Clouds over Antibes

When he was as hard as he was going to be, I rose, came back down in his lap, holding his cock, which was a presentable one, up with a hand to put it in position and to steady it and give it extra strength as I sank on it. He buried his face in my chest, and I rose and fell on his cock until he ejaculated. It was all done slowly, both of us savoring the experience. The flow was slight, but he had managed an orgasm.

I then undressed him, and as he sat and watched me with worshipful eyes, I carefully cleared the suitcases off the bed, helped him into the bed, turned out the light, and entered the bed myself, stretched out beside him. An hour later in the dark, I felt him moving his hand on my body and raising his torso beside me. "¿Puedo tenerte de nuevo? Excuse me. May I have you again?" he whispered.

"Yes, of course," I answered.

I didn't help him other than spreading and bending my legs and moving a pillow under the small of my back. I knew it was a matter of pride for him that he do this himself. He was unusually strong--very much the soldier still--as he moved a leg over me and took a sit-up position of stiff arming the mattress on either side of my shoulders and going up onto his toes, his body remaining ramrod straight, as he penetrated and pumped me. He was thick, if not terribly long, and he was harder this time than the previous one. I grasped his waist between my hands, arched my back, and moaned in genuine pleasure as he fucked me. We came almost together. He lowered his body on mine and we both, I'm sure, concentrated on him going flaccid inside me. Sometime in the night he'd rolled off to the side of me and was snoring contentedly.

He was asleep, still snoring, when I woke as the fingers of early-morning light were filtering through the slats of the shutter covering the window overlooking the yacht basin. I thought that Maurice must have given him the best room in the inn, as the view of the marina and sea would be magnificent from here. I nudged my way out of bed, cleaned myself with a wash cloth in the tiny bathroom off his room, and left him sleeping.

I didn't see the Spanish general in Antibes after that. He didn't show up to the Oscar's club meeting the next evening and it seemed that everyone was avoiding mentioning him at all.

During the evening I agreed to go with the French artist, Jean-Paul Jardiennes, and he took me upstairs to the room that had been the Spanish general's but that had no evidence of him remaining now. There Jean-Paul fucked me like I was a whore, slapping me around, dominating me, and pumping me vigorously and cruelly, causing the bedsprings to complain and bouncing the headboard off the wall to the rhythm of his thrusts. It was nothing like the near lovemaking of the Spanish general, but it was a wiping out of Juan del Campo's existence for the previous year in this room. If anyone came looking for the general here, trying to follow his trail on Franco's behest, no one here would acknowledge ever having met the man.

Henceforth, for the time I was in Antibes, this was where the men brought me to fuck me. The night that Jean-Paul had me here, the innkeeper Maurice, himself, fucked me on this bed. He let me move in and use the room. The first thing I did was to fling the shutters open so that I could take in the magnificent view of the Antibes yacht basin and the Mediterranean beyond whenever I wanted to.

* * * *

"There, enough of the painting for now, I think," the French artist, Jean-Paul Jardienne said, as he came over to where I was posed, naked, save for a black leather bomber jacket spread open on my torso, on a white silk-draped studio couch in his art studio. My torso had been propped up by my left arm, the hand cupping my head, with my right hand cupping my cock and balls. He had paid me to both pose for him and lie under him.

We had completed the posed part and I wasn't all that surprised that, when he came over to the couch, he backhanded me, sending me crashing to the surface of the divan, and was on top of me, unzipping his fly, choking me with one hand as he positioned himself, and then inside me and pumping. He had been rough with me the first time too. He had been quite clear that he saw sex as war, and that he needed to conquer and subjugate.

When I had a chance--when he had gone off, after taking his pleasure with me, to clean his brushes--I rolled off the divan and went to look at what he had painted. I had to admit that he was a good artist. But he was moody and more than a bit crazy, I thought.

He also had grilled me about who I was, where I was coming from, where I planned to go and when, and why I was here in Antibes--just as a policeman would do. I answered all his questions. I didn't have anything to hide. Maurice had done the same with me. I decided that it was just the French way. I was a stranger in France and France was in turmoil. The French were on edge. I had seen it in all of them coming to the Oscar's club the handful of nights I'd been in attendance: Jean-Paul, Maurice, Tristian, the priest--even the transvestite, Louie--all of the Frenchmen, those who actually belonged here in Antibes.

