Pearl Fisher Ecstasy

[This was written for a "bend the story of a song" exercise. It's a flight of fancy on a take on the Act I duet, "Au fond du temple saint," which immortalizes Georges Bizet's opera,

Pearl Fishers,

from the aspect of the

Pearl Fishers

being staged as a homoerotic production. (It is best read accompanied by listening to a recording of the duet.)]

*

I am already panting shallowly in anticipation of the arrival on center stage of the fisher king, Zugar, and of the nightly effect he has on me—not Zugar himself, but the magnificent man who is playing him, the man who has been bought for me, the man I have sold myself to attain. With me singing the tenor role of the humble young fisherman, Nadir, we—Jorge Apoko, the black baritone, as Zugar, and I are about to enter into the Act I duet, "Au fond du temple saint," that immortalizes Georges Bizet's opera,

Pearl Fishers

.

The setting and costumes, both a gift to me, I know, enhance the homoerotic sensuality that rushes over me, through me, each night and that, in one duet, nearly wipes me out for the rest of the performance—but that holds me on the cloud of arousal for the fulfillment that comes after the performance. It is this duet that I look forward to every night—the fantasy of the performance version soaring above the reality of the after-performance "pay the piper" event. I lose myself to the experience of imagination in an ecstasy of the mind and emotion that is beyond all other roles I've taken in the theater. It is this role, this baritone, that Egor conjured just for me and with which he has bought me and for which I go home with him, to his bed, to his cock, every night.

The stage is bathed in aquamarine light to call forth the atmosphere of the men diving for pearls, in a grueling, but body-building and sculpting occupation, off the coast of ancient Ceylon. Egor has gone to great lengths to show that only the most beautiful, best-endowed young men are permitted to be pearl fishers in the fantasy world he has re-created and reimagined from Bizet's original vision. He has them relating to each other on stage, subtly but unmistakably, to foreshadow the homoerotic interpretation he's given the production—although anyone coming to performances by now would already have absorbed the media buzz Egor's vision has conjured. Behind us, behind the ruins of a Hindu temple, masses of beige sheeting, representing the shifting sand, bellow and swirl at the mercy of wind machines in the wings.

All on stage now are beautiful, muscular young men, bare-chested and wearing only saffron-colored silk sarong skirts barely riding their hips, with the hems pulled up and tucked into the waist to create billowy short trousers and to show off their meaty and shapely thighs and calves, the hardness of their bellies, and a hint of what lies below. The costumes are known as the

kaavi mundu

form of a male sarong. I am attired just as the rest, blending in with the other beefy young men at the act's opening. The director, Egor Rustacovic, says he took this interpretation because he was impressed that his principle singers were as well built and endowed—and well he should know—as Jorge and I. But the mood of this production, of course, was no accident; it was one of the conditions I set for Egor to have his way with me each time he created for me the fantasy of the lusty duet with the imposing black baritone.

It is Jorge, a towering black Algerian with a powerful, deep chest, who has me unhinged and who Egor has bought to buy me with. He arrives on stage, as Zugar, declared to be the new fisher king and set apart from the rest of us by his overpowering, commanding figure. He overshadows all the rest, and only he wears anything in addition to a

kaavi mundu

. A bejeweled golden vest is on his chest, too small really for the bulk of him, covering little but serving to enunciate the massiveness of his muscular chest, the rouged erectness of his nipples that foreshadows his intent.

It is this, his chest, with nipples rouged and engorged in arousal, and his magnificent torso as it plunges down to a washboard belly and a dip in the front of the

kaavi mundu

that, from my closeness to him, reveals the upper curling of his black pubic hair, that has me panting nightly. Although, that's not quite true; it's more what has not been revealed yet in tonight's staging of the opera, below that dip at the waist of his

kaavi mundu

. It is my fetish for huge, black cock—Jorge's cock. A fetish that has been satisfied with each staging of the opera.

I know the Egor has set the costumes as such to enhance the homoerotic sensuality of his production, to heighten my arousal—as well as his own. And I know he has chosen Jorge for me carefully—because Egor has known me and been known by Jorge. Egor knows that to have Jorge, to have Jorge inside me—again and again—both in fantasy and reality, I'll do anything for him. The duet is as much for Egor as it is for me, though. Each performance he is there, in the audience, to mount on his own arousal through his staging of the "Au fond du temple" duet, reveling in the sensual tableau he was created and joining and merging with me across the footlights. To pleasure himself as, for four fantasy minutes of ecstasy of mind and emotion, I let my imagination run wild—to satisfy my sensual needs and to prepare me for him, just as it prepares him for me.

Zugar has bounded in and taken center stage by right and by stage presence. His character focuses on mine, as I play a young pearl fisherman—just one of several on stage until Zugar singles me out. Our characters were once friends—close friends; very close friends, in the interpretation of the opera that Egor has given it and that has Milan all abuzz—before we both came under the spell of the Hindu high priestess, Leila. Zugar has won her from my character, Nadir, and Nadir has retreated to the edge of the sea, to dive for pearls and to forget not only the human pearl he has lost in Leila, but the man he has loved, who first coupled with him, but who stole the priestess from him after Nadir was brought under her spell and who, presumably, under Leila's spell, is coupling now only with her.

Zugar has been searching for Nadir, though, having broken the spell of the priestess on he himself and realized it is the love of Nadir that is paramount to him. The two men come together, explosively, at the center of the stage, and I, as Nadir, quickly slipping into my imagination, start the duet, soaring up to an F, near the top of my range, but still a note I can deliver with power or sweetly, as I please.

