Deceit's Web

"Although we really shouldn't mention the relationship much," he continued. "Avery doesn't want to seem to favor me. So, we should just pretend that he and I aren't related."

"Avery does seem to favor you," she said, her voice husky and sexy. She was, in fact, a very sexy woman--very curvy. She also was something around thirty, at least eight years older than Jason was. The age difference only enhanced Jason's interest in her. That he was younger and a blond hunk seemed to enhance Jasmine's interest in him. She'd been quite forthcoming with him, saying she wasn't married, no, but she was the mistress of someone high up in the Jordanian Defense Ministry--a general. She'd rattled off his name and Jason had feigned being impressed, but he'd immediately forgotten the name. He was more interested that she had no bones about saying she was someone's mistress. Mistress meant sex. Jason was a well-rounded guy. He wanted to have sex with her as much as he liked having sex with men.

Was the woman coming on to him? Yes, she was, Jason decided. He didn't mind that a bit.

"I'm studying at Harvard. In the States, in Boston," he said, sitting down beside her legs on the wicker chaise lounge she was stretched out on. "Graduate studies in English literature."

"How interesting. Yes, I know where and what Harvard are," she said. "How intriguing. We'll have to talk about English literature sometime. I've been thinking of taking a course at the University of Jordan. I get so bored. Ahmad doesn't pay enough attention to me. It's why I'm working on the dig. I was interested in the director here, Avery... your cousin, you say. I must say there are very attractive and appealing men in your family. Alas, he seems to have his eyes only on men. I may be wasting my time here."

"We should get together sometime," Jason said, brushing his hand, seemingly by accident down her bare, tanned, very shapely leg. She gave a little shudder for him.

"To discuss English literature?" she asked. "Jane Austen?"

"That too," Jason said, giving her a sly little smile. "I only wish," he said, looking around, "that there was some nice park in this arid country where we could walk and talk--one that wasn't crowded."

She laughed. "You mean one where there were bushes and such that couples could lie under in private."

"Yes, I suppose that's what I mean."

"There's a nice hill near here covered with old olive tree orchards that's private and is where I like to go to meditate... and such." She paused to give him a meaningful look. She knew this game. She'd played it before, she was signaling. "It's in a village not far from here, Al-Faisaliya. The hill is behind a very nice hotel, the Phoenix Palace Hotel."

"You go to the hotel?"

"Sometimes."

"But you don't live in this village with the hill and the hotel."

"No. I live in Amman. But sometimes I have a reason to go to the hill... and to the hotel."

"A good hotel for trysting?" he asked. "You general goes there with you or, perhaps, your general doesn't know you go there?"

Rather than answering, she gave him a sharp look, took his hand in hers, looked around to see if they were being observed, and placed his hand strategically on her body, between her thighs. "My general doesn't own me. I go to the hotel with younger, fitter men."

You couldn't get more clear than this in signaling.

"I doubt I could afford this hotel," he said.

"I'm a rich woman. And the Phoenix Palace has an 'afternoon only' rate."

"You know that, do you?" Jason asked, and he laughed.

"Yes. I have a car nearby."

Jason laughed when he saw what she was driving--a rather old Chrysler Sebring convertible, although it was polished up to look like a land cruiser. He had noticed other Sebrings in Amman, which gave him pause. He associated those good-looking mechanical clunkers with Key West, which he had visited twice. The first time he was there was off a cruise ship on which he worked and he'd noted that the island was crawling with Sebring convertibles. It apparently was the rental car of choice then. Less than a year later he was back in Key West, traveling with a professional poker player attending a tournament there. Then there wasn't a Sebring left on Key West. It was all Volkswagen Beetle convertibles. Now he knew where they'd all gone. They'd all been sent to the Middle East to be status toys for the wealthy.

The first time they fucked was under an olive tree near the summit of the hill overlooking the town of Al-Faisaliya. They were both experts--he in fucking a woman and she in fucking a young man. He was a professional but she had been a practitioner of the art for nearly a decade longer than he had been. He fucked her in a missionary, laying her on the ground on her back, her thighs squeezing his head as he brought her to a climax with his teeth and tongue in her folds and on her clit, while she buried her long fingernails in his blond curls and moaned in a deep, guttural tone. He performed the sex, but she gave the direction. She had already given him head that lasted so long and was so proficient that it was a miracle that he could go on from there, having creamed her face--but the fact that he was a young, in-shape hunk factored into Jasmine having selected him to fuck to begin with. And Jason had no illusions about who selected the other to fuck.