He had been downstairs at what I came to think of as the club table, in Maurice's inn, that morning when I came down for breakfast. That had become the deal with Maurice. He fed me at the inn and covered my drinking in the evening if I let him sleep on top of me in the Spaniard's room at night. He took Louis to his room, but not me. All the time I was there, I didn't see the flat Maurice kept on the top floor.

I could entertain any other man I wanted in the room as well. The Spaniard's room was more comfortable than the bunk in my cabin cruiser, and I had to eat, so I agreed. I was accumulating moving-on capital faster than I thought. The biggest expense in moving on would be covering the diesel fuel needed for the cabin cruiser. And the cost of diesel was rising so fast, I wasn't sure I'd ever save enough to cover the run to North Africa or Portugal.

The German actor, Gunter Achten, had been breakfasting at the inn as well, and, between Gunter and Jean-Paul, offering to pay me to pose for him, my date card for the morning was filled in when I'd had no idea what I would do that day at all.

I posed for Jean-Paul and was mauled by him until nearly noon, upon which time I returned to the inn to pick up the picnic basket Gunter had arranged with Maurice to have ready for us, and then I cycled on an inn bicycle along the coast to the east, toward Nice, where Gunter said there was a villa above the beach where we could swim and become better acquainted. The German didn't offer to pay me, and I assumed he would want sex from me, but I didn't have to charge everyone. He was a beautiful man, near my own age, with a sunny smile, golden hair, and mesmerizing blue eyes. I would enjoy the afternoon with him.

It was more of a pleasant anticipation than the session with the brooding Frenchman, Jean-Paul, who I knew would treat me cruelly and in that I wasn't wrong. But Jean-Paul paid well and the political tension in the air told me that I needed to move on as soon as I could. I just didn't really know where I could move on to that was any safer than Antibes.

While I was picking up the picnic basket, I saw the priest, Père Bernard in the back passageway with the waiter, Tristian, again. That was a peculiar arrangement, I thought, the waiter always being somewhere covered by the priest when I'd been told that the waiter and the innkeeper, Maurice, were a pair. But the innkeeper was sleeping with me most nights.

A strange, hedonist place this French Riviera was.

And then there was the Spanish general. I had asked Maurice that morning when Juan del Campo would be wanting his room back, and Maurice had given me a stern look and had said, "There is no Spanish general here. Do not speak of him again." No one else was speaking of Del Campo either, so I tried just to forget about him.

* * * *

"It used to be so carefree here, but now there is menace--a malignance--in the air. Do you not feel it?"

"I've just gotten here," I answered the German actor, Gunter, as we sat on the terrace of Mark Standish's small villa at the top of a short cliff overlooking a sandy beach and the Mediterranean. I did, in fact, feel the tension, at least, in the air, but I didn't want to add to the man's melancholy mood. We were eating the lunch Maurice's kitchen had provided. I had been surprised that where Gunter had told me to meet him would be the English writer, Mark's, seaside villa. Nor did I expect that the young French transvestite, Louis, would be here too, a lip-sticked face, ruby-red painted fingernails, and willowy body. Mark was here as well, but not lunching where we were. He took his baguette, cheese, and glass of wine off to the other side of the terrace, where he insisted he had to reach the end of writing a chapter before he could frolic with us.

"You feel it particularly oppressively?" I asked. "Because you are German? As the Germans increasingly take over, won't you be in an increasingly better position here?"

Gunter seemed almost to quake from the topic that neither of us wanted to discuss but that we kept gravitating to. And it was only the two of us talking. Mark was lost to his clacking typewriter, and Louis didn't speak English. He--or she, whatever--just sat, plastered to Gunter, touching him here and there with ruby-red fingernails, looking worshipfully at him and guardedly at me. Gunter must have some talented dick, I thought, and I would have no trouble giving my ass to him if he asked for it.

"I'm getting it both coming and going here in southern France," he said.

"How is that?"

"I'm German in a section of France where Germans aren't viewed with a whole lot of affection just now--except to their face."

I laughed. "Granted."

"But I'm also a Jew, a communist, and queer to boot. I left Germany, and then Paris, just ahead of the knives. They will find me here eventually--and the French here will cheer them on."

