After the late October night had fallen, large torches were lit in the late nineteenth-century Lake Zurich waterfront park across the Limmatquai from the Hotel Ambassador in Zurich, Switzerland, to light up the street performers who had taken over the park to entertain those on the terrace of the hotel. There were wandering minstrels, acrobats, a man on stilts, more than one accordion player dueling it out, and a particularly handsome young, fourteen-year-old juggler in tight britches and a billowy white cotton peasant’s shirt. The juggler caught the attention of a dark-haired, tall, slender, patrician man in his thirties equally as handsome in his muscular, mature man’s body as the much younger, willowy street juggler was. The man, rising from a table on the terrace and coming to the balustrade to observe the street performers was dressed all in black silk and was protected against the gathering chill of the dark evening by a full black cape.

The man was carrying a black cane capped with a silver lion’s head, which he raised, pointed at the young juggler, and urged the boy forward. He held gold coins in his other hand, which glittered in the light of the torches. Even from here, the juggler, the Swiss-national Elov, could tell that it was more money than he could earn in a fortnight on the streets of Zurich in performing as a juggler and selling himself to men. Elov crossed the street to stand below the raised terrace. The tall, dark man, cloaked in black, let two of the coins drop. Elov snatched them out of the air. The man showed him more coins but held them in his hand.

“I am Dragos, the man said, in passable German. Are you hungry, boy?”

“I am always hungry, Sire,” Elov answered, flashing a smile. “Do you have a hunger to—that I could assuage for the rest of those coins in your hand?”

Elov was accustomed to approaches like this in the men of wealth who showed interest in his juggling. He well knew it wasn’t the juggling they really were interested in. They were aroused by his small, young, willowy body. For gold coins he was more than willing to assuage their need and desire. He would act the boy virgin, ripe for debauching, three times a day, if necessary.

“I have not supped yet,” Dragos said. “I do not like eating alone but I do like eating in my own rooms. Would you like—to earn these other coins—to sup with me in my hotel rooms here.”

“I would be honored, Sire,” Elov answered. There was nothing strange in Elov’s experience with this approach to an assignation.

“You would be more than honored, boy,” Dragos said. “I trust you understand my meaning.”

“Yes, Sire.” He met the man’s glare with a steady gaze.

“You have two coins there. Not enough to juggle. Here is another. Juggle them for me.” Dragos dropped another gold coin, which Elov snatched out of the air and juggled with the other two. “What would you do for the rest of these coins?” the man asked.

“Whatever you desired,” Elov answered.

“I desire much,” the man said, flipping another gold coin, which, smiling, Elov deftly melded into the stream of coins he was keeping in the air.

The hotel room was dark, lit only by two small guttering candles on the dresser, the light of which reflected off the French doors out onto the hotel balcony of the Hotel Ambassador looking out over the midnight blue, lapping waves of Lake Zurich. The weather was unseasonably warm this last day of October, and the people of the city had taken to the streets in celebration of All Hallows Eve, festivities that extended late into the night and provided a background of end-of-season gaiety beyond the French doors of the hotel room. The bed was in shadows. The mirror over the dresser was covered in black crepe, giving the impression that the room’s occupant was in mourning.

The room would appear, on first observation, to be empty, but it wasn’t empty. Low moans and groans were coming from the bed, the lower part of which was covered by a black cape, only able to be discerned in the darkness of the room because it was moving, undulating; what it covered was rising and falling. Hands of spread arms moved out from underneath the cape high on the bed. They grasped at the bedspread, sinking into the silken material, clutching at it, the fingers of the hands flexing in rhythmic open and closing. Two other hands emerged from the top of the black cape, hands of steel closing over the wrists of the smaller grasping hands, pulling the arms back underneath the undulating cape. Sounds of deep moaning and of humming were emanating from under the cape.

