Bellapais Villa Henson Possession

I would have never known sheer ecstasy or just how wanton I naturally was if it hadn't been for the British diplomat and writer Lawrence Durrell. And it wasn't really because of his writing, either; it was because of his mountainside villa in the ancient Byzantine abbey town of Bellapais on the steep slopes of the Kyrenia Mountains in the Turkish zone of Cyprus.

I had become hooked on Durrell's writing when his

Alexandria Quartet

had been natural background reading for my stint as a cultural affairs officer at the American embassy in Cairo, Egypt. And then it had been a slam dunk that I would have read his classic about the Cyprus civil war period,

Bitter Lemons

, when I shortly was moved over to that Mediterranean island to head up the cultural affairs office there.

I had been in Cyprus' inland capital, Nicosia, for no longer than a week and was still living in the Nicosia Hilton, virtually across the street from the ramshackling American embassy that had been slapped together from a couple of ugly old ocher-colored apartment houses, when the housing officer came to me all aglow at the great "find" they had made for my housing on the Turkish side of the border. We were barely six years removed from the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus that had prompted the division of the island into two belligerent zones, and the United States was doing its best, both Greece and Turkey being among its key European allies, to balance its approach to an island with warring Greek and Turkish inhabitants and a hot border. I had to conduct cultural programs on both sides of the island, and the border often was closed. So, I needed digs in both zones.

"Mr. Henson, Mr. Henson," the Greek Cypriot housing officer, Panos, said breathlessly as I left the ambassador's morning meeting. "We've found the perfect place for you on the Turkish side. It's not in the Turkish zone of Nicosia, but I think it will please you. It's in a village above Kyrenia, which is on the Mediterranean coast and just a twenty-five minute drive from the Nicosia border checkpoint."

That seemed a bit far from the capital to me, and I was about to say something, when he continued.

"It's a villa that the British writer, Lawrence Durrell, let in the mountainside village of Bellapais while he was working in the British High Commission here. It's where he wrote that group of four books of his about Egypt.

"The Alexandria Quartet," I said.

"Yes, that one."

It was fate. I was hooked. I didn't know it then, but the villa had picked me out. It knew me. Better than I knew myself.

I knew even then, of course, that I preferred men. But I didn't know what that villa knew about me—that I preferred men frequently and in multiple couplings. And the remote village of Bellapais, in the Turkish zone, where few of the people I worked with in the Greek zone could even go, proved to be perfection for me and the appetites I so soon would learn that I had.

It started that first day I drove north from Nicosia, across the Kyrenia Mountain range pass, and down into the ancient castle harbor town of Kyrenia to take the keys of the Bellapais house from the landlady who had managed the property from the time of Durrell's occupancy. I was somewhat anxious to meet the woman. She was of indeterminate nationality, clearly neither Greek nor Turk, and it had been hinted to me that she had been more than just a landlady to Durrell—and that, in fact, she may have been an inspiration for his quartet.

"You are a writer, I can tell," Layla, the landlady said to me as soon as she had finished pouring a glass of wine for me in the sunny courtyard of her Kyrenia house. I could not discern how old she was—she certainly wasn't young. But she was still a handsome woman and had a serenity about her that was very calming. And when she looked at me, I felt like she could reach into the very depths of my thinking. This feeling was so strong, that I pulled my tweed jacket closely about me; there were things about me that I would not want a landlady to know.

"Yes, I guess I am a writer of sorts," I answered, not knowing why my admission caused her to smile so deeply for me. "I do dabble and have published a few things. I guess that's why the Durrell house attracts me."

"Yes, yes, I knew it would. The house has called to you. I can tell that."

How strange, I thought. She looked like a normal person, but what was this she was babbling about? A villa with a mind of its own? A villa that called out to its occupants and picked and chose who lived there? Well, if it had put me in the category of Lawrence Durrell, I supposed I should feel flattered.

"I understand the villa has been empty for some time," I said, wondering what that meant about it's condition and it's hidden failings.

