Neither this voyage nor the season of it were my choice. I had been living happily in Italy when the cable came offering a better job than I had hoped for upon returning to the States after so long in the field of foreign news. Magazine editor in Hollywood? Me among the stars? You bet your ass I took the job, storm-tossed seas be damned!

Leaving hearth and home in the beautiful Italian countryside was hard, no matter the cushy position awaiting me far across the world. The sweet associations with wonderful Italian men, the romps in the hay and in the woods around the farm on which I stayed --- leaving their behinds behind (and their foreparts, as well) was a high price to pay, but the fleshpots of Hollywood offered an irresistible sirens' call.

Good-bye. Farewell. I must go away!

Small wonder I regretted leaving while the ship careened through endless ocean storms. Negotiating the gangways and decks on the few occasions I dared to leave my cabin to eat was reminiscent of skiing downhill and uphill at the same time. Nausea became my middle name.

Nausea was everybody's middle name that trip, except for a few hardy ship's officers and most of the crew. The 500 Italian immigrants and hundred-or-so Yugoslavians bound for Canada (via Halifax in Nova Scotia, our last port-of-call before docking in New York) suffered so terribly from collective mal-de-mer that the dining room was often awash in vomit ankle-deep. My own seasickness also had contributed a quart or two.

I tell you, that was a voyage through Hell!

At least I thought so until I glimpsed the heavenly sunshine of a beautiful smile beaming right at me, and with it three others --- a quartet of divinely handsome, sure-footed men leaning against a railing as serenely as if we were afloat on a lake in Paradise instead of riding out the Devil's wrath on a satanic sea.

A chorus of warrior angels came to mind for not only were they squarely built, like God's tanks on the Plains of Armageddon, but also their white teeth glinted with brilliant flecks of gold, and their sturdy arms outstretched as one to catch me when I lurched past them to vomit over the side.

The tallest of the four, he of the barrel chest, boomed in a great voice that resounded above the storm: "I Marco. These my friends. We go Canada. Do you?"

Heaving done, I turned my whitewashed face upward to gaze into his deep and friendly eyes. "No, to New York. I am an American." His strong arms still held me at his side. I felt better than I had the whole trip.

"We come Yugoslavia," Marco said, his accent rich as mountain wine, his words labored as if English were unfamiliar on his tongue. "I have not good English. My friends no have English at all."

The others were bobbing their heads at me, still beaming smiles glossy with gold fillings that might have been funny if these guys weren't so cute. I opened wide to point at a solitary nugget at the back of my mouth. Blessed with my mother's good teeth, I had no need of more.

They laughed all at one time, cheerfully displaying the gold mine each harbored in his jaws. "Italy gift," Marco crowed, taking obvious pride in the glittering dental rows. "We refugees. Escape Communist prison Yugoslavia. Over mountains find freedom in Trieste. Put in camp. We lose much tooths in prison. Italy Red Cross fix with gold!"

I cried. I could not help it. They were so beautiful. They had suffered so much. Man's inhumanity to man!

In the next few hours, I managed to piece together their tale. From different walks of life --- Marco, a farmer with high aspirations who picked up English from books; the second, a factory worker in industrial steel; the third, a waiter in a village cafe on the Dalmatian Coast. I was never quite clear on the fourth, but all had one thing in common: each had run afoul of Communist authorities in the tightly knit ethnic enclaves of Yugoslavia held together only by the iron-fisted grasp of Marshal Tito, a hero of the Second World War who became a Communist dictator after the Germans were driven out.

Totally preoccupied with their stories and faintly enamored of every one of them for their strength of character and physical beauty --- but most especially of Marco, I sat with them drinking beer in the lounge all afternoon, hoping the day would never end.

What suffering they had endured! Winter nights spent naked on the prison's concrete floors washed down hourly by sadistic guards with fire hoses of freezing water and then beaten, for good measure, with hard fists that knocked out several of their teeth; dregs for food and stale bread riddled with lice; shitting and pissing on themselves for want of any sanitary facilities.