Elov’s clothes—the tight britches, the cotton peasant’s shirt, and his undergarments, along with his shoes and stockings, were bunched on the carpet on the foot of the bed. His naked feet dangled just above the carpet, peeking out of the bottom hem of the spread black silk cape. His toes were scrounging up and releasing to the same cadence as the fingers of his hands, both gauged to his moans and groans.

Under the covering of the cape, Dragos, fully dressed, was covering the young street juggler, Elov belly down on the bed. Dragos was fully dressed other than his shirt being flared open to provide the feel of his slightly hirsute chest on the smooth naked back of the small boy and the fly of his trousers unbuttoned to accommodate the release of his cock which was buried up the boy’s anal passage, pumping Elov to the cadence setting the bunching of the boy’s fingers, the scrunching of his toes, and the release of his moans produced by the thrusts of the man’s cock.

Elov was accustomed to being taken by a man, but rarely as fully or sensually as this man was devouring him.

Dragos’s booted feet were planted in the carpet at the foot of the bed, providing leverage for his thrusts. He nuzzled his face into the hollow of Elov’s neck and kissed and licked him there, coaxing the young man to tilt his head and stretch the side of his throat to the older man’s lips and teeth.

“Deschide. Ia-mi penisul adânc. Open up. Take my cock deep,” Dragos muttered, letting out his breath as he heard a rap on the hotel room door.

“This is the concierge. You have a carriage waiting down at the entrance, Count Dragos. You asked us to inform you when it had arrived.”

“Sí, viene. Yes, coming,” Dragos called out, muttering again. “Fuck. I forgot.” Then he added, speaking to Elov, trapped under him, “Get up and dress when I have finished you. Come with me tonight. I think you will enjoy the party—and that the party will enjoy you.”

He didn’t rise and free Elov immediately, though. His thrusts became more vigorous. He fucked the boy hard, coming then in only a couple of more minutes, pulling off the boy’s trembling back, and going to the washbasin to sponge himself off, as Elov, groaning, rose from the bed from underneath the cape and gathered up his clothes.

Going to a party? At this time of night? Elov sensed this would be a very long night indeed. Having four gold coins in his pocket, though, and knowing that the strange, but virile, big cocked man in black was holding out four more kept Elov at the man’s command.

As Dragos impatiently watched Elov dress, he flipped him two more luring gold coins, which seemed to gleam, as the only strong points of light in reflection from the street beyond the French doors, as they tumbled through the air, to be deftly caught by the young juggler and tucked away in his pocket. The Romanian—for that was what the language of his exclaimed direction for Elov to open his channel to him revealed him to be—showed that there were several more coins for Elov to have as long as he remained compliant.

It was more than the coins that were holding Elov to Dragos now. The man was a master of the fuck. Elov wanted more from him. Elov wanted to give all to Dragos.

The venue for the All Hallows Eve party wasn’t far away from the hotel. The carriage proceeded toward the venue, with Dragos and Elov staring at each other with lust in Dragos’s eyes and a bit of coyness in Elov’s on benches across each other in the darkness of the interior, Dragos seen only amid the blackness of his attire by the oval of his face and the luminous of his eyes. He lifted his cane, the silver lion’s head catching and reflecting such light as entered the carriage, catching Elov’s attention with it. The boy’s gaze followed the bobbing and weaving of the silver knob and he became mesmerized by it, falling almost into a trance.

The expanse between the facing benches in the carriage was narrow, and Dragos’s knees were pressed between Elov’s legs. Dragos ever so slowly widened the stance of his knees, opening Elov’s legs. The boy yielded vulnerability without opposition. The man reached over the short distance between them, unbuttoned Elov’s fly, pulled the boy’s cock out and stroked him. Sighing and giving a low moan, Elov slouched down in the seat and rolled his pelvis up. He was yielding to the man in everything. Dragos pulled the boy’s britches down and off his legs, and then leaned over, captured Elov’s eyes with his, and moved the silver head of the cane into position at the boy’s seemingly virginal hole, and pressed in.