"Yes," Layla answered. The smile briefly left her face. There have been tenants who have come and gone. The one here the longest after Lawrence was a nice Australian man—his name was Taylor. He was much like you. The villa has been waiting for him, but he hasn't returned. I think it has grown tired of waiting and that this is why you are here. Yes, I think this is just right."

"You say he left?"

"Yes, when the Turks came in 1974, he got scared along with all of the Greeks and the foreigners and he went over the mountain and into Nicosia and I haven't seen him since." Layla gave a sigh and sat down in the chair across from me then. "If only I'd been able to tell him. He was safe. The Turks would not have harmed him. I would have seen to that. The house has been so sad since then. He made the villa come alive, just as I know you will."

After a short discussion on particulars and ascertaining that the Bellapais villa had already been cleaned up for my occupancy, I rose and asked for the keys and directions to the villa.

"Oh, my son, Baris, will go up there with you to show the way," Layla said. And then she raised her voice toward the house, and her command for the appearance of his son produced a young man of nineteen or twenty years who was one of the most gorgeous youths I had ever seen. He was dark of complexion and had black, curly hair, but the eyes in his finely chiseled face were what caught and held my attention. They were sky blue. He was of medium height and had a lithe but sinewy build that would take longer than most Turkish men to turn to coarse thickness—or at least I hoped that would be the case, as he was a real heartbreaker. He bore himself just as his mother did, but there was little doubt that his father had been of Turkish stock.

"I had planned to stay the weekend at the villa and not come back into Kyrenia, Ms. Irgun," I said to Layla. And I said it with much regret as I ached to be alone with his beautiful young man. "So, perhaps it would be best if you just gave me some directions to the villa, or your Baris will be trapped on the mountain without transport home."

"That is not problem," Layla said. "He can come down with his cousins who live up there but who will be coming down here to work in the morning."

My small Mercedes convertible seemed claustrophobic as it chugged up the first incline above Kyrenia and toward Bellapais. I was sitting nearly hip-to-hip with a young man I already ached for and the tenting of my trousers was probably signaling my interest. No, not probably. Obviously, considering what Baris said to me without the slightest embarrassment.

"My mother thinks you are much like that man, Taylor, who lived up at the villa a few years ago."

"Yes, that's what she said," I answered. "I have no idea why she said that."

"That Mr. Taylor let men make love to him," Baris said matter-of-factly. "It was well known throughout the area, and he was a handsome and generous man. The men flocked to him. I was just a boy when he was here, but even I heard of these things."

I drew in my breath and fought for control of the wheel, something I really needed to have on this narrow, upward-curved poor excuse for a road.

Baris continued as I felt the pressure of his thigh against mine. "I am no longer a boy, Mr. Henson. Are you like that man, Taylor, in that way? Do you let men make love to you?"

I was lost. "Yes," I said meekly, my voice pitched low enough that perhaps, just perhaps, he would not hear my response.

But Baris did hear my response, and by the time we entered the lower reaches of Bellapais, he had my fly open and his strong, callused hand on my engorging cock. We shuffled directly to the terrace on the slope side of the villa when we reached the house, and Baris had me stripped and on my back on a lounger, my legs spread wide, his teeth worrying my nipples, and his manly piece driving home before I could catch my breath.

He was young and strong and virile and fucked me to completion repeatedly until dusk. I already was attracted to Mediterranean men, but this may have been the moment where Turkish men became a fetish for me. They made love with such a free exuberance, that I cried out in joy with each ejaculation.

When the cool wind began to flow more strongly and coldly up the mountain slope from the Mediterranean and across the stone terrace and I could see the first twinkly star appear in the clear sky, I nudged a peacefully snoring youth who had gone to sleep still buried deep inside me. I suggested that we find the master bedroom, and he groggily came awake and said he'd give me a tour of the house and then he'd give me eight hard, thick inches again on a very strong double bed.

It was only then that I realized that his mother, Layla, had certainly known where her son would be spending the night.

After that, I withdrew to my Bellapais mountainside retreat whenever I could. And, with Baris smoothing the way, I enlarged my circle of men servicers until my days and nights in the Bellapais villa became a matter of hedonist habit.

