For Past Transgressions

The walk east along the coastline that had led to the fortuneteller's hut had been the only sojourn in the first week that Josh and Elaine had taken together—and even that had led to Elaine running back to the house on her own and locking herself in her room—or at least Josh thought she was in her room. She didn't answer to his knock. They hadn't slept in the same room since Josh's name had appeared in conjunction with a police raid in New York's Chelsea district in the middle of August.

Even Demonde wasn't around as much as Josh had expected him to be—which was somewhat of a relief because Josh found his presence disconcerting. He had been absent so much initially that Josh hadn't recognized him at first the day of the encounter with the fortuneteller. He had found his following Josh home at a distance disconcerting, though, and after a couple of agonizing hours alone by the pool with a six-pack of beers, Josh had gone down to the lower level of the house, where the garages and storage rooms—and Demonde's bedroom and bath—were to seek him out.

As he approached the bedroom door, which was slightly ajar, he realized that Demonde wasn't alone in his room—or alone on his bed. From the moans and the sighs and the glimpse of lighter-tan skin under Demonde's deep chocolate and the way Demonde, stretched out, was rising and falling on the figure underneath him on the bed, Josh realized that Demonde was having sex.

Josh was fast to anger at this knowledge as he stepped away from the door, but he quickly recovered. Demonde wasn't his employee—really—or his responsibility, and it should not be surprising to anyone that a young man with such a powerful, beautiful body wouldn't have sex—and his choice of sex partners.

From that time Josh hadn't come near Demonde's room in the run up to Halloween and had rarely seen him. He wasn't even in evidence when Josh decided—having no takers in the family when he suggested they all go—to go into the village of Rio Bueno on Hallow's Eve to check out the parade Demonde had told him about. Demonde couldn't be found to drive him, but the keys were in the Land Rover, and Josh knew how to drive himself—and he remembered that there had been a sign on the Major Highway for the turnoff to Rio Bueno.

He didn't get to Rio Bueno until well after dark, and the parade was already in full swing, snaking slowly down the village's haphazardly winding main street between bystanders holding up lit torches that made the whole scene even more garish and mystical than it normally would be. The paraders were chanting to the gentle stroking of African drums, the four drummers sitting in the bed of an old pickup truck at the rear of the procession. The scene indeed was as ghoulish as Demonde had told Josh it would be, with more than half of the procession being composed of figures covered in white bedsheets with elongated wooden devil masks hiding their faces, each one more gruesome than the one before it but also each a work of art. These masks were on sale in the tourist stores at other times of the year and were the principal folk art of the region.

The rest of those on parade were wearing their clothes inside out, had their faces covered in ash, were beating maracas in an off beat from that of the drummers in the truck, and were weaving back and forth inside the parade columns—and all shuffling backwards on bare feet. Many of them had ankle bracelets with jangling bells on them. In all, the sound was raucous but had a certain mesmerizing harmony to it.

The image of "snaking" down the street was emphasized by the presence of live snakes draped around many of those parading down the narrow street between adobe and wooden shacks and bungalows set close together. Josh assumed the snakes were nonpoisonous ones, or ones that had been defanged, as neither the noise or the writhing nature of the collective beast shuffling down the street seemed to have caused any medical emergencies.

Still, when he realized that what was moving on the bodies of the paraders were living organisms—slithering snakes—Josh found himself stepping back into the darkness of an alley between two buildings. There was a sensuality to all of it that took his breath away. A heavily sexed man himself, he had not gotten off in several weeks, and he found himself going hard at the mesmerizing primitiveness of the celebration despite the ghoulishness of it all. The drumbeat of the African drums became the beating of his heart, drumming in his ears, and he began to pant.

He sensed that he was not alone in the alley before he became fully aware of the fact. A white-robed arm, the arm of a ghost dancer, he was sure, encircled his waist from behind and drew him a bit deeper into the alley, but not so far that he couldn't still watch the procession passing by through a vertical slit of torch-lit space between the buildings.

