The Gree Pimp

Last thing. And always the chore Tyler hated the worst - getting his tux tie worked right. It wasn't helping that he was crouched over the galley counter in the

Lucky Card

's cramped main cabin or that his hands were trembling from the risk he was taking. He had to get himself into this monkey suit quietly because he didn't want to wake Axel, in the other cabin.

They had had quite a row over what Tyler was about to do - risk the twenty-five-year-old Southern Cross 39 sailboat that was both his pride and joy and his home. He and Axel had fought over Tyler using the

Lucky Card

as a stake at the grand Monte Carlo Casino to raise the money he needed to sail back to Fort Lauderdale. He supposed he could always break back into racing cars when - and if - he could get back to the States. He had done well in that, mostly because of the risks he was willing to take. Then, in the heat of the argument, Axel had come down on Tyler on the berth, encased him in his arms, and fucked him as Tyler wrapped his arms around his Austrian lover. After they'd tired each other out, Axel had told Tyler he'd give him the money he needed, that he could afford it.

But as a matter of pride - and because flying by the seat of his pants like this was how Tyler floated through life - Tyler refused. Then they'd fought again. And fucked again to make up.

Tyler had agreed to think about it. And he

had

thought about it until Axel went to sleep. Now he was working on getting his tie properly fixed so that he'd look like "somebody" when he entered the casino and put the

Lucky Card

at risk.

He paused on the dock after stepping off the

Lucky Card

, looked out beyond the marina at the magnificent set of buildings that housed Monte Carlo's casino and the principality's cultural icons, the Grand Théâtre de Monte Carlo and Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, and fought the intimidation of such an imposing setting. He turned and took what he hoped wasn't his last look at the

Lucky Card

as its owner, squared his shoulders, and strolled more nonchalantly than he felt along the dock, practicing the posture that he knew would give him entry to the posh casino. He looked good - very good - and confident and wealthy, and he knew he did.

* * * *

The evening wasn't going well for Tyler. He had won some and lost some during the early part of the evening, winning enough to entice the overconfident gambler he was to remain and losing enough to discourage him from cutting his loses. At this point he would have enough for a few more days on the continent, an airplane ticket home, and enough to carry him for a couple of months while he looked for a dream-ending job in the States - but without the

Lucky Card

.

He gravitated toward a European roulette table more, he probably didn't realize, because of the croupier at the table he eventually landed at. The young man, perhaps not much older than Tyler's own twenty-five, spoke French but had the dusky skin of a North African. Tyler thought that he perhaps was from Morocco or Algeria. Wherever he was from, he was naturally sexy and sultry. Deep bronze skin, black curly hair, and fluttery eyelashes. His big brown eyes had a well-practiced aspect of knowing he had strong powers of seduction - and that he turned his attention to men. Indeed, it was apparent to Tyler that the croupier, who was identified on his name badge as Harun, had caught - and held - Tyler's attention from across the gaming floor and that the young man's mystery and charisma had been enough to pull Tyler to his table.

Harun was controlling the wheel. Another croupier was operating the paddle that either pulled the losing chips off the felt-top table into the house pot or delivered the winnings. A

chef de partie

- game supervisor - hovered over the table, making sure all was in order. The latter was dressed in a tuxedo but there was little camouflaging that he was a glorified bouncer, here to keep the players under control.

Tyler sat next to an elderly matron dripping in diamonds and wearing a lavender silk evening dress with a plunging neckline that should have been a turtle neck at her age and in her emaciated condition. He recognized his mistake almost immediately, as she turned her face to him and gave him a sly look with a wink. One claw-like hand went immediately to his thigh and the other one raised above her shoulder and she snapped her fingers.

"A drink of the young man's choosing," she cackled to a waiter who had instantly appeared. "And another martini for me." She made sure that he saw her adding a few of her high-end chips to his pile and give him another wink.

Tyler said nothing, but neither did he push the chips back. If she thought this had bought him, she was very much mistaken, but he welcomed the free drink and he saw her for what she was - an addicted gambler. Her brief misunderstanding that he sat next to her as some sort of gigolo she was acquiring arrested her attention only momentarily. Her attention went immediately back to the table when the croupier named Harun called out, "

Faites vos jeux

" - place your bets - and tossed the bead into the spinning wheel.

