I rolled back over and surveyed the body stretched out beside me. He was lying on his back, panting slightly, his legs still spread and knees bent. The pillow not yet out from underneath the small of his back. He gave me a wan smile, wrapped a hand around my neck, and drew me in for a kiss, barely giving me time to take the joint from my mouth that I had turned to take a drag from. We shared the smoke from the reefer in the kiss.
Such a cute little trick. I'd picked him up—or, rather, let him pick me up, since we were in his flat off Oxford Road now—at Sydney's Midnight Shift Club in the heart of the Australian city's extensive gay district. I'd gone to try out the bar there, only to find it was being renovated. I was waved upstairs to the club, where it was too early for their 4:00 p.m. opening, but where a bartender was checking over the inventory and was all "no problems" about pouring me a drink. The cute trick was perched on a stool at the other end of the bar. The bartender went to carry in some more liquor to even out his stock and the trick fluttered his eyelashes at me and asked if I might be interested in more than a drink.
I was, actually.
I could have taken him back to where I was staying—the City Crown Motel nearby, quite obviously a gay-friendly establishment—but in my air hops west across the South Pacific, where I had stopped in Fiji, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia, en route to Sydney to pick up a plane back to the States, I'd made a policy of going to the guy's room or a hotel room other than mine so I had the option of leaving when I wanted.
I was still reveling in the mere week's-old discovery that I was versatile. For two years I'd been in training as a bottom—in progressively more taxing fetish situations. I hadn't realized that I could enjoy going both ways until I was ridden on a tramp steamer en route to Pago Pago. I'd been exercising that knowledge back across the South Seas.
He was small—less than five and a half feet tall, I estimated—and with a willowy, dancer's body. In fact, I'd ascertained that he was a dancer—a pole dancer at the Midnight Shift. A strawberry blond. A classic "David" physique down to the pert cock and small, but distinctly separate balls. I had enjoyed rolling them about, distending them, and inhaling them into my mouth and sucking them in both cheeks. He had enjoyed that too. Just as he had tried the same with me and couldn't get them both in his mouth—and most certainly had gagging problems in deep-throating what I was packing. He'd been game, though. And experienced.
Slightly effeminate, as had been the others I'd practiced topping on my way back to civilization. And, although it was subtle, he used makeup to enhance his eyes and eyelashes and to produce unnaturally cherry-red lips. He'd also rouged his nubs, but I had sucked the makeup off them. And done his nails, in a lavender, very much like the sweet little thing I'd gone with in Western Samoa.
I don't really think the attraction was the type of men I was picking up to fuck. This was more of a transition, I believed—and hoped—and being sure if I could do the same with a more manly man. I certainly hoped I would be able to do so. As nice as I'd found pieces like this one to be for topping, there still was something missing in my sex life. But then there had been something missing in my life as a bottom too. Not arousal or lust, certainly—but something else.
I wondered if the makeup went with the slinky dresses I saw hanging around the small, one-room flat, or the high heels kicked into the closet. I'd never knowingly gone with a transvestite before . . . not that that mattered here because I knew this was a one-afternoon stand and he hadn't come on to me in that way.
I took another drag from the joint and shared it with him in a kiss, while my other hand glided down his smooth, boyish chest, the fingers dragging across the silver ring in his navel and his closely trimmed pubes as he shuddered when I grasped his cock and slow stroked him.
"Fuck me again," he murmured as we came out of the kiss.
"Liked that, did you?" I asked, still struggling over whether I could do this top thing convincingly.
"Loved it, stud. You're so big."
"Perhaps because you are so small."
"No, honey, I know hung and hard when I feel it. And you're still hard, and I want to feel it again."
"We could go for some supper and then come back."
"Can't sorry. Gotta go to work. You'll come and watch me dance?"
"Maybe. And afterward?"
"Fuck me again now. There may be no later. Can't come back here later. I have a roommate."
"A woman?" asked, gesturing to dresses hanging about.
"No, sweetie. Those are mine."
The flat was small—I could see it all from here. There was just this one double bed. "So you mean a boyfriend, not just a roommate?"
"He thinks so, and a big bruiser he is. That bartender who served you a drink at the Midnight Shift. Not as big where it counts as you are, though, honey. Com'on, mate, do me again. You do it so well."
What could I do? The pot was helping to keep me hard and aroused. I rolled back over on top of him, slid inside, and began to pump. He threw his arms around my neck, running fingers into the hair on the back of my head, arched his back, began to push down into every stroke, and cried out, "Oh, yes. Give it to me. Deep, hard. Oh, you stud! Ball me! Ball me hard!"
Later, after I'd left him and was walking down toward Circular Quay at the Rocks, one of the places where all Sydney mingled, to catch some dinner, I luxuriated in the thought that I'd obviously satisfied him as a top. That didn't mean I'd lost interest in bottoming as well, and maybe before I left Sydney on the flight out to Los Angeles the day after the next, I'd be able to get a little of that too.
I laughed at the realization that I'd neither asked the sweet little piece for his name nor given him mine. It had been the same way at all of the overnight bars on the hops by plane from Western Samoa to here. I wondered if sharing names was part of the "not quite" I felt in satisfaction in my sex life.
