“Has Max been in yet tonight?”

I had had to build up the courage, with my second drink, on the stool at the Sling Bar, a gay nightclub on Vienna’s Margaretenstrasse, southwest of the ring road around the old city, before I could ask the barman. It was a gay bar. It wasn’t just that I was asking for one of the male prostitutes who frequently picked up men in this bar that I was hesitant. It was because Max was fourteen, one of the street urchins of Vienna who maintained his existence by selling his body at that early age. There was nothing illegal about a fourteen-year-old agreeing to having sex in Austria. That was the age of consent here. That’s why I was living here. Legal prostitution was licensed, though, and it was highly doubtful a fourteen-year-old boy would have a license.

The Sling Bar tolerated Max operating from here occasionally as long as he did it in the restaurant area of the club and didn’t come into the bar or onto the dance floor. But no more than reluctant tolerance by the barman on duty tonight went to men who sought out Max and others his age. I had done that in the Sling Bar before. I had connected with Max here before.

“He was around earlier,” the barman said tersely, as he took away my second empty and replaced it with a third Scotch and water, heavy on the Scotch. “I doubt he’ll be back in, though. It’s late.”

It indeed was late, a bit after midnight. The Sling Bar didn’t close until 4:00 a.m., though.

“It should be past Max’s bedtime,” the barman couldn’t resist saying.

“No, of course not,” I mumbled. “Did he leave alone?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking.

“No, he was with a man.” That, of course, was why the barman could speculate Max wouldn’t be back. He’d already found his john for the evening. The remark was accompanied by something close to a sneer, as the barman turned and moved up the boards to talk with two men, one young and being surreptitiously fondled, and the other older—older even than me, in his fifties, I would think—who was intimately touching the younger man, trying to interest him in being picked up. The younger man was looking past him, though, at me. I suppose that, at thirty-eight, and fit and Bohemian looking, I was more attractive to him than the dumpy-looking older businessman.

“Ah,” I said, downing my drink and pushing off from the bar—not too steadily, as three stiff drinks were two more than my usual limit these days. I just had needed for Max to be here tonight. I wasn’t just lonely. I’d sold one of my paintings to a Dutch museum, somewhat of a breakthrough for me, and I’d wanted to share that with Max. It was more than sex. He listened to me. And he posed for me. The painting I’d sold was of him. It was for a very special museum; it wouldn’t be covered in the press. But I wanted to share news of this sale with Max.

I paused out on Margaretenstrasse, just outside the entrance to the bar, and lit up a cigarette. I didn’t smoke much more anymore—just as I didn’t often go over my limit of one Scotch and water, but I was at loose ends tonight.

As I was standing there, the young man who had been looking past the older man who was trying for a hookup at the bar came out and paused when he’d seen me. Indeed, with the windows by the door, he could have seen me just outside, smoking, from the bar. He paused on the other side of the door and lit up a cigarette as well.

“Es sind die Gruben, die man in der Bar nicht mehr rauchen kann,” the young man said.

I turned and looked at him. He was probably in his mid-twenties. He was a handsome young man, and it looked like he had a good body under the tight trousers and T-shirt he was wearing, the T-shirt being tight enough to show that he had rings pierced in his nipples. There as a snug ring in his nostril too, crying “submissive” to those of us who paid attention to signaling conventions in Vienna. A tight bun of his sunny-blond hair sat at the back peak of his head, just waiting for someone to undo it and let the wavy hair cascade to his shoulders as a preliminary for him lying back and spreading his legs. My cock gave a lurch at the thought of this undoing of the hair, but my image was of a boy, not this man.

This wasn’t the first time I’d seen him in this bar. It wasn’t the first time he’d given me the eye of interest. All very tempting—if he weren’t in his mid-twenties.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” I said. I understood perfectly. I’d been in Austria for nearly five years now. I was getting pretty good with the language. I just didn’t want to disappoint the young man by prolonging contact. I figured that not comprehending his language would cry him off without rancor.

“Oh, you’re English—or American?”

“American,” I said.

“I said it’s too bad they no longer let us smoke in the bar. We have to come out here for that. But, then, I guess it’s been that way for a long time in America, hasn’t it?”

His English was impeccable. Curses to English having become the language of international business and the tongue of choice for anyone with ambition. It was clear this young man was ambitious—and available. I was flattered, of course, that he was interested in me. He just didn’t comprehend my fetish.

“Yes, it has,” I said. “You are a very attractive young man, but I think you should go back to the businessman at the bar. You are too old for me, I’m afraid, and he probably is very rich. No hard feelings. I just have this fetish I can’t deny.”