Tyler had sat too late to enter the game yet, which gave him time to look around the table. He had drifted here completely absorbed in Harun, the croupier. Now he saw that the old crone had every reason to believe he was coming on to her. The table had eight seats, four to a side, and only the old woman was on the side where he sat. He easily could have sat down leaving a chair between them.

Three of the chairs across the table from him were occupied, or more accurately, two and a half of them were. A young punk-looking man, probably a rock star and nearly recognizable to Tyler, was in one chair, and a gorgeous, but model-thin and vapid-looking blonde, half on his chair and half on the one next to him, her arms draped around him and her face nuzzled into the hollow of his neck, occupied the one-and-a-half chairs. One chair away from them sat a hulking Greek. He looked every inch the shipping magnate who had acquired his empire by hard work from the deck of his first ship and who now covered what was still a rough, no-nonsense, peasant in the trappings of great wealth.

Although the rock star was as engrossed in the game as the old biddy was, and the blonde was totally focused on the rock star, the Greek seemed to be almost off-hand in his placing of his bets. His eyes, hooded and knowing - almost undressing Tyler where he sat and speculating and assessing what the young man was doing there and what his desires and vulnerabilities were - kept moving from his chip pile to the betting numbers on the felt table top and then to Tyler.

The man was what one politely would say was mature - probably in his mid-fifties - and ugly when each aspect of him was considered separately. He also was hairy, although this didn't tot up against him in Tyler's mind. But the package was commanding, mysterious, and intriguing in its own way, and the man exuded power and domination. Tyler felt like the man's eyes were stripping him in every way. But that was precisely the sort of man who aroused Tyler. If he commanded Tyler to strip and took him right here on the top of the roulette table, no one in the casino would intervene, and Tyler knew he would let him do it. The looks the old Greek gave him told Tyler that the man wanted to fuck him.

And this was even without the presence of the swarthy, big-bodied bodyguard standing behind and to the right of the Greek's chair, with his glowering eyes scanning back and forth across the casino floor.

"

Rien ne vos pois

" - no more bets - rang out in Harun's deep baritone, and even the Greek looked away to see where the bead landed in the wheel. The Greek moved his arm off the surface of the table as the second croupier paddled the chips over into the pile in front of him, showing no reaction at the small fortune that had been added to his larger one, evidently taking victory as his due.

Tyler started off cavalierly, betting

plein

, his bet going on a single one of the thirty-six numbers, which would afford him the biggest pot win but at thirty-five-to-one odds. He had no luck at these odds and hedged his bets with a "square," a

carre

, in which he placed the bidding chits at the adjoining corner of four numbers and thus bettered his odds fourfold of winning something. He did better at this, but after not much more than an hour, he was reduced to going with a

colonne

- a full column bet. Dwindling success at this about wiped him out.

The rising of the elderly woman from the table, and her murmur to save her seat while she was visiting the ladies room, served to snap Tyler into the realization that in one more spin of the roulette table, the odds were that he would be totally wiped out. No more time in hotels or restaurants and no plane ticket back to Florida.

He stood up from the table. The chips he had now were barely enough to cover getting back to the States. The

Lucky Card

was gone. He smiled bitterly with the thought that, in recognition of the boat's name, he should have tried his luck with cards rather than the wheel.

The Greek spoke for the first time. "Surely you're not leaving, young man. The evening has barely begun."

"You have all my chips," Tyler answered bleakly, trying to maintain a tone that salvaged his dignity.

"Not all. And I have enjoyed your company. I have enjoyed looking at you and dreaming of what might be."

So, he was right, Tyler thought. The man wanted to fuck him. He just looked down at the pile of chips mounded up in front of the Greek. The Greek was fondling them, running them through his hands, making love to them with his beefy fingers.

The game had gone on around them. The old lady was momentarily gone and Tyler and the Greek weren't placing bets but rather were staring at each other across the table and speaking in low tones that no one seemed to hear. If the croupiers and chef de partie were listening, they made no sign of it, in keeping with their professional training. The rock star only had eyes for the numbered squares on the table top and the spinning of the wheel and ears for the sound of the bead bouncing around in the wheel. The blonde, more than half drunk, and virtually draped on the tattooed arm of the rock star, only had eyes and ears for him.

