Forced Layover

I just bet I did, I thought. I recognize the look you're giving me. I wish there were some way I could help develop that interest.

"The violin case," he added. "You obviously are a visitor. American or English? But not many visitors come to Rome with a violin case under their arm."

"Oh, yes, the violin," I said. Shit, maybe it wasn't me that made him stop, I thought. "I'm on my way to Frankfurt, Germany, from Tel Aviv on a series of concert assignments in Europe this summer. I'm American—with the New York Philharmonic. Yes, a violinist. I played in a 'Raisins and Almonds' tribute to the Jewish composer Goldfaden in Tel Aviv, and I'm playing in a sound track concert of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey by Alex North in Frankfurt. Do you know that work?" Why in the hell was I running at the mouth?

"Doesn't everyone? From Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra." He was smiling and his eyes were sparkling.

God, and he knew classical music too.

"Here. Let me show you where your hotel is," he added.

"I don't want to take you out of your way."

"It's on my way. And I will be delighted to aid a musician visiting my city—especially a young man who is as engaging as you are."

In the hotel lobby, as I was checking in, he said, "Take your cases up to your room. I will wait for you down here and then I will show you a few places in Rome that I'm sure you will enjoy. You can't be here for a day in Rome and not see some of the city. We can't see anything famous at the Vatican, as everything requires prearranged tickets now, but there is a Sistine Chapel very close by."

"A Sistine Chapel? Like the one in the Vatican?"

"One nearly as impressive," he said.

"I wouldn't dream of imposing on you—taking up your day like this. I'm sure I can arrange a tour in the time I have here through the hotel. You've been too kind already." Please, convince me to let you show me around, I was thinking, inwardly panting.

"I doubt a tour could show you our major concert halls: the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma or the IUC hall—the Instituzione Universitarian Conanti. Surely those would be at the top of the list for a visitor from the New York Philharmonic."

Would they ever? He had me salivating. "You're making me salivate," I said, with a laugh.

"I would be pleased to make your fluids flow," he said, putting an elegant, gloved hand on my forearm and giving me a look of declaration. "I trust you know my meaning."

He was wearing gloves, but the gloves were now off in this discussion. There was no misunderstanding what he was interested in. I shuddered in pleasure and anticipation. "You must have other business today," I said, my demur weak. I couldn't hide my interest.

"I do have plans, but those could be changed by phone calls as you are putting your cases in your room. I am Vincenzo di Abos. You must be thirsty. We can go to a nearby café first and plot our afternoon—and perhaps our evening . . . and night as well. It is possible you will spend the night with me, I think."

"I am Aiden. Aiden Lanier," I answered, purposely not responding to the obvious request—more of a command. I responded well to a man's commands—especially a dominant older man. I wasn't ready to openly discussing the possibilities, even though we'd been eyeing each other in a meaningful way since we had met on the street. "And, yes, a stop at a café would be very welcome."

He sat close to me at the street café, his knee pushed in between mine as we discussed our itinerary. I squeezed his knee between mine to signal that we were going down the same path. "I mentioned the Sistine Chapel," he said, "because there is a sixteenth-century chapel by that name in Santa Maria Maggiore, a Marian basilica just steps away from here. No one should come to Rome without seeing one of our magnificent churches. But then it is concert halls for you. We'll take a hire car to the IUC hall and then back to The Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, which also isn't far from here."

"Do we have time for all of that?" I asked. In the back of my mind I already was building in the possibility of private intimate time. The knee between mine and the touch of his sensual, gloved hands on my forearm from time to time, along with the overall sexiness of him, were making me hard.

"We will make time. My flat is in the Via Modena, very close to the opera house. We can go there before supper. And then, after supper perhaps you will go to the opera with me. I have tickets for tonight. It will feature Gustav Mahler's 'Adogietto' from Symphony Number 5. Do you know it?"

"Of course I know it," I said. It was music to fuck by. "But I couldn't expect—"

"I would be pleased—very pleased—to have a handsome young man accompany me to the opera tonight," he said, giving me that meaningful look. This was almost too good to be happening. Of course I accepted. "And perhaps more."

