In His Own Time

As he was bringing the "Yardbird Suite" to one of several available conclusions on this night, Cam sensed more than saw that someone had entered the bar. He heard the man order a Black Russian from the barman and say to send a drink of choice over to the piano player as well.

"One Black Russian and a scotch rocks," the barman said. Cam knew his drink, his drink of choice being preordained in this bar, would be more rocks than scotch, but he didn't mind. Any drink was better than none. And he couldn't legally drink booze in a bar anyway.

Drinks delivered, the man took a seat close to the piano, where he could see Cam's face while the young man played and Cam could see him too. He was dressed as a business man—expensively, but not flashily. He was maybe in his forties, good looking, dark haired, a Mediterranean look about him. He was solid, slightly stocky, but he looked like he had taken care of his body and hadn't gone to fat. He was sitting on a stool near the far curve of the piano, and while Cam played, the patron's fingers kept time to the music by strumming the ebony shine on the edge of the piano. He made sure that Cam could see his long, sensuous fingers. He knew his music, keeping perfect time to whatever Cam played. He listened with his eyes at least half closed and a slight smile on his lips, which marked him as a musical connoisseur and not just an attempted maker of piano players.

When the man had entered, Cam switched to Nat King Cole—"Begin the Beguine"—and softly sang along with it. He didn't abandon serious jazz completely, though. He then played and sang "Orange Colored Sky." When he finished, he paused, taking a swig of his weak scotch, saluting the newly arrived guest with it, and said, "Thanks for the drink." His speaking voice was as smooth and rich as his singing voice.

"That was nice," the man said. "A Nat King Cole song, right? You sound like him. Very smooth."

"Thanks," Cam repeated.

"But as good as your singing is, it doesn't compare with your piano work."

"Thanks again," Cam said, showing his appreciation that the man went to what Cam valued most by raising his glass in salute. The man wasn't just good looking, he was giving Cam the strokes the young man craved. A chill went up Cam's spine at the image of those sensuous fingers of the man's gliding across Cam's naked body. If this was his seduction method, Cam was right with him.

"Do you take requests?" the patron asked.

"For music?" Cam asked, giving the man a pointed look.

"Yes . . . for now."

"Sure, if I know them. And it doesn't look like there's anyone else here who might not like the selection. Harry, at the bar, is tone deaf." He saluted Harry at the bar, who smiled and flipped him the bird.

"Maybe something a little more complex. I've heard you are a master of jazz. You have any versions of 'Lullaby of Birdland,' or, more classic, 'Footprints' or the 'Green Dolphin Street'?"

Cam gave the man a searching look. "You really do seem to know your music."

The man shrugged. "It's my profession. And sometimes it comes in handy when you want to get the attention of a handsome young musician."

"Just to get his attention?"

The man laughed. "Well, when you are trying to make him."

So, the man getting down to what he really wanted from a young man in a gay bar, Cam thought. Well, that's what Cam was here for. As important as the piano work was for Cam, it was just a front come-on for the hotel. Paid sex was where the bigger bucks of the job were. "You've heard I played jazz?" he asked, focusing his attention more directly on the guest and steering the discussion back to the music. It was pretty clear that the hookup was settled, if that's what the patron wanted.

"Yes. I came to hear you because I'd heard you're the best in Baltimore with jazz on the piano."

"You want to hear my version of one of those or all of them?"

"Just keep them coming until your shift is over. I'll stop you if I get bored. From what I've heard, I won't get bored."

"You have the time to stay until the end of my shift?" Cam asked. Another check on whether the man's intention was to book Cam for after his work here was done.

"Absolutely."

"And after my shift is over?"

The man reached over and touched Cam on the forearm. "Absolutely."

"You got it," Cam said. He was coming alive. Usually he was winding down at this point in his evening shift in the hotel bar. Often he was thinking more of what he had to do the next day—practice or teaching pupils—he almost never had a bar patron ask him to play anything of consequence in the world of jazz. He did, however, often have a patron stay to the end of his shift with the wish to take Cam upstairs to his room. Cam kept the money he earned from this aspect of the job separate from his living expenses account. This was his further musical education money.

And tonight his "after shift" income appeared to have been settled.

He played for a half hour, stopping only when a party of four, dragging in for one last snort before calling it a day, entered the bar and gave their drink orders to the bartender.

The man, who had been drumming the edge of the piano in synch with the music, his eyes closed, his body swaying gently to the beat, a smile on his face, opened his eyes and saw that they no longer were alone in the bar.

"That was all I'd been told it would be," he said. "You should cut a demo and get it shopped around."

"You think so?" Cam asked. "I have to say that you certainly do know your music." It was refreshing for a john to take the route to getting Cam in bed that ran through discerning music.

"Yeah, I do. As I said, I'm in the business. I'm interested in you." He stood and pulled his wallet out.

"Oh, please, I enjoyed playing for someone who knows and appreciates true jazz," Cam said. "Please, put your wallet away for the musical part of this. It was my pleasure."