I don't know what had drawn me to Circular Quay and the view of the Sydney Opera house out on a small peninsula beyond, other than that I wanted to be in the middle of a lively crowd without direct interaction. I wasn't looking for a hookup. I'd had that today already. Tomorrow I planned some last-minute browsing in the area around Oxford Road, and the day after that I'd be on a plane for the States, my junior year summer exploration from Princeton over and ready to start my senior year in a month's time. And quite a summer it had been, traveling the South Pacific on tramp steamers supplying all of the small archipelagos across the sea. And quite an experience in sexual awakenings, just as I had hoped it would be.
I also don't know what drew me first to the busker leaning up against a closed ferry ticket window wall—his music or the clothes he was wearing. Or maybe it was the natural sensuality of the man. But, since I wasn't looking for sex, I'll pick the clothes he was wearing—and wearing quite well, I might add.
I had to laugh. Early in my summer adventure, I'd been seduced by a Frenchman—Etienne—who had coaxed me to take a tramp steamer with him from Nouméa, in the New Caldonia archipelago, to Suva, in Fiji. He had robbed and deserted me in Fiji. But he had taken not only my cash and credit cards but also my favorite fringed deer-skin cowboy vest and my cowboy boots. As melting as Etienne had been as a lover, missing those articles of clothing was what I remembered about him the most.
The busker was wearing them. Not my own vest and boots, of course. There were differences. But the similarities were close enough to arrest my attention and for me to make the connection. He was wearing a cowboy hat too, but as I hadn't lost one, I didn't focus on that. So, I stopped to admire the clothes, worn on top of tight, worn jeans, and a tight T-shirt, both tight because of his pronounced musculature. His face was easy to look at too. He was hirsute, but not grossly so. He maybe was in his late twenties, six or seven years older than I was. His faced showed both the cares and joys of a longer life than his body revealed him to be. Both the care and joy came through his rich baritone voice too.
He looked like the authentic rendering of an Australian cowboy, if Australia had them, and, with the country's vast outback, I realized they must have them. That, I guess, was what they called stockmen or jackaroos.
His songs were accompanied by a scruffy guitar with a sweet tone that matched his voice perfectly. I remained, loitering on the fringe of those passing by, for four songs. None of the tunes were familiar to me. All of them were good enough that I probably should have heard them before, though.
I eventually was embarrassed that I was hanging around so long when others were swirling around us, just passing by. All happy and boisterous. During the fourth song, I felt the isolation—not just of me, but of the busker too. But it wasn't an isolation of the two of us together, although I would have to say I found him arousing—not arousing in the sense of the new-found topping activity I was experiencing, but more in the older, more known sense of him on top of me, possessing me fully with his cock. I knew it would be a plump, long one. My trained eyes could see that in the basket of his worn, tight jeans.
The feeling of isolation in a bustling world—even from each other—saddened me. It didn't help that the song was a sad one too. I came closer to him. He looked up and smiled at me, a smile that went beyond the friendly. He interrupted the song long enough to give me the traditional "Gd-day, mate" greeting, revealing that he had noticed me stop and listen to him when all the rest had passed him by—even the ones who had dropped money in his open guitar case in passing.
I had only come closer to add my contribution to the case—a large sum since I was coming to the end of my visit and had Australian notes to burn. I mumbled something to him, he tipped his hat and started to say something, but I turned and walked away.
The music started again in my wake. He took up in the sad song where he had left off. I got the sense, though, that he was singing just to me now. There was a clutch in his voice. My instincts fought among themselves. Should I turn and return to him? Suggest a break and a coffee somewhere—and maybe a little fuck in the shadows? Or should I cut and run? Should I acknowledging that my "down under" across the Southern Pacific adventure ended the next day and just let it go?
I went directly back to the City Crown Motel, took a cold shower, and laid on the bed. I would forget him—but maybe tomorrow. In the meantime, I'd masturbate myself to sleep thinking of his body—wearing my cowboy vest and boots.
One of my dream scenarios was being out in the old, wild West in the States. Riding up into the Rockies on horseback with a hunky, horse-hung cowboy, and being fucked all night over a saddle and under the stars. It wasn't really a Brokeback Mountain dream—that movie had fallen far short of the sex action I wanted in my dreams. Having sex with a man was neither a frustration nor a guilty complex for me.
Tonight, it wasn't an American cowboy I dreamed of. It was an Australian jackaroo—I really liked that term for a hung man taking me. And it wasn't just any jackaroo. It was the busker from Circular Quay. My very own jackaroo, wearing only the fringed vest and cowboy boots I'd loved so well. He could wear his hat too, for all I cared.
* * * *
"Gd-day again there, mate."
The voice sounded familiar and when I looked around I confirmed I was facing the good-natured grin of the busker from the previous evening at the Circular Quay—the jackaroo of my dreams.
"Oh, hi," I said. "You're the singer from last night." He was even more than that, which was immediately electrifying me. We were both in a gay bookstore, the Bookshop Darlinghurst. The busker who had turned me on the previous evening was standing here in a gay book store—with a book in his hand. It had to be a gay book; it was a gay bookstore. So, he was probably gay. Extremely good information to know.
Everyone I'd told I'd be in Sydney had told me that I must visit the Bookshop Darlinghurst. It was my last day in Australia, and I had found, by walking around the Oxford Street area, that the bookstore was near my motel. So, here I was—and suddenly very glad I'd decided to visit here.
"Ah, an American accent. You an American then, mate? Just visiting Sydney?"
"Yes, American. And yes again, just visiting. I'm leaving for the States tomorrow."
