Chapter #2
 
I'm not out of shape, and I am not a smoker, but I was breathing pretty hard by the time I reached my doorway.  "Damn," I cursed to myself as I fumbled in my pocket for the magnetic key card.  "That is still one hell of a walk from the elevator."

Retrieving the key card, I was just about to slide it though the slot when I was surprised by a soft feminine voice behind me.  "Mr. Ward?"

"Yes," I answered jumping slightly and looking over my shoulder at the young lady who had walked up silently behind me.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," she said apologetically, extending a white plastic shopping bag as she continued. "Your purchase."

"Already!," I exclaimed, fumbling with the bag and almost dropping it and my key card.

"Yes, Sir," she replied politely. "May I help you with the door?"

"No thanks, I can manage," I responded, panicking at the thought that Petrik might be inside.

"Yes, Sir, have a pleasant evening," she answered, turning and leaving as silently as she had come.

I waited for a moment or two as she left before opening the door and entering.  The beds had not been converted to a queen size as Petrik had said he would do, and a feeling of disappointment settled over me.  "I guess he was busy and forgot about it," I thought as I extracted the bottle of JD from the plastic shopping bag.

There was still ice in the thermos bucket; and, after fixing myself a drink, I sat on the edge of the bed closest to me and removed my shoes before taking my clothes off.   After hanging my things in the closet, I started to reach for my robe and then decided against it thinking, "the briefs are good enough since there is no one to hide anything from."

After checking the various switches to see what they controlled, I settled on two small wall sconces that left the room in a soft light.  "They think of everything when they build these ships," I thought, taking a sip of my drink.  "My own bedroom lighting is not this romantic."

For a moment a feeling of melancholy swept over me as I remembered earlier trips with Geoff after we first met.  "Jesus, I take a cruise trying to get that mess behind me, and here I am thinking about Geoff and mooning over a young man who probably has other things to do more important than worrying about me and my fucking bed." I exclaimed out loud to no one in particular, trying to shake the melancholic state I felt myself falling into.

Wearing only briefs, I stepped out on the balcony into the darkness feeling the warm breeze created by the ship's plowing south through the dark Atlantic. The ship's lights reflected on the surface of the dark water, and there was the sound of water hissing as the ship's phosphorescent bow wave rolled away into the darkness.  Leaning against the railing, I sipped my drink gazing at the millions of stars twinkling in the jet black sky and remembering the many days and nights that I had spent at sea while I was in the navy.

"Those were the days," I thought.  Now I'm free and single with no Geoff to be concerned about.  I no longer have to worry about whom he is going to fuck next or whom I might catch him in bed with, and I don't need to make excuses to linger in my office rather than going home.  I had made a fool of myself during the four years we were together. I had not accepted that he was not ready to settle with one person and make a life.   He had been great in bed; but, little by little, those times when we made love became less frequent with longer and longer intervals between them.   His excuses of being exhausted from a bad day at the hospital or having to get up early for work always rang hollow, and I let them slip by rather than making an issue of the fact that we were growing further apart with each passing day.  The inevitable  ensuing arguments were painful, ending with him throwing phony tantrums and stomping out, leaving me alone to suffer in anguish at the fear of losing him even though I knew he would be meeting someone.  Sometimes he would be gone two or three days before coming back; and then we would cry together, make up, and make love after expressing a love for each other that was no longer there.  It went on like that for over a year until I came home early one day and found him in bed with a man whom I had thought was my best friend.   That was the straw that broke the camel's back; and, in a rage, I threw them and their clothes out into the snow.  Several of our friends had tried to arrange a reconciliation to no avail; and I remained celibate, foolishly swearing off sex and lovers.

Geoff had been my first and only lover, and my remaining in the apartment we had shared together didn't help.  After a few months of my turning down invitations, the invitations stopped.  It wasn't until my firm offered me a new position out of Philadelphia that I started to regain a sense of normalcy to my life.  I still buried myself in my work, but being in new surroundings helped to relieve the deep-seated pain of having foolishly given completely of myself and then being rejected. 

