The Mural

It arrested my attention as soon as I walked into the room. Bigger than life it was. A mural of four hunky American Indian warriors, three standing on a prairie and the fourth astride one of three saddleless pinto ponies. All of them were decked out in war point, wearing just loincloths and animal-skin boots and with beaded necklaces fashioned like chest armor. They were all looking at the door to the room with belligerent expressions on their faces as if daring anyone to enter.

Since it said on the door that this was the Apache suite, my guess is that they were Apaches. They were rendered in full, vibrant color on a white wall.

I was duly awed and intimidated. It was an unusual touch in the rooms of the Casa de Coronado that I certainly hadn't expected. I hadn't expected to be in this room at all, in a boutique hotel at the corner of Albuquerque's Old Town. It was quite a find—sections of white-painted adobe guest rooms set haphazardly in a lush garden. I might easily have passed it by and ended up in a nondescript chain hotel.

I had come to Albuquerque in search of something special, though. Although what I'd come to find was something entirely different from the Casa de Coronado and its lush setting and huge murals on the guest room walls.

This had been Pete's idea. We had been living together for nearly six months now, starting off as a casual setup of sharing the same studio apartment in Dallas that each of us used only part time, as both of us were in jobs that put us in Dallas less than a third of our time. We had met through a mutual friend who had thought we would hit it off, but both of us had gone into the arrangement purely from a cost-efficient expectation and with the hope that we'd never actually overlap in our need to use the apartment.

But we did overlap and it was a small place with just one, double bed. I was to find that Pete was gay and aggressively so. I hadn't even thought of this as a possibility of a choice. I guess I was more taken with myself—narcissistic—than with anyone else, male or female. I'd slept with women before, but more because it was expected of a rising young advertising executive than because I particularly enjoyed the encounters. Relieving sexual stress was OK, but the woman all seemed to expect something from me that I had no inclination to give.

This bothered me, of course, and I grew to believe there was something cold as ice inside me, something that held me back and made it impossible for me to completely let loose, something that made sex unfulfilling for me and my partner both.

The same thing—the cold as ice thing—happened with Pete.

The first night we both found ourselves at the studio apartment with just the one double bed after a full day's work in the separate jobs that brought us to Dallas—Pete was an urban architect—Pete seduced me. Pete never seemed to find this difficult to do. He certainly had me compromised before I fully realized what was happening to me. He was a gorgeous hunk with a healthy ego and an overpowering libido. And I was as naïve as they come—my weakness helped by a good wine buzz and a highly successful day in the workplace.

Pete had me naked and on the bed, with him stretched alongside me, his mouth on mine, and his hand stroking my dick in a progression of seemingly innocent and innocuous stages of seduction that raised no flags of doubt and resistance—well, few. I did rather think it was getting out of hand, but he was so charming and we were trying to adjust to being roommates, and I didn't want to be impolite—until he had my dick in his fist. And then he was giving me so much pleasure that I didn't want it to stop. I didn't want it to stop when he was also swabbing the inside of my mouth with his tongue. And I didn't want him to stop when his lips descended my torso, giving special attention to my nipples and arm pits and navel—and cock and balls. And I didn't want him to stop when he was showing me what his tongue and fingers could do in my asshole.

I did freeze up and want him to stop, though, when he had his knees between my thighs and was rolling a condom on his cock.

I froze solid then. I didn't try to throw him out of bed—we slept in each other's arms in the single double bed that night and every subsequent night we found ourselves in Dallas together. I even soon learned to give him suck to ejaculation too. But each time he tried to mount me, I froze and cut off the progression of the coupling.

It wasn't that I didn't want it—I most certainly did. I just froze. I couldn't take that next step.

Pete was good about it and patient with me, but I could tell that it wasn't satisfactory for him, that he wanted and needed to go all the way.

I told him I didn't mind if this was as far as we went and that he got his fulfillment in other ways—and even brought them back to the studio apartment while I was there to fuck them. And he did bring a nice young man to the apartment one night—a yielding, dark-haired handsome youth who was quite willing to do a threesome with Pete and me. We lay in triple embrace on the bed and I kissed the youth as Pete fucked him. And I was aroused by this and Pete had his bulb pressing on my opening before I clutched up and just couldn't go through with it. The youth volunteered to hold me in an arm lock for Pete to force me beyond the threshold, but Pete wouldn't do it. I don't know what I would have done if he had forced me. It might have been enough to rid me of my inhibitions, but I'm glad Pete didn't chance it. I have a feeling it would have ended the relationship right there.