Despite all that, they had become friends with each other, sharing their agonies, which made it better, and finally contriving an escape en masse with dozens of other prisoners when a rockslide destroyed their barracks wall and an adjacent fence, killing a few, but allowing some to escape in the confusion.

These four stuck together, bound in mutual suffering as friends for life, and they were taken in as brothers at a refugee camp near Trieste after they stole across the Italian frontier. Likewise were they accepted as immigrants to Canada, and all were ecstatic about the new life they had struggled for and won.

My concerns were so puny next to theirs that I felt almost ashamed of the grand opportunities bestowed upon me by life. I immersed myself in those four great men and wanted desperately to please them in any way I could. They were very kind to me.

One of them I took to be Muslim, although the other three seemed to be Eastern Orthodox Christians. The presence of an Orthodox bishop in somber vestments across the room seemed to inspire profound respect in those three. I heard the fourth make reference to "Inshallah" ("Allah is great."), which defined him as Muslim to me.

It took awhile to figure out their names. The Slavic sounds were not familiar to my ears. Marco's was easy. The second's sounded rather like Mateus or Matthew, but the others were unintelligible. Finally, I came to think of them as Matthew, Mark (Marco), Luke and John, the "Four Gospels," the Good-News Boys, the band of angels who saved me from pitching over the side (or so it seemed at the time).

Something special had developed between Marco and me. At a certain point, I sensed he was contriving to get me alone. Finally, I made a show of getting up and cupping the fingers of one hand above my fly in the manner I had seen European men hold and hide their dicks when pissing against a wall in public (a not uncommon thing to do), thus indicating to the Four Gospels that I had to pee, while at the same time pointing to the restroom with the other hand.

No sooner had I started to cross the lounge than the damned boat pitched sharply to starboard, and I toppled over on my ass. Marco was all over me in a flash, protectively showing concern that I might have been hurt. He practically carried me to the head, clucking like a mother hen. I felt like a vulnerable cub shepherded by its papa bear.

There was no doubting his tenderness toward me. In the restroom, he still clung to me as I sidled up to the urinal. We were alone. His arm never left my shoulder as he took his dick out, too, and together we let loose powerful streams of piss pungent from drinking beer all afternoon. Not a word passed between us, but when we finished, I turned to him and lifted up on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek.

Both his arms wrapped themselves around me and squeezed me like a vise. He was awkward. This was obviously an impulsive thing. I felt he didn't know what to do next. I took command and reached through his open fly. His fat cock tip was moist with drops of urine. I tugged it gently and buried my face in his massive chest.

From his depths, he gushed a heavy sigh. Just then the door swung open, and we sprang apart as another man came in.

It had been an interlude of no more than seconds, but it was as deep and beautiful as an hour of love. It had changed everything between us. We returned to the table different men.

The other three "gospels" sensed something, without knowing what, but they had shared such a galaxy of experiences that they could not help but recognize a sea change in Marco's relationship with me.

Even the sea responded by calming down as if the latest squall had passed. The day had gone dark beyond the wide windows overlooking the deck. The steward rang the dinner gong for the evening meal. The other three got to their feet, paused when Marco and I did not, then grinned as he spoke in their language. With dismissive shrugs and nodding tilts of their heads, they left us at the table and walked away toward the dining saloon.

What he had said I did not know, but I knew what it meant for me. I looked earnestly at Marco. His cheeks were flushed. I sensed I would have to take the lead. I got up and nodded toward the doorway to the deck outside, and then I walked away. He followed close at hand, down two flights of stairs and into the gangway that led to my private cabin.

Once inside, he crushed me in his beefy arms, awkwardly again, as if he were acting on instinct without a clear-cut plan. He didn't need one. I knew what we had to do.