"None of the men I've met here--none of those gathering a Maurice's inn at night--feel that way toward you, Gunter," I said, reaching over and touching his forearm. Louis gave me a nasty look. I could almost feel the transvestite's snarl of jealousy and possessiveness.

"I'm not so sure of that," Gunter said. "Not all of the men at Oscar's are what they seem to be, I don't think."

"At least Louis will protect you to the death," I said. I tried to smile, but I realized that bringing "death" into the discussion was not helping.

"We shall see," Gunter said, and, happily the conversation and mood was changed then, because Mark had stopped typing and was standing by us, saying, "Anyone for the sea?"

"I didn't bring a suit," I said.

Both Gunter and Mark laughed at that. "Oh, you innocent babe," Mark said.

We, of course, all stripped down then and ran, naked, down the wooden steps, across the sand, dropping towels that Mark had supplied en route, and into the Mediterranean.

I was a strong swimmer and swam vigorously, with powerful strokes, straight out into the sea, presuming the others would do the same. But they didn't. The other three, Mark, Gunter, and Louis, remained just outside the foam of the waves rolling onto the shore and frolicked there together. When I saw I was alone, I turned and swam back, past them and to the sand. I saw them, touching each other and kissing, as I drew closer. I could have joined them, I'm sure, but in that moment, I felt a separation and I continued on past them, stumbling out of the surf and up to where I had dropped the beach towel I'd been given.

I shook myself like a dog shedding rainwater and sat on the towel, looking out toward the sea--watching Mark and Gunter work Louis together, both of them embracing him between them, both of them penetrating him, Mark from the front and Gunter from behind, and both of them fucking him, together, as Louis writhed between them and squealed whatever he was feeling--pain or pleasure--certainly satisfaction at the attention.

When they were done, Mark pulled away and came up onto the beach, laid his towel out beside me, and sat down. Gunter carried Louis up in his arms and laid the young man on one of the towels a bit of a distance from where Mark and I now sat, close together. Rather than staying there with Louis, though, Gunter picked up his towel and brought it over to where Mark and I sprawled. He put it down on the other side of me from Mark.

I knew what they wanted from me. They were touching me from either side with their hands, and when I turned from one to the other, we kissed. I took their cocks in my hands and stroked them, as they reached over and shared my cock with their hands.

"I want--" Mark murmured.

"And I too," Gunter interjected.

"I know," I answered.

"Have you ever?" Mark asked.

"Yes," I admitted.

"So, you will--" Gunter asked.

"Yes."

I had seen what they had done with Louis in the sea. I rose, turning to Mark, who was sitting up now with his legs stretched out in front of him. I saddled myself in his lap, facing him, and held his erection in my hand as I centered over it--and descended on it. Mark let out a long sigh, and I was lightly panting as I used my knees pressed into the sand as leverage to rise and fall on his cock. He embraced me with his arms, tilting me into his chest, rolling my buttocks up, as Gunter came in behind me.

I panted harder, and groaned, and gave a long moan, as Gunter's cock entered me, sliding in on top of Mark's.

And then they fucked me--together, the three of us establishing a harmonious rhythm with our lips, our hands, and our arms--our bodies moving in concert as one. Louis sat on his towel, watching us fuck--glowering at me.

* * * *

Late that afternoon I decided to check in on the cabin cruiser in the yacht basin before going to the inn. I found the Italian industrialist, Mateo Paoli, there on the bunk, sleeping--or, I later suspected, pretending to be sleeping. He had his eyes scrunched shut too tight and his breathing didn't sound natural to me. Looking around the cabin, I saw that it wasn't as I had left it. Someone had been searching my boat. My thoughts didn't go immediately to Mateo. He had had several opportunities before now to search my boat, if he wanted to do so. It was more the French here who I'd thought of wanting to ensure I wasn't someone they should be wary of. Jean-Paul had certainly given me the third degree about who I was and why I was here. For that matter, so had the inn keeper and the priest.

Mateo opened his arms to me, holding the toys I had gotten in Istanbul--wrist and ankle restraints and the dildo Mateo had used before--in his hands. He wanted to fuck. I was beginning to feel like a whore from what I'd already done that day. I was doing it for money more times than necessary just for my enjoyment or for basic needs. But his billfold was on the table within reach of the bunk and he put the dildo down and pulled several franc notes out of it. I hadn't taken pay from either Gunter or Mark, and the price of diesel was already skyrocketing in the area.

