I decided there were just two degrees of separation between us. Pamela and Judith had been college roommates at Sweetbriar, and Judith was Rene’s trophy wife, and I think behind my back the cynics described me as Pamela’s bought joy stick. That put the age spread between Rene and me at about twenty years—maybe more. But he was so distinguished and suave that the difference meant nothing to me.

Beyond that there were no ways in which Rene and I shared common ground—if you didn’t include Pamela in the mix. And thus there was no way that Pamela and Judith’s decision that we’d share a Mediterranean island villa for two weeks was going to work out anywhere near as nice for Rene and me as it would for Pamela and Judith, who could have done their giggling and gossip-sharing someplace a lot closer to home and a hell of a lot cheaper. Neither seemed to mind the expense. Rene was rolling in money from his high-end art wheeling and dealing and Pamela’s family was rich as Midas too. As any of our “friends” in Charleston could tell you, that’s why I married Pamela. And, true as that was, Pamela and I got along quite fine, thank you very much. I didn’t watch where she went closely and she never asked why I had so many men friends, some of obviously unsavory character.

And I satisfied her in bed, which was all she was going for from the beginning.

Rene was Brazilian, a sleek Zeus type, who spent most of his life on a recliner smirking at the working class but who dressed out looking like well-aged beefcake with a glowing tan. He had the best of everything, including a “not-the-sharpest-knife-in-the-drawer” wife, who managed to look passingly beautiful and be several steps behind him at all times. They lived in one of the fine old city mansions in Savannah, where Judith kept busy as a real estate agent by showing wonderful homes but not closing any sales. For his part, Rene seemed to have the touch of gold in buying works by undiscovered artists cheaply who promptly died and became famously—and highly profitably—discovered. He knew the most important people, wore the best tailored suits, belonged to the most fashionable clubs, and drove a luxurious cream-colored 1951 Bentley MK VI Park-Ward convertible. He was so devoted to that car that he had it shipped to Turkey and ferried over to the island for just the two weeks, while Pamela and I settled for a rented two-year-old, rather battered Honda.

I felt like he was looking down his nose at me for nearly the full two weeks we shared the villa. And if I didn’t have a “thing” for vintage South American beefcake, it would have been hunky-dory for him to just be sitting and passing judgment on every faux pas I fell into.

Beside him, I felt like a country bumpkin—which, beside him—or either of the two women, for that matter, I was. Product of a Midwestern state university on an athletic scholarship, I was much more at home and in my element on the tennis court, golf course, or in the pool than I was in the club house or lounging beside the pool.

In fact, when I met Pamela, who was eight years older than I was, I was the tennis pro at the club her family practically owned. It wasn’t too long before Pamela owned me. We did fuck, yes, but she wasn’t too demanding in bed—she actually preferred me lying back and her topping me and doing calisthenics on my gear shift. She liked to control. I let her have anything that satisfied her, and she always was purring when we had climax.

That said, I think she was more interested in having eye candy to escort her to all of the “affairs” she was involved in. This was agreeable with me; it left me space and time to continue my own “affairs” in the Charleston gay underworld—primarily in meeting men in their forties in the bathhouses who were still in great shape and were expert drivers—and were looking as much as I was just for “one and done” encounters.

What I didn’t figure out for quite some time, however, was why she had suddenly lost her interest in tennis, golf, and swimming when we’d taken up temporary residence in an island paradise that made all of those so accessible—with the possible exception of the golf. There was a developing golf course on the island, but parts of it were still more like a rock garden than greens. But the tennis—mostly the good-on-your-knees red clay courts—and the swimming were both great. From the very first day on the island, Pamela had begged off on all but the swimming and had insisted that Judith and I trot off and enjoy ourselves with the tennis and golf. None of us even began to suggest that impeccable, languid Rene would take in either of these two sports. The only time other than meals that we seemed to be meeting as a foursome was at the pool. We had a small one at the villa, but Rene wanted us to be seen—and, I suspect delighted in us being seen driving his Bentley around—so we ferreted out several of the combined restaurant-pool clubs hovering on the rocks along the edge of the Mediterranean coast.

We didn’t even see much of each other at night—or so I thought—as Pamela and Judith, insisting that they were here to completely relax, had found a four-bedroom villa and assigned each of us to separate rooms. That should have been a clue to me, but it wasn’t. Basically, I guess, because I didn’t give a shit really.