With that I stubbed my cigarette out in a receptacle provided for that at the door. I reached out and touched his forearm. “You really are a very nice young man,” I repeated. “Sorry.” Then I turned and headed out on Margaretenstrasse, heading in toward the old town, without looking back. I really didn’t want to waste the young man’s effort. I’m sure he had to complete a transaction that night to meet his rent. The fact that he’d let an old, ugly, and fat businessman fondle him told me that. The man no doubt was rich, though, would appreciate the attention, and would express that appreciation in lucrative terms that had necessitated the young man to come out on the street and sell his body. I could afford him; it just wouldn’t accord me maximum pleasure—not when fourteen-year-old boys were to be had in this city.

Whenever I was lonely or maudlin or even in a celebratory mood, I liked to guide my steps in this part of the city past the Mozartbrunnen—Mozart’s Fountain—on the short-street Mozartplatz. Vienna had magnificent fountains and this was one of the best. I lived in a flat on Paniglgasse, beyond Mozartplatz from here, so it was convenient to go by the fountain when I was returning from the gay bars in the Margareten district.

On this night, it was momentous to have done so.

I was the only one in the square when I entered it—or thought I was. I wasn’t moving too steadily, as I’d drunk more than I should. But I’d walked this area frequently; I could have made it home on autopilot. I discovered as I approached the fountain, though, that there was someone else here in much worse condition than I was.

A soaked figure was stretched out on the lip of the fountain. It was a man—a young man. No, a boy. He obviously was dead drunk or had been zoned out on drugs. He was snoring slightly, so he wasn’t dead. He was in some sort of school uniform, but he was soaked to the bone. He evidently had fallen into the fountain pool in some sort of intoxicated state and had only managed to drag himself out and onto the lip of the pool before passing out.

He wasn’t dead, but he might be so if he remained out here much longer as the night cooled down. I bent over him and shook him, but he remained unconscious.

He was just a boy—a beautiful boy. A shock of wavy black hair, his skin alabaster white. His body was perfectly formed. I felt myself going hard, but I fought it. I was concerned for his well-being, that was all. His eyes fluttered open under long, curly eyelashes. His eyes were green. He was absolutely gorgeous. Oh, good lord.

“Komm, Sohn. Sie werden Ihren Tod der Kälte hier draussen zu fangen. Wir müssen Sie etwas trocken bringen—Come, son. You’ll catch your death of cold out here. We need to get you somewhere dry.”

There was nothing to be helped. He had to be saved from himself. A street urchin out here this time of night, intoxicated, would be taken to a prison if the police happened on him. He was much too beautiful to be in a prison with men; they would share him around and the wardens wouldn’t give a toss if they did. I helped him up to his feet and virtually carried him out of the square. My flat on Paniglgasse was only two streets over.

I was half drunk and exhausted and sleeping like a log. I’d given the boy a towel, a pair of briefs far too big for him, and a blanket; taken his wet clothes to the dryer; and left him to curl up on the sofa in the living room, while I went to my bedroom, stripped down, showered, and fell down, deep asleep, on my bed.

I dreamt of Max and of Max being here with me in my bed, as he had been in the past. I dreamt of me running my hands up Max’s slim, boy’s back as it I watched it rise and fall, his channel caressing my cock in a cowboy-position fuck.

When the boy who should have been in my living room on the sofa came into my bed and snuggled up to me, in my unconsciousness thinking it was Max, I embraced him, kissed him on the cheek, and sank back into sleep. I sensed nothing unusual when his hands started roaming over my body, nor when it centered on my engorging cock, nor when he readjusted himself, moving down my body, and taking my shaft in his mouth.

In fact, I didn’t become fully aware that I wasn’t just in a wet dream with a conjured up Max doing what Max had done before until the boy from my living room lowered himself on my erection, facing my feet, palming my knees, and raised and lowered his channel on my throbbing shaft.

I had found him on the street, inebriated, a street urchin. He was riding my cock and showed every indication of knowing exactly how to do that, how to take a hung cock even as a teenage boy. He was taking it without evidence of being overchallenged. It wasn’t difficult to surmise that he was a prostitute and that this was not an unusual or emotionally charged position for him to put himself in. He was taking the initiative here.

Now fully awake, I sat up in bed, reaching for and pulling the boy’s legs to stream back along my hips. I grabbed his wrists, letting him project his small, lithe chest out over my legs, and I pulled him back and forth as he dug in his toes into the sheets behind me—and fucked himself on my shaft to my ejaculation. Turning him into my embrace, within my arms then, I held him close, fisted the boy’s cock, and stroked him off. He struggled a bit at my taking full control and moving relentlessly to milking him, but that subsided into docility and sighs as he set a closely controlled rhythm with his hips to stroke inside my fist.

