Summer of Sex and Loneliness
I’m having breakfast alone again on Saturday while Greta is in their bedroom upstairs, fiddling with Gunther. Gunther has been dying for several months now. I spent the entire previous year witnessing my mother languish in Munich’s Whores, getting closer to death every day, and now I’ve come to Germany to relive it all. Other than waiting for death, there is nothing in this house. There is not much to tell other than how Gunther is doing and how likely it is that he will survive the day. I’ve experienced that firsthand. I head to the hallway to grab my easel and painting equipment.
I announce that I’m heading to Munich’s Alter Botanischer Garten, a local park, by calling up the stairs. However, no one answers if they hear me.
We reside near the gardens on Ludwigsvorstadt-Isarvorstadt, from which I can walk to the Munich Academy of Fine Arts when classes resume. I attended the Charleston College of Art and Design in Charleston, South Carolina, where I studied painting before moving here. I arrived too late to get accepted into this art school at this time.
I have to wait. Thus, in order to pass the time until I can enroll in art school, until Gunther passes away, or until my life can begin anew, I go to the park and paint. This morning, as I wait for Gunther to pass away, I consider how meaningless existence is. I hope he does not pass away. I have been treated well by him and Greta. However, they didn’t have any own children. They’re at a loss as to how to handle me, an American nephew without living parents. Thus, they take no action.
I walk by Gunther’s friend Klaus’s bench in the park while he reads his newspaper. Every Saturday morning, I can always count on him to read his paper, let it drop a little, and smile at me as I walk by. This summer, when I’m not at school in Ingolstadt, Klaus is pretty much the only person who talks to me. Like Gunther, he’s elderly but strong. He’s not prepared to pass away. He is also kind, and the only one to inquire about my well-being and activities during the day.
He will approach me from behind once I have set up my paints and whisper in my ear how much he enjoys seeing what I am portraying on the painting. Gunther and Greta never inquire about my artwork. Gunther’s death consumes them. Though I get it, it still makes me feel alone. I haven’t made the same friends here as I had in Savannah since I don’t speak German well enough to blend in. Klaus tries to engage with me and expresses admiration for my painting.
I stroll along the walks of the Alter Botanischer Garten in search of ideas for a painting; every path circles back to Klaus’s seat. On my first visit, he smiles and calls me by name, Finn, but by the time I walk by again, he has left. I haven’t heard a name or any kind of communication from anyone in the past two days, until now. I cross to the Park Café at the Sophienstrasse side of the garden’s edge. Just as I anticipated, Klaus is seated at the café. With him, every Saturday morning is the same. I take a seat at the curb and search the area for a painting subject.
“Komm her. I’ve had some coffee and some cake, Finn. Come on in. I hear someone say, “Finn, have some coffee and cake.”
Klaus is beckoning me to his table at the café, as I had anticipated. I join him, and we converse while I share cake and coffee. This is the first time I’ve spoken to someone since last Saturday. He inquires about Greta’s well-being and Gunther’s condition. When Klaus’s wife was still living and Gunther was well, he and his spouse were close friends with both Inga and Gunther.
I knew very little about his life in Germany, but he had known my father, Gunther’s brother, since he was a young man, before he moved to the States, married my mother, had a son, and passed away. In addition to asking me questions about when my art school resumes and what a newly arrived nineteen-year-old does in the summer in a place he is unfamiliar with and where he speaks so little of the language—the language of his father—Klaus tells me stories about my father that I have never heard before. With all the attention my uncle demands, these are questions that neither my aunt nor my uncle have bothered to ask me.
At least not this summer, I don’t do what the majority of the young men in this room, nineteen years old, do. As of yet, I have no buddies my age. At the beginning of the summer, after the art school session ended here, I came to Greta and Gunther. My mother had died, my unfamiliar German aunt and uncle had offered me a place to live, and my art professor had advised me that I would be well served by attending the Munich Academy of Art. Greta’s time and attention were being consumed by Gunther, who was already ill and was becoming worse. They were kind enough to accept me despite their circumstances. They had also never become parents to their own children.