I'm not sure why my failure to do it all didn't end the relationship. But Pete told me that he had fallen in love with me—that he was willing to take me the way I was and for us to go no farther than we did. I believed he meant what he said—intellectually. But I was equally sure that he could never accept a limited relationship like that emotionally.

I told him I was willing to adjust my life to his—but only if and when we got over that hurdle.

That's when Pete suggested Gentleman Jim's ranch outside of Albuquerque.

"It's essentially a male brothel," Pete said. "I can arrange for you to go there and be conditioned, if you like. If it doesn't work, it would not be me that you had the bad experience with and we could at least continue on the same level we now have."

"I want to be with you fully, I really do," I had assured him.

"I know you do. But I obviously can't take you that extra step. When you have been initiated, I'm sure we can fuck like rabbits and both enjoy it immensely. But I am not going to force you."

"You say conditioned."

"Yes. If you go there and we pay ahead and you sign a contract, they will take you over the threshold one way or the other."

"One way or the other?"

"Yes. If necessary, they will force you—not roughly but inescapably—and then they follow up. If after the third or fourth time, you aren't conditioned to it—don't want to do it—they will stop. You will have signed a contract to absolve them of all guilt and responsibility, though."

I shuddered at the thought. But I agreed to it. I truly did want to be able to go all of the way with Pete. If this didn't work, we'd be no worse off than we were. Or so I told myself.

Arrangements were made and on the Tuesday in a week I'd taken off for vacation time, I drove from Dallas to Albuquerque, arriving early on Wednesday. I drove straight to Gentleman Jim's ranch.

I was quaking in my boots when the jovial fatherly man met me at the ranch house door and guided me into a central, two-story room with a log-beam ceiling and set up like a Wild West saloon bar.

"Here are your gentlemen of the afternoon," he said. "Zack and Mex." Zack was a big-boned, strikingly handsome cowpoke type with great muscle tone, sandy hair, and a warm smile. Mex was an even bigger and hunkier Mexican of swarthy, slightly mean-looking demeanor.

"Two?" I said in a decidedly choked-up voice.

"Yes. Your contract calls for completion of the service, regardless of the wishes you express in the bedroom, and then conditioning. You are booked for two nights here. Zack and Mex will accommodate you until tomorrow morning and then you will be assigned to another two for tomorrow afternoon and night. We service such contracts with two of our gentlemen at once to assure that the contract will be fulfilled. Only one will be servicing you at a time, of course."

Well, thanks for that "of course," I thought. I swallowed hard on that. I had no doubts that either of these hulks could have me if they wanted—that I wasn't strong enough to hold off either one of them.

"Once you walk through that door with Zack and Mex, you are going to be provided what is in the contract. If you cannot agree to that, don't walk through that door." The man was still smiling affably and he had spoken softly, but I could feel the panic rising inside me.

"Uh. Thanks. But not today, I don't think. I need to think about this longer. Can I reschedule?"

"Yes, of course—for a 10 percent penalty, because you have taken a time slot that cannot be filled by another. You've already paid and if you wish to reschedule we can charge that card for the balance. But you really needn't come back this far again unless you are prepared to go through with the contract. We don't really have time to keep making and putting off appointments. Of course what you've paid is nonrefundable."

"I understand," I said. But I didn't really understand. It wasn't the arrangement I didn't understand. What I couldn't understand was what kept me on the edge, not being able to go in one direction or the other. It would have been different if I had rejected the notion of having Pete's churning cock in my channel—but, intellectually, I didn't reject it. I welcomed it and ached for it. I was even ready emotionally for it, I thought. But I . . . just . . . couldn't go over that edge.

I retreated as far as Albuquerque to think this through. I needed a night or two in solitary to either build up to it or prepare myself to say good-bye to Pete and go looking for some other apartment arrangements in Dallas. It wouldn't be fair to Pete if I couldn't make this work.