I sat him down on my narrow bunk and knelt to take off his shoes and socks. I looked up at his face. There was now a trace of worry in his eyes. He was dealing, I surmised, with a great unknown.

"Don't be afraid," I whispered, gently touching his fly. "I only want to help." It soothed him a little. He lay his bearish paws on my fingers and pressed them down. I felt his manhood stir.

"I never with man," he said, the words seeping slowly from his lips, "only woman, but I need now. I need much." His cock was swelling in my hand.

"I like with you but scared," he went on.

I smiled softly. "It will not hurt," I said. "No pain for you."

He shook his head vigorously from side to side. "No, not understand! My family dead. Everybody gone. I go Canada. Have new life. I get woman. Make babies." His broad shoulders shuddered. His hands gripped mine like steel.

Tears of emotion brimmed in his eyes. "Must carry on my name! Must get woman! Afraid I like too much with you! Maybe I don't want woman no more!"

That took my breath away. I got up off my knees and sat beside him on the bunk. It had begun to dawn on me that despite his age, his bulk, his painful experience of life, he was, for all that, still just a farmer who had met the world of my language only in books.

"No," I said, "we part in Halifax. You and your friends travel thousands of miles to Vancouver. We never meet again." I slung my arm around his shoulder. "Only now, on the ship, we are together. You are a man made for women. I understand. We are two men who do this thing only to feel better for a little while. It will not turn you from women."

He relaxed under my caresses. With one hand I stroked the back of his neck and shoulders. I had strong fingers trained in the Japanese art of Shiatsu massage. His taut muscles gradually softened. With the other hand, I worked his cock into a raging hard. Drops of pre-cum gummed up my fingers. He moaned softly. He turned his head toward me, eyes enflamed with lust, lips parted with his tongue showing, ready for a kiss. I obliged. He responded clumsily, but with gusto.

From that moment, there was no hint of fear or withholding. He had decided to give himself to me body and soul.

I offered the same to him. His hot breath flowed over my cheeks and throat as he covered them with bearish slurps that hardly passed for kisses. In our frenzy, we ripped off each other's clothes and rolled on the bunk with the rough abandon of virile puppies at play.

I finally got him in position to blow him, but after the first mouthfuls I caught him playing with my butt. I laughed a little inside. I never met a farmer who didn't understand the sexual potential of an asshole. What else was a corn cob for, once the pigs were fed?

Again, I obliged him and, settling down on his tool gently, commenced jerking my hard meat in a fury. His eyes remained closed, envisioning a woman, no doubt. His hands wandered to my chest once, but feeling no tits there fell away quickly and lay beside him on the bed.

I let his stiff dicky-bird grow used to roosting in my warm nest and devoted all of my intensity to getting myself off, which I did -- in a starburst that filled my brain with light.

It was in that instant of my cumming that he opened his eyes and responded to my passionate frenzy with a deep, heartfelt groan. The sphincter encircling my anus tightened around his cock and gripped him like a vise. I sank down on it to the base writhing in ecstasy which had spun out of control.

He was experiencing for the first time the power of a man's asshole in the throes of orgasm, its savage contractions keeping pace with the volcanic bombs of semen exploding from the penile shaft. He loved it!

After the taut frenzy of my climax, the relaxed walls of my fiery passage welcomed his hot hammer like a close-fitting glove. Having satisfied myself quickly, I could now concentrate on meeting the violent thrusts of his piston with the firm grip of my sphincter. I felt his pelvis arch under my grinding weight, pushed aloft repeatedly with increasing speed.

He roared like a lion when his dick fired like the cannons booming in gay composer Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture.

When it was over, I lay on his chest panting, our bellies slick and slimy with my cum.

It seemed like our sexing had kept us busy for hours, but we were back in our chairs in the lounge by the time Matthew, Luke, and John staggered out of the dining room showing signs of having drunk several carafes of wine.

