Should I have felt ashamed, embarrassed, abashed, or guilty? Truth to tell, I enjoyed watching myself getting fucked almost as much as I enjoyed doing it. My cock hardened again, and I felt a pulsing arousal throughout my body. Perdikoim watched the action with a secret smile playing across his face. Even Munchie watched. My cat had witnessed similar scenes during his lifetime and even tried to join the action.

  “Is there a place for me in Heaven?” I asked.

  “Of course there is. Gay Heaven.”

  “Are cats allowed?”

  “Certainly. Gay Heaven would be a poor place without cats. Take a look.”

  The scene on the wall shifted. A group of beautiful guys wearing bicycle garb, which fit their curves deliciously, were pedaling down a paved country path. The bushes were blooming brightly and the song of birds filled the air.

  “They have bicycles in Gay Heaven?”

  “Sure. Some guys bicycle there and some don’t. Some just like wearing tight pants. Others like wearing no pants.”

  The scene shifted to a beach where a bunch of naked guys were tanning on the sand or playing some grab-ass game in the surf. The game appeared to involve numerous acts of gay sex, the winners or losers putting forth anally or orally as the rules demanded while the onlookers applauded.

  Then we looked into a luxury suite where I was sitting with Munchie. I was reading aloud from a first edition of the Burton Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, and my cat was listening attentively. Another man was with me, gazing fondly at me as I read, and a sexy male angel was serving frozen chocolate-banana daiquiris.

  “A glimpse of your own future,” Perdikoim commented. “Do you need to see more?”

  I stooped and picked up Munchie. Holding my cat in my arms, I told Perdikoim, “That’s the Heaven for me. Munchie and I are ready.”

  The sun shines large and warm in a sky of perfect blue. The refreshing breeze, which ripples the multicolored petals of the bougainvillea and rustles the broad-leafed orchids, wafts across me with the scent of jasmine. The swimming pool is crowded with hot-looking bikinis, swim briefs, and thongs into which even hotter-looking guys are stuffed. I stand on the ledge, admiring my own reflection, framed between the coconut palm fronds and the profusely flowering hibiscus. I am exquisite in my white swim briefs. I love my eternal body, just as we gay boys love to show off in swimsuits.

  I dive headfirst into the pure water, creating hardly a splash as I cut through the surface. I float up next to Richard, who is resplendent in his hot-pink bikini with the tight seam up his crack. I met Richard soon after Munchie and I arrived in the gay paradise, and we have been lovers for millennia—if time has meaning.

  Gripping Richard’s solid buns, I kiss his lips until we descend toward the heavenly tiles on the bottom. Nobody drowns in Heaven, so we sink to an erotic mosaic of beautiful boys pleasuring one another. Hardly needing the enticement of the mosaic, I finger Richard’s dickhead through the slick fabric of his bikini. Richard holds my ass with one hand while he fondles my dick with his other.

  Within a minute, I have one hand down in Richard’s swim briefs, and he gets his hand into mine. My dick is solid, so hard that it strains the front of my swimsuit. Richard is stroking my shaft, fingering my dickhead, and revolving his hand as if he is trying to unscrew a bottle cap. My right hand is busy in his swimwear, while my left hand slowly strokes his buttocks through the thin cloth made translucent by the water. My white swim briefs are transparent when wet.

  Above our heads, guys are swimming, and the flashes of their tanned bodies and colorful swimsuits enhance the magic of the moment. We cannot talk beneath the surface, but we can feel each other’s emotions. My heart races as I feel Richard’s body moving through the stages of high arousal to approaching orgasm and ejaculation.

  His nearness to coming rushes me to the edge. I feel my heavenly heart beating faster, my nostrils flaring, my nipples crinkling, my asshole contracting. On Earth, Renaissance wits dubbed orgasm the “little death.” In Heaven, it is the “immense life.” I work the head of Richard’s cock with my thumb and forefinger, massaging it deeply, twisting and wringing it until I feel the ripples of rapture growing. I stroke hard again, striking his dickhead with my fist on each upstroke.