It’s a lonely summer for me because I arrived too late to participate in any of the summer sports or activities offered here. I’ve been engrossed in reading and science since I enjoy those subjects, and I also go to the park to paint to stay up to date with art. I met Klaus for the first time at the park, where we discovered we had interests in addition to loneliness, Greta, and Gunther.
I ran home to tell Gunther and Greta about my encounter with Klaus in the park, thinking that they would tell me about their friendship with him and that we would then connect and have things to tell one other. But beyond an initial “Das ist nett–that’s nice,” they went back to their own issues and didn’t seem to care about any new friendships I might be making in Germany.
Thus, it’s a summer of waiting for life to start over—along with Klaus—living with a terrible illness in the house, losing my mother, and spending my life in the States. It’s the summer of Klaus above everything.
He leans over to delicately massage my forearm with his fingertips while we converse at the café table. He has touched me intimately once before, and that has been the only human contact I have had this summer. I nod as he glances at me. Once more, I nod, understanding what it signifies and what I’m consenting to—just as I did the Saturday before and the Saturday before that, in this café.
It doesn’t surprise Klaus. From the garden park to the café, I have trailed him.
He responds to me, “Ich verstehen—I understand.” “Manchmal bin ich auch einsam–sometimes I too am lonely.” That he shares that with me means a lot to me.
There was another young man in Savannah named Evan. We were getting to know one another, building a friendship, and becoming more intimate with one another. However, after my mother passed away, my life in Savannah fell apart. Unfulfilled and uninformed, but aware of my need, I set off for Germany. Klaus seems to have the same urge for closeness. I definitely feel the need for closeness, specifically with a man.
When the bill arrives, Klaus pulls out his billfold, places fifteen euros for the waiter on the table, and gives me fifty euros. Although he had stated the first time that he needed me to take the money, I don’t need it. Thus, I do. I pocket the money after giving it a quick palm. My hand returns to the tabletop, and Klaus picks it up and runs his fingers along the back of mine. He meets my gaze, and as he does, I see the loneliness in his eyes turn into an expression of thankfulness. I understand his feelings completely.
What he wishes to express gratitude for I know. I want to be a comfort to him because I know what will make him feel less alone, even if it’s just for a short while.
We stroll together, with me walking behind him—not beside, but in sight of him—back to the Karlstrasse apartment building where he resides alone in the same apartment as his late wife. I’m sitting on a seat in his apartment’s entryway when Klaus kneels in front of me, takes my boots off my feet, and unlaces them.
He carefully runs his hands up my legs, beneath the hem of my shorts, and higher, his fingers meeting at the quick of me, looking up into my face the whole while. I let out a sigh, widen my leg stance, and press my shoulder blades on the wall. I was scared and nervous the first time, with Evan; I’m not this time. I’m confident that for the next hour, I won’t feel alone since I’ll get attention.
He’s massaging me, holding me under the cloth of my underwear and shorts, showing me that he cares. I’m tingly all over and engorged for him. Klaus is staring into my eyes while I take deep, shallow breaths, revealing every need and want in his eyes. I stay exposed to his touch, allowing him to caress me through the material of my shorts. If he doesn’t stop, I’m scared I’ll come get him. However, I am aware that until I do reach him, he won’t give up.
Except for Klaus, nobody has even realized I’ve been here this summer. As he takes off my underwear and shorts, I extend my legs and raise my arms, allowing him to pull my T-shirt over my head. He puts his head on my lap, and as he pulls me into his mouth, I gasp a little. His hands roam all over my body while I close my eyes and lean back against the wall, running my hands through his black, gray-shot hair.
He’s an old man, the same age as my uncle and aunt. It’s not that he looks ugly—in fact, he’s not—that makes me feel like I shouldn’t be doing this. He’s not from my generation, which is why. He has been married and is elderly. This is not what he should be doing. I had no business allowing an elderly man to treat me like way. However, I am allowing him to continue doing this. His need is whispered. This is also necessary for me.
In Savannah, I thought about this and headed towards it—the beaded curtain that I wanted to pass through emotionally—but it only went as far as that one moment of caressing, hand-stroking, light kissing, and that one moment of release—with Evan. After my mother passed away, I left Savannah feeling empty-handed.
