Underappreciation

None of this lessened the wish of any of the men around the table to be topping Tim McGown. This had been the pattern of previous off-site weekend seminars. A male prostitute had been brought in for previous gatherings for all of the men to enjoy, all of them understanding that the discussion of the work of a famous writer just covered a weekend of getting their wicks dipped. Previously, the male prostitute hadn't been invited to attend the seminar itself, though, and no pretentions were made that he was anything but a rent-boy. The status of Tim here was unclear.

Seeing this uncertainty at work, Peter Sands, the one who had brought this to a head, gave a little chuckle. He wondered if the three non-Purdue attendees would be quite so interested in fucking Tim if they knew he basically was just a great-looking garbageman who took a few classes in night school, nowhere near the exalted halls these men inhabited. Sands didn't think much about Tim's poetry--he didn't think of poetry at all in terms of Tim; he thought of Tim's narrow hips and his pert buttocks and of getting his cock between those orbs. And he suspected Hadley thought the same.

"What say you, young man?" Clifton Wane said, addressing Tim for the first time that anyone had moved to bring him into the conversation, although he had, in fact, been the surreptitious point of interest of them all since they had gathered on the cottage's porch. "Do you have trouble pulling actively practicing homosexual themes out of Whitman's work?"

"I haven't really tried," Tim said in a low voice, tiptoeing on the sudden attention thrown his way. "I'm just a student--and a beginning one. I haven't read that much of Whitman. I was hoping to learn more about him and about the subject this weekend."

"You want to be able to pull homosexual images out of his poetry to titillate as you do in your own poetry, do you, Tim?" Sands asked. He was looking directly at Hadley, though, challenging the man to admit that his only interest in Tim's poetry was its titillation value--how it made the old man lust for Tim himself. He wanted, in this struggle for the young man's ass, Tim to realize that was Hadley's sole interest in him. It was Sands's sole interest in Tim too, but Sands was being honest about it--and Tim was just a piece of ass garbageman. He wanted Tim to realize that he liked being fucked. It didn't have anything to do with his interest in being a poet. Sands wanted Tim to acknowledge that he loved having Sands's cock inside him--that he'd happy come to the man for sex even if he didn't get some poetry instruction in the bargain.

As for that old fool, Hadley, Sands thought. Didn't he realize that he wanted Tim's poetry to be crudely and graphically queer--that he was ruining its value even for him by trying to make its references flowery and opaque? Didn't Hadley realize he wanted to fuck a crude young garbageman and not a Shakespearian bard?

"There's far more than homosexual sex in Tim's poetry," Ron Davis spoke up in defense of the young man he was infatuated. "Tim's poetry is meatier than that. And he's developing well."

"Oh, you've read his poetry and can recommend it?" Clifton Wane said, suddenly having a greater interest in the young man than just his sexuality.

"Yes," Davis said, using an emphatic tone and looking to Tim to see if his defense was being looked at with favor. But Tim was looking a Wane and didn't connect with Davis.

"Tim has a lot of talent for what he does well, doesn't he, Hugh?" Sands said, with a snort, still trying to bring Hadley into the conversation, trying to force him to reveal to Tim that it wasn't Tim's poetry that had Hadley mentoring him.

"Yes, well, we should be having lunch in an hour and I promised that this would be a topic-light seminar, that there would be time for recreation and contemplation. So, perhaps this is a good place to break for the morning." Professor Hadley wasn't having any of Sands's attempt to out Hadley's real interest in Tim.

As they were rising from the table, Clifton Wane called out to Tim. "If you've brought any examples of your poetry, Tim, I would love to read them. Have you?"

"Yes, of course," Tim said, with a smile. "I'll just go up to my room and fetch them."

"That would be wonderful," Wane said. Hadley had already departed the porch, pleased that he'd made off without rising to Sands's bait, fully realizing what Sands was up to. Ron Davis's eyes remained glued on Tim in the hope that Tim would notice him, but Tim didn't.

As Tim exited the porch, into the house, Sands gripped one of his wrists and said, "Perhaps you'll take a walk with me before lunch. We need some time alone." He used his "to be obeyed" voice, the tone that had worked so well with Tim when Sands wanted to lay him--Sands's dominator-to-submissive voice. They both knew now that it wasn't a walk Sands was proposing--that he was asserting a commanding position with the young man.