The figure embracing him closely from behind was a man—tall and powerfully built—and breathing as heavily as Josh was. The feel of the man's erection through the white cloth of his ghost costume left no doubt in Josh's mind that the connection between them was a sexual one rather than a random mugging. And suddenly, because of all that was happening around him, because of all that had brought him to Jamaica, and because of his great need, a sexual connection was something that Josh achingly wanted. Still, he shuddered and started to hyperventilate as he felt movement on his arms and realized that the man had, like many of the others, snakes wound around his body.

The man held him close, making soothing sounds at the back of his throat, while Josh controlled his trembling and terror and came to accept that the snakes wouldn't bite him. In fact, in some primeval way they added to the atmosphere of the encounter, undulating between the two bodies, making them one by winding around one man and then partially over the other. While Josh was calming down, he relaxed and began to moan softly. Only the white material of the ghost costume and Josh's own trouser and brief material separated the two. The man was in massive erection, and as the snakes rewound themselves, binding one man to the other, the ghost's erection inserted itself between Josh's thighs, under his balls, and the two swayed against each other as the ghost dry fucked Josh's thighs, which Josh closed willingly to encourage the friction.

Now was the time for Josh to break away, to deny the demon that plagued him. But Josh made no move to do so. When his assaulter slammed his back against the adobe wall and exhibited a fierce wooden mask, sporting small devil's horns at the temples and with a large, round, mouth opening through which sensually thick, brown lips protruded, Josh just sighed and turned his face toward the vertical slit at the alley opening through which he could watch the parade proceed.

Giving over all to his present need, he trembled and placed his hands on either side of the dreadlocked head, as his Hallow's Eve lover knelt before him, unzipped his trousers, and pulled his hard cock out and between moist lips, taking the shaft deep inside his mouth cavity through the large mouth opening in the mask. A snake was wound around Josh's arm, its tail draped down the shoulder and back of the ghost, but, by now, Josh had accepted this as yet another sensual element of the coupling. Josh panted and moved his hips, his buttocks hitting the adobe wall behind him rhythmically as his greedy thrusts inside the ghost's mouth took up the beat of the African drums in the back of the pickup truck.

It seemed like the parade was going on forever, and, indeed, the truck passed the slit of his view beyond the alley three times during the raw, primitive sexual encounter. So the parade, he reasoned, must be in a loop, going down this street, up another, and back down this one again until all were in frenzy-induced exhaustion, and Hallow's Eve had turned into All Saints' Day.

With a cry to the narrow slit of dark blue sky over the alley that was swallowed up in the strange but compelling music of the parade, Josh came down the ghost's throat in a profusion of pent-up need of more than a month's duration.

He felt so spent and exhausted—and satisfied—that he could have just slid down the wall into a heap at its base, but he was being held up by the strong arm of the ghost now standing, leaning down, and resting the forehead of the grotesquely evocative wooden mask on Josh's forehead. The velvety brown eyes behind the mask were boring into Josh's own eyes.

"And now me—my pleasure—if I have guessed right," the ghost murmured in a rich, smooth, Jamaican-accented baritone voice.

"Yes, yes, please. Fuck me," Josh murmured in a strangled voice.

The ghost turned Josh's cheek to the wall, and once more Josh's eyes focused on the glimpses of the passing parade, as he heard and felt his belt buckle being undone and his trousers and briefs being pushed down to his ankles.

He whimpered as a broad hand palmed his belly and another one grabbed the back of his neck, keeping his cheek plastered to the cool pebbled surface of the adobe wall. A snake slithered up his thigh and encircled his hips and lower belly. It wasn't large enough to choke the life out of Josh, but it constricted its muscles and released them throughout the fuck in a cadence that Josh fancied matched that of the drummers in the truck and of his assaulter's rhythmic thrusts inside him. Never before had Josh felt this high during sex.

"Present your ass to me," the voice, rougher, more insistent now, cut through the darkness, and the palm on his belly prompted Josh to jut his buttocks back from the wall as he raised his stance on the balls of his feet. He was willing, open, wanting for what he knew was coming.

His eyes were watering and he was giving little yip, yip sounds as one of the thickest cocks he had ever taken began to enter and stretch his channel. And enter and enter and enter. Hold. And then begin a long, slow, familiar, sought-after pumping action that became faster and faster, as Josh writhed under the fierce onslaught of the taking, the faster beat of the cock inside him seemingly being matched by the rise in volume and beat of the drums.

