Retreat to Savannah

David had told me to meet him for drinks at 8:00 p.m. at a bar—a gay bar, it turned out—named Louie's. He had given me directions. I took a pedicab there, giddy with anticipation of hooking up with David, my old SCAD professor and lover, again. I had realized within days of retreating to Savannah from Chicago that this was what I wanted—to return to David's bed, which I had abandoned when I married Avis. I wanted the SCAD life again. I wanted to live under David's protection again. I even had visions of teaching art there. I had learned so much from Avis, and my connection with her would help me anywhere I went in the art world.

David was already there when I arrived. So was Kevin, a young, willowy, more pretty than handsome blond student at SCAD. That's how David introduced Kevin to me—as one of the students at the college. All it took was to watch them interact and the way they touched each other and inclined their faces to each other as they spoke to know that Kevin wasn't just David's student. Kevin was also being fucked by David. I could clearly see that, because six years previously, I had been Kevin. And being fucked by David most likely meant living with David too. That's what it had meant for me my last year at SCAD. SCAD was so liberal, eclectic, and off beat that no one raised an eyebrow—at least to my face—when I had moved in with David.

Within fifteen minutes of my arrival at the bar, David had a hand on Kevin's thigh and they had kissed. It was obvious that David was making a statement about David and me. That's when I stopped counting my drinks. It hadn't occurred to me that I'd grown too old for David to be interested in—until now.

It didn't take David long to tell me why he wanted to meet. "There's a lecturer's position for you at SCAD, Ethan, if you are interested. That's why I came to Avis' funeral in Chicago. I had a proposition for you, but I chickened out, deciding that hitting you with an offer when you were burying your wife was the worst of taste. I was going to send you a letter, but here you are in Savannah already. You contacted me."

Burying my wife. David was talking like he didn't know that I was gay and that my marriage had been one of convenience. I left Savannah, sure, but just because I married Avis hadn't meant that David and I couldn't continue sleeping together. He was the one who declared that our arrangement had to stop dead in its tracks. He'd been the one who introduced me to Avis. In hindsight, it almost was as if he had purposely jettisoned me—that he had been handing me off. In that sense, he had deserted me rather than me leaving him. He just resented someone other than him directing my life, even if he'd been the catalyst in that happening.

"A lecturer position?" I asked. "That sounds interesting. I wouldn't mind teaching a course on the Impressionists. Maybe their sense of color and light."

"We rather thought you could teach one on Avis' work," David said. "Having her husband teaching such a course would be a draw for students, we thought."

Teaching Avis' work. Remaining in the shadow of Avis. I'd done all of this preparation in my own field and what I was wanted for was my connection with Avis. It was one thing to use her as cachet to get a position, but it was another thing altogether to continue living in full service to her glory.

That's when I ordered my third drink.

I was somewhat blurry eyed when a handsome, well-built black man came over to our table and greeted David as an old friend. David made the introduction. "Ethan, this is the Louie of this bar's name. He's a sculptor at SCAD too. A very old friend. Louie, this is Ethan Pender. I've told you about him. He was one of my best students—and closest friends—before Avis Blair stole him from me and took him off to Chicago."

"One of your closest friends?" Louie asked in a smooth deep bass voice, turning a winning smile toward me and taking my hand in a firm and prolonged grip. He was one of the most handsome black men I'd ever seen—certainly of those who had dreadlocks down to their shoulders. I didn't think I'd ever be attracted to a black man with dreadlocks, but on him they looked good and natural. The same with the tattooing that showed through the white, gauzy, tight-fitting polo shirt stretching over a heavily muscled chest. The tattooing was in several vibrant colors and covered his left arm, shoulder, and pectoral muscle. I'd always thought of tattooing as being gang member related, but on him it looked sexy and stylish. And a little dangerous and adventuresome. "How close?" he asked.

"Very close," David said, giving Louie a wink.

This was a gay bar. David had his hand on Kevin's crotch who, in turn, had an accepting hand on David's hand. The signaling going on between David and Louie on the relationship I'd once had with David was blatant—as, I'm sure, was the declaration that David no long had a reservation on me.