"Yes, of course," Tim answered, casting his eyes down, and inclining his head a bit, signals of subservience. Tim was a total submissive. He responded to command. He was, in fact, in thrall to Peter Sands. And Sands wasn't wrong that Tim lived to have a man's cock inside him.

Twenty minutes later, Sands was fucking Tim on a picnic table in a grove of trees screened from view of the seminar vacation house by a line of bushes but not screened that well from the view from the dock of the charter boat service next door. Tim, shirt off, was on his back on the picnic table, arms stretched out, clutching the edges of the rough-wood table for stability, his ankles on Peter Sands's shoulders, as Sands hunched over him between his thighs, Sands's hand working the young man's pecs, while he rocked forward and back, his cock splitting the orbs in those narrow hips he liked so much, and working Tim's anal channel hard and deep.

Panting and arching his back, slave to Sands's domination, Tim pressed his cheek to the surface of the table, his eyes cast off into the distance, toward the pier of the charter boat service, where the hunky boatman, Phil, stood, just in athletic shorts and sneakers, with the front of his shorts pulled down and a hand stroking his cock as he watched Sands fucking Tim.

Suddenly animated as Sands reached a climax, Tim grabbed for the back of the professor's head, pulling the man's face down to his chest for Sands's teeth to latch onto a nipple, and put his hips into frenzied overdrive to bring on Sands's ejaculation to merge with his own, the poetry of the fuck racing through his mind.

Bone me.

Own me.

Fuck me to heaven.

Bone me to hell.

Across the short stretch of water between lake shore and the charter boat pier, Phil joined them in shooting off. Then, laughing and stuffing his meaty cock back into his athletic shorts, he climbed into the back of the charter boat and, happily humming, went to work wiping the vessel down.

Gotta get me some of that, he was thinking while he scrubbed. Yep, gotta get my Johnny dipped in that honey trap.

* * * *

The upward thrusts of Phil as he held Tim in thrall to him, both men looking up into the ceiling of the cabin, with Tim suspended over Phil's body in a crab position, rocked the boat, beating the hull against the dock in the cadence of the vigorous fuck.

Bone me.

Own me.

Fuck me to heaven.

Bone me to hell.

Faster, harder. Holding. Clutching. Moaning. Tensing, jerking, releasing. Tensing, jerking, releasing, filling out the bulb of the condom. With a shared cry of releasing, Phil propelled Tim off of him and over onto his side, facing the dock.

The academics had taken Phil's charter boat out onto Lake Manitou in the early afternoon to fish and to continue their discussions of Whitman's poetry. They had wanted to drop lines in to pretend they were fishing, but they didn't have the foggiest notion how to go about anything or what to do with any fish they caught. Barely containing his fuming, Phil had been moving among them, trying to help them and to keep lines from tangling. At some point Tim came to the rescue and the men settled down in the stern of the boat. His eyes rolling to convey that he separated Tim from these fumbling old men, Phil motioned Tim to join him in the wheelhouse, where he broke out cans of beer and handed Tim one.

"Are you really with these clowns? Who is this Witless guy they keep talking about?" he asked Tim.

Tim laughed. "Walt Whitman. He was a poet. A gay one when being gay wasn't accepted. And he was a solid, hands-on guy, braving a job of a volunteer nurse in an army hospital during the Civil War. These guys are all queer academics, meeting to worship one of theirs, although I don't think any of them would be willing to get his hands dirty as Whitman did."

"And you too? Not gay. I know you're gay. Are you one of these academic queers too?"

"I'd like to be a poet, yes. But I'm not yet. I'm a garbageman. I can only afford to take one university class a semester."

Phil laughed. "Ain't nothing wrong about that--being a garbageman. It's a necessary service to keep the nation ticking right. You're sex on a stick too. I don't see you with these clowns, except I saw you with one of them--that big blowhard over there."

"Peter Sands?"

"Yes, him. I saw him fucking you on a picnic table."

"And...?"