One or two of the people I worked with invited me out for dinner, and at first I hesitated before finally taking the big step of accepting an invitation for drinks and dinner.  Charlene, one of the para-legals in the office, had invited me to her home several times before I finally relented and accepted.  She was a few years older than I and married with twelve and fourteen year old daughters.  Her husband was an attractive, intelligent man who worked in stocks and bonds.   The dinner was excellent, and I was enjoying myself for the first time in months until I realized that I was subconsciously attracted to her husband and was comparing him to Geoff.  The deeply suppressed feelings of needing to be with someone washed over me, and I wasn't sure whether he had caught my covert glances; but every now and then he would smile, looking at me as he took a drag from his cigarette with one ankle over his knee and his hand resting over the noticeable bulge in his crotch.  I was probably wrong, but a cold fear washed over me at the thought that Charlene may have suspected why I kept to myself and had innocently mentioned it to her husband during a conversation.  I quickly averted my eyes, attempting to suppress the tingling feeling in my groin and hoping the evening would end.

That embarrassing experience returned me to the shell that I had built around myself.  Charlene made one or two attempts at getting together again for dinner, but I managed to make satisfactory explanations to excuse myself.  I had gotten pretty adept at making excuses, and they were becoming easier to make as I deferred invitations.  The big problem was not satisfying the yearning and desires to be with another man, and masturbation was becoming less and less satisfying.

After bungling,  and almost losing, two easily winnable real estate zoning cases, I realized that I had to get away and shake the ghosts of the past.  

The unsolicited travel brochure that was in my mail one afternoon offered an excellent opportunity to do what  needed to be done; and, after two or three calls, I contracted for a seven day Caribbean cruise to the Virgin Islands with stops in St.Thomas, St. Croix and St. John. 

I had never been on a civilian cruise, and I was not sure what it would be like. Several of my co-workers had said that I would meet lots of people and that, with all of the different activities that were offered, it would be more fun than a barrel of monkeys.  They also said that the only thing I had to be careful of was losing all of my money in the casino. 

"Well, I've managed to meet a young man who has shaken the cobwebs loose and rekindled the fire in my loins, and I  avoided the casino, so why am I in my stateroom alone?" I said aloud, draining the last of the now lukewarm drink. 

"You aren't alone, Mr. Ward," a quiet voice said from behind me.

Glancing quickly to my right, I recognized the reflection of Petrik in the opaque panel of the stateroom door with linens in his arms.

"Christ, Petrik," I exclaimed loudly, almost dropping my glass as I spun around.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you; but I didn't know you had returned from dinner, and I used my pass key," he said smiling broadly, his green eyes twinkling.

"I should be the one apologizing for shouting at you, not you to me," I replied breathing in deeply and trying to regain my composure.  "You did say you were going to change the beds; but, when I saw they hadn't been, I thought you had probably gotten busy and had forgotten about it.  I was having a drink before retiring; and, since it was so warm, I was standing outside and apparently thinking out loud."

"We all do that at times," he said, dropping the linens on one of the beds, and stepping out on the balcony.  "I often go up to the jogging track at night after I'm off duty if I feel a little lonely or  want to get away and be by myself.  No one is taking their exercise that late; and it's peaceful, just right for relaxing and thinking."

"Do you do that often, Petrik?" I said softly, painfully aware of the sudden swelling in the pouch of my briefs.

"Usually I go when it has been a bad day and I am feeling depressed from listening to too many demanding passengers or when I want to get away from the noise in the crew's quarters," he said chuckling, and smiling softly as he rested one arm on the railing and leaned sideways facing me as he continued. "Mostly, I think about home, my mother and friends. Sometimes I talk aloud as if I were talking with one of them, but I don't expect someone to be behind me listening the way I was behind you. "

His eyes had changed to an almost translucent turquoise, and his face shone a soft bronze from the reflected light of the wall sconces.  I felt the urge to reach out and take him in my arms; but, breathing in deeply, I reluctantly suppressed the feelings building inside of me as I asked, "What about your father, don't you think about him?"

"No, not like I used to; I lost him in the war with the Serbs. He died in Bosnia two years ago.  I lost him and a friend whom I was very close to," he said, turning and looking out over the water.

"I'm sorry, Petrik.  I didn't mean to bring up sad memories," I said, feeling ashamed at prying.

"That's okay; it does not bother me like it did," he said inhaling deeply, and asking as he exhaled. "Do you mind if I ask what you meant when you said you had met a young man who had shaken the cobwebs loose?"

"Oh, Jesus, you heard me say that?" I asked feeling the blood rushing to my head. "Christ, I shouldn't have been thinking out loud."

"Why not?" he asked, moving a little closer. "You were relaxing and not thinking about anyone being behind you. I think we all do that at times without realizing that we do.  I should have said something when I came in and saw you on the balcony.  I really shouldn't have surprised you when I said what I did, except it just sort of came out; and, from the way you spoke, you sounded so lonely and upset that I couldn't help saying it."