I conned a tray of sandwiches from an older steward I had blown earlier in the voyage, and Marco and I feasted on our own while the others sat watching us, it seemed to me, with eyes that wondered what had gone on while they were apart from us. These four men had lived as one body for a matter of years. It would have been impossible for something unusual to happen to one without the others getting a message on it, however garbled.

Whereas the ball had been in my court when they left us alone at dinner, now, because of the language barrier, it had bounced over to Marco's. There was no mistaking the question in their eyes, nor the embarrassment that suddenly showed in Marco's red-cheeked face.

After a few more nibbles at a sandwich, he spoke to his friends with obvious hesitation, but whatever he said stirred them to rapt attention, none of it, at that point, turned on me. They talked for awhile amongst themselves, unmistakable signs of too much wine slurring their speech.

Gradually, my perception of the conversation narrowed to its likely subject when I noticed their hands drifting to their laps, and Luke and John each crossed their legs self-consciously as if to distract attention from their crotches. Every one of the three who had eaten dinner was hard, and now their gazes shifted more often to me. I had no doubt Marco had told them our tale.

What next? I didn't have long to wait.

Marco was very direct. "I tell my friends what we do." He stopped speaking, at a loss, I think, for the next words.

I took a chance. "Perhaps they want me to...uh...help them, too?"

He flushed again, his eyes cast down. Embarrassed, perhaps ashamed, he could not find anymore words. I reached over and patted his hand, then arose and headed for the doorway leading to the deck. Before stepping outside, I turned back to the group of men. Their eyes had remained riveted on me.

With a congenial grin and a beckoning gesture of my hand, a slight lifting of my shoulder and a faint twist of my head, I made it clear that whoever was interested in companioning with me could follow if he wished. Without waiting to see if my offer were accepted, I set out for my cabin below. As I twisted the key in the latch, I turned back briefly to look along the gangway to see who might have responded to my unspoken invitation.

There they were, leaning tipsily against the wall: Matthew, Luke and John. I presumed the fourth gospel, Marco, exhausted, had gone off to bed.

Matthew, Luke and John had staggered after me out of the shipboard lounge, along the pitching deck, and down a steep flight of stairs to the inner gangway which led to my cabin door. It was a miracle they had been able to negotiate that route in their inebriated condition. They could never have made it without the sturdy railings lining every wallspace on the vessel.

We had long since left the calmer Mediterranean, where I had boarded at Naples and they boarded three days earlier at Trieste. Now in the middle of the North Atlantic, we were crossing an ocean that separated not only the continents of Europe and North America, but also the men from the boys!

It had been a rough voyage the whole trip. I could never get used to going into dinner sloshing through the vomit of several hundred sick passengers unable to move fast enough to upchuck over a railing or into a john. Some days the pitch of the ship had been so bad even the sailors fell to their knees and pulled themselves by the railings on the walls.

Despite all that, there stood three of my "Four Gospels," missing only Mark, or Marco, whom I supposed had gone to bed "plum tuckered," as they used to say among the Kentucky mountain men in my family, "from gittin' him a hot piece o' tail!" I reckon those good ol' cousins of mine, reared on moonshine and an occasional piece of me, surely knew how to turn a phrase! It was, after all, my tail that had worn Marco down and laid him out to snore between the sheets.

One down, three to go, was the way I saw it now. He had told them in the Slavic tongue I did not understand about our glorious sex, and I had made clear in body language that I was up for grabs. Apparently, it was an offer these dear, sex-starved, hideously tortured men could not bring themselves to refuse. I had drawn the conclusion that gay sex was in no way a part of their orientation and that opportunities to exploit them sexually had been beyond the reach of anyone who might have been gay in the rigorous, hateful world of the Yugoslavian Communist prison from which they had managed to escape into Italy where they found refuge at a camp in Trieste.