After bringing him off, I maintained the close embrace, nuzzled my lips into his throat with a sigh, and sank once more into blissful sleep.

“This is a neat apartment. I couldn’t figure out how to work the coffee maker, but I found cereal and milk. I hope you don’t mind. You don’t have much here to eat. You must live alone.”

Wrapped in a sheet from my bed, he was perched on a bar stool on the island separating my kitchen area from the sparsely and eclectically furnished room that served as combined living and dining room. I had come out of the bedroom located at the far end of that room from the kitchen nook. The bathroom was off the bedroom. What the boy thought was neat about the apartment, I’m sure, was what was beyond the kitchen. What the kitchen window overlooked and a door from the kitchen led into was a roof area of my apartment building, a four-story former townhouse made into flats, that had once been a huge greenhouse—when compared to the size of my flat—and that now served as my art studio. I was a fine artist, studying and teaching at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste—the Academy of Fine Arts—located not far from here in the old city.

“You speak English. Very good English,” I said. We had been “speaking” in a completely different sort of language in the night.

“Everyone must these days. I’ve been to America. You’re an American, aren’t you?”

“What gave me away?”

“You talk in your sleep. Who is Max? Is he a boy, like me? I think he must be a good lay. I think you like laying boys. Did I give you good fuck?”

Yes, I liked laying boys like him. And, yes, he was a good fuck. “I’m glad you like the apartment. You look good—very sexy—in that sheet, but your clothes should be dry now. You were wearing a school uniform. How old are you?”

“I’m fourteen. Are you angry about last night? Am I too young for you? I’m sorry. I am Ruddy.”

“Hello, Ruddy. I am Fritz. No, you aren’t too young for me. You are very experienced, but you were wearing a school uniform—a private school, I believe. I couldn’t make out the emblem on it, but the material and cut are expensive. It must be an exclusive private school. Are you a student or are you a prostitute?”

“Do I fuck like a prostitute?” he asked.

“Yes,” I answered. He seemed pleased with that answer.

“Yesterday was an important day for me.” I was to find that he enjoyed talking in circles and avoiding a point we were approaching.

“God, I hope it wasn’t your fourteenth birthday.”

“No that was months ago,” he said, with a laugh.

“What does that mean?”

“I went with a man from the street yesterday. Gustaf. I was celebrating and I went to the street. And I went with Gustaf.”

“You had never gone with a man from the street before?”

“No. I went with Gustaf because he said he wanted me—that he wanted to do things with me that I wanted to do yesterday—and with a man of my choosing.”

“Choosing a stranger yesterday like you chose me last night?”

“Yes. He was a sexy man—like you are. You have a very big cock.”

“So, you never went with a man before?”

“I didn’t say that. I meant for the first time the men were of my own choosing.”

“When I found you, you were either drunk or on drugs. Did Gustaf give those to you?”

“Yes. Both.”

“And then what did he do?”

“Whatever he wanted. Everything. What we did last night—you and me. He was more forceful, though. You’re bigger than he was, but he hurt me more when he put it inside me.”

“And then?”

“He went to sleep. I left the hotel he took me to. Did you paint the works in that wonderful room out there that’s all windows—windows not just making walls but the roof too?”

“Yes. It’s why I chose this flat—for the natural light.”

“Are some of them of the Max you talked about in your sleep?”

“Yes.”

“But there are paintings of others—of other boys. Boys my age.”

“Yes, there are,” I said. “Max is your age.”

“Is that the age you like? You like to fuck fourteen-year-old boys?”

“Yes. If you’ve had breakfast and are feeling OK—no bad effects from the drink and pills from last night—I’ll take your clothes out of the dryer, and I’ll help you get back to your home or your school or wherever. Do you live in the city with your family or do you live at a school?”

“I live at sort of a school. You don’t want to fuck me again first?”

“It isn’t about what I want. It’s about what we should do with you.”

“I want you to paint me, like you have the other boys in those paintings out there. And then I want you to fuck me again. I rode you last night. I want you on top of me, fucking me. I wanted to celebrate yesterday, but Gustaf just wanted to fuck. Don’t you have anything you want to celebrate too? You’re an artist. Don’t you want to paint? You can paint me.”

He didn’t wait for me to answer. He came off the stool, spinning out of the sheet, and leaving it in a puddle at the base of the stool as, naked, he scampered into the art studio.

I couldn’t help but smile. There was no question he was a fourteen-year-old boy.

Yes, I had something to celebrate. That was yesterday, but today was another day. And, yes, I wanted to paint Ruddy. He was a gorgeous boy. And he was fourteen. And, yes, I wanted to fuck him again.