The Prince's Club

"Prince Rupert," I said, rising from my seat at the outdoor patio of the American Bagel and Coffee Company Café. I hadn't seen him approach with his coffee in one hand and a bagel on a plate in the other. I'd been watching a young man enter Vaduz's Kunstmuseum square, look around, and then indirectly move toward where I was sitting. I wasn't at the café by accident.

"It's just Rupert to you, Mark. I can call you Mark, can't I? We're in the club together now and 'Mr. Matkins' seems a bit formal for what we share."

"Yes, yes, it does," I answered. "Please, join me, if you will."

Prince Rupert was something not fully clear to me in the Liechtenstein royal family. I just knew he wasn't in the direct line of succession anymore, although he once was, and that he lived in a giant mansion on Haldenweg, the road winding up the mountain to Vaduz Castle from the financial center of the sixty-two-square mile, filthy rich princedom wedged between Switzerland and Austria. The castle at the top of the mountain was the seat of the Liechtenstein royals.

I understood that Rupert was someone important with the princedom's finances and thus wielded great power here, but that he was isolated a bit from the social mainstream and spoken of in hushed tones. He also funded a hefty scholarship fund that was bringing young men into the forty-year-old University of Liechtenstein from all over the world. The college had just been limping along, nearly unnoticed, before he started his program.

I had lived here in an enclave, owned by the prince, of like-minded men for six months and had only recently come into Prince Rupert's direct purview, although he surely knew about me and what I did or I would not have been accepted at his enclave. I was an artist, with a lucrative clientele in the underground arts, and my special collection of specialized old-themed art had come to the prince's attention.

"I can pause here, if only for a moment," Prince Rupert said, with an indulgent smile. "I have an appointment at the Kunstmuseum." That was the small country's cultural museum. I knew that the prince was on the board there. He seemed to be on the board of most everything in Liechtenstein, which had been one reason I'd gravitated to this remote alpine paradise to live and pursue my work and interests in some semblance of privacy, tolerance, and comradery.

As the prince was settling, my gaze went back to the square, where the young man wandering around on the cobblestones had drawn close. I was happy to see that he was the same young man, claiming to be eighteen years old, who I'd seen in the photo on the Internet site. It was interesting how many of the young men on the site were first- or second-year students at the local university. He looked at me and nodded. I nodded back, and the young man walked past our table toward the other side of the square. He stopped near the opening to the street leading to the church square and stared into a shop window.

"I hope you are settling in well, Mark," Prince Rupert said. "You will make a good addition to our club, I am sure. Lord Hindsley had told me about your art and your collection—before he was taken up in the unpleasantness. Quite interesting and stimulating—your art. I had urged Hindsley to stay here among us rather than return to England. If he had, he could have avoided scrutiny and punishment. Was it he who told you about our little group in Liechtenstein?"

"Yes, it was. I felt I shouldn't try to stay on in London," I answered. "He told me this would be a compatible environment."

"And the house on Hintergass ist gut, ist bequem?—sorry, is good? It's comfortable?"

"Yes, thank you," I answered. "Those of us who have been able to rent from you in that compound are quite simpatico. I don't know how you say that in German."

"We say nearly the same—sympatico. I'm happy you found such a place after the unpleasantness in London. You'll be an excellent addition here—our chronicler, perhaps—in charcoal and paint. You are a fine figure of a man and you are younger than most of us. Some of our members will want to see you at . . . um . . . work, I think. And I've seen your art. Very impressive. You certainly know how to capture the mood and the emotion. And I'm interested in the collection of older-formatted versions of the art I understand you have."

He paused there to chew on his bagel and then take a drink of his coffee, and I looked out onto the plaza. The young man was making another pass, sauntering down the line of shops on one side of the square. He was looking at me. I smiled and signaled with my hand to go into a waiting pattern by patting the air beside the table, out of the prince's sight, my palm down. I was hoping the prince would say something, and he did, at my prompt.

"I would be pleased to show you the collection anytime you wish, Prince Rupert."

"Perhaps we could set a date—I don't have my social calendar with me," he answered. "We could set one tomorrow evening, if you are available. I am having a gathering at my house on Haldenweg. Do you know where that is?"