He couldn't be mistaken. The drums were, indeed, beating faster, the crowd, indeed, was growing more frenzied and louder in its cries, the fuck indeed was becoming ever more vigorous, frenzied. There was no mistaking it, as Josh's yodels merged with the song of the crowd, Hallow's Eve was coming to a climax. And so did Josh again, his spunk splashing against the adobe wall. And so, Josh could tell by the trembling and jerking of the cock inside him and by the heavy breathing and snorts and groans of the ghost who was fucking him, did his assailant.

The was no feeling of the spurt of cum inside him or of warm semen lathering the mammoth cock and dribbling down Josh's thighs, which made Josh aware that the man must have worn a condom. Despite the safety it signaled, under the circumstances of their primitive sex act, Josh felt the loss of rawness of what would have made his sense of surrender peak, as his body now, at last, slid down the wall.

He was alone. And, as he raised his head and focused his eyes, he realized that the sounds beyond the alley entrance were dissipating. The parade had passed him by. It was the morning of All Saints' Day.

The house was dark when he returned to the Discovery Bay villa. Elaine's door was closed, as were those of Ellie's and Jason's bedrooms. All was normal—unfortunately.

And they had made no progress on the reason why they had escaped Long Island for Jamaica. At least he hadn't. The same issue that had exploded his marriage—their marriage—at least his contribution to the explosion, still existed. He still wanted to be with men. He still wanted to be fucked by men. That devil still had him by the throat.

Although the sexual encounter in Rio Bueno had brought all of his wants to the surface and had, momentarily, been satisfying in a primitive sort of way, it had only reopened his wound. He spent a fretful hour alone on his bed, fantasizing about the fuck in the Rio Bueno alley—alternating between wanting it not to have happened and wanting it to have gone on longer, forever. Wanting to have seen the body of his lover and to have had the opportunity to make love to it.

This had been a new level of sensuality for him. In the encounters that had gotten him into trouble in New York, he shied away from sucking another man's cock. But tonight he had felt the loss of not having been given the opportunity to do so with the ghost in the alley. He knew the cock had been thick and long—as it had possessed his channel fully. He felt the encounter had not been complete because he had not been able to fondle and make love to it as the ghost had done for him. He found himself trying to imagine having that cock in his possession.

There was a divine male body he'd seen here in Jamaica—that of Demonde, the driver and handyman. Each morning Demonde skimmed and cleaned the swimming pool, wearing only a skimpy Speedo. In spite of the demon he had to fight, Josh had taken to being on his bedroom balcony each morning to watch Demonde clean the pool, his magnificent chocolate-brown muscles rippling in the effort, his dreadlocks gently moving in the breeze, the gold clips at the ends picking up and reflecting the sunlight on the surface of the water in the pool.

The Speedo had done little to conceal the thickness and length of Demonde's cock.

As he lay there on his back, in the nude, during the morning hours of All Saints Day, thinking of big cocks and hunky men—and of Demonde in particular—Josh began to stroke his own cock. He arched his back, played his nipples with his free hand, and moaned softly. He came, but he was still restless. It wasn't enough.

Perhaps just a glance of him. He wouldn't touch the young man—not unless he was invited to, of course. Perhaps Demonde slept in the nude too, Josh thought. He rose from the bed, shrugged into a short robe, tied its sash around his waist, and padded quietly down to the lower level.

Demonde's bedroom door was half ajar, but, as before, it quickly became evident from the sounds coming from inside the room that Demonde wasn't alone and was engaged in sex. Josh didn't pull back quickly this time. He had recrossed that Rubicon the previously night. He had little reason now to fight his proclivities. He maneuvered around to where he could get a partial view of the bed, bathed in the moonlight streaming in from the chamber's open window.

The woman was on the bed, facing the window, on all fours. Josh could not get a good look at her because Demonde was covering her closely from behind. His cheek was brushing hers, taking more than the impression of the woman's long, blonde hair away from Josh. Demonde had one hand on her belly and the other one cupping an ample breast. He was fucking her from behind, slowly, rhythmically. And she was moving her buttocks against his groin and moaning softly. It was hard to tell, but Demonde was riding her buttocks so high that his cock may have been in her ass.

