Give Me That New Religion

The things I had to do to get an article. But this was something new, something I'd never done before, and it had been as hard as I thought--painful, yes, but arousing and uplifting in knowing that I could, in fact, manage it. It wasn't just the guy under me and the guy on top of me on the divan next to the Roman baths in the 10th Street Baths, both with their dicks in me, playing me like a calliope, but now an older, banker-type of older guy, probably distinguished looking in clothes, but now revealed as gaunt and wrinkled, was holding one of the legs I had spread and raised around the buttocks of the guy on top of me and was sucking my toes.

A few more pumps from the guy on top and then he was finished, pulled out of me, rolled off and was gone. The guy under me wasn't much longer until he was done too. I had met both of them in the gym connected to the Turkish bath complex at the 10th Street Baths. They were both bruisers who showed interest in me as I was checking out the equipment there--both of the gym and the guys using the gym. Both, separately, had winked at me and said they'd see me in the Roman baths. Both did, and it wasn't until then that I realized they were a tag team, working together. It was all fodder, though, in some toned down a bit way for the article I'd write for the

Gay Men Nation

magazine. The article was one of a series on baths in the Northeast--the northeast of the United States, that was.

I needed a bit of time to recover after the guy under me had pulled out and disappeared, so I didn't leave the couch right away. Banker Daddy was still sucking my toes, and I think he was contemplating moving into position and taking his piece of me too, but I'd had enough for now, and, giving him a little smile and gently pulling my foot of his mouth, I too rolled off the couch and headed for the showers. I had enough material on this place for my article now. Indeed, this was my third visit and the article was nearly completed.

Banker Daddy followed me into the locker room and stood there, naked, watching me shower and dress. He wasn't fat or ugly; he just was old and wrinkled. He was in erection, though, and there wasn't anything wrong with his length or girth there.

"I was rather hoping--"

"I'm sorry. I just need to be moving on," I said, cutting him off. He'd be in the article in some fashion, and I wouldn't be mean about him, but I really didn't need more material for this article.

With an audible sigh of disappointment and resignation, he turned, went down the row of lockers, and opened one. I could see inside and guessed I'd been right about the banker connection. The clothes looked expensive--and formal enough for a Wall Street Banker. If so, he was a long way from home. But if he came to the baths to suck young men's toes, I guess he'd want to go a long way from where he worked and lived. That's the sort of thing that would be in the article--not pejoratively, but a note of realism.

He took out a wallet, and took what looked like five hundred-dollar bills out.

"I don't want to do it here, but I'd like you to go to a hotel with me." I guess that explained his hesitancy in the Roman bath--the limits to which he'd let other guys see what he wanted from a guy.

"Now?" I said, but then I added. "I'm sorry. I'm not a prostitute. That's the first time I did anything like that--what you saw back there in the baths. There's a reason. I just can't tell you what it is. I'm not a prostitute."

He smiled and took two more hundred-dollar bills out of the wallet. "It's the East Village Hotel. I already booked a room, hoping I'd see someone like you here. It's very discrete. I'm even more interested if you're not a prostitute."

I had my rent coming up. I'd just graduated from journalism school at Columbia, and, though I had a job, it was on contingency and I just didn't know where I was going from here. I had expenses--bigger expenses than I had income at the moment. I wasn't a prostitute. This had been something I'd done to research an article, but...

I lay on my back on the bed in the East Village Hotel room, naked, with my butt on the edge of the foot of the bed, with my legs bent and raised, the Banker Daddy gripping my ankles in his hands, holding my feet to his face, and licking the soles of my feet and sucking on my toes. At the same time, he had his dick inside me and was rocking back and forth, fucking me. He had a very nice cock, and his kink was interesting. I'd be able to write about it somehow, in some article or other.

I wasn't a prostitute. Having seven fresh hundred-dollar bills, straight from a bank, in my wallet didn't mean anything. I was doing research. I was a writer for a magazine, doing research.

* * * *

"Congratulations on your graduation from Columbia."