Only now, en route to a new life in a new world at the far western end of Canada, could they at last begin to think of themselves as upstanding men instead of hobbled slaves bent beneath the whips of their Communist masters. Only now could they down several carafes of wine at dinner and seek out a partner to relieve the consuming ache in their loins with no strings attached, no moral questions to ask or answer, and no self-recrimination. Who, but themselves, who had lived as one body, one man, who else would ever know? In a few days, they would be on a train together crossing North America, and I, the only other party to their secret, would still be on the high seas, headed for another country. We would never meet again.

These things passed through my mind in the twinkling of an eye, for within seconds of my arriving at my door, all three had filed into my small cabin, and door was closed and locked behind them.

It was an awkward moment. There were one chair and a sort of closet, a washstand (bathroom down the hall), and two narrow bunk beds, one on either wall on opposite sides of the single porthole that gave light during the day. This was Second, or Cabin, Class. All the amenities were on the upper decks, in First.

These were adult Slavic men, somewhat rough-hewn, in next-to-ragged, Red Cross hand-me-down clothes given them at the refugee camp outside Trieste. They were, essentially, wards of the state, although which state was a moot point since they were no longer in their ethnic lands grouped as Yugoslavia, and Trieste was more or less an international city, and they were now in the unclaimed sea, and Canada was to be their next, and last, port-of-call.

They were not Canadians yet, so in a sense, at that moment they belonged to me.

I indicated they should sit in a row on the neatly made bunk, the other, where I slept, being in disarray from my bout with Marco less than an hour before. They sat. The one I thought of as Luke smiled his gold-toothed smile and leaned forward to pat his hand on the other bunk, a sweet gesture inviting me to sit, too. I did so. They all stared at me. I stared back at them, but not for long.

I saw no other way for it but for me to undress. Given the circumstance of my being a foreigner without means of direct communication, it would have been easy for all of us to pretend a misunderstanding and to smile and nod awhile, and then for them to leave thinking I must be some kind of nut who had suddenly changed his mind. I had been through such moments in my idiotic younger days. No more.

I stood and stripped to the buff. I took off everything and lay back on the bunk, fingering my dick, which was soft, and looking at each man in turn. They got the message. They removed their clothing, standing, sitting, twisting, lifting legs out of pants, removing boots, and when they were done, each still had on his shorts and socks. They looked so cute lined up over there, like shy schoolboys, their gold teeth sparkling in the single overhead light, beaming shit-eatin' grins that said, loud and clear, "What the fuck do we do now?"

I sat up and swung my legs off the bunk and then slid down on my knees to drop my head in Luke's lap. No sooner had I nosed through the fly of his boxer shorts and touched my tongue to his cock than it sprang up to meet me in a full, straining hard with pre-cum bubbling out of the cavity. Oh, God, it was hot!

He stripped quickly and spread his knees wider before lifting his legs to lock them around my back, his rough hands pawing at my head, pushing it down until his tool bottomed out in my throat. He was frantic about it. He gave the impression that nothing had ever felt so good. His sighs were loud, unrestrained. He had no shame in front of his friends. As I had thought, they were, in reality, emotionally only one man. What was right for one was right for all.

Breathing through my nose and letting him pump my head up and down, I reached blindly for Matthew's dick. I discovered then that the second "gospel" had pulled off his shorts, coming to terms with full nudity for this occasion. I wondered vaguely if he still wore his socks, and if John were now buck naked, too.

Matthew's was hard as stone. I jerked his meat with rapid strokes, feeling for pre-cum with my thumb. It was there. These guys were instantly primed. It was obvious they had gone a long time without orgasm. In the midst of my pleasure over the manly smells that had begun to permeate the small room, I wondered how they had taken care of themselves before. Perhaps not at all, I thought. Uncertain conditions of life, skirting the doorway to death as they had for so long, sometimes depresses sexual sensitivity and so subordinates sexual desire that it ceases, in essence, to exist.