Five measures in, Zugar mirrors my opening in a lower register but, after the initial three measures, releases me to soar again, alone. He doesn't leave me, though, as his voice pursues mine, slipping in underneath mine in punctuated tones, teasing and courting me. His voice weaves the taking of me in his arms in the fantasy I have completely slipped into. But then, playing the game of a pursuit with our voices, he lets me go to soar alone once more. Before I can break through the clouds with a high A, he captures me, pulling me into him where, giving foundation to my traveling on the clouds in my speaking of the delights of the Leila that I have lost, he reclaims me as his.

As his voice grows stronger, mastering mine, he reasons with me that there are far more delights in what he can offer me than Leila can. As I melt to Jorge's smooth but powerful baritone, undergirding my tenor aria, fantasy solidifies and reality totally evaporates for me. The stage and the other singers, the orchestra and the audience fade away. There are just Jorge and me. The huge black man, with the magnificent black cock that I know so well, want and need so much, have taken so often in my imagining, as we have sung this duet and disappeared into this fantasy world, nightly for weeks.

Once again, in my fantasy, he is going to possess me—fully—filling me to capacity and playing my body with the continuous experience of ever quickening withdrawal and possession, withdrawal and repossession, leading to glorious explosion. He is going to take me to heaven, riding on that huge black cock of his.

We no longer are singing side by side, arm in arm. In my imagination, he has pulled me to his chest. And in my initial solo singing, he has buried his lips in the hollow of my neck and reached down to unbind the

kaavi mundi

of both of us and let the saffron silk drift to the floor at our feet. The gasp from the audience floats out over my own. The hardness and strength of his magnificent black cock press to my belly, and I feel the edges of my voice take on the richness of melting chocolate—the chocolate of his body pressing into mine. I want him inside me, filling me. I climb his thighs with mine, seeking the joining, the penetration, the complete merging.

Zugar takes over the solo voicing from me, my voice becoming quiet mewings of want in the background, under him, just as I ache to be under him. He sings of how the high priestess Leila had enticed and mesmerized him too until he realized that he and I have a bond that he could never have with Leila. Then, together, we sing of our burning affection for each other, a bond that becomes ever more sensual. Jorge—no longer Zugar, because the operatic production has melted fully away from my consciousness and only Jorge and I exist now in my fantasy—pulls me closer into him and lifts me up his body with his strong hands.

As our voices soar higher together, we become one, his voice becoming fortissimo, overpowering mine, mastering me, as I want him to, as he stands on strong legs in the center of the stage, me saddled on his hips, my ankles hooked at the small of his back. I reach between us with my hands, positioning the gigantic bulb of him at my entrance, rubbing it on my rim, opening to him. His baritone tones dip down into the bass range, gathering strength and power as, thrusting up with his black staff, he enters me, enters me, enters me.

My voice soars above his, reaching for the stars, as, with powerful hands he pulls me on and off the black cock—thrusting, thrusting, thrusting. Withdrawing and possessing, withdrawing and repossessing. My torso arches back, my fists clutch at the lapels of his vest, my mouth gapes open, singing to the heavens of the glorious taking. Feeling each deep thrust; warbling my want for the next one. Wanting the next one to go deeper, be thicker.

Our voices reach the clash of a crescendo, and, in my fantasy replay, night after night, of this glorious duet, Jorge releases his seed deep inside me, as I too issue my flow up his burnished belly. The chorus of fishermen behind us, heedless of the intimacy of our coupling sealing the strong bond between us that no woman can breach, rises in volume and pitch as reality begins to flow back into my consciousness and, closing my eyes to see and remember what I desired, I sink, in my fantasy, to the stage floor, my burning cheek pressed to the warm flesh of a calf, my arms and legs wrapped around the legs of my nightly master, standing there proudly and magnificent in his naked beauty, the king of the fisherman, head held high and beefy arms crossed over massive chest.

In reality, we are still standing, side by side and arm in arm, still wearing our kaavi mundi, still singing of our camaraderie, as the duet comes to a close and the voices of the men's chorus rise.

The opera goes on for two more acts, but the critics are right. They have always been right about Bizet's

Pearl Fisher

. The climax of the opera comes in Act I with the sealing of the bond between the fisher king, Zugar, and the humble fisherman, Nadir, in the "Au fond du temple" duet. Everything after this is anticlimax—even in interpretations that aren't as sensual and homoerotic as Egor's is.

Each night I barely manage to contain myself through the two concluding acts, my lust satisfied thus far only in fantasy, and I know, my eyes often drifting to Jorge's during the agony of our wait, that he feels the same way. I can only imagine how impatient the director, Egor Rustacovic, is in each performance, having given this sensual scene—and Jorge—to me solely to win from me what he wants—and, having created the interpretation of the opera and the arousal he himself desires, being forced to wait through two more acts to attain his own satiation.

But attain it he does, eventually, night after night after each performance, as, in Jorge's dressing room and before Egor takes me home to his bed, he lies on his back on a divan, with me riding his cock and Jorge, behind me, sharing me with Egor, as, for a second time that night, Jorge and I sing the

Pearl Fisher

duet while bringing the ultimate coupling to reality.

Egor has suggested that we perform an excerpt of the opera, just the keystone duet, "Au fond du temple saint," in selected clubs he frequents—that we perform the duet to my fantasy. I have already told him "yes, yes, yes." I await Jorge's decision.