Ahh, the days of drifting down to the square after lunch and sitting around ogling the local Turkish Cypriot men and letting them ogle me until I got that certain look from one I fancied and took him up to my Lawrence Durrell-rented villa and let him vigorously, joyously, and noisily fuck my brains out on a lounger under the sun on the terrace overlooking the Mediterranean.

And then back down to the square in the twilight after dinner with those fairy lights in the olive trees around the fringe of the stone café terrace, and, in that soft light and twittering laughter of the Mediterranean men and wisps of strong Turkish tobacco drifting up, eyeing and being eyed until I got the certain look from one I fancied and took him back up to the villa and let him fuck me in long, slow, sweeping strokes on the terrace under the stars.

And maybe, if he was really, really beautiful and masterful, taking him back to my bed for a night of sleep broken by brief periods of wanton lust, waking to the feel of a hot poker at my hole and a wheedling whisper for permission at my ear and arching back to accept the homage of a throbbing need to be deep inside me. Breakfasting on the terrace by the small pool and then pulling him into the pool and wrapping my legs around his waist and letting the swirling water soften the rhythmic in and outing as I threw my head back and watched the morning Mediterranean light filter through the sighing branches of the olive trees and thought about my after-lunch visit to the café on the square, already assessing which eyes I would respond to today.

Months went by and my need had become an addiction. And sometimes I would need to bring more than one man back to the villa with me. Sometimes I had an itch that required more than one scratching. When I was resting before my trips down into the village square, I reread Durrell's

Alexandria Quartet

while stretched out in front of a fireplace on a loggia within view of the Mediterranean far below and slowly but surely became aware of the underlying sensuality of the work. And I wondered if I was seeing this because of my new insights into Durrell's masterwork or because of what the villa was coaxing me to see in it—or because of the constant stream of virile young men through my life.

It was in the fall of the year, still summer during the day in Cyprus, but softer and increasingly cooler in the evening. It was getting late on that particular evening, and none of the younger Turkish men seemed to be about in the coffee shop in the square. Past midnight and I thought that I would be sleeping alone up in the rented villa this night. Only older, grizzly men were sitting around and drinking their Ouzo and smoking their pipes and Turkish cigarettes and giving me those leery looks. They knew why I vacationed in Bellapais. They knew what went on at my rented villa up the winding cobblestoned street from the square. They closed their eyes to it because I was American and had money to give—and because it had gone on there before. They also closed their eyes to it because this was tolerated—and almost expected—of Mediterranean men, going back to the ancient Greeks. Their history tolerated relations between men as well as—even alongside—relations of men and women. And as long as the man was the giver, the control, not the receptacle, nothing much was thought of it. Men had needs to be relieved; it didn't make them any less men to take another man in the local thinking—and certainly not a man who was not of their village.

I grew tired of the hunt and spun some coins out on the table. As I rose, Sami the shop owner drifted by me and warned me in whispered tones that the younger men had just returned from a football game, where the local Kyrenia team had lost to the arch rival Salamis team. He whispered in hurried, clipped words that they were in the inner courtyard of the café now, ordering brandy to top the wine they doused themselves with at the game.

There were six of them, he said, and all but two he named I had enjoyed in my villa courtyard during this three-day weekend visit. He said they were in a mean frame of mind and that one had mentioned to the others that I was at the café, and he had made certain "suggestions." Sami thought that I should leave by the north exit and double around to my street leading up the mountain at the west exit. I thought of the six men. I had enjoyed the four who have fucked me already and I ached for the other two, who are the biggest and most handsome and macho of the lot.

To the surprise of Sami, I rose and walked straight toward the west exit, the path going past the entrance into the inner courtyard. I did not make it past the entrance. In passing, strong hands came out of the darkness and pulled me into the inner courtyard. My clothes were ripped from my body. I put up a half-hearted defense and was slapped hard across my face for the effort and slammed down on my back on a wooden café table.