Elov jerked and groaned as the head of the cane penetrated. And then he relaxed back into the seat, his stance open and his pelvis raised to accommodate the shaft of the cane, his eyes possessed by Dragos’s, as the Romanian fucked him with the cane and stroked his cock. Dragos nuzzled his face into the hollow of Elov’s throat and kissed him there. Snorting his pleasure that the boy had surrendered to him, he pulled the cane back, and put it down. Unbuttoning his own britches, he came up on his feet and put his cockhead in position at the boy’s puckered entrance.

The boy jerked, gave a little cry, and his hands went to gripping Dragos’s biceps, Dragos’s face buried in Elov’s throat, as the Romanian’s cock thrust up inside him and began a slow pump. The fuck that had been suspended in the hotel room was suspended once more at that point, as the carriage had arrived, had stopped, and the coachman was opening the carriage door.

Dragos gave a little cry and lurched back into his seat, throwing the hand he’d been stroking Elov off with up to shield his eyes from the light entering the carriage from the torches placed on either side of the land entrance of the villa hovering over the southern shore of Lake Zurich.

Elov lay, panting and sprawled on the facing bench, one hand reaching down to pull his britches back up after he checked to ensure the gold coins still were secured in the trouser pockets and the other hand reaching for his throat and drawing away with a trace of blood on them.

In the surprise of the arrival and opening of the carriage door, Dragos had bitten him in the neck, drawing blood.

They had arrived at a villa overlapping the southern shore of the lake beyond the city of Zurich, with just a gleam of the city lights reaching them. They were at the foot of a mountain, which loomed over the villa and overshadowed it day and night, making this seemingly endless night one of total darkness other than the moonlight reflecting off the crests of the waves in the lake.

The room they were ushered in was a large reception chamber with open French doors leading out to a stone terrace extending out over the waters of the lake. The only illumination in the room was provided by two torches set with a raised platform between them at one end of the room. The room already was aswirl with black-clad men, moving about in the shadows of the room. Moving between them, serving them from trays, were comely looking youths, dressed, as Elov was, in tight britches and billowy cotton shirts, open almost down to the navel and showing up youthful, well-formed torsos. A string ensemble was playing off to the side of the platform.

Dragos and Elov weren’t the last to arrive. As a hush fell over the room, a man of muscular physique and commanding presence rolled into the room in a wooden wheelchair. Several of the men went directly to him to establish their presence and welcome him to the party. Elov heard someone whisper, “The graf has arrived. Graf Franz von Zalau.” His arrival seemed to mark the start of some phase of the All Hallows Eve party, as a young actor appeared on the platform and the swirl in the room stopped, with all men turning their faces to the youth, who began reciting an epic poem in an ancient Germanic language of a prince named Vlad who lived high in the Carpathian mountains. Elov understood very little of it, but in the trance Dragos had put him in in the carriage and the mesmerizing atmosphere of the party, he was lost to the cadence of the reading.

He hardly noticed that Dragos had drifted away, following one of the comely serving boys and that the graf, handsome in a rugged way, with strong facile features, a pointed chin beard, long, black hair, and piercing black eyes, had rolled up beside him and had moved a black-silk clad arm around him and cupped one of Elov’s butt cheeks, which he was stroking with his thumb. The man’s other hand was brushing across Elov’s basket.

Elov stood there as in a haze. He wondered a bit why he was letting the man in the wheelchair fondle him like this, but he did nothing to resist or retreat.

The actor was replaced by a young male singer, who was accompanied by the string ensemble. His song was a dirge in the same ancient Germanic language of the poem recited before him and it was delivered slowly in a strange, exotic, and erotic half tone. Holding Elov close to his side, the man in the wheelchair unbuttoned the young man’s fly, pulled his cock out, and stroked it. In somewhat of a trance that made all of this seem both benign and arousing to him, Elov yielded in everything without a hint of resistance.