The Sistine Chapel was as magnificent as Vincenzo had said it would be. I was amazed at the IUC hall that, leaving me for a few minutes, Vincenzo was able to arrange for me to see the interior of and even to walk the concert stage. The same happened at the opera house, where he was greeted with a "It is a pleasure for you to come to us this afternoon, Count Abos. We would be delighted to show your visitor from the New York Philharmonic our hall and stage. And would he like to see our backstage?"

So, Vincenzo wasn't just any patrician and music-savvy Roman. He was aristocracy here—a count. He had connections in the classical music world of Rome. And those connections were accustomed to seeing him squire young men around. He also wasn't trying to seduce me with power and position. He was relying on his charisma, which he had in abundance. Although, I guess too that his power in position in Italy foster his assumption that he could have what he wanted. Well, he could have me.

When we left the opera house, he leaned into me, putting an arm around me and palming my buttocks and said, "Have I gauged you wrongly? Will you come back to my flat now—it's just a few blocks in this direction—and let me make love to you?"

"It something to consider," I answered. I was loath for him to think I was that easy. I wanted to say yes, of course—because, in fact, I was that easy.

"I believe I have read you right. You are a young man who will let a man make love to him—who will take a man's cock when it's given in worship. True? You are a David to me; I want to worship your body."

"I am gay, and I am a submissive, yes," I answered. It was the truth, and I'd been noncommittal long enough with him. There wasn't anything about him I didn't like.

"I find you very arousing, and I assure you that I am very good in covering young men like you." He had become increasingly intimate in touching me as our sightseeing had progressed and I had done nothing to discourage him. I looked forward to fun and games later in the afternoon. I wondered how hard-bodied he was. He was quite slim and, of course, he wasn't a young man. But everything I touched of him was hard. I also began to wonder how well equipped he was. He certainly won points on slow seduction. I was nearly panting for him and we weren't even naked.

"You want to fuck me?" I said, surprised that he'd been so open about it.

"Yes, I want to fuck you—if you are able to take men who are, how do you Americans say it? horse hung. I am very well endowed. Some young men aren't comfortable with me inside them. But am I being too forward? I thought I had you placed from the moment I saw you. And I wanted to be inside you from then. I engorged for you right there on the street corner."

"No, you aren't being too forward," I said. "I've been trying to figure out how I could get you on top of me since I met you. If you had asked to come up to my hotel room when I checked in, I would have been delighted to lie with you. I am very pleased to have seen your chapel and concert halls, though. I hope your apartment isn't far."

"It's not. If I assure you I am checked regularly and if you know of no impediment from your side, may I bareback you? It is the Italian way and is much more pleasurable than using condoms."

"Yes."

"Lovely. You have such a sweet body. Your blond hair, with its red highlights, is divine. It makes me wonder. Are you a natural blond? Is that coloring natural?" The hand he had been palming my buttocks with snaked around my hip and palmed my lower belly, fingers extended down to my groin. He was asking me if my pubes were blond with red highlights too.

"Yes, I'm that blond everywhere," I answered. Many young men shave their pubes. I just shaved them back to a triangle of curls. I knew that the color of the hair was an asset.

"Delicious," he murmured. "A young man's pubes are a fetish of mine. Do you mind if I use the word 'fuck'? I don't know if that's too much of a vulgarity with Americans."

"No, it sounds quite erotic with your accent," I answered. How do you say it in Italian, if I may ask?

"You could say 'cazzo' for 'fuck' in a crude sense. Or you can say 'scopara' or 'fottere.' Italians like to do it so much they have several words for the act, including 'copulare' for 'copulate'. The polite word for it, meaning 'sexual intercourse,' would be rapporti sessuali. For me, with you, at this moment, I would say, Voglio fare un profondo amore con te."

"And what does that mean?"

"I have said I want to make deep love to you. Do you understand what I mean by 'deep'? It is sensual lovemaking, but it is total, deep inside you. It is both love and fuck."

"Yes, I think I understand. Those words sound so sexy the way you say them. And how do you say 'Yes, please fuck me'?"

"We say, Sì, per favore Fottermi. 'Fottermi' is even more intimate and explicit. I believe your word for that is 'screw.' Is that what you wish me to do, screw you?"

