"Wait for it, lad," Graham Morris whispered to Benji, as they both watched the hulking young man being pulled in multiple directions by five Cavalier King Charles spaniels in Graham's direction across a patch of grassland above the Tauranga beach. It was Saturday morning and the bit of parkland adjacent to the New Zealand coastal town's beach was designated as a dog exercise area on Saturday mornings.
Sitting in the shade of an open-sided café between beach and park, Graham knew about the Saturday hours. He also knew that the strapping young man, David Kauea, had a big bunch of spaniels. Graham couldn't have told you they were Cavalier King Charles spaniels, though, or that four of the ones that Kauea had had been New Zealand national champions. But he knew, from research, that Kauea brought them here on Saturdays. Graham was proud of the research he had done since the first time he'd seen the hunky New Zealander.
Beyond that, he knew what Kauea's sexual preferences were, that they complemented his, and that he wanted to try the young man out. Graham was an American, displaced to New Zealand by a frowning family in Baltimore because it was as far away in the world as they could send him. He was content to leave the States and stay in New Zealand because of the checks they regularly sent. He thought the joke was on them, though, because New Zealand's north island was a whole hell of a lot better place to be than Baltimore, Maryland, was in his estimation. And New Zealand men were a lot hunkier.
His eyes slitted as he saw the young man struggle across the parkland in his direction. The five spaniels that were dragging him along—surprisingly good at dragging as small as they were individually and as large as Kauea was—each had a different idea where they wanted to go. The young man's body was magnificent, nearly bursting out of his shorts and T-shirt with bulges of finely formed muscle. Graham wondered how much native Maori was in him. It seemed to be enough to give him bulk and a slightly mean look that belied a gentle temperament until he was lost in want, without making him prone to the big belly that seemed to characterize the more genetically pure Maori.
Benji was a spaniel too. But he was an English spaniel rather than a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. Graham could tell there was a difference, but he didn't really care. He didn't even care whether or not Benji was as pure bred as Kauea's dogs were. A dog was a dog and a spaniel was a spaniel to him, and he was counting on one spaniel being highly interested in meeting another one.
"Now, Benji," Graham said as he leaned down from the seat he was occupying at the fringe of the café and unleashed Benji.
As designed, the English Spaniel was off in a flash. And mere seconds later, Kauea's spaniels no longer were in a disagreement where they wanted to go. As soon as they saw Benji bounding toward them, they all pulled together in that direction. This nearly knocked David Kauea off his feet, despite having feet the size of boats, and he was dragged along toward the café.
Graham made a half-hearted attempt to rise and follow Benji, and he cried out in fake distress, as Benji disappeared in a pile of wriggling dog flesh.
It took David and Graham several minutes to get the dogs separated, during which David was profusely apologizing and expressing the hope that Benji wasn't damaged. Of course he wasn't. The dogs just wanted to do a meet and greet. But Graham did his best rendition of being frightened and concerned for his poor puppy.
"It's not your fault, of course," he said, doing what he could to make his voice sound shaky and unconvinced. He knelt beside Benji and felt the spaniel all over for damage that he'd have no idea what to do about even if he did find any. Benji panted and licked Graham's face, happy for the attention. Graham had a passing thought that he'd like the young Maori hunk to be doing that. "This leash has been giving me the slip. I'll need to get a new one."
"Here, let me check him over." David knelt down beside Graham and laid his hands on Benji. The spaniel liked his touch even better and turned his tongue on the young man. Graham made sure that his hand brushed on David's a couple of times while they both checked Benji over, and he liked the smile that David gave him in return.
"There doesn't seem to be any damage—to your dog at least. You seem a little shaky, though. Can I help you back to your table?"
You certainly can, you big hunk, Graham thought, but he actually answered with a weak, "That would be very kind."
Truth be known, Graham didn't give a shit about Benji. Benji wasn't Graham's dog. He belonged to some bird named Jill, who lived near a bar Graham frequented and who managed to be coming out of her condo building whenever Graham was parking his red sports convertible across the street from her building—and who was too dumb to realize that the club Graham frequented was a gay bar. She obviously liked the look of Graham, though—and Graham was, indeed, very easy on the eyes for his age. She was the first one Graham had thought of when he heard that David Kauea raised spaniels. Graham thought of her because it was a spaniel she was always pretending to walk when Graham was parking on her street.
It was a piece of cake for Graham to get the young David to help him back to his chair in the café—and then to sit with him and to share a cup of coffee. In fact, hooking up with David proved to be very easy indeed. Graham almost regretted that he'd done so much scheming to set up the meeting.
The man was randy, open, and forward, obviously very casual about his sexuality.
In addition to coffee, they also shared a discussion of what brought them to the seaside town of Tauranga on New Zealand's Bay of Plenty, to the south of the main city of the north island, Auckland. David Kauea was born and raised nearby, a good many of his ancestors having been Maori warriors, as indigenous to the island as anyone had ever been. He was an accountant and raised and showed Cavalier King Charles spaniels. He had eight of them. He'd only brought five of them out today. He was gay, a top, liked to fuck casually, and he thought that Graham looked just fine.
Graham, in contrast, was about as foreign to New Zealand as he could be. Banished by his stodgy old-line-Maryland family in the United States for being devil may care about his sexual proclivities, he had washed up on the shores of New Zealand with a pile of cash and a taste in wine. Bored in New Zealand doing little but seducing muscle-bound tops in gyms, he had combined his cash with wine and now owned a winery, Morris Estates, along the coast to the north of Tauranga. His taste in good wine, better wine than he produced, almost—almost—competed with his taste in hunky men to cover and ride him. Neither man seemed to be holding anything back in their discussion.
Tauranga was in the well-established Gisborne wine region, notable for its Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, Gewürztrammer, and Riesling wines, all of which Graham enjoyed drinking more than he did creating, bottling, and selling. Luckily, he had bought his vineyard lock, stock, vines, bottling room, vintner, and tasting room inclusive and the vineyard operations more or less took care of and paid for themselves.
Just to get it out of the way, Graham voiced a concern: Whereas David was in his late twenties, Graham recently had hit forty. Graham enthusiastically responded that he liked plowing men in Graham's age bracket.
Switching to beer from coffee, the discussions between the two deepened to even more intimate levels than their respective occupations and their mutual love for spaniels and to their deepest, darkest secrets and what they preferred to do in bed. Positions, bareback or condoms, favorite toys, frequency, and where to deposit cum. David proved to be even more devil may care about revealing his sexual proclivities than Graham was. Graham found the sensual openness of the young man both refreshing and highly arousing.
"You look familiar," Graham said, sitting back in his chair and feigning a look of contemplation and scrutiny. "Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"
"Perhaps at Pauli's? I must admit I've seen you there."
"Ah, yes," Graham answered, knowing full well he'd seen the young man at that gay club. "Now I remember. I've seen you with Andrew, one of Pauli's dancers, I believe."
"Yes," David admitted. "Andrew is a sweet fuck. And I believe I've seen you with the construction worker, George. He receives good ratings. I trust he does you well."
"Right," Graham responded.