  Richard follows suit, treating my cock as I treat his. My own ripples of pleasure are growing toward the immense life; throbbing waves wash down my cock, and my whole body stiffens. For a moment, all I can move is the pounding fist with which I beat Richard’s meat.

  Oh, Brandon, you’re making me come, Richard thinks, his red fiery thoughts pure blasts of pleasure. Every guy in the pool feels the shock waves of our lust and emergent orgasms. Thunderous vortices of pleasure claim me; my body thrills to the rising blast. Richard’s buns beneath my left hand tighten harder, grow rounder and more enticing (were an increase in perfection possible), and his muscles pump his first blast of come into his bikini.

  My own jism flings forth in the next instant. Richard’s cock discharges and gushes in my hand while my cock blasts its juices into his. Richard’s face is a mask of unrestrained joy. Feeling the beams of my own visage, I kiss his lips as we linger in orgasm, rampage in ejaculation, and savor the fruits of the “immense life.”

  As our orgasms still, we slowly rise to the surface. “That was hot,” Richard murmurs when our heads are clear of the water. He looks at Munchie, who has caught a mouse and is eating it fastidiously. Within minutes, the mouse will regenerate into a new body so it can go on with its mousy existence. Like the ripe fruit that we pluck from the trees, only to see it promptly replaced, nothing ends in Heaven.

  “Let’s cool off in the snow,” Richard suggests.

  No sooner has the image filled our minds than we are standing above the timberline on a snow-capped mountain. Our swimwear has been replaced by sexy, colorful winter costumes. We inhabitants of Heaven never need transportation. Once we visualize any place, we are there. The same goes for changes of clothing. A guy can follow the Earthly process, but Eternity can dispense with the productions of time. Richard and I bypass those mundane transitions.

  Cooling from our exuberant orgasm, Richard and I snowshoe through the winter fairyland, where the falling flakes make fantastic arabesques of the bushes and trees, while red and blue snow birds eat the honey sticks hanging from the spruce. When we tire, we snowshoe to a delightful Swiss chalet, where we slurp hot cocoa with shots of buttered rum and gorge on dark chocolate cake in twelve layers held with thick frosting and crèmes.

  Back at the swimming pool, I call for Munchie. My cat has spent the afternoon chasing mice and butterflies, lapping cream from a glazed bowl, and napping under the croton bushes. He hurries to me, and we return to our apartment along the tern-roosting shore of a wide silver lake.

  Our local newspaper, The Elysian Gazette, is filled with news of who has arrived in Gay Heaven that day and who has formed new friendships or found new lovers. Our personal angel, Sachiel, spreads a couple of pages of that day’s Gazette onto the kitchen floor, scoops heated and boned mouse meat and songbird into an Irish blue glass dish, and gives this collation to Munchie, along with a fresh bowl of celestial water.

  For Richard and me, Sachiel has prepared an equally scrumptious dinner: shredded chicken marinated in white wine and topped with fried noodles, mixed peas with shallots, potatoes baked in sea salt with cheese, bacon, and cream inside, green salad with Roquefort dressing, and ice cream topped with plum cordial and cocoa chunks.

  Sachiel, who is delighted to play our flunky and cater to our every whim, is pretty scrumptious himself. Richard claims that Sachiel has more curves than a London playhouse. What Richard means by that allusion I cannot say; his Earthly life occurred in an earlier time than mine, and in another country. Both Richard and I paddle Sachiel’s round ass as he serves us, making the pretty angel giggle.

  I have heard that in some of the Heavens, people do not eat or sleep; in some they don’t even recognize each other, and there are no cats, bicycles, or books, not to mention cute guys in sexy sportswear. Not one of those places sounds like Heaven to me. Our Heaven, which Perdikoim deemed “Gay Heaven,” is truly heavenly, and not only because gay guys desire it. In this happiest of Heavens, we eat, sleep, love, travel, and play.