"You caught me at a bad moment," I said, gazing almost impudently, searchingly into his eyes.  "I was thinking back over a particularly bad time in my life, and I was expecting too much for this evening even though I didn't really have a good reason to."

"Expecting too much?" he asked, returning my gaze.

I could see, no, feel the beat of his heart from the way his chest was rapidly expanding as he breathed.  For a brief moment, I glanced down; and, seeing the swelling in his crotch, I brazenly plunged ahead and whispered, "I was expecting, no, to be truthful that's not right.  I was hoping you would be here changing the beds."

"That's why I delayed until I was off duty.  I was hoping you would be here, and I could stay awhile with you if you felt the same way I do about you," he breathed softly as he melted into my arms, his full succulent lips opening slightly, revealing the tip of his tongue moving over his even white teeth.

A feeling unlike any that I had felt in a long time swept over me as our tongues merged twisting and searching.  I could feel the power in his muscled arms as he drew me tightly to him; the pounding of his heart through his tunic and the touch of his steel hard cock pressing against mine sent waves of desire rushing through me. 

All thoughts of Geoff disappeared in the instant we kissed, and my body trembled with the excitement of being in Petrik's arms.  His lips were soft, and his tongue was probing, and I felt a tenderness radiating from deep within his hard muscled body.  I almost swooned from the rapture of being with him when he suddenly slid his hand between us and grasped my aching cock.

"Jesus, Petrik," I gasped groaning as I pulled my lips from his. "Do that, and my cock is going to explode."

"Mine too," he said, leaning his head back and arching his back, his hard cock pressing against mine.  Breathing deeply, he looked into my eyes letting me see the jade green of his eyes flashing with feeling and excitement. "Maybe I should fix the bed first?"

"That might be a good idea," I replied holding on to him as if I were afraid he was only an apparition, created out of frustration, and would disappear. We stood silently for a moment gazing into each other's eyes, the heat of lust and desire blazing fiercely; and I whispered softly, teasingly,  "As horny as I am, any bed would be all right."

"Horny?" he asked questioningly as he released his arms from around my chest and started to unbutton his tunic.

"Here, let me do that," I said, breathing in deeply and feeling the heat of my emotions subsiding a little as I brushed his fingers aside and started to unbutton his tunic with trembling fingers. "You've never heard anyone say 'horny'? It means feeling hot for someone and wanting them or being really ready to make love, and wanting to feel the soft touch of his hot body and his hard cock pressing against yours."

"No," he replied breathing heavily, his eyes sparkling as he shucked his tunic and tossed it on one of the balcony chairs.  " I haven't heard that; but, if that is what it means, that is the way I feel."

"Christ, Petrik, you're awesome," I said almost gasping as I looked at the magnificent definition of his pectoral muscles, the breadth of his smooth unblemished chest, the thickness of his biceps, his lightly hair-covered forearms and his almost obscenely narrow waist with the tantalizingly golden trail of silky hair extending down from his bellybutton in the valley between thick ripped abdominal muscles and disappearing into the waistband of his trousers.

"No more than you," he said running his eyes up and down my almost naked body before gathering me in his arms again holding me tightly as he spoke.  "I was hoping we could explore each other together, but you cheated me out of that pleasure by undressing before I was here,"

"I wasn't expecting you, Petrik, remember?" I said gently.

"That was my fault, not yours," he said grinning, and breathing in deeply before asking, "Would you mind calling me 'Peter' when we are alone instead of 'Petrik'?  All of my close friends call me by that name, and I like it.  It sounds more intimate and less cold than 'Petrik this', or 'Petrik that'.  'Petrik' means 'Peter' in English, but I guess you knew that."

"I assumed that by the phonetic association of the two names, but I'll call you 'Peter' if you will call me 'Caine' instead of 'Mr. Ward'," I said, gazing at the warmth in his eyes while I ran my fingers up and down the nape of his neck.

"Caine," he mused for a moment as if savoring the name. "I like that, and I like the softness of the hair on your chest. Is it all as soft?" he asked as he twirled his fingers in the thicker portion that covered the sternum between the breast muscles.

"That is for you to find out,"  I said grinning and brushing his lips with mine.

"I hope it is; some of my comrades at home have such dark wiry hair all over their bodies that it almost looks like thick wire," he said as we released each other, and went inside.