How fortunate was I to be the one chosen to bring these heroes back to life. I had no designs upon them but our mutual joy. To serve such men was a privilege, I declared to myself, only Zeus, the ancient godhead of their race, could bestow. The taste, the smell, the feel of them exalted me to Olympus. I had become a cup-bearer, a lover, to gods!

Matthew rose from the bed while I gnawed on Luke's cock and lifted me with his bearish arms to a position where he could stand behind me and moisten himself with spit and ram himself deep inside. It hurt, but I took it with the willingness of sacrifice. Besides, my anal passage still held the Vaseline and the juices deposited by Marco a short time before, with the addition of the inner sweat of excitement over my thrilling adventure in the service of love. I was ready for martyrdom if such was the case.

I had settled into a steady rhythm with Luke when suddenly his pelvis arched, and he gasped and sprayed unexpectedly into the depths of my throat. I hadn't even tasted his cum. It spurt out clean and left nary a drop to lick when he fell back and withdrew. Matthew, bent over me and pumping in the short strokes that meant he, too, was ready to cum, tightened his grip around my middle and lunged toward me till I banged my head against the wall beneath the porthole. I felt the shock of hot semen spurting into my guts, marveling that the force of it did not shoot it in pellets out of my mouth.

When that was over, I fell across the bed, unsure where I might find the strength to take care of the third "gospel," John, who sat still sat on the other bunk in shorts and socks, slumped against the wall, watching the proceedings with large, round eyes.

Perhaps for the first time, I really looked at John. I had always perceived them as a single unit constituted of four melded parts, not really as individuals, and the only relationship of sorts I had formed had been with Marco, who could speak at least a modicum of English. John had never spoken to me directly. He was smaller than the others, almost delicate, and slim rather than burly. He had smooth skin and no hair on his chest, unlike the other three who were all hirsute men.

The others leaned together, shoulder to shoulder, breathing heavily, but looking content. Both had closed their eyes. I had the sense that John and I were more or less alone.

I thought then of the Gospel According to Saint John, which contained my favorite Biblical chapter, number 14. John, Chapter 14, speaks of sending a Comforter. Was that my role for these men, most particularly for John? He seemed shyer than the rest, and, to be truthful, was the one I would have picked out of a crowd. He had been a waiter in Dubrovnik, a lovely, ancient town on the Dalmatian coast. I could picture him elegantly carrying a tray. Marco had hinted that the others had formed a protective envelope whenever they could for him, but that had hardly spared him the grief and misery they had all shared in prison.

I smiled and extended my hand. He glanced at the other two, whose eyes were closed, then smiled back and came to lie beside me on the bed. He was so beautiful I began to feel I would like more than pile-driving sex with him. Would he also comfort me? I sat up, lifted his legs and gently peeled away his socks. His feet were clean and smooth. I took one in my hands and kissed the instep, then softly licked the toes. There was no smell about them. He didn't seem to mind. When I set the foot down, he lifted the other to my face and gave me an impish smile. I kissed that one, too, until he pulled it away and tugged me back down to his side and rolled over and took me in his arms and kissed me full on the lips.

There was love in that kiss. No tongue. Just a pressing of the lips and holding them there while his warm breath flowed from his nose and he ran his hands down my back and stroked the cheeks of my ass. He was getting hard. He was not as large as the other three. It was long, but thin, not a Slavic salami like the other guys had. It was the kind I could take without a wince and keep inside me as long as it stayed stiff. A "comforter," indeed! Thank you, John 14!

He turned away briefly to look at Matthew and Luke. They had fallen into deep sleep, their gonads emptied, their animal instincts sated, their bellies filled with good food and wine. Their paradise may once have been lost, but in my cabin on board that Italian liner, their paradise had been regained. Thus could they sleep the sleep of babes.