"Yes, that. That's what I would like from you. And how do you say 'bareback' in the sexual connotation?"

"'Senza sella.'" He gave me a low laugh.

"I'll take that too, please," I said.

"Then I wish to fuck you and then fuck you again and again—senza sella," Vincenzo said. "I am quite virile as well as thick and long. We have the rest of the afternoon and the night, if you wish to continue. If you can sheath me with more pleasure than pain, you will enjoy me as much as I enjoy you."

I shivered.

* * * *

The count fucked me—repeatedly and senza sella—to classical music, and he was, indeed, virile and very thick and long. He knew his music and used it the best effect. He was a master at staying on the beat with his thrusts and of matching his and my climaxes to the crescendos of the music. Consequently, neither of us lasted long during each fuck. But there were plenty of them. I suppose you could think of it as lovemaking, but it was fucking and it was everything that I could have wanted from him.

The first session, consummated on a brocade-covered, and possibly original, Louis the Fifteenth settee in the cavernous living room of his penthouse apartment, was all for me. I was naked, reclining against the arm of the settee, a pillow under the small of my back, and my legs manipulated in multiple positions by the count as, dressed only in an open scarlet silk robe and hovering over me, he kissed and licked and nipped and fondled every square inch of me, reveling in the reddish-blond bush he had asked about, as his lips went to the base of my cock, he whispered what the Italian words for the blow job he was about to give me were: pompino, bocchino, lavoro di bocca. I sighed at the sound of the words.

He sucked me and ate me out, and finger fucked me to the sound of Pavarotti singing Puccini's "Nessun Dorma" from the opera Turandot, making me come in his throat on the high, strong note Pavarotti belts out at the end of the song.

He took longer in pulling his pleasure out of me in what he said was a heavily carved nineteenth-century Venetian four-poster bed while he fucked me in a missionary position to Prokofiev's Scythian Suite, "Parts One and Two," in which he masterfully managed two ejaculations in what seemed nearly a foot inside me with a thick, hung cock. The first part built in beat, which he coordinated his thrusts with, to a thunderous explosion on the kettle drums and his first ejaculation, calming down to an interlude, still with a beat and slow stroking of his cock, and ending in a second thundering storm on the kettle drums and a second, even more powerful release of cum.

As each knew composition played, he asked if I knew what we'd be fucking to, and he was thrilled that I always could identify it—and then more thrilled when I told him that I hadn't realized just how conducive it was to copulation.

I lay there, exhausted and panting as the count stretched out beside me, his body turned to me and one arm encircling me and holding me close to his sinewy, hard body, and stroked my belly and thighs and gave me a slow hand job, whispering in my ear the Italian words for what he was doing to me: sega, servizietto, lavoretto di mano.

After I'd come, I dozed off to a recording of Mahler's "Adogietto" from his Symphony Number 5, which was sensual, and which Vincenzo said we would be hearing at the opera that evening. All of the music the count ever played for me was music to fuck by and, more often than not, he was fucking me to the beat and mood of the music.

"I'll have to go back to the hotel to retrieve my tuxedo for tonight," I murmured. "I just hope it isn't too wrinkled from having been in a suitcase."

"No need," the count said. "I will show you a bedroom with a closet full of tuxedos. I'm sure one will fit you perfectly."

"You keep a wardrobe of opera clothes for all the young men you fuck?" I asked. I probably was unconsciously fishing for a declaration that I was one of only a few.

"Yes, of course. I am heavily sexed. I always like to have a beautiful young man on my arm when I go to the opera. And I always fuck him both before and afterward. One of the calls I made in the hotel was to cancel the young man I was taking to dinner and to the opera this evening."

That was deflating. "You were that sure of me as early as when we were in the hotel?"

"Certainly. You responded to me like I could have laid you in the park in front of the train station." He laughed.

"So, what's the Italian translation of male whore?" I asked.

He shot right back with "maschio puttana," with another little laugh. He wasn't going to apologize about anything we were doing—anything he was doing to me—or give me any slack on what I was agreeing to do. I could see now that he, in fact, was an old-line patrician, taking what he wanted as if by right. I had let him. But I had no thought that I should apologize for that either.

