What Doctor Coleiro had brought to Sebastian more than temporary relief of lack of full sexual satisfaction was a definition of his condition--and the assurance that he shouldn't worry about it at his stage of life. Sebastian had always been concerned that he was evil itself because of what he wanted from men and what he caused them to do. That's what had launched him onto the sea in the first place--a married man in Newport, Rode Island, where Sebastian's love for sailing vessels had sent him to the Naval Academy Preparatory School in seeking admission to the Naval Academy itself. Here he had met, been pursued by, and fucked by the naval captain who was the academy's executive officer and who was married to the daughter of a prominent retired admiral.
Although the captain had pursued, trapped, and initiated Sebastian, he had framed it all as Sebastian's fault--Sebastian had been provocative and had egged him on, so he said. Sebastian had fled from that, withdrawn from the school, and gone to sea on his own, serving on any sailing yacht he could sign up with and that caught his fancy no matter where it was going. And he had punished himself by giving himself to any man who wanted him. But now the doctor on Malta had framed his condition, identifying what had made it so easy for the academy captain to spike him, and as not something that was anyone's fault--certainly not Sebastian's.
"It is a gift," Coleiro had said, "and you are a gift--a gift from the sea. It's not your fault that men want to fuck you and that you enjoy them doing so."
Buoyed by this affirmation, Sebastian returned to Gainsworth's villa and was able to apply himself fully to the man's coming party--the premier periodic gay bash held in Valletta.
The concierge at the near-tenement apartment house of the fiction writer, Jonathan Tremble, gave Sebastian a suspicious look when she opened the door to him, but she stepped back and he took one step into the landing hall.
"Mr. Tremble?" Sebastian said. "I have an envelope to deliver to him." He would have been happy to just hand it to the gnarled gnome of a woman for her to deliver and she reached her hand out for it, but from the top of the stair hall, Jonathan leaned over the banister and bid Sebastian to come on up to his attic loft.
"I saw you coming up the hill, Sebastian. Come on up and help me with something."
"It's an invitation to tonight's party at the villa," Sebastian said as he made it as far as the half landing below where Jonathan, in athletic shorts and flip-flops, was waiting for him. For some reason he couldn't put his finger on, Sebastian had waited to the last moment to deliver this invitation. Tremble confused him. He wasn't either handsome or outgoing, nor was he in the best of shape. Thus, he shouldn't scope with Sebastian at all, who had all of the hunky men after him who he could desire. But still, there was something about the writer that confused and attracted Sebastian.
"You know how formal Clifford is with these things," Sebastian said, responding to Tremble's summons to come on up to his garret flat. "What do you need help with?"
"This bottle of scotch," Jonathan answered, lifting the bottle for Sebastian to see. "I've been fighting with myself to open it. But if I do and am alone, I know I'll drink the whole thing, pass out, and miss the party. With you to help me, though, I know I'll survive. Come on up and see my palatial digs. It's as hot as hell in here, though, so make yourself as comfortable as you can be--like, as you can see, I've had to do."
The first thing that struck Sebastian when he entered the room was how bright--and hot--it was. The flat was essentially one long room with a partition in the corner marking off a sink and toilet area. The space only had one window, but that was a gigantic French window with a fantail window over it that dominated the outer wall and opened onto a balcony. Beyond, Sebastian could see over the roofs of this section of the city and down to the water of the Mediterranean. The second thing he noticed was that the walls were plastered with posters of sailing yachts and there were wooden models of them strewn around the room.
"You have an interest in sailboats?" Sebastian said, a note of awe in his voice.
"Yes, they fascinate me. That's what all of my writing is about--roving on the sea in a sailboat."
"I never knew. That's my interest too."
"I know you are interested in sailboats--like that yacht you were watching in the cove yesterday. You never asked what my interests were--or read anything I wrote, I'll wager."
Sebastian looked at Jonathan, seeing him in a new light. Jonathan gave him a long, lingering look in return. When he realized that he was revealing too much of his yearning for Sebastian, he broke his trance, smiled shyly, and, raising the scotch bottle in one hand and two glasses in the other, said, "Shall we celebrate our mutual interest? And don't be shy. I know it's blazing hot up here. Strip down to your comfort level."
They both wound up on the bed, reclining across the width of it on their elbows, drinking scotch to the point of each hanging a buzz on and becoming talkative. They were looking through a book of vintage sailing yachts, discussing what they liked and what they liked better. Sebastian eventually was down to his briefs in the heat. They couldn't avoid touching now and then as they turned the pages of the book. Increasingly, they lingered longer in the touch before pulling away. Jonathan's gym shorts couldn't hide that he was mammothly hung--or that he was in erection.
"And you say you write of sailing the seas too?" Sebastian asked.
"Yes. I write of adventures of young men on sailing yachts--of dropping everything in their lives and sailing off for adventure. I write of young men taking the plunge of discovery and risk taking and forming life-long friendships... and relationships... while roving on the seas."
"Of relationships? What kind of relationships?"
"Of relationships between men," Jonathan answered. "I write on two levels. I have adventure stories of the sea that men like to read, and then, under another name I have adventure stories of the sea of men loving men that another kind of man likes to read. The latter books are more profitable than the former. Does that surprise you?"
"Well... I hadn't thought about it," Sebastian answered.
"I think of nothing else," Jonathan said, his voice going low and fuzzy. "Whenever I'm at Clifford's villa. Do you think I would spend time there if I wasn't gay and interested in men? Clifford's art colony--we're all gay; that's at the base of our art."
"Umm. I haven't given it much thought."
"Do you think I'd spend as much time there as I do if I wasn't interested in you?"
Jonathan grimaced and looked away--looking away so that Sebastian couldn't see his expression. It was painful to hear that Sebastian hadn't been thinking of him, when he had given Sebastian so much thought--when he was hard for Sebastian now as they lay so close together. But he'd known there was little hope there. Sebastian was too beautiful--too perfect--for someone like him. And Sebastian was basically a prostitute. He did it for money. Jonathan was practically destitute. There was little money to give.
Apparently oblivious to all of this--although it would have been strange for Sebastian not to be aware that Tremble was both super hung and in erection, and, of course, he wasn't unaware of this; he was processing the knowledge--Sebastian continued speaking. "I would like to read some of your work. That's just how I feel--just to break away from time to time and go to sea on an unplanned adventure--and if there's a man in all that who attracted me and who wanted me, just to let him have what he wanted."
"I'd love you to read some of my work. That's what you were thinking yesterday as you were watching the sailboat in the cove through the binoculars?--that you wanted to get away, to go back to sea?"