"Ethan has just come back to Savannah," David continued, "and has, he has told me, taken a six-month lease on a carriage house. I'm trying to convince him to do some lecturing at SCAD. He's a SCAD graduate and an artist in his own right in addition to having studied with Avis Blair."

And married to Avis Blair, my mind screamed, but obviously David didn't want to muddy the waters on possibilities and preferences. I knew David quite well. I knew what he was doing. He was trying to pass me off. He knew I'd come back to reconnect with him and that wasn't in his plans.

Well, fuck David. I tossed off my third drink, as he finished what he had to say. "Nearly everyone Ethan knew here before has moved on. I'm sure he could benefit from making new contacts and friends—having someone to take him on. Ethan is very good . . . a very good friend."

Fuck you in spades, David. I can find my own hookups, thank you very much.

"That would be the distinct pleasure of anyone lucky enough to do that," Louie answered, giving me that stark-white-toothed smile in a handsome chocolate-brown face again. "But look, Ethan—and Kevin here too—need refills. I think a round on the house is in order."

I remembered waving David and Kevin good-bye sometime later—flashing a flip of the bird to David that I was pretty careful not to let him see—and moving to the bar with Louie for another round of drinks. And I remember Louie standing very close to me at the bar. I dredged up the memory of Louie's hand on my butt and then Louie's hand on my crotch as he brought on another drink for me.

I remember him saying he wanted to fuck me. I don't remember saying yes, but I obviously I did.

And then I really couldn't remember much of anything else before waking up in Louie's bed in a studio apartment above a double carriage house garage in an alley behind shotgun houses on East Jones and Price Streets.

* * * *

"Have you thought about the offer on the SCAD lecture position?" David was calling me two days after "the night," giving me time not only to think things out but also to get over both my seethe and my hangover. It was a good thing he had given me the time, because I was thinking more rationally now. Sure I had credentials of my own, but the relationship with Avis was my golden chip to placement, and there was every reason to start into a job that paid and still allowed me time to paint even if it still was in Avis' shadow.

"I'd be happy to lecture on Avis' work," I answered. "But I'd also like to lecture on other topics closer to my own work."

"We can start with a seminar on Avis and Native American abstractism and see where we can fit you in on color and light, maybe next semester, if you're still here. I hear you had quite a night with Louie."

I didn't answer straight off. How in the hell did he know what kind of time I'd had with Louie? I didn't even know what I grand time I'd had with Louie. "I can't say," I answered, truthfully. "I was drunk out of my mind. I have no idea how the night went."

"Louie thought it went quite fine. In fact, he said he was looking forward to hearing from you—which is a word to the wise. From what I know, he's not going to call you. If you're going to get with him again, you need to call him."

"Then I guess that won't go any further," I answered icily. "I don't chase men." Then I wanted to bite my tongue. I'd come back to Savannah to chase David—and there was little doubt that David knew that. He didn't press home the point, though, which wasn't like David. He could be a little tiger in pulling out his little victories. I'm sure he was flattered that I'd tried to come back to him.

But he must really have wanted me to lecture on Avis, because he just signed off, telling me to come around anytime in the next couple of days to make arrangements on the lectures. I went over to SCAD the next day, as I was anxious to get started on something useful. I had roamed my small carriage house for two days trying my best to dredge up the experience of having been fucked by Louie. Every evidence I'd seen indicated I'd had a good time. I just couldn't remember it.

Still, I was trying to resist hooking up with any man that David had thrown at me as some sort of diversion from him and consolation prize.

That proved to be even harder than I could imagine. And imagination was driving me crazy with this man—what had he done with and to me the other night? And was it as satisfying as my imagination was telling me it was?

After I'd talked with David and set up starting with a half-credit course on Native American abstractism, as modeled by Georgia O'Keefe and Avis Blair, in a month's time to allow me to pull the material together, I decided to roam the art department of SCAD to refamiliarize myself with what was there. I told myself that I wasn't looking for Louie Boutan, even though David had told me that he was in sculpting studio and also told me how I could get to the studio.

Surprise, surprise, my walk through the department led me to the sculpting studio. He was working in marble on what could already be seen to be a kissing couple. The two were androgynous enough to be taken as a man and woman, which most beholders would automatically do, but folks like me would see two men. He was being very clever in his execution of the piece.