It was too dark to determine whether she was a Jamaican native. The blonde hair belied that, and the texture of her skin was decidedly paler than Demonde's deep chocolate. There was no dearth of Scandinavian beauties vacationing in the villa compound where Jason was spending his time playing basketball—if that was what Jason was spending his days doing up there, it now occurred to Josh. Jason was a good-looking, strapping young man. For all Josh knew, his son was spilling his seed at that villa compound rather than playing basketball. If so, Josh thought, more power to him.

What could be discerned was that she was being well fucked. On every third or fourth stroke, the cock was being pulled almost to the surface before thrusting back inside. Demonde was built long and thick and his balls hung low. In his fantasies and from his observations of Demonde cleaning the pool, Josh had convinced himself that this would be so.

Josh's attention went to the forward and backward movement and clenching and unclenching of Demonde's bulbous buttocks. Josh's thoughts—despite all of his struggle with this demon—were consumed with the image of him being in the place of this woman under Demonde. Taking it in the ass—hard and deep—as she appeared to be doing.

When he observed Demonde's buttocks tighten, move faster and more frenziedly for four strokes, and then relax with a sigh from him and a cry of "Oh god, yes!" from her, Josh felt the cum spurt from his own hard cock, which he, unknowingly, had been stroking, and dribble down his legs.

Spent, finally, from three ejaculations in the night, Josh withdrew to his room—and to fretful sleep and the realization that the trip south had done nothing in dispelling the demons that had brought him here.

* * * *

Both Josh's ire and his gorge rose the next morning as he appeared on the terrace by the pool for breakfast. Both Elaine and Ellie, atypically, had appeared for breakfast as well, and they were both smiling—again atypically—and they both suddenly were blondes.

"When did this happen?" Josh blurted out.

"When did what happen, dear?" Elaine asked. It was almost a coo rather than what had become an accusing jab in the last month. Josh felt the knife go in on the possibility of what had made her suddenly mellow.

"The blonde hair. Both of you."

"We got bored, Daddy, and wanted a change," Ellie answered. Was that a sense of having been satisfied from her as well, Josh wondered. "We noticed how much attention blondes were getting down here and decided we'd latch on to some of that."

Josh started to say something, but then he couldn't. Not after what he'd done the previous day. They were down here to smooth over rifts, not to feed them. And there was no proof . . . not really, not anything he could hold onto as leverage in an argument. But which one of them, he wondered. Or has it been both? He had no idea what Ellie's experience was, but she was twenty—she could collect experiences if she wanted, and he had no say whatsoever in the matter. Other than that her feet were still under his table. She wasn't paying her way. He started to say something, but he stopped himself, realizing that if Demonde was fucking his daughter, his real objection was that Demonde wasn't fucking him instead.

But it could be Elaine too. When he'd been exposed for what he did, she'd gone off the deep end and helped herself to it as well. If he accused her now, there was no telling what she'd drag into the fight—and after last night in Rio Bueno . . .

No, he thought, as he clamped his mouth shut. What we need is to start all over again. And I need to reset as much as any of the others do.

He dredged his mind for something to say that wouldn't lead to a fight, but then he saw that he didn't need to say anything. The attention of both women was riveted on the swimming pool, where Demonde, in his skimpy Speedo, was doing his morning skimming and cleaning.

In frustration and disgust—disgust with himself and his own weaknesses as much as with anyone else—Josh wolfed his croissant, gulped his coffee, and quickly rose from the table and went into the house. As far as he knew, neither of the women had any inkling he'd left the table at all.

Time to separate and work on a tan, he thought, as he changed into a bathing suit and rustled up towel, suntan lotion, paperback, flip-flops, and sunglasses.

He needed to be alone for a while. There were several pocket beaches nearby—small plots of sand, surrounded down to the water with rock formations and accessible only by narrow pathways between the rocks. He picked out a deserted cove, stretched out his towel, ran into the surf and tired himself out with the Australian crawl beyond the breaker line. Then he struggled back to the sand, stripped off his suit to work on an all-over tan, and lay on his belly on the towel.