Rick was surprised to see Billy Dan standing by the Saab in the morning as they prepared to leave Lefty's. Rick breakfasted with Phil and Roger and came out with them, moving toward the Dodge truck. But Groton called him over.
"You'll travel with us this morning, Rick," he said and indicated one of the rear passenger doors. "You and Spike in back. I'll take Billy up front with me."
No other explanation than that as to why Billy Dan had joined the film group. And Lefty was just standing in the door of the roadhouse looking like he was just as pleased as punch to see his new boy waltzing off like that.
Then the possible explanation came to Rick, as Groton called back to Lefty while starting to drive out of the parking lot, "Have him back in a month or so—all trained and ready to go."
The two vehicles drove south in tandem on the road slicing down the small valley between the mountains and then turned up toward where the Wintergreen ski resort met the Blue Ridge Parkway running south and north across the crest of the mountains. Once up on the Parkway, Groton turned south. They hadn't gone far, though, when Groton turned into a picnic area visually separated from the parkway road. Groton's was the only car there; Phil drove the truck just off the road into the area and stopped, blocking the road enough that if another vehicle tried to come in, some time and noise would be taken in accomplishing the maneuver. It was still early in the morning—too soon for anyone to want to be picnicking. The tops of the mountains were still covered with clouds, and there was an eerie quality to mist floating through the trees and across the lichen-encrusted rocks of the area.
"Let's see how well you can suck," Groton said in the front seat. Rick saw his hand go behind Billy Dan's head and draw it down toward his crotch. Shortly thereafter, Rick heard the arousing sounds of slurping and Groton's sighing as his head settled back on his headrest.
Spike, sitting close to Rick, his arm having been around his shoulder, drawing him to Spike on his side of the car and his hand busy in Rick's lap from the time the Saab started ascending the mountain at Wintergreen, signaled by the releasing of his hard cock and a hand on the back of Rick's head that Rick was to do the same on him as Billy Dan was doing on Groton. Obedient, Rick lowered his lips to Spike's thick, black cock and took him inside of his mouth, sucking at the bulb, as Spike sighed in satisfaction.
Rick lost track of what was going on in the front seat, and after Spike had stripped his trousers and briefs off him and while Spike was raising Rick up on his lap, facing the front, and slowly forcing Rick's channel down on his erection, Rick saw that they were finished in the front seat and now Groton was turned and capturing the backseat action with clicks of a still camera.
Rick didn't let that distract him. He was too busy trying to get all of Spike inside his channel and beginning to move his hips, playing off the balls of his feet on the floor of the car. Rick and Spike's last encounter alone had been interrupted, and out on the meadow the previous day, his was just one of several cocks inside Rick. The young man hadn't had the opportunity of the bittersweet fantasizing of Pete taking him for some time, which is what the ebony muscle-bound, big-cocked Spike did for him. Rick closed his eyes and conjured up Pete, hands on his waist and raising and lowering him on the cock that had given him so much frustration and pleasure in his early experience of taking.
When the filming team was ready to leave again, Groton had Spike sat up front, and Billy Dan was sent in the back with Rick.
They descended from the parkway into the Shenandoah valley at Buena Vista and caught I-81 south, headed for Ashville, North Carolina.
Once on the highway, Billy Dan shyly moved his hand to Rick's thigh and asked, in a whisper, whether he'd like to have a blow job too. But, with the best friendly and reassuring smile Rick could muster up, he said no thanks. Although Rick hadn't been able to see the resemblance between Billy Dan and him, others had and remarked on it. So, Rick considered Billy Dan as too much like himself to be arousing in that way. Rick felt more protective of Billy Dan and didn't want to demean him to think Rick would make the demands on him or claims on his favors others did.
It was late afternoon before the two vehicles descended on I-26 through a mountain pass and the city of Asheville materialized below them in the bowl of surrounding mountains.
"Next stop," Groton sang out cheerily.
They drove through the town, which looked fresh and well-groomed and alive with people walking the sidewalks, and continued, turning west from Montford on Hayward, toward the railroad tracks and a seedier part of town. Groton rolled up to a three-story row house, with a parking lot at one side where another, probably identical house, had given up the attempt to stand and had collapsed into its lot. On the other side of the building was a lower, two-story structure with a flashing neon sign over the door declaring "Baths."
Access to the door of the middle building, with the sign "Rooms" above it were stone steps bordered by concrete, broad-based parapets upon which sat an assortment of old and young men, lounging lazily, smoking, and watching those passing by.
The arrival of the two vehicles must have been the most exciting activity they'd seen that day, because their attention was uniformly riveted on the Saab and the Dodge truck. The occupants disembarked and Spike and the cameramen started unloading luggage and camera equipment, as Groton mounted the stairs and entered the building. Billy Dan and Rick stood near the fender of the Saab, conversing with each other in close proximity and trying not to acknowledge the appraising looks and catcalls they were getting from men sitting on the steps of the rooming house.
* * * *
It took some time for Rick to realize that the fantasy sequence was not to be his.
After settling into rooms at the boarding house, with Rick and Billy Dan again being shacked up with Groton in a room with a double and single bed and Rick disconcertedly being informed the twin bed was his, Groton met with the cameramen and then went around appraising and talking to other men in the rooming house. Then he was gone, on foot, for some time while Rick and the rest were left to fend for themselves.