"I could return the stake you came in with," the Greek said in a low voice, his eyes looking intensively into Tyler's face. "What did these funds represent?"

"My sailboat. I sailed it from the States three months ago."

"Is it a beautiful sailboat?"

"Yes," Tyler answered. "It's a thirty-nine-foot Southern Cross, built in 1986. It carried me across the Atlantic without a groan." The Greek's question brought tears to his eyes. He should have listened to Axel. He didn't fully understand what the

Lucky Card

meant to him until he had foolishly lost her.

"I have no use for a sailboat, beautiful or otherwise. I have a beautiful yacht of my own. But there may be something else you have, something equally beautiful, that I might have use for. I could give you your sailboat back - if you promised not to gamble it away again - in exchange for something I wanted."

"And what would that be?"

"I think you know. I would like the use of your body for, say, a week."

"The use of my body." Tyler looked around the table again. The croupiers and chef de partie were supposedly intent on their jobs - keeping the roulette table in action. And the rock star, whose attention also was absorbed in the game play, himself was betting enough to justify keeping this table open. The old crone was on the other side of the casino floor, liberating a martini from a tray and making small talk with a young, quite presentable waiter.

"You mean sex." He said in a resigned voice.

Picking up on the resignation, the Greek smiled and said, "Yes. Just the use of your body; you would not be damaged permanently. And you would not lose your sailboat. I believe, in watching you - especially how you have been watching the croupier here - that you even would enjoy the week."

"Starting when? Tomorrow?"

"Starting now."

"I would need to go back to the boat to pick up some things."

"Omar will accompany you," the Greek said, gesturing to the silent, heretofore unseeing bodyguard hovering behind his chair.

When they reached the gates where the dock of the marina split out into the walkways to the boat slips, Tyler told the bodyguard to wait at the gate and he would return in a few moments.

In the time it had taken him to walk from the casino to the marina Tyler had decided not to go through with it. The Greek was intriguing, but there was something about him . . . something that made Tyler feel he was dangerous and more of a risk than even Tyler wanted to take. He decided that, if he could, he would push the

Lucky Card

away from the pier when he got there and try to get it out into the harbor before the bodyguard could react. It was a cowardly act and something bred completely by panic. Tyler didn't consider himself a thief. And he didn't have the deed back to the sailboat. The Greek had said he would redeem that at the casino's cashier's office and have it for Tyler when he and the goon returned.

When Tyler got to the slip where he'd left the

Lucky Card

, though, the sailboat wasn't there. Stricken and confused, he looked wildly about him. Perhaps in his nervousness with the whole deal, he'd misjudged where

Lucky Card

's slip was. But, no he hadn't. It should have been right here. And there was something here. Two duffle bags, sitting on the pier. His duffle bags. Filled with his clothes.

The things he told the Greek he was coming back to fetch, not intending to fetch them at all.

The sailboat - and Axel - were both gone.

The goon had followed him out onto the walkway to the slip. Tyler turned toward the land. The man was so big he took up the full width of the pier. There wasn't much of a question that Tyler was going to pick up his duffle bags and follow the man back to wherever the Greek wanted him.

Even though he had been about to cheat the Greek and give him the slip, Tyler still felt stinging anger and frustration that Axel had done the very same thing to him. He'd taken Tyler's

Lucky Card

and deserted him. Tyler was in no mood to consider that, at least until he gave the Greek what the Greek wanted, the

Lucky Card

wasn't Tyler's - it belonged to the Greek. After he had redeemed the papers on the boat, then Tyler could start to track down Axel and what then really would be his property again.

* * * *

Deflated and abject, Tyler stood, naked, in the main bedroom cabin of Cosmo Eracules' sleek yacht moored off of, but in sight of, Monte Carlo.

"Turn, please, and bend over and spread your cheeks for me, please." Fully clothed in his tuxedo, now smoking a cigar and hefting a snifter full of brandy, the Greek inspected Tyler from across the room. "Very nice. Better than I expected. The deal was for whatever I wanted, for a week starting tonight. You do accept that, right?"

"Right," Tyler said, not really caring at the moment. His world had crumbled anyway. Axel had become his rod, the steadying influence in his life. And now both he and the

Lucky Card

were gone. It didn't matter much if Tyler got the deed back to the

Lucky Card

. It wasn't here and he had no means of tracking it - and Axel - down. At least that's how he felt at the present, darkest moment.

