I had been in the stone cottage I was renting in the artist's village overlooking the Mino River south of the Galician town of Lugo for two weeks, working up a group of themed short stories, before I ventured up to the bar in the village square. I wasn't so much looking for a drink—or drinks—as I was for companionship. I'll admit that right off. I had wine and liquor in the cottage. What I didn't have was a man between my thighs.
I picked the village not just because it was one popular with artists of all kinds but also because these were mainly gay artists. I'd been told about the village when I was cruising in Key West, and I'd kept it in mind ever since. I wrote gay erotica. I didn't do it for the money. I had money. I did it for the release. I was highly sexed and glad that I was good-looking enough not to worry about finding bed partners.
But it had taken me several weeks to get here from where I lived in Boston among what was known as the Boston Brahmans—families who came over on the Mayflower and made a lot of money off the New World. And now I'd been in my rented village cottage perched over the River Mino for two weeks and hadn't gotten any—sex, not money.
I'd been told that it was fine being a gay male in this village—that I'd blend in, no problem—and, more important, that I easily could find satisfying casual sex. It was time to find out if the ready acceptance extended to the bar in the village square—because I needed it so bad just then that my hands were trembling.
There weren't many in the bar. It was nearly midnight and on a weekday. But they were all men, which I found to be a hopeful note. Only two of them were of possible interest to me—or so I thought in those early days in Galicia—and those two were talking to each other at the end of the bar, one of them half behind the bar. He was an Arab of some sort. Muscular, maybe in his late thirties, which was in his favor. I was in my mid-twenties and liked a guy to be ten or twenty years older than I was. I wanted an experienced man who easily took control. He met a couple of more of my specifications too. He was handsome in a thuggish sort of way, with a black beard and mustache and an unruly head of black hair. There was a bit of a wild and dangerous look to him. He was wearing a tight T-shirt over a great chest and athletic shorts. His thighs were those of a soccer player.
The man he was talking to was older, the florid complexion of a reddish blond, with smatterings of gray. He was on the large-boned, solid, barrel-chested side. I gauged him as something between forty-five and fifty. He was the in-command kind and didn't seem to mind being out only in athletic shorts and espadrilles on his feet. His chest was covered with curly hair, topped with a gold chain with some sort of pendant hanging from it I couldn't decipher from the other end of the bar in the dimly lit room. His eyes were a milky blue and his smile was ready. He had turned and smiled at me when I came in. My first impression was "Picasso," although a larger scaled one, when I saw him, probably because he was bald, which contrasted with how hairy his chest was, and because this was an artists' village. This came proved to be prophetic. He had a bit of a paunch on him, but he wasn't quite fat. He was just very comfortable—and capable—looking. He was much the kind of man I've gone under before who proved to be a fully satisfying lover.
The bartender, who looked like he was just coming on duty, was tall, gaunt, and gnarled. He looked like a good guy to talk to but not to give my ass to.
Other than that, every man in the bar, although they all ogled me, probably wondering who I was and why I was there, was either too old or too young and swishy, obviously looking for the same thing this evening that I was. The exception was the couple of guys at a table back in the corner. They were good looking, but they also were a couple, I knew. I'd been told the British movie star, Warren Cavandish, lived here and now, in his early fifties, limited his movie roles to one every two years. He once played the ladies' man in movies, but he'd been outed and those roles had dried up. I heard he was living in isolation and was shacked up with a younger makeup artist, and the guy with him at the table fit that bill.
I was too quick to write off the older Spanish men who were in the bar. Later in the summer, I took a turn with one of them—and then several others—because they proved to be masters of the fuck and other forms of getting a young man off. No matter how shriveled up, leathery, and ugly they'd become, in the dark they could bring me off repeatedly. I certainly was aware how many of them were assessing me that first evening in the bar and planning on how they would use me. The younger, swishy men didn't, of course. They assessed me, but as competition. The naivete in me had me thinking "fat chance" as the old men looked me over. Each and every one of them who did, though, eventually covered me in exotic and totally used ways before the summer of my residency was over.
"Slide on down here for a welcoming drink, Mr. Pendleton." The man, who had reminded me of Picasso, was smiling at me. "We can't feel each other out from that distance."
He knew my name. At least he had included, "Are you one of
those
Pendletons?" in the same sentence, which is what I got a lot of in the States. And, yes, yes, I
was
one of those Pendletons.
As I moved down the bar, he continued. "We were wondering when you would come out to play. And you just came in and sat in the shadows, no smile and 'Good to see you all.'"
"You were engaged in a discussion when I came in."
"Oh, you mean Issam. Issam Ehkath. He's Moroccan. Does handy jobs here in the village, including working behind this bar sometimes. In exchange they let him bunk down in a shed in back. He's doing a job on my house. Replacing roof tiles. He's got quite a body, doesn't he? But I wouldn't get to chummy with him, if I were you."
"Yes, yes, he's really built," I acknowledged. "And quite a healthy head of hair."
"He's a wild man all right."
"And why would I want to stay away from him?"
"He's been in prison. We all know that. Rumor is, though, that he just walked out of a prison in Santiago de Compostela and is still a fugitive. I am Sergei Minkovich. Swiss. I paint. You are Bradford Pendleton. You write dirty stories. Very good ones. I've read a lot of them. They get me off wonderfully." He had signaled the barman for drinks and something strong, but good, was delivered to me. He hadn't asked me what I wanted to drink.
"You've read my stories? And I go by Brad," I answered. It was quite fine with me if the Pendleton name never arose here in Spain. It was a long way from Boston, but pretty much anywhere in the States that people I met grabbed hold of that name meant they were sucking up to me, wanting something—wanting a handout of some sort. Gauging my nature, it often was men, approaching me through sex. I didn't mind—or parry off—the approach, but I grew tired of the sucking up.
"When Francisco rented his cottage, he told us who would be here for the summer. It gave me time to read some of your stories. Your writing makes a man hard. I can hardly believe the positions you use."
I laughed. "You say 'we' were told I was coming. Who is 'we'?"