  At the end of another perfect day, Richard and I cuddle in our bed, ready to rest after our adventures and games, yet not quite ready for sleep. Richard’s thick cock is hard before we ever hit the sheets. Since he is a natural top and I am an everlasting bottom, our relationship is perfect. I roll onto my stomach and pull up my right leg to give him easy access. Richard lubricates his cock and slips two slick fingers into my ass. I sigh with contentment as he pushes them into me. My cock is hard with lust as Richard prepares my asshole for action.

  “You know, back in 1624, I got hanged for doing this very thing,” Richard says with a laugh. “Publicly executed for buggering a cabin boy.”

  “People were so enlightened on Earth,” I quip sarcastically. “Things weren’t that great yet, even during my lifetime.”

  “None of that matters now.” Richard climbs onto me and positions his slick cock against my hole. I push my anal sphincter to let him in. “That’s why this is Heaven,” he says, gliding delightfully into me.

  As Richard slowly fucks me, Sachiel enters, smiles at our pleasurable activity, and lights scented candles, well placed where Munchie cannot brush against them. While Richard continues to fuck me, his heavenly tingles growing toward the long, sustained orgasm that will fire my own orgasmic delights, Munchie jumps onto the foot of our bed, watches with his feline eyes, and then curls into a ball to sleep the sleep of paradise.

  As our orgasms climb, mounting minute by minute to greater heights of intensity, Sachiel whispers, “Good night, boys,” and softly closes the door.

  CHIAROSCURO

  Jay Mandal

  At this time of day, the ornate pump on its circular stone base was in shadow, as was the palm tree to its left. The lower part of the village hall was also in the shade, but the top was in the sun, along with the bell tower and the church. Light and dark, sun and shade. Chiaroscuro.

  It was a view he never tired of looking at. But for how much longer would he be able to see it?

  They’d come here in 1965 and had fallen in love with the place. Even when the law in Britain changed, they’d not returned. The people accepted them, welcomed them, even.

  The square had been different then. The pump didn’t work, so they had repaired it. No one seemed to care about the plants, so they had weeded and watered the soil, and watched as the garden flourished. And the people watched them. So what if they were both men? That was life.

  Michael learned the skills necessary to survive in a small community. Carpentry and joinery; painting and decorating; cleaning windows and mending shutters. Peter, usually a shy person, began to teach English in the school and to anyone who wished to learn. The women practiced as they sewed, their menfolk not jealous of the attention they paid to another man.

  As the years passed, they absorbed the language, customs, and culture of the people. The local children—now fluent in English—grew up and had children of their own. Michael and Peter were asked several times to be godparents.

  “But we’re Protestant,” they had objected at first.

  “Who gives a fig?”

  “The priest, for one.”

  “You let me talk to him.”

  “And we’re—”

  Antonio cut him off angrily. “You are good people. Who better to be godparents?”

  One day, Michael caught sight of their reflections, and realized they’d grown old. Where had the time gone? When had their hair turned gray, their shoulders begun to curve, and their skin become fine like parchment?

  Peter, as if he sensed something was wrong, looked up. “Yes?”

  “I love you.”

  “Then I have everything I’ve ever needed or wanted.”

  “Don’t leave me,” Michael whispered.

  “I shall never leave you.”

  They lost weight. Peter began coughing.

  “A summer chill,” he said. They both felt the cold now.

  It didn’t get better.

  “See a doctor,” Michael begged. But he knew how Peter hated hospitals and wasn’t surprised when he refused. They were old, they had to accept these things.

  Then one day, Peter coughed up blood.

  Events moved swiftly after this. They saw a doctor—not the one in the village, but one at the hospital in the nearby town—who asked if Peter could come in for tests.

  “Of course,” Michael said immediately, overruling Peter. He felt guilty for not having realized Peter was ill, not simply old.

  Peter remained in the hospital for a week. The tests came back. The doctor said he was very sorry. There was nothing more he could do.

  “I want to die at home,” said Peter, clasping Michael’s hand in an unprecedented show of public affection.