But right now, I can’t stop thinking about having sex. Since it’s Klaus’ summer, I’m thinking about having sex with males more and more. Naturally, at this age, I’ve gotten practice in hardening and reaching my own climax.
However, I now have another man to focus on and teach me new techniques for enjoying myself as well as receiving and providing pleasure to other men. I engage in all those behaviors and think all those thoughts—the arguments with myself and the frailty of my surrender—with my cock in his throat, the old man’s throat, in Klaus’s apartment lobby while he satisfies himself and me with my body, his hands moving all over my body as his mouth sucks my cock, causing me to experience a throbbing erection that intensifies into a climax.
He gets up as I arrive, lets out a sigh, and walks into his sitting area, where a flat-screen TV sits over a fireplace and a sofa facing it. He goes over to the sofa and sits down while I sort through the DVDs on a little table near the fireplace, pulling off his shoes, unbuttoning his shirt, and unzipping and flaring his trousers. For the first time, he lets me choose what to watch on the screen and we watch together. I select one and don it. Next, I move to the couch and nestle between Klaus’s outstretched legs on my knees.
It’s already started. Fighting it or worrying about it is no longer an option. Here I am. Together with Klaus, I had sex. With Klaus, I’ll have more sex. Whatever he desires, right now, right now. I’m not going to oppose it. Right now, I don’t feel alone. I’ll get through this otherwise barren summer somehow. I’ll give in to this man’s desires and grant him his wishes.
He lays back into the sofa, groaning and moaning, and it’s my turn to lower my head to his lap and take him into my mouth while he runs his fingers through my golden curls, delicately grabbing my head between his hands and directing it in whatever direction he pleases.
He, like I, becomes naked, his body muscular and hard for a man his age, as he raises and turns me, my cheek and chest pressing to the floor in front of the sofa, my arms reaching out along the floor toward where, I having picked out a movie to mirror the attention I am getting, an older man is fucking a younger man my age on the screen. Like in the posing on the screen, my body is streaming back up onto Klaus’s muscular, slightly hirsute torso.
He whispers, “Legst du deine Knöchel auf meine Schultern. Put your ankles on my shoulders. Once I do, I am completely under his control.
I sigh for him as he kneads and squeezes the cheeks of my bottom. I’m breathing heavily. I jerk and let out a small cry of surprise and agony as he slaps one cheek with the open palm of his hand. He hits my other cheek after that, and I cry out again, this time not in shock. Then it happens again and again while I writhe beneath him and try not to cry. I’m so alive, even though it aches. The hurt lets me know that I am here and that someone is taking note of me. that Klaus is aware of me.
Although what we’re doing is wrong, we’re fighting against our loneliness as a group by sharing it. He is assuming charge, and he accepts responsibility for everything that occurs since I am the subordinate and he is the dominator in this situation. He knows I want to feel completely alive, which is why he is causing me pain.
Is he upset at me for being the temptation and at himself for what he can’t resist? Could that be another reason? I’d rather not give it any thought. This long, barren summer, all I want is to feel something, anything at all.
He hits me a couple more times. My body is smart, yet I’m presently hard for him once more. As he strikes me with the other hand, I feel one of his fingers pierce and glide inside of me. I writhe on the finger, but his knees press against my sides, keeping me close to him. He murmurs, “Gut, gut—good,” as I feel myself relax “down there” on his probing finger. “Give it to me, Gib es mir.” He stops, pulls the finger away, leans down, and kisses where he struck when he hears me crying.
“Excellent. Guter Junge—excellent. Good boy,” he murmurs to me. “Gebst du sich voll und ganz zu mir–Give yourself fully to me.” I also do. As long as he pays attention to me and makes me feel less alone for this little moment, I’ll give him anything he wants.
Klaus tucks his face into the folds of my buttocks and gorges himself on me, sensing my wants and making me gasp, sigh, and writhe languidly in his embrace. I can feel his hardness as he prods at my abdomen. Then it stops jabbing at my stomach and starts to move downward, into place. He partially rises and crouchs over me.
I lift my arms and bring them back closer him, and he says, “Gib mir deine Handgelenke—Give me your wrists.”