"Yes, I know the house," I said. I almost said "palace," because that was what it was, a small palace, at elevation on the mountainside overshadowing the town.

". . . and I would like you to attend. Formal dress. We wear masks, but I provide them . . . and everything else that's needed. Some of what we use isn't what you would want to be found carrying around on the street. A little recreation as a group activity."

"Yes, I would be happy to attend," I answered. "I've heard about the gatherings from some of the others I have talked with in the enclave . . . which reminds me, the house next to mine, the one with the grass tennis court. It seems to be occupied now."

"Ah, yes, that would be Gunter Altmeir. He's a member of the club. He travels most of the time. Tennis tournaments. He often comes here before Wimbledon—with one or the other of the tennis players he coaches. They prepare for Wimbledon here. The grass court. This year he has one of the young men just out of the juniors, Brad Brinkley. Have you seen him practicing on the court—the young man, Brad Brinkley?"

"Yes, I have."

"A beautiful young man, isn't he? Just eighteen. I understand he has to play in the qualifying round at Wimbledon but that he's very good."

"Yes, when he's practicing, I haven't been able to take my eyes off him," I said.

"Because of how well he plays tennis?" The prince gave me an amused look.

"That too," I said, assuring him of my real meaning.

"I suppose you would like to sketch him."

"Of course."

"We might be able to arrange something," the prince said. "He and Gunter will be at the gathering tomorrow evening."

"But do you think he—?"

"Yes, Gunter fucks him. He fucks all of his young male tennis players. He says it is part of their discipline. And he applies discipline with them."

"You mentioned supplying masks at your party," I asked. "I wonder if . . . protection . . ."

"Condoms are supplied for those who think they need them," he said. "But look at the time," he continued. "I'm afraid I must be off for my appointment. No, don't bother to rise. Stay where you are. I'm glad I ran across you. I wanted to invite you to the gathering."

And, with that, the prince was standing from the table. He was an imposing man, tall and broad at the shoulders but slender down through the hips. He was a handsome man, of royal bearing, probably in his fifties and graying, but every inch the prince.

I watched him walk across the plaza, happy that we'd met and I'd been invited to a gathering at last. There was a flash of someone else walking between me and the prince's withdrawing figure, though, and my attention went back to the young man who had been circling around the square. He looked at me. I smiled and motioned him over.

"Are you M?" he asked as he reached the rail between the café area and the cobblestones of the square.

"Yes. Franz?" They were all named Franz in this country—all of the young male prostitutes—and, by custom, I made my assignations only with an initial. It made for privacy and convenience. But if a young man here answered to the name of Franz, you could be sure he was a prostitute who would take your money in exchange for a tumble. I didn't know how any young man got along here whose unwitting parents actually named him Franz. I would assume he found another name to go by quickly when he came of age—or that he gave in to the inevitable fate of a Franz. I'm sure some did on the basis, as the pay was very good.

"Yes," he answered me. "You said you wanted a young man to paint. You'd pay 150 Swiss francs."

"Yes, I did e-mail that. But you know that for 150 francs—"

"Yes, Ich verstehe—I understand," he said. "I saw you here with Prince Rupert. I understand. You have a car and we'll go someplace?"

"Yes. You are a beautiful young man, Franz." And he was a beautiful young man—slender and lithe. Under five and a half feet. He'd moved like a dancer as he'd wandered around the square. Curly blond hair in a mop of a halo around his angelic face. He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt that clung to his divinely proportioned body. He'd be the perfect artists' model for what I sketched and painted. "You did say you were eighteen, didn't you?"

"Ja, Ich bin achtzehn—Yes, I am eighteen. But I have experience. Ich verstehe, was Sie wollen—I understand what you want. Ich habe dich mit Prinz Rupert gesehen. Ich bin bereit. I saw you with Prince Rupert. I am prepared. You are, I am happy to say, ein erstrebenswerter Mensch—how do you say? a desirable-looking man. I will be pleased to go with you. Most of the prince's friends are old. You are not. But the prince's friends are experienced and demanding. They are forceful. Are you demanding and forceful?"

"I can be," answered. "Sit at the table. Give me your hand." He did so, putting his hand in mine. We both looked around to see that we were not being observed, and then I pressed his hand to my crotch, making sure his fingers traced the line of my half-hard cock. "Do you still think I might be a desirable Mensch, Franz?" I asked.