And he was quite a piece himself. He was using an electric stonecutter's saw that was making a loud-buzzing racket that made me run my tongue over my filings to assure myself none of them needed work done on them—or even now were having work done on them. He was dancing around the hunk of marble from which the heads and hands of the couple had emerged but nothing below yet and was wearing just athletic shorts, sandals, and a safety mask. Both his body and his movements were graceful and sensual, and my body ached for the touch of him. It took him several minutes to realize I was standing there, and I can't say that one of my hands hadn't gone to my crotch in the interval.

When he did see me, he turned off the saw, bringing in an eerie silence; lifted the mask; turned full, divine frontal to me; and smiled.

"You found me again," he said in the smooth bass of his. "I wondered if you would after you left me without a good-bye the other morning. You left me confused. I'd thought you'd had a good time. I certainly did."

"I was drunk as a skunk," I replied. "Honestly, I can't remember much of that night."

"Honestly, I fucked you to heaven. You were crying that you couldn't get enough of me. Wore me out, but you're an ultra good lay."

"I got the part about wearing you out. You were dead to the world when I left."

"I guess the three spent condoms told you why we both were worn out."

"Three? I must have missed one."

"I don't think you missed much of anything. You grabbed me and pulled me inside you the third time."

"I can't speak for how I acted with you. I'm not really promiscuous. I don't just go home with a man like that right after I'd met him."

"You could have fooled me. You were wild for it. I didn't realize you were so far gone on the booze that you wouldn't remember what we did. We practically swung on the chandelier. You wore my dick out."

"Well," I said, looking around the studio. "You certainly don't hold back, do you?"

"I fuck men. David told me you were a great lay. You came to me—to my gay bar. You wanted me to fuck you right there, in the bar. I had trouble getting you home before you jumped my bones. But I found out that David was right; you were a great lay. Is there really any reason to hold back? You did let me fuck you—in fact, I could almost say that you fucked me, you wanted it so bad. And I want to fuck you again."

I cleared my throat and tried to act like he hadn't even said that. Maybe he'd get the message that he was pushing too hard, taking too much for granted. "I've just signed on to teach a class and was looking around the facility. I went to school here, but so much has changed in the last six years."

"Are you changing the subject because you regretted what we did the other night or because you're afraid I'll fuck you on the table over there and you'll love every thrust of it?"

I looked away from him. I couldn't look at his gorgeous body for another moment without starting to tremble. "I don't know. Maybe I'll know some day and tell you which. But not today."

With that, I turned and fled the studio with as much dignity as I could muster. The buzzing of the saw started up again while I was still well in earshot of it.

Rather than walking the dozen blocks, through shaded squares, back to the river and to my carriage house on Oglethorpe Square, I walked south, toward Forsyth Park, a large two-block wide and six-block long park that started up where the historical district with the squares ended to the south.

What Louie had said to me back there made me hornier than hell. But pride had kept me from laying down for him right there in the studio. What if I'd done so and he'd just laughed at me?

I found myself standing in Monterey Square and looking in the window of a bookstore without, for several minutes, focusing on the books in the window. When I did, I saw that the display was taken up almost entirely with copies of John Berendt's Savannah nonfiction novel, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, that was set right here in this square. The book was a novelized version of the murder of a gay prostitute by an antiques dealer and leading social figure in Savannah at the time, Jim Williams, in a house on the square originally owned by the family of the songwriter Johnny Mercer. Kevin Spacey had famously played the Jim Williams role in the movie. The house and square had become a tourist attraction, and this bookstore obviously fed that attraction.

Looking beyond the books, into the interior of the store, my eye caught that of a handsome man, probably in his early forties, who was sitting behind a desk and smiling at me. He looked familiar. I walked into the store.

"Hello, are you looking for a copy of the Berendt book?" he asked. "You were staring hard at the books in the window."

After the encounter with Louie, which had aroused me to a hard that I still had and flights of fancy of Louie working my body hard, I was looking for something. I didn't think it was a copy of Berendt's book, though.