This is what led me to stopping at the Casa de Coronado almost by whim. I had decided to drive all of the way to the Rio Grande beyond the Old Town, eyeing the possible motels on the way, and then coming back to the one that had seemed the most attractive. The most attractive, though, had been at the end of my run—just a golf course separated the hotel grounds from the banks of the Rio Grande. I was sure they wouldn't have a room available. But they did. They said they had a signature suite unoccupied, the Apache Suite. And I said I'd take it.

The room was more than adequate. It was large, although the overpowering mural—especially the menacingly expressions on the hulking Apache warriors—made it look smaller. There was a sofa and tub chair under the window wall beside the entry door and an enormous bureau in the corner of the other side. It must have been eight feet tall. The insets of the doors of the armoire were lined with white cowhide with brown splotches—matching the coloring of the pinto ponies in the mural. The base of the bureau held drawers and the top a large TV. The bed was a high king-sized one with sturdy logs as the frame. The mural was on the wall at the left of the door, with the bureau holding down the end nearest to the door, a desk at the base of the mural, and an adobe Southwestern-style fireplace in the far corner.

The room was more than adequate for the one night I would stay here.

At twilight I walked into the Old Town. They were having some sort of concert and Mexican dancing on the square, which had caused crowds to gather, but I walked beyond that and turned right into an alley of shops leading toward the art museum, which was already closed at this hour. I found a small French restaurant tucked back into a corner.

The waiter was very attentive—and quite cute. He guided me through the menu at leisure like I was the only patron in the place, which wasn't true. It obviously was a popular eating place. It had been one of the ones the attendant at the front desk of the hotel had recommended me to. There weren't too many recommendations once you got past Mexican food, which didn't often appeal to me.

The waiter, who said his name was Emile, and who could really have been French for all I knew—his accent sounded authentic enough in my limited knowledge of the language; I'd taken German in college—was impressed at my wine choice. Frenchmen I knew little of; French wines I was conversant in. I should have had a companion for dinner or thought less of the wine. My head was fairly spinning when I left the restaurant.

The waiter had asked about whether I had a companion and clearly was making suggestions that I could have one if I wanted, but if I wasn't going to open my legs for Pete, I didn't see doing it for a French waiter in Albuquerque.

The entertainment was still going full blast when I walked by the plaza en route to the Casa de Coronado. And it made me feel sad and isolated. And mad at myself for not loosening up. I had wasted a perfectly good French waiter with my barriers and my unwanted prudishness.

When I opened the door of the Apache Suite and entered my room, I scowled back at the Apache warriors and fished a book out of my bag to read. I started a fire in the fireplace—it was there so I might as well use it—and settled in the tub chair.

The fire from the fireplace, though, cast dancing light onto the mural and made the Apache warriors look even more menacing and determined to be doing something more than just being plastered in place on the wall.

I couldn't concentrate on the book and I was in a haze of good wine. So, I stripped my clothes off, took a shower, turned off the light, and nestled under the covers of the king-sized bed. As far as I could determine, I went immediately into a deep sleep.

I woke to the sensation of a body lowering itself next to mine. Imagining myself back in the studio apartment with Pete, I sighed and turned on my back, awaiting his overture into a lovemaking that would go no further than a sixty-nine suck but that would be sufficient for me if not for Pete.

I did, indeed, feel a hand on my cock, and I moaned and began to move my hips in slow motion to the grip on the cock. But this didn't feel like the type of approach Pete made.

I opened my eyes to shock. The first thing I saw was that now there were only three Apache warriors on the wall mural, which was highlighted in a eerie, uneven light coming from the dying fire in the fireplace. All three of the Apaches had their faces turned to me now. And their facial expressions were filled with lust.

I started to cry out when I turned my head to see that the fourth warrior's body was stretched along mine. A strong hand covered my mouth, though, muffling my cry, and the other two warriors not sitting on a pony in the mural came off the wall and on the bed, joining the first in manhandling me. A scarf that had been hanging on the loincloth belt of one of the warriors—no doubt a souvenir of some raid on a wagon train—was being used as a gag to stifle my cries.