It was under her direction, as well, that he turned her over, mounted her, and fucked her in the ass, snaking a hand around to drive her crazy with his fingers in her cunt. He took as much time as she had in edging him while giving him head. She moaned and writhed under him, claiming he'd given her three climaxes in a fuck that never ended. Indeed, the fuck didn't stop there. The control was completely hers when she put him on his back, straddled him, and rode him to his ejaculation.

It wasn't until the second, third, and fourth afternoon in which they skipped working at the Mabada Roman baths digs to wrestle in bed that they accorded themselves the afternoon rate at the Phoenix Palace hotel at the base of the olive tree-covered Al-Faisaliya hill. They both were highly sexed, athletic, and inventive in their lovemaking. Jason at last felt like he might have found what he had been looking for in a sex partner and sexual experiences. It was an older, more experienced, but still voluptuous woman. Jasmine was a tigress in bed and insatiable.

It came to a screeching halt at the beginning of the fourth week when Avery Bradfield kicked Jason off the excavation site and told him never to show up there again. He did so as much out of jealousy and Jason's failure to take care of him sexually sufficiently than because Jason was absent from the site more than there during his scheduled hours.

Jasmine disappeared from the dig at the same time. They had relied on meeting there to start their trysts. Neither had shared specific contact information--or much of anything verifiable about their past and circumstance--with the other. For a couple of weeks Jason walked the streets of where he thought he might see Jasmine, but without much hope or result. Every Sebring convertible stopped his heart and turned his head. His belief that there were just too many of them in Amman was confirmed. None of them were hers.

But then he met Ali Jamhour

* * * *

The Tallaini Street brothel Jason worked in had guest passes to several gyms in Amman's red-light district, not that Amman officially acknowledged having a red-light district, or brothels, for that matter--certainly not male brothels. The brothel had an exercise room, but the passes were for the male whores to cruise and drum up business when the walk-in traffic at the brothel was down. Jason was one they sent on the rounds of the gyms because he was a Western blond and because his body was beautiful and well-honed. He could be counted on to bring a paying patron back to the brothel whenever he was sent out to do his exercising in a gym.

Jason wasn't as controlled as some of the others. This was the Middle East. Some of the whores were slaves--not officially but in reality--and did as directed. Jason was more of a free spirit and was so good for business that he called the shots on where he went and who he serviced for pay. As long as he continued consistently to be one of the brothel's most lucrative profit centers, they let him do as he pleased. So, although he always could bring a paying patron back when on a cruising spree, if he didn't--if he didn't come back at all for the night now and again--nothing was said other than "how much did you make and where is our share?" Jason was too smart and knowing how holding back could be punished in Amman not to shortchange his employers.

It was thus on the evening when he went to a gym just off Tallaini Street and met Ali Jamhour. Jason, just in athletic shorts, a jock, and sneakers, wasn't the only standout on the exercise floor, which was somewhat unusual. There was a Jordanian, similarly unattired, who was in stark contrast to Jason. Where Jason was twenty-two-years young, blond, blue-eyed, smooth-skinned, all smiles, and outgoing, the Jordanian was in his early thirties, dark of hair and of skin, brown-eyed, slightly hirsute, sultry, elegantly groomed, obviously wealthy, totally in command, promising to be demanding, and pure sex. Whereas Jason could be taken as versatile, both giving and taking, Jamhour was an obvious dominant. It was evident that he went straight for what he wanted and was accustomed to getting it. On this night he went straight for Jason. Everyone else in the gym backed off, although they observed from afar.

Jason knew a mark when he saw one. Jamhour looked like money, experience, and interest. The two, as they drifted into spotting each other on the equipment, chatted, and, as opportunity arose, touched each other, clicked immediately.

"Yes, I play," Jason said to a direct question.

"But are you easy?" Jamhour.