Neither did the proprietor of the bookstore. And, almost as if he were reading my mind, he said, "Or were you looking for me so you could say yes to the question I asked you?"

I gave him what must have been a really dumb look. I hadn't asked him a question yet.

"My name is Tyler. We met briefly a few nights ago—at Louie's. You seemed interested at the time; I thought you were going to say yes to my proposition in the men's room. I thought the kiss and mutual feel up had sealed the deal. You've got a great body; you said you liked what I was packing. But when you went back to the bar a black bull took you away. Did you come looking for me? Unfinished business?"

I didn't remember him in the slightest, but there didn't seem to need to be any dancing around if we'd gotten as far as he said we had at Louie's—and I hadn't come looking for him, but I didn't say that. I had a raging need. He already had unzipped and had his cock out. It would do the job nicely.

Tyler lived in an apartment above his bookshop. We fucked on his bed. He was much into sixty-nine positions and a lot of touching. By the time he got around to spiking me, the buildup had been so prolonged that it was thrust, thrust, thrust and he'd filled the bulb of his condom. We lay there stretched out along each other then, with one of his arms embracing me, his other hand slowly jacking me to eventual release, and his face close to mine, giving me what I'm sure he thought were deep, meaningful looks.

"Come for me, baby," he was repeating over and over again as a droning mantra. "Come for me, baby."

It was an effort to come for him—until I shut my eyes and conjured up Louie—but of course I told him it was all good for me and of course I would visit him again. I even bought a copy of the Berendt book. I'd enjoyed Kevin Spacey in the movie. I'd always wondered about Spacey. I would have gone with him in a flash, if he'd asked me to.

But I knew I wouldn't visit Tyler again. All the time we were sucking each other off and he was gliding his hands over my body, I was thinking of a more vigorous, rough, impassioned, total fuck—one that my imagination kept telling me that Louie had already given me—and would again if I could just get over the irritation that it had been arranged by David.

* * * *

It was as dark as a witch's twat at 2:00 a.m. in the shadows of an alley with a view line of the door to Louie's bar on Price Street. I should have been mugged more than once for where I was at this time of night, but mercifully I wasn't. I hadn't drunk anything, but I felt high. I didn't want anything to get between me and full knowledge of what was happening.

I was waiting for Louie to leave the bar and lock the door behind him. And I wanted to be sure he was alone. If he wasn't, if he had another guy with him, I'd just have to do this again—and again and again—until it would be just Louie and me.

When he came out of the bar, he was alone. I followed him the two blocks to his studio apartment in the carriage house over a garage off East Jones. I let him enter his door and counted to sixty before I approached it and knocked.

His eyes opened wide but his mouth went into a big grin when he saw it was me.

"I've decided," I said. "I want you to fuck me, hard, on the table. I want to know everything you do to me this time. And I want you to do everything to me."

We were both hard before we got to the top of the stairs, where we pulled at each other's clothes, paying no attention to the sounds of ripping, as we kissed, tongues swabbing each other's tonsils. I went right down on my knees in front of him when he pushed down on my shoulders after he'd gripped both of our cocks in a strong, beefy hand and had stroked them together. I attempted to swallow him whole, but no amount of swallowing, unhinging my jaw, and gagging was going to help me manage the girth and length of the black cock. For some reason, that made me exhilarated. I knew where else that staff soon would be buried.

Laughing, he pulled me up and tossed me onto his bed. We went immediately into a sixty-nine suck, but it wasn't like what Tyler and I had done in any sense of the word. We wrestled and rolled around, possessing and working cock and balls hard and eating each other's ass out to hear how deep the moans and groans were that we could illicit from each other.

And, at length, Louie jumped off the bed, grabbed my ankles, flipped me around to where I was crosswise on the double bed, my ass on the edge. I lay there, panting and looking at his magnificent body and mammoth erection as he rolled on a condom and wet his dick and my hole with lube. I hardly had enough time to grab a pillow and stuff it under the small of my back to give him a deep-fuck angle, when I was arching my back, rolling my head up to stare at the edge of the ceiling above me, and crying out my need, my surrender, the glorious pleasure-pain, as he brutally grasped my ankles, jerked my legs open and raised, thrust inside me, and began to pump hard and deep.