"Thank you, Mr. Fitzpatrick," I said, my first thought being whether he realized that the degree I'd just taken was a Masters, not a BA. Does someone graduate when they take a Masters, I wondered. I'd have to look that up. Regardless, he'd taken me by surprise--snuck up on me, he did. The publisher of

Gay Men Nation

rarely addressed me at all, certainly not recently. My eyes involuntarily went to the other end of the open floor, to the glass-walled editor-in-chief's office--to Gordon Jameson. Yes, he was there, looking out onto the floor. At me? At Miles Fitzpatrick talking to me?

"Call me Miles," Fitzpatrick said, but there was something in his tone that told me I'd better not try to be that familiar with him. "Now that you have your degree, do you have any ongoing professional plans?"

He wanted to know if I was going to be leaving the magazine--on my own. What did he know? What did he suspect? "My Masters in journalism?" I asked, proud enough to want to pin that down with him. "I don't know. Nothing at the moment. I was so busy working on the degree--and working here too--that I haven't given it much thought."

"Well, do so, and keep us apprised of your plans," Fitzpatrick said, and then he was moving on, turning his head this way, with a word here and a fake smile there as he worked his way back to the glassed-in office at the other far corner of the working floor, across from Gordon's office.

Gordon was still standing at his glass wall, looking out onto the floor. At me?

Miles and Gordon were the "brass" of the magazine--also the owners, although I got the impression that Miles Fitzpatrick actually owned the place--and maybe, quite possibly, probably, owned Gordon Jackson as well. They had distinctive titles, but in practice they both were the senior editors, working their separate areas and assigning the stories there. Miles, a short, dark, sour-faced Bostonian, dripping in money and sartorial splendor, handled all but the sports and physical side of the topics we covered. Those went to Gordon, tall, strapping, black, outgoing, charismatic--the top to Miles's bottom.

And that's what was important here. The two were a couple. Miles was in control at the magazine. It was his money, his drive, his experience. But, in bed, it was Gordon's drive and experience--with Miles. How did I know that? Everyone at the paper knew it.

And I'd been caught in between. The question was, did Miles know that? At some point he surely would. And when he knew it, my ass was out of here. I'd managed to hold it to get through my Masters. I guess I was saleable now. I'm not sure I wanted to go, though. It wasn't just Gordon. I liked covering this beat. I liked some of the surprise side perks that came with it--like the visit to the 10th Street Baths earlier today. I wasn't the most outgoing person. I handled that by making it a requirement of the job and roleplaying. But I have to say it floated my boat. I'd be hard pressed to get into some of the interesting positions with men I could by working articles at a gay men's magazine. It hadn't been me who started it up between Gordon and me.

A couple of men in suits arrived on the floor and were guided back to Miles's office. He sat them at a conference table in his glass-walled office, with his back to the work floor.

"What did Miles want?" Gordon was standing next to my desk, an arm draped over the top of the cubicle where it opened onto the aisle. He looked casual and oh so god-like. Everyone around me was aware he was there. They were all looking busy, but they all had their antennae up. He was the light of the office anyway. They'd all be aware of where he was and hoping he'd given them a little attention. But I was antsy whenever he gave me attention in the office. It was like they all knew Gordon was humping me and were waiting for an explosion from Miles.

But of course they all knew Gordon was humping me.

"He just wanted to congratulate me on getting the Masters," I answered.

"And?" Gordon was smiling. He was doing it for the troops surrounding us and trying not to reveal their interest. I could tell the man was on edge, as wary as I was.

"And he wondered if I was thinking of leaving now that I had an advanced degree."

"You don't have to, you know. I can handle Miles. He's less in charge here than it appears."

I could believe that. But I didn't want to become the weak corner of a power triangle.

In a louder voice, Gordon said, "Are you still working the 10th Street Baths article?" We were giving a reason for him to have stopped at my cubicle. That article came in his portfolio. I was writing it for him, by assignment. I caught what he wanted me to say in the look he gave me with his eyes.

"I'm almost done. Just one more visit, I think." I didn't need any more visits to the baths to get this article completed. It was as good as finished already. I could see that he wanted me to continue, though. In a louder-than-necessary voice, I said, "I was thinking of going back there while taking a prolonged lunch today." He smiled. I'd caught the signal and said the right thing. He was slipping an envelope onto the top of my desk, not looking at it, so no one monitoring us would know it was being passed.