"I wanted it to be me. You a kind of guy who can't get enough cock?"

"Guilty as charged," Tim confessed.

"Stick around after I've gotten these clowns back to land and off the boat and I'll give you a good fucking."

Tim did stick around, and Phil did give him a good fucking in the cabin of the boat, his thrusts sending the boat rhythmically bumping against the wooden dock, creating a rhythm for what beat in Tim's brain.

Bone me.

Own me.

Fuck me to heaven.

Bone me to hell.

Fuck my lights out.

"You're not like any of these guys you came here with," Phil said as they were cooling down. "You're no highfalutin' college professor material. They're just hoity-toity talk of love in words. You're working class, like me. We don't make love with words. We fuck. We get our dicks in them and make 'em squeal and beg for it. You're one of us, not them."

"Yeah, I'm just a garbageman," Tim answered.

"You're not just that. And being a garbageman isn't a 'just' anyhow. It's a necessary service. It's more necessary to what people need than figuring out the poetry of some Witless dude from ages ago. You're more than a garbageman, though."

"Yeah, what more am I?"

"You're sexy as hell. You're the best lay I've ever had. Guys would pay big bucks to bone you."

"OK, so I like to get fucked. But you can't make a life off that, unless you go rent-boy."

"You can for a while--while you still got it. And you can make enough then to put you on easy street from there on out. You could do it. You got the looks and body for it. You certainly have got the sexy moves for it."

"Fantasy."

"Not fantasy," Phil said. "Listen, I got a stake in a male cat house in Rochester. A couple of guys have left and there's more than enough interest for a new guy--a sexy guy like you. Think about it."

"I'll think about it," Tim answered. "In the meantime..."

"You want the cock again, don't you?"

Roll me over,

In the clover,

Roll me over,

And do it again, do it again.

He did it again. Phil fucked Tim hard again. He made him squeal and beg for it. They had a ball balling.

* * * *

At the end of that night's Whitman seminar session, which Peter Sands was absence from--he hadn't been at dinner either--Ron Davis finally had the courage to approach Tim as Tim was clearing away the empty beer and liquor bottles. He was about to say something to Tim, which Tim presumed was going to be the man's claim on some time from him, when Professor Hadley interceded. Tim liked Davis and Davis was quite good-looking. It wasn't Tim who was keeping the two from getting together.

"Sorry, Ron, I have something I want Tim to help me with in my room."

Tim knew what that would be. He was sure that Ron knew what that would be too. "Tim should have some time--up in his room--for the rest of you in a couple of hours," Hadley answered.

"Peter Sands isn't here," Tim said as they were walking to the stairs to the upper floors.

"No, he's not. The department called and needed him back there to handle something."

"I thought you were the department head," Tim said.

"I am, but I said this was something that needed Peter's delicate touch and he jumped at the chance to handle it. He wants my job in the worst way."

"I'm just a student," Tim said, "but it seems to me if that's the case--"

Hadley laughed. "There isn't really anything needing to be handled back at the department in Lafeyette. Peter was just getting insufferable here. I would think you'd be glad he was gone. He was being particularly sufferable with you."

Yes, he was Tim knew. But Hadley didn't seem to understand the power Sands had over Tim. Tim was already missing him. Tim didn't want to get into that, though, so he said, "Yes, well, thanks."

"You can thank me upstairs in my room."

And Tim did demonstrate his thanks. Hadley didn't like to exert himself too much, so he lay on his back on the bed in his room, and a naked Tim straddled his hips and rode his cock to Hadley's ejaculation.

Afterward, Hadley said, "I wish... but it's time, I think, for you to go up to your bedroom. The others..."

"I understand," Tim said, but he understood more than Hadley meant him to understand. He was there to entertain all of the attendees tonight. That he understood. But he also understood that what Professor Hadley gave was all he could muster. Tim wanted more. So, Hadley wasn't going to be the answer for him. If he stayed at Purdue, it would be a fight between Hadley and Sands until something gave. Realistically, Tim knew they wouldn't destroy each other in the struggle. They'd just replace him and start all over again with some other young man.