Rick only left the room a couple of times, once to use the head down the hall and another time to go down to the first floor to check out on whether there were any vending machines or other possibility to get a Coke. On both outings, he was accosted at nearly every turn by one resident of the building after another, telling him how hot he looked and requesting or offering a blow job or, hopefully, more. Not wanting to offend or get into a bad situation, Rick told most of them some variation of "maybe later."
While downstairs he saw Billy Dan and another guy under the staircase in the shadows with Billy Dan on his knees and about to take the other guy's cock in his mouth when Spike showed up, manhandled Billy Dan off his knees, cuffed the other guy, and bustle Billy Dan up the stairs to the rooms there. There was no sign that Billy Dan hadn't been making the offer willingly.
When Groton returned, the film team was being gathered up and walked next door to the two-story structure with the "Baths" sign.
As they entered, Rick assumed that Groton had found the bathtub he wanted to use for the filming of Rick's fantasy about that and was a little confused when Groton, already stripping told everyone else in the cast and crew, including Billy Dan, to strip, shower and go into the sauna. He told Phil and Roger they could put their briefs back on, as he was doing, but he told Spike, Billy Dan, and Rick to go into the sauna with towels around their waists.
There already were five other guys, just with towels, sitting in the sauna, so the six additions made for close quarters.
Groton pointed to the top level of the benches on the opposite wall from the entry door, and Billy Dan went up there, apparently having received instructions beforehand, and stretched out on his back.
Groton pointed to the opposite corner of the sauna and told Rick to perch up there and watch.
That's when Rick realized that this was the filming of Billy Dan's fantasy spun out to Groton in bed the other night and not his fantasy of the bathtub. This was also the first time it dawned on Rick that he no longer was the sole star of this
Journey to Mirage
movie, but that now Billy Dan had been added to the cast. Rick wasn't sure what he thought about that, but as he sat there, watching Billy Dan's scene spin out, he also reflected on the bedding arrangements at Lefty's and now here, in Asheville, and he began to wonder—for the first time, but not the last time—if Groton was slowly supplanting him with Billy Dan. And he shuddered at the thought that his own scenes were becoming increasingly rough and threatening.
A guy in his mid forties was directed to sit on the top bench below Billy Dan's feet and the others—a guy in his twenties, two in their thirties, an older guy—all white—and then Spike were arranged around the sauna just outside the focus of Billy Dan stretched out and the older guy sitting below him. All of the men were in good shape and, although of distinctive looks, were quite presentable. The man sitting below Billy Dan was a hirsute guy with black hair—graying at the temples on his head but curly and pronounced on his chest, arms, and legs.
One of the thirtyish guys, blond marine cut, square-jawed, and gym sculpted, was sitting next to Rick.
Obviously rehearsed, Billy Dan began an act of enticement as the three cameramen took up positions at various angles. He had an arm thrown across his face as if he was in another world, but the man sitting below his feet slowly reached over and placed a hand on his ankle and Billy Dan did no more than slightly flinch. Thus encouraged, the man turned toward Billy Dan and took the other ankle in his other hand. Again, no countering reaction from Billy Dan.
The cameras panned to show that the other men in the room were taking notice now and turning their gazes to the action on the top bench on the back wall.
While his hands were still on Billy Dan's ankles, he spread the young man's legs to the limit of the wide depth of bench and bent Billy Dan's legs up, placing the young man's feet flat on the bench. From that perspective, the towel was pulled wide and everything Billy Dan had was in full view to him. The man made an obvious, satisfied inspection of what he could see up under Billy Dan's towel.
"So nice," Rick heard the man say.
Still holding the ankles, the man brought Billy Dan's legs back down, maintaining the wide stance. Slowly, the man's hands glided up Billy Dan's calves, over his knees, and a short distance up his thighs, almost, but not quite, reaching the hemline of the towel around Billy Dan's waist.
Billy Dan moaned loud enough for the cameras to pick up. And the other men in the sauna began to pair off—only in moving closer to someone else at this point.
Rick wasn't left out of this. The blond marine type was close enough to him now that their thighs touched. His towel fell open and Rick looked down to find a nice-sized half-hard cock nestling between the man's meaty thighs.
The cameras were panning the sauna but came back to focus on Billy Dan and the man sitting below him, who was moving his hands back to Billy Dan's ankles and, when there, gently, ever so slowly and gently folding Billy Dan's up so that they once again were spread, bent, and Billy Dan was digging the heels of his feet into the wet teak of the bench.
The man put his hands on Billy Dan's knees and spread his legs wider. His attention was riveted on what he again could see under the spread towel between Billy Dan's thighs. The impression given from his expression was that Billy Dan had gone hard since the last time the man had bent his legs and taken the full view. The man was whispering to Billy Dan, and Billy Dan was looking down across his body and answering, but Rick couldn't hear what they were saying. The man caressed Billy Dan's knees and was slowly moving them back and forth. Billy Dan was arching his back and clawing at the teak bench with his fingernails. Rick could clearly hear his plea now of, "Please . . . Do it."
Groton moved his camera to where he was looking over the man's shoulder and enjoying the same view he had.
Once again the man's hands started a slow guide up Billy Dan's inner thighs, as Billy Dan groaned. "Fuck me!" Rick heard him plead.
