All the time I was standing out on the balcony of Colleen Addison's house fourteen miles south of Athens, in Voula, overlooking Greece's Miroon Sea, and engaging in chit chat with her and the man who was introduced to me merely as Sam from the Economic Section, I kept thinking that I knew him from someplace but couldn't place him. He, on the other hand, seemed to remember me well and was giving a knowing little smile while we talked that I found maddening. It was burning me up not to be able to place him. It evidently was from somewhere in my past, and I wasn't real anxious to dredge up some of my past.
I was on TDY—temporary duty assignment—at the U.S. embassy in Athens, where I was training the local employees of the American Cultural Center in the new computer programs that would enable them to churn out professional-looking publicity material without having to go to a printer. Colleen was the embassy's cultural affairs officer and was doing what she could to make my stay less dull than it usually was when I was on one of these swings around Europe. She wasn't holding this gathering of a smattering of embassy officers and Greek artists, writers, and actors for me, of course, but she had invited me to attend and had seen to it that a driver was available to bring me out to her place.
Colleen's Voula house was quite a place, high on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean, with a long terrace off the back and good entertainment space. She'd been assigned the house in keeping with what her job was—promoting U.S. culture while pretending to have interest in promoting the culture of Greece, as if Greek culture needed promoting.
Colleen, Sam, and I had nearly run out of chit chat, especially as Sam seemed to be savoring something the other two of us weren't privy to, when we were joined by a Greek god. I could only call him that because, while many Greek men were handsome and exuded macho sensuality, he was a man among men—muscular, dark and sultry with what was probably a perpetual five-o'clock shadow, as he was hirsute. His curly black hair seemed to grow perceptibly as we stood there talking. I was lost in his startling blue eyes.
"Pirro," Colleen said, "You know Sam, I'm sure"—and the Greek god turned an indulgent smile on Sam, which was answered with one I perceived to be subservient, as if Pirro knew Sam intimately. The back of my mind was beginning to rumble toward a possible recognition of Sam. "And this is Trent Townson from Washington, who is out here helping us tone up our publicity systems. Trent is a short story writer too. Pirro is the star of one of the most popular Greek soap operas."
I shook hands with the actor as we both juggled our cocktail glasses to another hand. His handshake was firm, I'd almost say possessing. My mind was beginning to stir possibilities with Pirro that went beyond conversation. The four of us spoke briefly before Colleen saw a Greek writer she wanted to introduce me to and then we walked off and left Sam and Pirro to entertain each other.
I felt a bit weak in the knees. I found the Greek actor beyond sexy. And it was while we were walking off that I at last placed Sam firmly in my mind—and blushed. I think it was the "knowing" look between the economic officer and the actor that had done it.
I had only seen Sam once before, but it was under the most compromising of circumstances. We were on side-by-side twin beds in a bedroom of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity at Duke University in North Carolina, where we were both being fucked by members of Miami University's track and field team. I was being doubled by a shot putter and a long-distance runner. Sam, who was lying under a decathlon stud, was from the nearby University of North Carolina, also in Chapel Hill, and Duke was the venue of an all-conference track meet.
I was what was known as a "reliever" in my fraternity at Duke. It was a jock fraternity, and I was there by right of being on the swim team and highly ranked in the conference in that sport. But I also was there because I gave blow jobs and took cock on demand. That was the reliever part. When one of the other fraternity brothers needed relief, I provided it. I rather thought that Sam did the same thing at his fraternity at UNC. The day I had seen Sam, we'd spent several hours on side-by-side beds in my fraternity room entertaining a procession of visiting field and track jocks.
This definitely was part of the past—nearly five years previously—that I was trying to keep in the past. It had just been that one year for me. I'd pulled out from underneath it, gave up the fraternity, applied myself to my studies and to the swim team, and did extremely well. And I'd like to say that it was all in the past.
I hadn't exactly turned to women, but I had kept my encounters with men to the bare minimum, and my current job with the government put me in danger for engaging in any homosexual activity. So, for the most part, I didn't. For the most part. Luckily the State Department wasn't as strict about that as other agencies were. That, I guess, was why Sam could be a Foreign Service officer. He was certainly more gay than I was. You couldn't talk to the man or watch him walk and not know that he was gay.
There was no chance I would be getting it on with Sam here, of course. We wanted the same thing from another man, so it wasn't anything close to a fit. We had kissed and fondled each other during that day, but it was more of a sharing experience thing—we each had a macho guy between our thighs at the time, fucking us. Some of the time that day I had two at once. We weren't having sex with each other—not really. The Greek actor—Pirro—was more what I went for in a lover than someone like Sam.
But Sam was a danger while I was here. And perhaps I was a danger to him, as well, although he had recognized me and he certainly hadn't acted like he was in any sort of danger. I resolved to stay away from him as much as possible—and hope that he wasn't a gossip. My suppressed sexual proclivities weren't something I thought needed to become part of this TDY.
Upon leaving the party, Colleen noted that later in the week she would be going to a beach to get out of the smog and bustle of Athens and figured I'd be ready for a break then too. "Want to do a picnic at a Greek beach?" she asked. "I know of several that will be virtually deserted and where neither of us will have to deal with a crowd of boisterous Greek artists for a couple of hours."
"Sure," I answered. "Nice of you to include me." I momentarily hoped that she wasn't coming on to me. I'd go along, to a certain limit, of course, for appearances sake. But she was a bit too openly flirty even for my limited taste in women. She was quite good-looking, though.
As it turned out Pirro was included in the outing too. I about melted when I came out of the hotel to get into Colleen's Volvo convertible and Pirro was sitting in the front seat, all curly black hair—he was shirtless and had a magnificent, darkly tanned and hairy chest—blue eyes, and pearl-white smile.
I have no idea where the beach was that Colleen took us to—and don't even know what direction from Athens it was in. We walked down from the road through a picturesque field of red poppies, though, to a line of tall rocks split by a curving rock-walled passage that ended at the top of a secluded beach. A stretch of something short of a hundred feet of white sand in a cove protected at each end by high rocks went down to the sea, which was so translucent that I could see to the bottom a good distance out into the water. There were shapes of smooth-topped rocks in the bed of the sea, but most of what I could see was an extension of the sand under a slowly rolling surf.
We parked the basket and blanket near the top of the beach. Colleen, a willowy sunshine blonde in her early thirties, pulled the halter top of her bikini off while I was opening up and setting out the two beach blankets she'd brought. She had breasts, but they perked more than flopped. Still, I took my breath in at how cavalier she was with the gesture—and how good-looking she was. She wasn't exactly beautiful. It was more that she had accentuated her best attributes and seemed so free and uninhibited.