"Oh, this isn't for the music. I'm interested in you more than for your music. I'm pretty sure you have understood this. Playing jazz isn't all I hear you'll do," the man said. "My name is Sol—short for Solomon. Room 314." He took a key card out of his wallet, along with a small wad of cash, dropped them in the bowl on the piano that was there precisely for this use, smiled at Cam, and turned and left the bar. "I'll make it well worth you while financially, and I think you'll enjoy it as well. I intend to."

So, it wasn't just the music, Cam thought, as he swung into playing and singing Nat King Cole's "Embraceable You." Two of the party of four clapped when he started, recognizing the tune, but then they returned to trying to make each other.

His shift over, Cam went to the bank of elevators and, when a car arrived, he pushed the button for the third floor.

* * * *

It was all natural the way it worked out when Cam got to the man's hotel room. His name wasn't really Sol. That had been a "getting the lad to the hotel room without a trace if it didn't go well" maneuver. He was checked into the hotel as Sol, with fake ID he carried for this purpose. His actual name was Charles Hanson, although Cam didn't know that until after they'd had sex and agreed they wanted to have sex again. And he really was a music producer, and he had been afraid that Cam would recognize his real name and remember it if they didn't click sexually. There was no question that the man expected and was paying for sex, though, and Cam had been so mellowed out that the guy had wanted to hear Cam play jazz—the jazz that Cam lived to play on the piano, not the Nat King Cole honey-toned singing that most in the bar wanted to hear in front of whatever Cam was doing on the piano behind his singing—that he was in the mood for sex himself. And maybe the man was a bit stocky, but he was quite good enough for Cam's mood.

What surprised Cam was that Hanson seemed to know from the top that Cam was the top in this particular coupling. That usually had to be worked out in fits and starts with men who dropped their key cards and a wad of cash in the bowl on the piano and waited for Cam in their hotel rooms. Sometimes Cam cleared that up as soon as the room card hit the bowl and, more often than not, the man had expected to be on top and pulled his card back. But sometimes the issue never got resolved to Cam's preference or to the employ of his perfectly magnificent jet-black bull's cock. Sometimes Cam had to give in and go under the man in the hotel room. It was the man's money and his room and the hotel expected Cam to give satisfaction.

Here, though, as they came out of the clutch inside the room, standing and swaying against each other, fondling and opening up, although Hanson took the initiative, it was clear from the beginning that it would be him riding the younger man's perfectly magnificent jet-black bull's cock. When they both were unzipped and freed, it was Hanson who went on his knees and took Cam's shaft in his mouth. And it was Hanson who backed Cam to the bed and into a sitting position. It was Hanson who ran his hands up the insides of Cam's legs, nudging the trembling young man's thighs to part so that he could kneel between them and continue to give Cam's shaft full attention with his mouth while running his hands up the young man's exposed chest and thumbing Cam's nipples to the sound of the young man's signs and moans.

It was Hanson who murmured, "You're magnificent. I want to ride it," negating any misunderstanding there might have been.

And when they were ready, it was Hanson who rose, settled himself in Cam's lap, facing him, and, legs bent and feet leveraging off the bedspread on either side of Cam's hips and grasping the tips to Cam's shoulders to hold himself in place, sank his channel on the jet-black monster phallus, and rose and fell on the shaft to a mutual ejaculation.

It wasn't lost on Cam that the man seemed to have known that Cam preferred to top in this instance—to have known it without anything said or any signaling having been made. It was as curious as how the man knew Cam preferred to play serious jazz on the piano and was considered a master of that. The man had come into the bar with that knowledge—and he had received Cam here in the hotel room with unsignaled knowledge and acceptance that it would be Hanson riding the cock.

Lying side by side on their backs on the bed after the second fuck, in which Hanson put Cam on his back and rode him in cowboy style—all without asking if that's what Cam liked or indicating that he, the man who was paying for the ride, would have preferred another position, Hanson returned to business.

"I wasn't telling you a story in the bar downstairs to get you to come to my room," Hanson said. "I really am a music talent promoter and record producer. And I really do work with jazz musicians. My name's Charles Hanson. I've put my card over on the stand by the TV set—although with some more money because you've given me a really good time. I really do think you should make a demo. I'd like to help you do that."

"You didn't just show up here out of the blue tonight and suddenly decide I was talent you wanted to help, did you?" Cam asked.

"I heard about you. I came to check you out. I wouldn't have said anything if you weren't all I'd been told you'd be. You were."

"Just as a musician?"

"What do you think? No, not just as a musician. As a beautiful young man, with a great body, and a big black bull's cock. That too."

"And you already knew I was a top."

"Yes, I already knew."

"Who told you that—both of those things? Have you been talking with Jordan Smallwood, the jazz conductor?"

"Yes, that's who told me. We met on business today. He's going back to Philly tomorrow. We met at his hotel. He knows what I like—in more ways than one. He told me to check you out—that you would interest me—and you do."

"Did he tell you that I was breathing hard to find a sugar daddy—someone who would make it all easy for me? Because I can tell you the same thing I told him—that I want to keep control of my life—that I want to develop whatever I have completely on my own musical talent and in my own time."

