years, so he wasn't devastated by the activity and could get a level of pleasure out of a tag-team of muscular leather guys crouching between his spread and raised legs and fucking him vigorously. But, as Moreno intended, he was somewhat disappointed that Moreno and whatever man he had on top of him at the time were having an explosive, give-and-take maximum pleasure fuck, while the drugs he'd been given kept Richard just docilely lying there taking whatever his sex partner of the moment was giving him.

As he was blacking out for the time in the club, he had a huge Turk inside him, reaching climax, while Moreno was beside him, a leatherman under him and one on top of him, doing him in a double penetration, and Moreno yodeling his pleasure to the silk-draped ceiling of the alcove.

Moreno was clearly having more of a sexual high than Richard was and Richard had been reminded several times by the tennis player that they could be this good together if Richard had only given Moreno more regard in Melbourne than just being a piece of meat. This made Richard think beyond the tennis player. It made him think of when he'd been in a relationship with David Danforth and how he hadn't given that all of his effort. He was getting older. This was fun—trips like this to sexual hell—but less and less this was a need he had. Moreno was teaching him a lesson.

When he woke next, he was in his hotel bed, a hunk lying and snoring on either side of him. He had no idea if these were the same leather guys Moreno had given him to the previous night. Moreno was there. Richard had a splitting headache, he had to piss, and his anal canal was loose and sore. He rolled over the guy closest to the bathroom door, and escaped to the can. When he returned, he thought the two muscular, naked hunks were still asleep, but not so. The one nearest him lashed out with a strong hand, grasped his wrist, and pulled him back onto the bed—and onto the erection of the other guy, who was on his back and who grasped his hands around Richard's waist and put him on the cock facing him.

He bounced a writhing and moaning, only half awake, headache-racked Richard on his buried cock for a few minutes before the other hunk swung his legs over the first one's from behind Richard, pushed Richard's chest down on that of Hunk Number One, and put his erection in place at Richard's already-breached hole.

"Guys, um guys. Not now. I've got a splitting headache. Guys! Oh, fuck. Oh, Shit! FUCK!"

Mounted on Richard's ass from behind, Hunk Number Two entered him with a thick, hard cock, pushing in on top of Hunk Number One's buried shaft, and the two began working him together.

Welcome to Madrid.

Moreno no long was in the room. Where the fuck had Moreno gone?

* * * *

When David Danforth arrived at the building his Paris vacation flat was in, he found his former partner, Richard Stern, sitting on the front steps.

"Richard. I thought you weren't coming to Paris."

"I've been waiting here for some time," Richard said. His suitcase was standing beside him. "I knew the address but I didn't know what rental company it was. I assumed you'd be here to let me in."

"You assumed I'd stay at the flat the whole time in Paris just hoping you would change your mind and come here to resume our vacation?" The inference was a challenge that Richard might be wanting to resume more than the vacation together. David worked hard to keep the tone a bantering one. He didn't, in his wildest dreams, think Richard would show up here. In fact, within just the last couple of days he'd stopped thinking about Richard at all.

"I've been thinking—"

"I just stopped by to pick up a few things here. I've made other living arrangements in Paris. I was going to cancel out on the flat—pay the penalty—and just let it go. But if you'll be vacationing here now, I can give you the key."

"Stay here alone? We had two more weeks here in Paris, didn't we?"

"Yes, alone. As I said, I have other arrangements here in Paris now—something I'm happy with, Richard." Just keep it pleasant, David kept telling himself.

Richard couldn't avoid hearing that "the breaking up is done" tone to that, though. It hit him hard. He'd thought David would swoon into his arms at any indication of the two of them getting back together.

After a pause to regather himself, he said, "No, thanks. I'm not much in a vacationing mood anymore. I think I'll just go to the airport and get the next available flight back to New York." He paused to give David an opportunity to ask him to stay. When that didn't come, he said, "When might I expect you back in New York? And what arrangements might we make with the apartment there? Maybe we could just resume—"

"I've let the apartment go, Richard. I have it until the end of September. I'm arranging for the office to clear it out and ship my stuff here. I've accepted the Architectural Record position here in Paris. I'm sure I told you there was a position here on offer. I'm staying in Paris. Oh, and I've found someone here."

Another pause, with Richard looking down the street so that David couldn't see the shock in his face. "Oh, well, that's good news. I'm happy for you."

And in time maybe Richard would be happy for David and, with time to think about it, maybe he'd take the time to think about what he really wanted with another man—maybe even a relationship like David had been saying he wanted. He really couldn't say anything at this point, although he'd come to Paris to try to rekindle what he and David had had. Breaking up had been his idea, his initiation. He couldn't deny that—he just had found out the breaking up was harder to do than he had thought it would be.

And bringing up was proving to be less hard for David than Richard thought it would be.