He smiled. "Good, so maybe I'll have a draft of the article tomorrow."

"I can do that," I said.

"Good," he repeated and then he turned away, working his way back to his office, stopping at this and that occupied cubicle for longer than Miles had, giving more genuine smiles, talking of articles in preparation at greater depth, joining in freer laughter. Gordon was the heart of this magazine--important to it in ways Miles would never be able to be.

When the attention from the floor had followed Gordon or was focusing on what Miles might be discussing with those suited men in his office, I opened the envelope--and almost laughed. I wasn't surprised to find a hotel room key, but it was a bit amusing that it was for the same hotel, the East Village Hotel, I'd just been in with Banker Daddy. I did chuckle when I checked on the back of the hotel card also enclosed that gave the room number--same floor, if not the same room. Maybe it was one of the hotel's by-the-hour rentals.

* * * *

I was kneeling on the bed in room 628 of the East Village hotel, naked and facing the headboard, when Gordon Jameson entered the room, stripped, crouched behind me, and buried his face in my ass while reaching under, handing my cock, and stroking me. I moaned and writhed under the big black's attention as he came up on the bed, mounted and penetrated me, and fucked the shit out of me. He was the biggest man I'd ever had--in every way.

I writhed under him and panted and groaned as he entered and stretched me. I never was open enough for him at the beginning. With his dimensions I don't think I'd ever be able to--this despite having been doubled earlier in the day. But the process of opening to him was glorious, the pain-passion of it taking me soaring into the stratosphere. When he was saddled, he moved his big, black hands around to cupping my pecs, his thumbs thrumming my nipples. I shuddered, and, after he began to slow pump me and I was rocking back on him in synch with the fuck, we became one, smooth copulating machine. He was just so big inside me, though, that my legs went to rubber and I collapsed, flat on the bed. He rode down on the bed with me, stretched flat on top of me, putting me in a full Nelson with his muscular arms, completely trapping me under him, and, only his buttocks in motion, bowed my torso back to him, staying deep inside me until he had ejaculated.

* * * *

Back in the office late in the day I saw that Miles Fitzpatrick saw that I had returned and came out onto the working floor. He was walking toward me, a slight smile on his face. Panicked, I looked toward Gordon's office, but he wasn't there. Of course he wasn't there. I'd left him snoring in the bed at the hotel. I was in trouble. I didn't know precisely how much trouble, but Fitzpatrick looked entirely too pleased with himself. I knew it would be a lot of trouble.

"How is that article on the bathhouse on East 10th coming, Dillon?" he asked when he reached my cubicle. He draped his arm over the top of the cubicle right where Gordon had done the same earlier in the afternoon. Some other reporters were still dotted around on the floor in their cubicles. They were listening in as much now as they had earlier the day when Gordon had been there, I knew, but rather than leaning in, they were leaning away. Miles on the floor was taken as a threat by all--the direct opposite of the effect Gordon had when he walked the floor.

"I'm just finishing up," I said. "I got all I needed on the last visit this afternoon." I'd brazen it out. I even had a notebook to show him of material supposedly collected today, if Miles wanted to check it.

"That's great to hear," Miles said. I didn't like his smile at all. "I think you saw that I had some visitors earlier this afternoon."

"Yessss," I said.

"They were lawyers for Father Francis. Fushin Lu. Do you know who Lu is--who once was Monsignor Francis?"

"The Catholic cardinal in Taiwan who was defrocked for his sex views?"

"Well, he wasn't quite a cardinal, but yes. He was the Catholic archbishop of Taipei in Taiwan who showed no remorse for there being homosexuality in the Catholic Church, refused to prosecute his priests accused of sodomy, and has broken away and formed his own church--which accepts, in fact encourages, homosexuality among priests. The bottom line is that we, of course, have wanted to do an in-depth feature article on him and his church for Gay Men Nation. Those lawyers this afternoon came to agree to that."

"That's great news," I said. Where was this going?

"Father Francis has built a monastery as his headquarters church on a mountaintop in Vermont. If you've finished this article, I'd like you to take on that article. You'll need to be imbedded at the monastery for the duration. You won't have to become one of the monks, of course, or do whatever they're doing, but I'm sure it will take a couple of weeks of research."

