April, 1947; Tangier, Morocco
It was my own fault, of course, not only because of what I did before but even more by what I did afterward, so I didn't say anything at the time. The cage door was open, and I slithered in with only a bit of a push. I wanted the door to lock behind me. It was safer inside the cage than outside.
The years immediately following World War Two in Europe were hedonist ones. We, the exiled, were the ones who had survived. Although the responses of some of us were out to the edges, that didn't mean society had gone there yet. And that's what resulted in my being at a beach resort in Tangier with Richard Chambers, the British novelist. I had become entangled with him at Oxford, where I was finishing up an English literature study and Chambers was brilliantly lecturing. He was a commanding, bigger-than-life, and over-the-top figure, a lion in both his profession and in social life in England. He also was totally self-centered and arrogant, and the public wasn't ready for him. Although at the center of society, he was a danger to society.
I had been ready for him, aching to be at the center and knowing for some time what my preferences and inclinations were and being well-turned-out enough to have no problem with receiving offers to relieve me, at eighteen, of my virginity to men. I realized even then the value of a young, handsome man, giving himself to an older one. Chambers took care of that himself on the banks of the Thames during an alfresco picnic, and then in a boat house, and on a punt on the river, and then in his rooms at the university. He was so smooth in his seductions that I opened to him each time with a sigh and a murmured "Please."
I was completely enthralled with him. Chambers was too open with his lifestyle for the society and laws of the day, but, to his credit, when he moved on to the much-more-tolerant Tangier at the time, a novelist being able to ply his trade anywhere his imagination can thrive, he took me with him.
Tangier was just the sort of place that kept Chambers's literary and other juices flowing, and his success as a novelist kept the sustaining money coming in. We established ourselves at an exclusive beach resort on the rocky shores of the Mediterranean, where we woke up fucking; doors to the terrace open and Arab servants moving about, not caring who saw us do so; sunned ourselves in the nude; and swam in the sea during the morning. Both Chambers and I wrote in the afternoon after a post-lunch fuck and siesta. When he'd written what he wanted to for that session, he'd read a critique what I was writing. We partied in the evening, with Chambers enjoying watching me being passed around among his new-found friends for fucking.
He told me that it was all valuable experiences collecting for my own writing, but I would have let him share me out anyway as long as he kept bedding me himself as well. It was all part of the euphoria of having survived the war and assuming--falsely, as it turned out--that hard-fought peace in the world meant a new toleration of men like us.
The little world we had entered in Morocco was a well-heeled one. Chambers was at the top of his profession. The small group he gathered about him included the middle-aged Lord Townsend--Charlie--as much on retreat for being ahead of his time in England and very much in the public eye as Chambers was; the handsome and relatively young, at twenty-nine, son of a fabulously wealthy textile manufacturer, Nigel Standford; and Pierre, the bishop of Reims, who stole away for months at a time to indulge himself in incognito in Tangier.
They all fucked me here in our isolated paradise, separated from the social mainstream of the day, by wealth and privilege in the exuberant days following having survived the war. I wasn't the only youth they kept within their hedonist circle to open his legs for them--there were Moroccan youths as well--but I was the only European boy toy--the only one in residence--and Chambers controlled every aspect of my life, holding me willingly in his emotionally constructed gilded cage, including who fucked me when. They all fucked me well.
That didn't keep me from looking beyond the group, however, and that became what led to the rest of it--to my actual caging.
Normally, the men at the beach resort formed groups, often determined by the countries of origin or having had prior connections, connections that were strengthened by them sharing interests and the effects of public persecution for same. In the Chambers group, all had a connection to Chambers if not, initially, to each other, which made him the natural center. The Moroccan youths serving the resort and its guests moved between groups, but the guests didn't often do so unless they piqued each other's interest and hookup up sexually, which usually was only a casual and short-lived arrangement. One exception was Nigel Standford, the second son of a prominent textile manufacturer family in England, who was outgoing and gregarious and moved between all of the groups, making connections where he could--business connections more than sexual ones, although the latter as well.
The beach resort was exclusively for men such as we were. And the climate was so hot that it principally was the mornings that would find most of those in social attendance on the beach, taking in the sea and sun to some extent, but more generally ogling each other and setting up assignations.
I was very much in the "being ogled" group, being young, well-formed, and good-looking in an androgynous, full-lipped, dreamy-eyed blond way of a loose-moral upper-class English youth way, an anomaly among the bevy of Moroccan boys dispersed on the sand to service the rich European faggots. What titillated the men of the group was that I was prepared to give myself as fully as the Moroccan boys did--and as exotically and to as many as desired me simultaneously.
But after a few weeks in Tangier, I wasn't the only anomaly in the Chambers group. A young French priest only a couple of years older than I was, Jean-Philippe, was sent out to Morocco to fetch the bishop of Reims home, and he lingered in Tangier in his mission. He was a contrast to me--European but dark-haired, with the sulky looks of a fox to my sunny blond countenance. Chambers found the time and opportunity to fuck us both. He delighted to do so with both of us in his bed simultaneously and spreading our legs for him.
It doubtless was the newly arrived competition for Chambers's attention that caused my eyes to roam. When men gave me the piercing, undressing eye on the beach--where there wasn't much undressing that need be done--I returned the looks of those I found attractive.
One to whom my eyes frequent went was the one my circle called the Indian Prince, although they were quick to say he wasn't really a prince. He wasn't even a maharaja. He was just the brother of one--the Maharaja of Baroda, a satrapy in India. His name was Rao Agarwal, and he was here with an entourage of servants, all exotically turned out, as he was. He was in his thirties, tall for the other Indians in his entourage, muscular, and imperial of bearing--haughty even. Although he often set up camp near the Chambers group on the beach, it was only Nigel, from our group, who occasionally went over to speak to him. The prince never made the return visit. I spied him from across the room, exotically attired in rich brocades during the supper hours and in the mornings, here on the beach, in just a bathing suit, displaying a magnificent body.
When our eyes met, he was commanding--devouring--and I must admit I didn't conceal my interest or my submission. As soon as our eyes met, I lowered mine, clearly signaling that he could have me if I were free to give myself to him. He surely knew what my role was in the Chambers group. There were times when he was undressing me with his eyes that Nigel was beside him, and I knew that Nigel was telling the Indian Prince that I opened my legs for Nigel--indeed for almost any of the men in Chambers's group who wanted to fuck me. We were from two different worlds, though, the Indian Prince and I, even here; I was here with Richard Chambers, who controlled what I gave to other men; and, despite the exchanges of steamy looks, I did not give Rao Agrawal permission to debauch me. But debauch me he did.