So, he went upstairs and was visited by the three non-Purdue attendees. Ron Davis didn't muster the courage to use his time. The third of the non-Purdue men was the Chicago Press acquisitions editor, Clifton Wane.

"Where do you want me to--" Tim asked. He was stretched out on his bed, naked. The last visitor had wanted to sit in a straight chair that was in the corner of the room and for Tim to sit in his lap, facing him, and ride him.

"What I really want to do is discuss your poetry. The early work is rough, but it's so much rawer and more visceral than the later poems. Maybe we could discuss the direction you really want to go in with your writing."

"This is the time that was set aside for you guys to fuck me and you want to talk about my poetry?" Tim asked in disbelief. "Don't you want to fuck me?"

"Sure, I want to bed you," Wane answered. "But your poetry is important too. Maybe you'd like to take a break and talk about that for a while. Which did you want to do the most?"

There was really no question what Tim would prefer doing just now; he'd been fucked silly already. "Is there anything from the earlier works you think is salvageable?"

"All of it, with work. It's raw, straightforward, and honest, as poetry about sex should be. Take this one for example."

They spent the next forty-five minutes talking poetry.

"I wish... but that's not possible," Tim said eventually.

"What's not possible?" Wane asked.

"You'll be going back to Chicago tomorrow. But I wish there was time for me to learn more."

"You can come to Chicago. We could work there. I could get you into the University of Chicago creative writing program. And I think I could slip some of your poems in anthologies the press does... to get you started."

"I can't afford to do that. I'm just a garbageman. I'm only able to take one class at Purdue a semester as it is."

"They have need for sanitation workers in Chicago if that's what you really want to do. Don't look like that. Walt Whitman was an orderly in a hospital when he was developing his writing. There's nothing dishonorable in doing honest work we need done. And I'm sure I can get you a scholarship to help with the classes."

"And, for that, I'd have to let you fuck me regularly?"

"My impression is that Hadley and Sands bed you regularly now for the help they're giving you. And, yes, I'd love to fuck you regularly--and I'd be happy to give you a room to live in while you're in Chicago. But my interest in your poetry is genuine and isn't connected with sex. To prove that, I'm going to my own room now. No sex while you think about what you want to do."

"What if I want to have sex with you now?" Tim asked. "What if you're good-looking and fit enough for me to want your cock?"

Wane stood up from the bed, where they both had been sitting. "Think about my offer first. We can do other things later, after you've decided on what future you want."

Tim watched Wane leave the room and heard him go down the stairs. He wrapped himself in a sheet and thought, but what he was thinking about was that he'd never had a guy not jump at the chance of having sex with him. All he could think of for the moment was being fucked by Wane. He left his room, went down to the second floor, knocked gently on Wane's door, and when he received permission to enter the bedroom, he dropped the sheet inside the doorway, mounted the bed and Wane's hips, and rode the man's cock into the night.

Wane hadn't been lying when he said he wanted to fuck Tim. He was in full erection when Tim showed up, and he showed Tim that he could keep it up and get it off--repeatedly.

* * * *

In the early afternoon the next day, Sunday, as the seminar attendees were preparing to scatter to their separate lives, Tim carried his duffel bag over to the pier next door where Phil's charter boat was docked. Phil was in the well of the boat sorting out fishing tackle.

"So, you've made a decision?" he asked when he saw Tim there, with his duffel bag on the ground beside him.

"Yes, I have," Tim answered. "I don't mind being a garbageman or working in some other service industry. And being a rent-boy for as long as I have an itch to fuck a lot of guys sounds just fine."

"So...," Phil said, giving Tim a smile and holding a hand out to him.

"But I can't give up the dream to be a poet, and I need a lot of help in developing into a decent one. One of these men is from Chicago and says he can help me. He'll be paying me for sex too, so I'll be a rent-boy. I'm not going back to Purdue. I'm going to Chicago today."

Phil pulled his hand back and tried not to look disappointed. "I meant it when I said you were the best lay I'd ever had."

"I won't pretend that you don't give it good. I'm going to Chicago today but we aren't leaving for another couple of hours. I kinda thought... you and me."

Phil smiled and extended out his hand again. "Only two hours? Guess we need to get down to the cabin and get to it then."