"No. He told me that there was a phenomenally talented jazz musician working the piano bar at the Harris Hotel bar, that he was a black god, and that he worked in a bar where, if you put your Harris Hotel room card and three-hundred dollars in the bowl on his piano, he'd give you a great time in bed. He also said that if I hooked up with you musically, you'd make me a very rich, satisfied man."

"I did like playing for you and I did like fucking you," Cam said as he rolled off the bed and went into the bathroom, peeling the spent condom off his shaft, tossing it into the trashcan next to the bed, and stooping and gathering up his clothes as he went. He had no qualms about leaving the evidence of the coupling in the hotel room—it was expected at the Harris Hotel. After a quick shower and change, he was back in the room. Hanson was reclining against the headboard and smoking a cigarette. Cam paused briefly in front of the TV set and then moved away, turning at the door with his hand on the doorknob.

"I appreciate the voice of confidence—and not just in my music," he said. "I won't need for you to arrange a demo record, though."

"You really should consider it," Hanson said. "It could—"

"I don't need you to take the bother of helping me make a demo. I have two demo records already. I'll send copies to you." He showed that he had Hanson's card in his hand. He hadn't picked up the $200 additional money Hanson had left on the TV stand with the address card. "If you truly like what you hear on the demos, I'd appreciate any help you can give me."

From the Harris Hotel, Cam went to his studio apartment on the nearby South Lakewood Avenue and picked up copies of the two demos he'd already made. The Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel wasn't a long walk from his place. It was nearly 4:00 a.m. when he arrived there, but Jordan Smallwood, after a bit of delay, answered Cam's knock on his hotel room door.

Smallwood had pulled a hotel robe on over his sleeping shorts. They didn't remain on very long. Smallwood had no objection to that. In their first encounter, he had taken the initiative—from the bottom—with Cam. This time Cam took charge. He laid Smallwood on the bed and laid him—forcefully and totally. They fucked in a missionary, with Smallwood on his back, his buttocks on the edge of the foot of the bed, and Cam crouched between his thighs, hovering over him, pressing down on the man's shoulders with the heels of his hands. Smallwood hooked his knees on Cam's hips and rocked with him as Cam fucked him hard, deep, and vigorously.

At the door afterward, Cam turned and said, "Thanks for wanting to help me. I want to do what I can on my own and in my own time, but I appreciate your interest and willingness to help. I've left a couple of demo records here on this table. If you want to share them with anyone, feel free to do so. I've left them as well with Charles Hanson, the music promoter, who says he knows you. Do whatever you want—or not. But I'll work on some things myself for a while too. I'll contact you sometime to see if you're still interested and have gotten anyone else interested too. But please don't crowd me before then. And thanks for the fuck. You were terrific."

With that, he left the room, leaving Smallwood flat on his back, legs still parted, Cam's cum dribbling out of his hole—eyes slitted, humming, and smiling a satisfied little smile.

* * * *

Jordan Smallwood held the position of accompanist for the Philadelphia Jazz Orchestra open for as long as he could pending his offer to Cam Williams to move to Philadelphia and take the position, but three weeks without hearing from the young man and the need to start up the fall rehearsals of the orchestra forced him to tell the orchestra's board of directors to go ahead with advertising and auditioning for the position. He couldn't be in Philly for this. He had to be in New York.

When he returned from New York just in time to start rehearsals of the orchestra, he smiled when he was backstage ready to come on. He'd been told a pianist had been hired and that the board was quite pleased—and so was he when he heard the "Yardbird Suite" being played for the musicians who were assembling for the rehearsal. He was smiling because he recognized the distinct way it was being played.

The new pianist was, of course, Cam Williams.

He didn't have an opportunity to talk with the young man until after the rehearsal, but he couldn't keep himself from smiling the whole time.

"You took the job," he said when he had Cam alone in his office. They had kissed first and embraced, but anyone could knock on the door at any time, so Smallwood held off from deeper expressions of affection or lust.

"I auditioned for the job," Cam said. "I didn't tell anyone you'd offered it to me already. I wanted to earn it."

"And you have. But you didn't contact me. You said you would, and I waited three weeks before telling the board to advertise the position."

"I was busy applying for music college."

"Oh? Where?"

"Here in Philadelphia, at the University of the Arts. They're giving me a scholarship and an assistantship in teaching jazz piano."

"But I could have—"

"I know you would have, and I do appreciate that. But I wanted to earn it myself," Cam said. Both of them laughed. Smallwood was beginning to get the message here.

"I'm sorry, but I haven't had time to shop your demo records yet, but I'll be sure—"

"No need," Cam said, with a grin. "I have appointments to talk to the folks at Blue Notes Recording. I'm optimistic."

"Don't tell me—you wanted to do it yourself in your own time."

"That's how I'll know I've earned it," Cam said.

"Isn't there anything I can do for you that you haven't done for yourself?"

"There are things you do for me—to me—that no one else does nearly as well."

Again, Smallwood laughed. "I mean more in terms of moving your musical talent along."

"Well, I haven't found anywhere to live here in Philadelphia and I was thinking of trying to find someplace where I could pay my way by working part time—odd jobs around the house or something."

"So, I have a big house here and could use a houseboy and companion. Maybe you could—"

"I was afraid you wouldn't ask," Cam said, flashing the older man a glorious smile.