Two of the warriors held me down, while another one worked my body over with his lips and teeth, concluding the journey at my asshole, where he opened my channel with his tongue and teeth, while I panted heavily and bit into the scarf. Then I was carried by the three of them, squirming but without effect, back to the wall. They carried me through the wall and out onto the prairie.

The warrior on the pinto pony was scooting back onto the rump of the horse, taking off his loincloth, and smiling lasciviously at me, while the three other warriors lifted me onto the horse's back, in front of the seated warrior, with my back running up the horse's neck. The horse snorted and set its legs, but it held fast. The seated warrior's cock was in full erection.

The three standing warriors held me in place, imprisoning my arms and spreading my legs, while, as I screamed through the scarf and tensed up and arched my back in fear and pain, the seated warrior put the bulb of his cock to my opening, revolved it around at the rim, and then literally screwed it into me. He stopped a few inches inside me for me to adjust to him. Free hands stroked my body and lips went to my nipples and cock.

Pete's words when he came close to taking me flowed into my mind. "Relax, just relax, and let the tension flow out of your body. It will be easier. The pleasure will enter sooner. You'll be able to take the cock. You'll see."

I closed my eyes and willed my body to relax, which, slowly it did. And as I relaxed, my channel yielded to the warrior's cock and he slowly filled me with his warm, throbbing shaft, moving ever farther up into me. The pain subsided and I felt filled, possessed. And then the cock began to slow pump me and all of my senses focused on my channel. I was moaning and my hips began involuntarily to roll with the fuck. My own hard cock was inside a warm, moist, sucking mouth and I could feel my juices rising. And I gave in completely to the experience, not thinking of the strange, exotic circumstances, but going with the fuck, enjoying it, not wanting it to stop.

This couldn't be a dream, I reasoned. I felt every sensation of the experience—the pain followed by the ecstasy of pleasure. I ejaculated, but the pumping inside me continued and the warm mouth held my cock as it softened.

I felt the ejaculation of the warrior inside me and heard his war cry of release. And then I was being pulled off him by the three warriors. They didn't release me, though.

One warrior, the tallest and most muscular of those who had been standing by the ponies, stood behind me, wrapped an arm around my belly and bent me over in half. My feet didn't touch the ground. Then his cock was pushing inside me and he fucked me by swinging me forward and back on his cock until he, too, came.

Exhausted, my eyes swimming in cum, I was carried to the bed then and the other two warriors, one after the other, fucked me as well. Or, rather, I fucked the fourth warrior, pushing him onto his back and straddling his hips, positioning his cock bulb at my hole myself, and impaling myself on his shaft and doing all of the pumping to his first and my second ejaculation.

I woke in the morning, woozy from the wine, feeling like I had slept little, and will a strange pain in my loins. But I was purring. I was laying on my side and when my eyes focused they saw the beads of an elaborate Indian necklace on the nightstand. I couldn't remember that having been there last night. I turned my eyes to the mural. All was in order there—or so I initially thought. One of the standing warriors wasn't wearing a beaded necklace and all of the others were. I could have sworn that they all were painted wearing the chest decorations.

And now that I looked harder, their expressions were no longer scowling and menacing. Now they all had a slight smile on their faces.

I took up the beads and dropped them into my suitcase en route to hobbling to the bathroom. I was hobbling because there was a pain in my ass—and I briefly thought I might as well have eaten at a Mexican restaurant last night if my ass was going to be on fire in the morning anyway.

I showered and then when I came out of the bathroom, I made a call to Gentleman Jim's ranch. It may have all been my imagination—it probably was. But I felt I was across the barrier now. To make sure, I'd keep that date at Gentleman Jim's before I returned to Pete. I felt no inhibitions now about being topped. Now I couldn't wait for the next time. And besides, Pete and I had already paid a big sum for the contract.

Zack had a piston for a cock, fucking me forever until I had come twice. And Mex had a cock that stretched me to the limit and reached for my tonsils. I thoroughly enjoyed them both—and the two guys from the next day almost as much. None of the four could imagine why I'd come to them with any inhibitions about being cocked at all. But I paid them all well, so none of them got into the particulars on what had loosened me up between the afternoon I'd withdrawn from them, a shaking mess, and the day Zack and I fucked on the floor because I couldn't wait for it to get to the bed.