"Yes, Sehr wünschenswert—very desirable," he said, with a smile. I took my hand away. He didn't. The fingers lingered, tracing the cock, which was engorging, through the material of my trousers.

"You know Prince Rupert and his friends well?" I asked.

"Yes. I am a student at the university here. I am in his program here."

That told me everything I needed to know about what this Franz would do for me. The university program was the source for Rupert's supply of young, eighteen- or nineteen-year-old men for the club program. Having their tuition paid was their agreement to prostitute for Rupert and his associates at all-mail parties the prince gave in his mansion. Their fetishes could become a bit extreme. Young men weren't allowed in Rupert's program if they weren't willing to take what was applied.

"You are perfection for my purposes," I said. "You are finely sculpted."

"You look like you have a very good body too. You look like you are in good shape. You don't look old at all. Your accent. Are you English?"

"American."

"I like that. Gehen wir jetzt an deinen Platz?—Do we go to your place now? Skizzieren Sie mich und ficken Sie mich jetzt?—Do you sketch and fuck me now? Will you beat me?"

"Yes, Franz, we gehen to my platz now—for all of that I will sketch you and then I will fuck you. I don't know what else we might do." I handed him 150 Swiss francs and guided him to my car with my hand on his butt. He didn't flinch. He'd mentioned Prince Rupert. And I knew the prince's tastes and fetishes. This Franz should be fine with it.

* * * *

Pushing up with my hands and knees, I lifted my groin out from between Franz's raised and spread thighs, pulling my cock, still hard and throbbing but released of its cum, out of his channel. I rolled up to a sitting position on the side of the bed. The youth, stretched out on his back, whispered, "Oh, fuck, was für ein fuck—Oh, fuck, what a fuck." I would have considered that a compliment from a whore, if I didn't suspect he said that to all of his johns. Still, he either was a consummate actor, or he had enjoyed that fuck.

His left arm was raised over his head, still tied to the brass top rail of the bedstead and his right, freed sometime during the struggle, dangling off the side of the bed, the thick cord that once had bound that arm to the rail still wound around his wrist. His ankles were still tied, with long enough leads from his ankles to bend his legs and open them, to the corners of the footrail. The sheets under the young man were mussed up in the struggle to get him tied up and fucked. I hadn't really forced him. I had told him to make me fight for it. When I got rough, he put up more of a fight, but it was useless against me. Slapping him had made him more passionate; his cheeks and buttocks still blushed from the effort. I was a strong, beefy man. He was but a small, eighteen-year-old youth.

His blond young man's body was gorgeous in its wild "taken" pose. His cock had gone flaccid and was resting on his lower, twitching belly, his cum glistening on his belly. I knew how to catch that in the sketch and was itching to get that started. His pelvis was elevated on pillows, his hole gaping open, still pulsating. I could capture that too even if it closed up before I could get to it. I could remember how wide I'd opened him. He was tight at first, but he was a whore; he opened up nicely and fully despite his complaints of how thick I was, even after I'd used the thick dildo on him. Once I was fully inside him and pumping, I didn't hear any complaints.

When I'd pulled out of him and jerked the condom off, I'd deposited my cum on his hole, and I could capture that in the drawing as well, leaving the impression he'd been barebacked. His two pert balls, the size and texture of ping-pong balls, jutted up from under the base of his cock. He had a leather band wrapped tightly around the base of his cock, which had helped keep him erect and had bunched his balls into tight balls, making it easier to pull cries out of him when I patted and squeezed them.

His mouth was still yawning open, his eyes slitted, a dazed look in them that I would have to work hard to get just right, but no matter what the rest of his body would show in the drawing, I wanted his eyes to deliver the message that he had been royally fucked. I'd taken "after" photos as well. I had a technique of making these look like old "early years of photography" shots, which sold as well as the original drawings did.

"Scheisse. Ficken. Du warst zu gross—Shit. Fuck. You were too big," he whispered in an exhausted, weary voice, now that he'd already taken me.

"You knew I was big. You could see that before I put it in you. You've been fucked with a big cock before, haven't you?"

"Ja, aber . . . yes, but you were grausam—cruel."