I tried to rise, but was backhanded again and fell back on the tabletop. Hands were handling me everywhere. Insistent, frenzied hands. There was drunken laughter and sneered talk in slurred Turkish mixed with a bit of English. I clearly heard the words "fuck" and "sweet hole" come up again and again, always meeting with raucous laughter and menacing tones of hurried, furtive whisperings. I could tell from the jabberings that they were arguing among themselves but that the two bigger men, the ones who had not tasted me yet, took ascendance. The four others stationed themselves at my limbs, holding me down and stretching me out in a sacrificial X. Brandy was being poured over my body and the biggest of the Turks took a mouthful from the bottle, gave me a possessive leer, and dipped his head below my belly, between my legs, and I felt the stinging wetness of the alcohol being spit into my canal, stopped from escaping there from by clamping lips and searching tongue. I had men's lips and teeth all over my body then, tonguing and nipping the film of brandy, flesh, and my nipples and mouth.

My arousal was reaching new heights; the very uncertainty and threat of the situation was exhilarating to me. I was trembling with anticipation.

The other bruiser who had not yet known me was above my head, which now dropped over the end of the table, well in position for him to saddle up to me and push a bigger dick than the four who had already fucked me past my lips. He filled me and started to pump me there just as the largest cock of all thrust into my canal and took my mind off all other points of assault with its fury and filling.

I spit out the second one's cock just long enough to make a plea, borne not from my fear and noncompliance but from my desire to keep my assaulters' alcohol-drenched sense of completely taking keenly edged.

"Help, help! He is forcing me. Oh, he is soooo big. No, no, Arghhhh. Please, give me time. Please release me. No, no, you're splittttting me! Ahhhhhhhhh. Ohhhhhh. Help! Help me." Other fat fingers joined the huge tool working inside me.

"Oh god, not those too. No, no, not that. Ohhhhhhh. Moannnnnn. Help! Help me. Whimmmperr." I was crying for help, pushing my assailants to a frenzy, and I'm sure we could be heard by the other men in the outer courtyard. But the only response was that someone turned up the radio on which a woman was wailing some Turkish song of being done wrong by her man that turned into her determination to return to him.

I lifted my head as the bruiser who had been face fucking me stopped at a signal to take his turn inside my canal, and I saw Sami, the café owner standing in the shadows of the entrance of the inner court. I cried out to him for help, maintaining my role in this taking, knowing that he was beyond intervening, but he remained standing there. As the biggest dick pulled out of me and I had two or more fingers digging inside me, I was able to focus on Sami, who had his cock out of his trousers and was pulling on it as he watched me being taken by the drunken, keyed-up, disappointed fans of the losing football game.

I cried out as the second cock was thrust inside me, pumping rapidly in the lubricant of the cum left by the first one. There must have been fears that my cries would go beyond the courtyard even over the wailing of the Turkish songstress on the radio, because I was roughly backhanded across the face again, and before I could regain my breath, a small flag of the losing team was stuffed in my mouth to gag me.

After the second of the assaulters had quickly unloaded inside me, I was roughly turned on my belly and I serviced the four remaining drunken Turks, two of them together in a fucking that turned me woozy. As I was slowly blacking out, the one who took me first started his second fucking. He had his fist buried in my hair, pulling my head back toward him, with my back arched in full extension and my arms still being held out from my body by two of the others. He was muttering phrases, and kept repeating "fuck Salamis" over and over again.

It was light when I awakened. The room was strange, but through the French doors, I could see what must be the inner courtyard of the café. Sami was sitting beside me on the single, rough wood bed with thin down-filled mattress I was resting on. My muscles felt like I have run a marathon and my head was throbbing, but I otherwise felt at peace and satiated. Sami was apologizing to me in low whispers as he stroked my forehead with a cloth. I still was naked, and I was sure the clothes I wore to the café were rags now.

I asked for water, and it was only then, as I tried to reach for it, that I found both of my wrists are loosely tied by leather straps to the bedposts. Sami lifted my head to the water cup, and I sputtered as I drank it. As soon as I stopped gagging from the water, I started asking why I was bound.

But Sami just continued to look stricken and whispering apologies. He then stood, and stripped down his trousers, and I saw that he was hard as a rock and of prodigious proportions.