His easy assumptions of me further deflated me, even if they were the honest truth. Once again I wondered how men knew I would be easy for them. One lover had told me that I exuded pheromones of easy submission. But I couldn't stay deflated for long. He was worshiping my body, murmuring how beautiful and perfectly formed I was. He was kissing down my body again, running his fingers into the blond curls of my bush, and taking my cock in his mouth. He sucked me off quickly, and he was still working me intimately with his mouth when, exhausted, I went to sleep.

When I woke, on my back, he was stretched out beside me, propped up on his elbow, and gazing down at me. "Are you disappointed?" I asked. It had been a surprise to me, but he was far more advanced and masterful in sex with men than I was. He worked my body like I played the violin.

"Absolutely not," he said. "You are a beautiful young man and you are a superior lay." His fingers worked their way into my blond bush and I knew that the color of it was a fetish of his. I turned my thighs out to maximize the access and raised my groin to his caressing hand. "But I'm wondering if you really can play the violin," he said. He bounced out of bed, left the bedroom, and returned with a violin. He played a few runs to assure me that he mastered the violin as much as he mastered me and then held it out to me. "Show me."

I rolled out of bed and, naked, took the violin from him. I gasped. "This is an Amati."

"Yes," he said.

An Amati violin cost about a thousand times what the violin I used in concerts cost. "You want me to play something?"

"Yes. Show me what you can do other than ride my shaft divinely."

Earlier, at the café, we'd discussed how much classical music had been adapted for movie tracks. So, I played the violin version of Mozart's "Piano Concerto Number 21," known as the Elvira Madigan concerto and eventually used as the theme song for the movie of that title. After that, just to assure him I did know what I was doing on a concert stage, I swung into Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. Half way through that, he came off the bed, panting and in full erection.

"Fine. You can play the violin. Please put it aside now. I must fuck you again—senza sella. I must take you like Stravinsky thrust out that composition." He took the violin out of my hands, laid it off to the side on the carpet, gently pushed me down on the floor, covered me, moving his knees between my spread thighs and under my buttocks, raising my pelvis to his thrust. He fucked the shit out of me there on the floor, thick, long, virile, vigorous . . . everything.

* * * *

Count Abos took me to a supper club near the opera house for dinner before the concert. He knew everyone in the restaurant, and all of them fawned over him. He made no attempt to hide me or pretend that I was any less than his sexual escort for the evening, and the diners, all elegantly and expensively dressed, fawned over me too. I couldn't help but be impressed and to feel important. The mention of the New York Philharmonic made them warm to me. This was a highly literate crowd musically.

Of course he had his own box at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, an ornate, gilded hall, with several tiers of boxes curving around three sides of the hall. As promised, the first section of the program was dedicated to the romantic—and sensual—works of Gustav Mahler. When the "Adogietto" was played, Vincenzo turned to me, winked, and cupped my basket with his hand. His lips brushed my cheek. He obviously didn't care if anyone saw us. I found that arousing. In fact, I was pretty much hard the whole day.

At the interval, he told me he would be gone briefly, and when the curtain opened and the lights dimmed he still hadn't returned. To my surprise—but why should anything he did or was surprise me at that point?—when the orchestra members had completed their retuning, someone scurried out on the stage, bearing sheets of music, which he distributed among the musicians. When he retreated, the Count Vincenzo di Abos walked out to the conductor's platform from the wings, picked up the baton to the sound of thunderous applause from the audience, and conducted Gustav Holst's "Mars, the Bringer of War" from his Planets Suite. Most of the world was familiar with that music as a theme used in the soundtrack for the Star Wars movies.

When that was finished and as the musicians were rearranging sheet music on their music stands, the count turned and announced, in both Italian and English, that they were adding a piece to the evening's repertoire. He smiled and gave a salute up to the box where I, also smiling, was sitting and then conducted Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra, which is used in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey and which I was scheduled to play in Frankfurt later that week.

He returned to the box for the third section of the concert, turning the baton back to the regular conductor to shouts of "Bravo!" and "Meister!" As the music returned to that of Gustav Mahler, the count drew me back into the shadows of the box, where we were shielded from the rest of the audience.