"You've been fucked by Prince Rupert before, haven't you? I would believe the prince has fucked every eighteen-year-old young man in the princedom."

"Ja."

"Am I as cruel—grausam—as the prince is? I hear he uses a hand whip."

"Nein, aber du bist grausam genug—No, but you are cruel enough."

"And are the rumors true? Does the prince use a hand whip?"

"Ja. And he rides his young men like they are horses. He uses a riding crop on us while he rides us."

"But you give him whatever he wants?"

"Naturlich—naturally. He is the master."

"You don't want me to be cruel?"

"Vielleicht ein bisschen grausam. Du bist ein Meister der Fick—Maybe a little cruel. You are a master of the fuck. Do you untie me now, or do we fuck again?"

"You want me to fuck you again?"

"Ja, naturlich—Yes, naturally."

"And do you want me to be cruel to you again?"

"Ein bisschen—a bit. Es macht mich kommen gross—It makes me come big."

"No, I don't untie you now. That and the rough part were all to set the scene for the drawing. You agreed to model. You agreed to the sex. You have no complaint. You admitted to knowing the prince, and I wager he knows you—every millimeter of you. I'll bet you go to his club nights when he calls you and that nothing I have done with you can be called cruel beside what happens at his club nights to you." He didn't voice disagreement with that.

I put a hand on his right leg and lowered it to where his leg was flat on the bed. He started to move the other one too. "No, don't move. Stay in whatever pose I put you in. I'm going to draw you now. See, like the other drawings on the wall around the bed. Your experience will be immortalized."

"You were cruel to them too?" he asked.

"Yes, yes I was," I said. "Nur ein bisschen—just a bit." I laughed.

"Werde ich so gefickt aussehen wie Sie?—will I look as fucked as they do?"

"Yes, because you have been fucked as well as they were."

"That one there. Over there. You did not—?"

"He was fine," I answered.

"The prince does that. Will you, the next time—?"

"You will be fine." Nathan had been one of my favorite models—one of Lord Hindsley's favorites too—in London. The drawing was of Nathan hanging on an X-frame, sagging in exhaustion. He was facing the frame, the welts showing on his back and buttocks. I think I had rendered the welts quite well. The worst of them were cosmetic, provided by my pencil rather than Hindsley's whip. The scene had been Lord Hindsley's setup. I hadn't done that. I didn't take the cruelty to those links in my own fetishes. He had pushed the envelope in London. Young men—young men from well-connected families—had gone to the hospital. That's why he was in prison now and I was here. I didn't carry the taking to the extremes Hindsley did, but I did paint and photograph the results of his escapades without intervening, so there was guilt by association. None of the young men had put themselves in Lord Hindsley's hands unwillingly.

The age of consent in Liechtenstein was fourteen. Not so in England. Playing on the edge with eighteen-year-olds in England is much more problematic than playing with eighteen and nineteen-year-olds in Liechtenstein, as the prince's club did, when the edge age here was fourteen. No matter the age, though, Lord Hindsley pushed the envelope. I didn't use the young men anywhere near as hard as Lord Hindsley had done.

I used them hard, though, I'll admit. I could say I did it for my art, but that would be only partially true. I did it because it aroused me to use them hard. But then, for the most part, I had found that it aroused them too. The arousal of Franz here, for instance, had gone up when I was slapping him around and had him bound to the bed. BDSM had more adherents than some would realize—or admit, even when they themselves melted to it.

"I will pay you 150 francs more," I said, as I rose from the bed and went for my drawing supplies. He was just fishing for more money. I was big, yes, but not that much bigger than other cocks I'm sure he'd taken. And I certainly wasn't as cruel as I'd heard Prince Rupert could be.

"Stay just like that. In that pose," I commanded. First, I had to have a cigarette. No, first I had to get rid of this spent condom I picked up from the sheets where I'd discarded it. Sometimes I wanted that in the sketch, as well. Three spent condoms in a drawing created an interesting response, such as smiles, shivers, and low moans, to the art in its own right. But this was to be a bareback fantasy. I tossed the condom in the wastebasket. I opened the nightstand drawer and took out the pack of cigarettes and a book of matches. There was a pile of condom packets in the drawer, and I extracted one of those and dropped it on the top of the nightstand too. Franz saw that and moaned.