Tyler had met Axel Schmidt - or that was the name Axel had given him - in Portugal two weeks earlier. Some mail Tyler had seen while they were together had suggested that Axel really was a Hapsburg. They had both been staying at a B&B, Romantik Villa, on the Portugal coast in the village of Algarve. Tyler was in Algarve for thrills. He was forever taking risks, pushing himself to the limit. Crossing the Atlantic by himself in the

Lucky Card

had been one of these risks. Now it was cliff diving, also called tombstoning, off the Algarve cliffs, one of the most popular - and dangerous - locations for this activity.

They had met in the courtyard of the gay-friendly Romantik Villa, overlooking the ocean, over breakfast, the villa owners being both discreet and adept at matching their guests who had not come otherwise attached. Tyler usually lived on his boat, which was slipped down in the Algarve marina, but he occasionally took hotel rooms on land while he did a thorough cleaning of the boat - and of his clothes and himself - before moving on to the next promise of a thrill. He also occasionally sold his sexual favors to add to his income while he stayed in these hotels. He had picked the Romantik Villa specifically for this possibility.

He'd already jumped off the cliffs into the ocean twice the previous day. It satisfied him and he planned to do it twice more this morning from a higher cliff into a smaller patch of water before sailing down to Gibraltar and then into the Mediterranean. He had spent the previous afternoon and evening cleaning the sailboat and at a Laundromat, spending two nights in the Romantik Villa's smallest room.

Axel was in the master suite. He dressed for comfort - which today was only in a T-shirt and shorts, with sandals, no socks. Tyler wouldn't have said he was handsome - a protruding jaw precluded that - but he was tall and lean, while still being well-muscled, and was maybe five years older than Tyler's twenty-five. A German or an Austrian. Tyler didn't know which, so he settled on German - but he later found Axel was Austrian when he bridled at being called a German. He was big boned, with big hands and feet and a bit stooped and walked with a bit of awkwardness. Tyler wouldn't - and never did completely - associate Axel with wealth. He moved with a diffidence and shyness that tagged him as hands-on working class.

Tyler, who was model-handsome, and giving off the false air of wealth and of supreme confidence, had, at first, bristled a bit when the villa's owner asked him if Axel could be seated with him, but he slowly warmed to the conversation of the Austrian, which was straightforward and knowledgeable on any topic that came up.

And he was to find that a protruding jaw didn't show in the dark and actually had some advantages when giving head.

"I do it, I guess, because I enjoy the risk," Tyler had said to Axel's question about why he dived off the Algarve cliffs and planned to do it again from a greater height.

"But it seems so dangerous, and you aren't really trained for it, are you? I hope it's not a self-destructive impulse, because you are much too beautiful a young man to be risking yourself like that."

"I suppose that there is some obsession with danger involved," Tyler answered. "I was a racecar driver before deciding to buy a sailboat and cross the Atlantic - which was one of the greatest challenges I've experienced. And as soon as I mastered racing cars, I guess I lost interest in that. But what brings you to Portugal, Axel?"

"I'm traveling across Europe, fucking young men, looking for one to take home to the family castle, I guess."

Tyler laughed at that, taking it for a joke - not only the image of this gangling, shy man cavalierly fucking other men but also the mention of a family castle. But when he looked up, Axel was giving him a level, calm stare.

"You said you couldn't leave Algarve until you found a replacement monitor for your sonar," Axel said. "I know where you can get one, and I'll go buy it for you if you'll come up to my room after breakfast and let me fuck you."

Tyler was speechless. The man was talking about wanting to fuck him so openly and in such a straightforward manner.

"You do let men fuck you, don't you? This

is

a gay hotel, and there are only three options on that: bottom, top, and both ways. You are much too young and beautiful just to want to be near the players. Henri said he was sure you would be a bottom when he suggested we breakfast together - and that you'd be submissive in sex. He also said that you probably hadn't been fucked in a while and needed it. I have found that Henri was quite observant in these matters. He's been right in every other young man he's selected for me to fuck. I assure you that I'm very, very good. If you want a second opinion, feel free to ask Henri. If you don't like the first fucking, we needn't do it again, of course. That said, I usually make a man come more than once in a session. I have a very big cock."