I let him fuck me. He was as cruel this time as the last, binding both my wrists and my ankles together and also tying a rope around my thighs to keep them together and my channel tight for his games--with the dildo and his cock, me bent over the bed and he covered me from behind and above, not penetrating me, though, until he had beat me on the buttocks, back, and thighs with his leather belt.

It didn't seem like sex--more like war--more with the need to conquer that Jean-Paul also displayed. He was Italian, the Italians combining with Germany, and I was an American, with the United States neutral but leaning ever more, with its dormant power, toward the Allies. He was Italy, defeating the United States even before it could enter the conflict. That square-jawed, sour-faced Mussolini leader in Italy. Didn't he make Italian men want to lean to the macho and the cruel?

I don't know why I was thinking that, though. Mateo hadn't said or done anything that didn't indicate that he had sympathy for the plight of the French and for our little band of queers meeting at Maurice's inn each night, banding together to buck each other up. Perhaps it was because of the news that came through that day--that Italy had occupied both the principality of Monaco and the French city of Nice, not that far to the east from here. The fascists were moving closer.

And the Vichy government was doing nothing to stop them.

* * * *

Despite everything--not just the news of the Italian advance from the east but also the rumors that men were disappearing from the town for various reasons, including politics, collaboration, failure to collaborate, and sexual offenses--the gathering of the Oscar's club that evening on the upper porch of Maurice's inn was boisterous, bordering on the edge of hysteria. It was as if this was the last night of the world as the men gathered knew it--and in many respects it was.

The men were giddy and moving around, swaying with the music, which was turned up loud. It only occurred to me later that it was turned up that high to obscure eavesdropping on a gathering that had become a very dangerous activity in the tension that was hanging over the virtually occupied French Riviera. The beer also was flowing and we all became at least a bit intoxicated--and frisky with each other.

I agreed to a request from Gunter Achten to see the room in the inn above that the Spanish general had vacated and the innkeeper, Maurice, was letting me use. The transvestite, Louis, who had become giggly drunk, was plastered to Gunter, so he came too. In his drunkenness, Louis forgot that I was unwanted competition, and we wound up, the three of us, on the bed, naked and entwined. Louis and I hovered over Gunter's beautiful prone body and shared the German's cock with our mouths, my lips meeting with the little transvestite's, his lipstick on my lips as well as being smeared on Gunter's cock.

With Gunter placing Louis and me in position and guiding us with his hands, I fucked Louis. Louis no doubt only complied because Gunter asked him to do it and he was nearly dead drunk. And then Louis stretched out beside Gunter and me, stroking Gunter's back with his fingers, as the German actor fucked me in the missionary position.

I think for all of us it was an escape from the rumors being whispered about of the activity in the town that day--people disappearing, being taken away, without anyone being sure if it was by partisans of the French resistance, German or Italian adherents, or just an assortment of other grudges and prejudices being able to surface in this chaotic atmosphere. For us in the club, that we were all gay in a world increasingly not tolerating that, that worry predominated. I know I was turning to sex for moments of not remembering where I was and what the political climate here was.

We showered together, and I was still only covered with a towel around my waist when Gunter and Louis were dressed and returning to the party downstairs, where the decibel level was decreasing.

I went to the window overlooking the yacht basin and watched the play of the moonlight on the water of the Mediterranean beyond. As I watched, I saw a slim young man--it looked like the waiter, Tristian--move somewhat surreptitiously out onto the piers of the marina and enter the boat moored next to my cabin cruiser. I had little time to think about the import of that--if it really was Tristian and, if so, what he was doing in the marina, and near my boat, when a knock came at the door.

The door opened without me moving toward it, and there stood the English writer, Mark Standish, with two glasses of beer in his hands.

"You weren't coming back to the party, so I thought the party should come to you," he said. I welcomed him in and we sat, me in my towel on the foot of the bed, and he in a straight chair facing me, and drank our beers and talking about anything but what was on our minds--firstly the poisoned atmosphere in Antibes at the moment and, secondly, of sex, sex with each other.