He reclines in the sofa, and I raise myself up so that my ankles rest on his shoulders, my arms are bent back, and my torso is arched, protruding over the carpet in front of the sofa. As he enters my body and ascends into my channel, I let out a cry. He’s a big guy. I gasp, sigh, and moan as he pulls and releases on my wrists, moving me on his shaft so that we are no longer separate but rather linked and moving as one. Fucking.
All loneliness vanished.
He brings me off again with a series of fucks and prods me in and out and back and forth. He is composed and has experience. He doesn’t show up. There must be more, I know.
Now that the movie is over, he lets me gently fall to the ground in front of the couch, get up, and pad back to the fireplace to watch another DVD. He’s lying on his back on the sofa when I get back to it. Still in an angry erection, he clutches his cock and watches me come toward him.
“Achten Sie darauf. Ritt meinen Schwanz: Take a chance on yourself. Ride my manhood.”
I get up on the couch and sit on top of him, placing my head on his hips. I take it all in, slowly lowering my channel on the cock. complete capitulation.
“Ugh. gut. Ritt me. Ritt mich: Well, well. Come along with me. Ride with me.
I lean over him, placing my palms on his breasts and staring down into his eyes, which, for the moment, show more lust than loneliness. I start to furiously gyrate on him, gaining speed and intensity as I go, until he finally appears deep inside of me.
I fall on top of him, and we both turn to face the television as we watch a middle-aged man who is blonde and slim like myself get fucked by a younger man.
Finally, he sighs and stirs. He gets out from under me. The film is now complete. He lifts me into his arms, carries me to his bedroom, and then places me on my back at the foot of the bed. He then spreads and raises my legs, mounts me, and gives me another fuck. It’s almost suppertime when I return to the Dachauser Strasse residence. I’ve been gone for the most of the day, and neither Gunther nor Greta will have noticed.
I hope to come back a little less alone than when I departed from the abode of disease and death that morning. I am eagerly anticipating the upcoming Saturday.
* * * *
That Saturday turns into a string of Saturdays spent in Klaus’s apartment throughout the summer. As I walk out of Klaus’s flat on this first Saturday in September, I pass by a young, Nordic-blond man who is chaining up his bicycle, and he is rather handsome.
He stumbles a little and looks up at me, grinning. “Sorry,” I say.
“You speak English?” he asks, his thick but intelligible accent showing. I instantly wish I could speak more languages, like the people in Europe seem to be able to.
“Yes,” I said. “My nationality is American. I arrived in Germany not too long ago. I didn’t inform him about my feelings of isolation and loneliness before working with Klaus.
Upon noticing that I am holding my drawing pad and charcoal, he inquires, “You are an art student?” Not all he sees is that. I dropped the sketchpad, and when I opened it, I saw a self-portrait of a young man masturbating.
I pick up the sketch pad from the floor and say, “Yes,” before closing it. “I was attending a US art school. In the fall, I’ll be enrolling at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. I begin next week. The summer is almost done.
He replies, “Oh, that’s where I go.” Then he asks, “Is that Klaus’s flat I have seen you come from?” with a knowing smirk on his face.
I have a gut feeling that he knows what I have been up to in Klaus’s apartment. Has he visited Klaus’s apartment as much as I have? I wonder who else Klaus has invited to his apartment and wooed—any other lonely person who might be similar to me. However, I blush a little as I say, “Yes.”
I pick up the drawing book off the floor, and Stefan opens it and looks through it. I have painted on this sketchpad in the past week following my sexual awakening—my journey through the beaded curtain during my summer with Klaus—and initially out of sexual frustration.
Of course, the sketches are highly detailed. He is aware that the drawings are of me because I am a talented artist.
“Would you like to come into my flat with me?” asks him. He doesn’t have to explain why to me. His long, sensitive fingers have reached out to grasp my arm, forming a connection that has helped me feel less alone.
Yes, I reply.
I stay at his flat until early in the morning. I doubt that Gunther and Greta are even aware that I failed to return home on Saturday evening. That doesn’t bother me; I’m glad I don’t have to justify it. I am pleased to be entering Stefan’s fall and leaving Klaus’ summer behind.