I was clued in fast and unexpectedly, though, near the end of the first week. We were at one of the restaurant-pool clubs up the coast from the villa one afternoon when Pamela insisted that “we” check in with her parents and let them know how the vacation was going. The “we” in this case meant me, because Pamela refused to try to figure out how to make a telephone call back to the States from the Mediterranean, and it meant calling from the villa. She waved me off in the Honda, saying that the three of them would follow after the sun went down in the Bentley. I left them laying under sun umbrellas on loungers around the pool. As was typical Judith was zonked out in her usual afternoon drunken stupor.

I’d gotten half-way up the mountain from the coast before I realized that I didn’t have the key to the villa—that I hadn’t gotten it from Pamela. So around I turned and tootled back to the pool—to find Judith still snoring away but no sign of Pamela or Rene. I found them in one of the pool cabanas near the rocks leading down to the Mediterranean. Pamela was lying, legs splayed, on the daybed in the cabana, and Rene was crouched on his knees between her legs fucking her hard enough that she had her arms over her head, grasping the brass bars at the head of the bed, white knuckled, to keep herself in place.

I watched from the shadows for several minutes, more curious and embarrassed than anything else. If Pamela didn’t mind other men fucking her, I certainly didn’t care—as long as she paid the bills and didn’t ask questions about where I went at night. And, truth be known, I was more envious of Pamela than of Rene. I had been more than curious about what Rene looked like naked, and I could clearly see that he looked very good indeed. Somehow his tan was a complete body one, but, of course, being a Brazilian, much of that might have been natural coloring. He was well-muscled in that middle-aged beefcake vintage and he had good firm, glute muscles that quivered only slightly as they bobbed back vigorously between Pamela’s thighs. From time to time, I got a glimpse of what he was packing, which looked quite respectable. From the little urping sounds and moans that Pamela was making, I got the distinct impression that he knew how to satisfy and had no trouble doing so.

But mostly I was embarrassed. I had made mild moves on Rene myself earlier in the week and had mainly gotten slitted-eye looks of disdain and clipped-off answers, giving me the distinct impression that I was at least four levels of sophistication and breeding below him—which I probably was. The first three days before we had gotten adventuresome about locating the restaurant-pool clubs and when we were sitting around the villa pool working on neutralizing the jet lag, I had come to the pool gatherings in the skimpiest of Speedos and done everything I could to show off my good points—which were quite good enough to have caught Pamela in her search for a permanent presentable escort. And I paraded myself shamelessly—with no evidence of interest from Rene.

After watching them fuck through Pamela’s noisy orgasm, I quietly went back to the pool. Judith was still soundly asleep. I opened Pamela’s bag, extracted the key, and left again. They wouldn’t even know I’d been there.

On the second day, Judith had come out of her gin-prolonged jet lag enough to make a half suggestion of interest in me, as I paraded around in my Speedo, but I politely played dumb. She wasn’t half bad on the tennis court and golf course, but I had no interest in her in bed. She was the same eight years older than me that Pamela was, and she hadn’t kept herself in shape nearly as well as Pamela had. Just too much booze and too little interest from Rene, I decided.

But from Rene, nada. He just sat there, hiding his eyes behind dark sunglasses but giving me that sardonic smile with those attracting full, sensuous lips of his. Very early in the game my Hail Mary attempt to talk shop with him went tragically awry. How was I to know that Thomas Kincaid was neither dead at that time nor given much cachet in the New York art scene? Rene leveled me right quick on that one.

And so it all came together. Rene was here for Pamela, and Judith and I were just props to be kept dumb and out of the way. The night of the cabana tryst I pinned down what was going on. I waited until well after everyone had gone to their rooms and stood peeking into the hall from my bedroom. And sure enough, Pamela came trotting along on silent feet and entered Rene’s room. I went out on the terrace fifteen minutes later and saddled up to the open French doors into his room, and there they were, in bed, Rene lying on his back, face up, and Pamela sitting on and riding his cock and twisting and turning her torso as if she was having the fuck of her life. She liked to ride me that way too, so I knew she was enjoying herself. I did wonder, though, whether, at Rene’s age, he could stay hard for her as long as I did and give her multiple orgasms. Out of curiosity I stayed around to time them, and, sure enough, he did and could. An amazing man.