"I'm not the least bit religious," I said. "Perhaps you should give this to--"

"All to the good," he said, smiling. "Then there won't be a lot of hocus pocus in the article." I'd almost named someone else--someone I was afraid might take my place with Gordon while I was gone. It was unworthy of me, of course. And it was perfectly within Fitzpatrick's right to assign me a new article to research and write. It was a meaty topic. I should be happy with it.

"When?" I asked, resigned.

"You could leave tomorrow morning. I have Jim in Human Services working on the details. He's getting you a rental car and has been making the arrangements. Check in with him before you leave tonight. You can be on the road tomorrow. Here are the notes I've made for what we want from the interviews. Good-bye and god speed."

The slightly sneery smile had deepened. He had already turned to strut back to his office as I was saying all I could say, which was "Yes, sir."

Oh, yes, he knew what was going on between his boy, Gordon Jamison, and me. I suppose he could just have fired me. I'd never been to Vermont. I didn't even know what direction it was in from Manhattan. I was wild about it when I learned it was north rather than to the sunny south.

* * * *

It all happened quickly and I didn't have a chance to talk to Gordon, let alone ask him if he could intercede and stop this. He had taken a night flight to Washington, D.C., on business. I could only guess that Fitzpatrick had been the one who came up with the business Gordon suddenly needed to attend to in Washington. I could only admire how good Fitzpatrick was at engineering a split-up.

He had been right. When I went to Jim in HR before going home, he had it all laid out for me--keys to a rental car; a packet of money, more, he said than I would need because all of my needs would be taken care of at the monastery and there wouldn't be much of anywhere to spend money outside of the monastery; and the directions for getting there--some 250 miles. It probably would take me the best part of six hours to get there--some of the roads there weren't the best--so I should leave before lunch the next day. Fitzpatrick had also provided everything I needed in the background packet and my letter of introduction to Father Francis. It seemed like this had been in the works for longer than since I'd seen the lawyer suits in Fitzpatrick's office that afternoon.

I wondered how long Fitzpatrick had known Gordon had been fucking me. How long had he been planning to get rid of me? I was only on assignment, though, not fired. I wondered how Fitzpatrick planned to keep me away from his lover permanently. Didn't he know that Gordon would just go on to someone else? Maybe he did. Maybe I was a bigger threat--a threat of something more permanent with Gordon. I'd have to think about that. I hadn't thought about winding up with Gordon permanently. Maybe I should think about that while I was gone.

Jim had been right. It took the better part of six hours to get to the top of the mountain outside of Cavendish, Vermont, in the south-central, mountainous area of the state from Manhattan. Most of that time was the time it took to get out of the city and then the time it took to climb the remote mountain the monastery perched on. The rest of the drive had been pleasant. I did know how to drive--I wasn't a New York boy; I'd come to school here from Indiana. But I hadn't driven in years. The further away from Manhattan I got, the more amenable I became to this obvious shunting aside. Gordon wasn't the only big-cocked man in the world.

But, shit, what a nice cock he had on him, and before him I hadn't realized how much chocolate men aroused me.

The afternoon was late, but the sky--and, noticeably the air--was clear when I got to the top of the mountain and the breathtaking view to other green mountain tops around this one was well worth the tortuous climb up the narrow road zigzagging alongside the mountain slope. Once on top, the monastery itself loomed ahead of me, somewhat Asian in aspect, at least three stories tall, all blank wall and huge wooden door in the center, with what windows there were all being near the top, below battlements. The fortress sides--because it couldn't be denied that the monastery was an inner-directed fortress--were newly painted an ochre color with rough wood trimmings in large chunks.

The building obviously was newly constructed. It was set against the opposite downslope, jutting out over the abyss on that side. On this side it was surrounded in three flat stretches. To the right was the parking area, neatly asphalted and marked, with trees planted beside every third parking space. Beyond that was a tall iron fence enclosing an Olympic-sized swimming pool. To the left of the building was a field with a soccer patch laid out. Young men, all in good shape, were coming off the field as I arrived. They had played just in loincloths and soccer socks and shoes, but some were already off the field and were donning cassocks.