"No, I'm expensive," Jason answered, cutting to the bottom line. Jamhour did not back off.

They found themselves in the locker room later, probably not by accident on either of their parts, dressing. Each spent long enough in the nude to let the other get the full measure of them. They even handled themselves both to give them stretch and to make their interests self-evident. Their mutual interest in each other didn't lag from that.

"I haven't seen you in this gym before," Jamhour said. "And I think I would have remembered seeing you."

"I was given a guest pass for today," Jason said, which was the last true thing he said about himself for the rest of the evening. "I'm a student at the Jordanian University."

"But you aren't Jordanian," Jamhour said. "My name is Ali, by the way." He didn't give his surname.

"I'm Jacko. Some call me Jacko. No. I'm from Australia, but my family lived all over the world, for some time in Toronto, Canada. That's where my accent comes from, I'm told. I'm studying archaeology. I came to Jordan because there are archaeology digs I can work on here."

"And because men pay well for Western blonds," Jamhour ventured.

"Yes, men. But women too." Jason wasn't backing off.

"Archaeology, you say. I know a professor in that program."

"I'm studying with Avery Bradfield," Jason said, and then immediately regretted having said that because of Ali's answer.

"Ah, Avery. Yes, I know him well." He smiled at Jason, who turned away, thinking that perhaps he'd gone too far into the disinformation. Perhaps he should just leave it at that--change and leave. But then Ali pulled it back.

"If you're not busy now, perhaps you can stop at a café with me. My family--we're in banking here in Amman--has sponsored some of the archaeological excavation projects around Amman. I'd like to pick your brain on likely projects. A fresh perspective by someone like you would be most useful, I think."

"And because you want to fuck me," Jason said.

"That too," Ali responded without pause. "But you intrigue me beyond that. We can take our time. I've found it more pleasurable taking my time with a conquest."

"I would be the conquest--not you?" Jason asked.

"I control or I walk away," Ali answered, leaving no question how this would develop, if it did. He was reaching out and touching Jason on the arm, and, just like that, they were back into waltzing around each other on sexual possibilities. They'd already signaled and declared each other's interest several times. The look Ali gave Jason now was quite obvious--and raw.

"I think I'd like that," Jason answered, with a smile. Ali's hand moved to the young man's hip, and Jason didn't move away from it.

The conversation at the café was free-flowing and became increasingly suggestive and intimate.

"If you have time, I would like to show you a men's club I attend. Have you ever taken the pipe?"

"I can make time," Jason said. He was quickly moving from how and when to broach the question of payment to not caring if he got paid at all. Ali was sexy as hell. He was older than Jason, but Jason's mind went back to Jasmine, the older woman he recently had been with and had lost. In many ways, Ali was the male equivalent of Jasmine in the effect they had on Jason. And Jason was bisexual; it didn't really matter how he got it. "And, yes, I've taken the bubble pipe."

The small private club was luxuriously appointed and offered several small, very private rooms. Ali obviously was a regular here. They first went to a bar area and had drinks. Other men were there. They ranged from between Jason's and Ali's ages up to their late fifties. Some wore Western clothes, some the thawb of the Arab world. All spoke English and appeared to be wealthy and worldly. They greeted Ali as a good friend and expressed delight with meeting him. The delight of all came across to Jason as men interested in him as a possible conquest. None of the men seemed to question why Ali would be bringing a younger man to the club.

Ali took Jason into one of the private rooms, where there were a couple of pillow-covered pallets on the floor. An oriental carpet was complemented with walls draped in silk fabric. The atmosphere was one of opulence and a riot of color. The two men lay on their backs, pipes were prepared for them, and they both smoked and listened to soothing music.

The smoke was intoxicating and caused Jason to float in detached and sensual worlds. In one world he and Ali were naked and Ali was on top of him, giving Jason head while Jason gave Ali head. Later Ali was on top of Jason and inside him, languidly fucking him. Jason's legs were raised and spread, held up by hands other than Ali's. Later still, friends of Ali's from the bar were, in succession and in combination, on top of Jason--or with Jason sandwiched between them--and were fucking him.

Jason didn't care. This was what Jason did.