  “I’m not sure you’re up to the journey to England.”

  “Not England. Home.”

  “All these people…” Michael indicated the villagers gathered around Peter’s grave.

  “It is too much?”

  “No, it’s wonderful. Thank you, Antonio.”

  Antonio squeezed his shoulder.

  The new priest—the old one had passed away—looked at Michael. “Faith, hope, and charity,” he said, speaking in his precise English. “But the greatest of these is charity.” Another word for love.

  The half-forgotten words brought tears to Michael’s eyes.

  When Michael next went for his daily walk, he hesitated at the point where the path forked. He and Peter would usually take the easier route to the right. Today he headed left in the opposite direction toward the village’s small cemetery. He stood by Peter’s grave for a few minutes, then he went and sat on the nearby bench in the pale, winter sunshine.

  The days grew longer as winter gave way to spring. One morning, as he returned from the cemetery, Michael saw an easel had been set up in the square. In front of it stood a young man. Michael was curious but did not wish to disturb the stranger.

  The young man was there again the next day when Michael returned home from his walk, and for several days afterward. They began nodding at each other.

  Michael hurried back. If he was lucky, he’d escape the rain. The painter was in the square, seemingly oblivious to the darkening skies. Suddenly, there was a clap of thunder, and the boy looked up in dismay. He gathered up his brushes and paints and began struggling with the easel.

  Michael knew the young man would never make it back to his lodgings before the heavens opened.

  “This way,” he said, taking the easel from the boy’s hands. He led the lad into his house, and into the small sitting room. “Just in time!” Michael said, as the rain started to lash the window.

  The boy shook his head, and rainwater flew everywhere.

  “A towel,” Michael suggested, and went off to get one. When he returned, he said: “And some soup. I always have soup after my walk if I’m not too tired.”

  The young man looked worried. “Please don’t go to any trouble on my account.”

  “It’s no trouble at all. I don’t get many visitors nowadays.” He turned on the gas, then began to get out bowls and spoons, and to cut bread. Soon the aroma of soup filled the room.

  The boy wolfed down his food before Michael had barely started his own. He must have been starving. No, he was simply young. Michael smiled.

  A look of mortification crossed the young man’s face. “I’ve eaten all the soup—”

  “I have enough.”

  “I don’t even know your name.”

  “Michael.”

  “I’m Daniel,” the boy said, and they shook hands.

  “How’s your painting coming along?”

  “Pretty well. I’ll show it to you later. Of course, it’s not quite finished.” He hesitated. “That’s if you’d like to see it.”

  “I’d be delighted to. Though my eyesight isn’t what it used to be.”

  The young man carefully took out the picture.

  Michael put on his glasses. Even he could see that the colors had been captured perfectly. He could almost feel the warmth of the sun on the stones.

  “It’s excellent,” he said.

  The boy relaxed, as if Michael’s opinion was important to him.

  They chatted while the rain continued to fall. Daniel had taken a year off from his studies to go around Europe but had been captivated by the village. He painted during the day and, in the evening, helped out in the bar.

  During the following days, the weather reverted to its usual balmy state. Michael would go for his walk and on his return invite Daniel to share some soup or a cold drink.

  They talked. Daniel told Michael about his home and his hopes of becoming a professional painter. Michael was more reticent but, after prompting from Daniel, told him about Peter. He even found a photo from their days at university together.

  Michael could hardly make out Peter’s face now his eyesight was so poor. He blinked.

  “I’m sorry—I’ve upset you,” Daniel said.

  “It’s my eyes. My father went blind and I’m losing my sight, too.” Realizing that his candor had distressed Daniel, he changed the subject.

  “It’s finished!” Daniel announced one day as Michael returned from visiting Peter’s grave.

  “May I see it?”

  “It’s being framed.”

  Michael felt a dull ache of melancholy. The boy would surely be leaving soon. “Will you still be here for the harvest?”

  “Antonio’s talked me into it. He’s got me down for treading the grapes. He said he didn’t want me to damage my hands!”

 

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