And that's what Ali and his friends did with Jason. Ali had passed a wad of considerable cash to Jason before they had gone to the club--more than enough to cover more than just Ali's desires.

Somehow that evening Jason had told Ali where he could find him at the brothel, and a few days later Ali found him there. And he paid for the privilege of escorting Jason around the city and out to some of the archaeological digs Ali's bank supported. Ali wanted to immerse Jason in the culture of Amman, and he did so. Between excursions, Ali bought time with Jason at the brothel and fucked him there. Jason's luck held in that they didn't run into Avery Bradfield in their excursions. Occasionally, they stopped at a café or a club and "incidentally" some of Ali's young friends would be there too. When this occurred, the excursion would include Jason on a bed in some room with Ali and his friends using him together. Jason never objected.

After two weeks of being cultivated, wined and dined, guided, and fucked by Ali Jamhour and his friends, Jason would have followed the sexy man anywhere and done anything that Ali wanted him to do. Ali was quite generous with his attention, gifts, and money.

Ali invited Jason to his home for a small dinner party, suggesting that perhaps Jason might want to move in with Ali. Full of hope for moving into luxury, Jason readily said yes. Maybe it was time for Jason to settle in with a less congested sex life.

* * * *

Ali Jamhour lived in a lush compound in the wealthy suburb of Dabouq, not far from the Jabaiha section of the city, where the red lights of Tallaini Street were located. Jason didn't have to make his own way there, though. Ali sent a sleek black Mercedes to pick him up and deliver him. Ali had asked Jason to arrive a couple of hours before the dinner party was to start. He took Jason up to a bedroom on the second floor of the main house in the compound and, for more than an hour and a half, worked the young American over sexually like it would be their last meeting. Jason took the session as a honeymoon of a new life in the lap of luxury with Ali Jamhour. He should have given more thought to the sensation that Ali fucked him like he would never have the opportunity to do so again.

The bedding was so intense and total that Jason spent considerable time in the bathtub recovering and came down to the table set up by the swimming pool as the last of the guests. Ali had fucked him so well that Jason's gaze of awe went directly to the host as he approached the pool and he didn't immediately see the other guests.

The first one he saw, though, gave him the shudders.

"You know Avery Bradfield, don't you?" Ali said, giving Jason a smile that had something harder in attitude behind it. "But of course you do. You say he's your teacher at the university."

"Hello, Jordie," Avery said, giving Jason a somewhat bemused look.

In panic, Jason looked over at Ali. He was getting a hard stare. There wasn't much of a question that Ali understood the silly deception Jason had employed to make Ali believe he was a university student.

"And, my father-in-law," Ali said.

Jason was already off balance, but this left him speechless. There before him stood the arms merchant Mohammad al-Kasasbeh.

"Oh, yes, I know this young man quite well," Al-Kasasbeh said, almost with a sneer, "but I know him as a male whore named Jerry."

"And, of course, my beautiful wife, Miriam," Jason heard Ali say. He and the woman turned at the same time. It was the woman he knew as Jasmine, and she had a pained look on her face. Ali knew, and Jasmine knew that Ali knew. Ali had known from the beginning that his wife was fucking Jason and he'd come looking for Jason so that he could do this--expose him for his deceit.

"Tell me, Jason, does my wife give as good a fuck as I do?"

Jason didn't know what he answered or if he'd answered at all. His games of deceit had caught up with him. His hopes of rising up into luxury here in Jordan were dashed. Unless...

He didn't stay for the dinner, of course. He left on foot. He'd carried around a note that had been given to him since he'd received it, always considering it his insurance. These people would have given him a good life, but they paled in the presence of a prince. Saudi prince Suliman bin Saud had given him an address to go to if and when Jason was willing to serve a man of somewhat violent tastes. It had come to that--greater pain than he would have liked in exchange for a better life.

He stood in front of a door of a large house just off Tallaini Street. He hadn't checked out the address the prince had given him before. He had assumed it was the prince's Amman residence. It wasn't. He knew this house well. It had been pointed out to him before with the admonition that it was an establishment he would want to avoid. It was yet another male brothel. But, in this case, it was one known for brutality. It was said that once a male whore entered here, he was a slave, and he wouldn't leave here for any place other than the city morgue.