Seemingly comfortable in our solitude, John turned back to me and began making passionate love. His tongue sprang between my lips. One hand pulled off his shorts and he pressed himself utterly naked against my body, his sweet sighs of pleasure making music in my ears. He was distinctly the aggressor. His eyes remained open the whole time. Unlike Marco, he was not envisioning himself with a woman. He liked the idea of being with a man.

There was an openness, an honesty, in his approach to me -- nothing to lose, nothing to gain. He was as interested in my pleasure as he was in his own. We shared no language but love, and that we were were sharing abundantly. As the ship pitched through the troubled, nighttime sea, we wove ourselves together like a seamless robe. Our legs entwined, our arms wrapped around each other, our mouths locked in deep kisses, tongues shifted to lick inside our ears, then downward to our nipples, little pinches, little bites -- it was heaven!

He was not, I think, truly homosexual. He never toyed with my penis or hunkered down that far to touch it with his lips. He did, however, stroke the crease in my buttocks, and spit on a finger to insert it into my hole where he reamed inside and crooked the finger at the first joint to tug and push and stretch. I knew he was prepping me for fucking, as he may have done with women as a younger man when free, perhaps not understanding or realizing that coitus with an anus did not produce any substantial lubricating fluid other than sweat. He was, after all, a novice in something at which I was an old hand. Here, I would have to be his guide.

His penis was like satin, his ball sac loose and hanging low. He had no belly to speak of, and I was slim in those days, although always with a bubble butt. He liked that. He could not keep from caressing my buns. I wanted to feel him as much as I could. I had enough lube inside me already from the Vaseline and from Marco's and Matthew's copious loads of semen.

He entered me slowly, facing my back, with my leg lifted, both of us lying on our sides. My head rested in the crook of his arm, his lips brushed against my nape, his free arm draped over my hip with his palm flat on my stomach. We were wordless, of course, and could hear a slight snoring from the other two, much louder than our careful sighs. Despite their presence, our lovemaking was private. We were very much alone.

There came a moment when the sensations within our bodies began to dominate our conscious minds. Internal juices were flowing. Primeval forces were gathering for an onslaught from which we would be unable to defend ourselves, to which we would have to capitulate no matter the circumstances elsewhere in the room. The world outside our bodies contracted, compressed, condensed into heat patterns enfolding our senses.

It was in this strange half-light of emotion that he grasped my cock in his hand and worked it as any man knows how, the thing that a woman can never properly do. He crowded against me, pushing me farther over on my belly and lifting himself to pound more directly and pin me to the bed with the mass of male vigor coursing through the muscles of his back, his legs, his arms. Everything about him tightened to the breaking point except the hand that jerked my prick and the thumb planted at the tip now thickly sauced with pre-cum. I, too, moved back against him wildly, stiff and ecstatic with anticipation of our explosion.

In the last moment, he rose over me, pushing me flatter, and drilled into me deeper until he went off in a flood of hot liquid that shot up inside me and made me feel totally filled. I had turned my head, and he had positioned his so that he could look into my eyes. We never closed them during our orgasms, having cum at precisely the same time, and gazed earnestly at each other in those intense last seconds of absolute love.

Utterly spent, we crashed together, panting, and fell asleep for the little that remained of the night.

Thus ends, more or less, my tale of the Four Gospels. Oh, there were other brief sexual encounters among Marco, Matthew, Luke and me during the few days left before arriving in Nova Scotia, but none of it was the same. The "magic," for me, had vanished after that first night because I was now preoccupied with thoughts of John, having fallen, quite foolishly, deeply in love. But he avoided me. That hurt.

The others did not seem aware of this. Marco mentioned, when I asked, that John was not even talking to them. He suggested that they all had butterflies in their stomachs, what with arriving in a strange new country where they were soon to start building new lives.

John did say good-bye to me, through Marco, at dinner the night before docking, and then the four of them retired early to pack their few belongings and sort themselves out before facing immigration in Halifax the following day.

I couldn't sleep. I paced the deck after they left the lounge, miserable at the thought of never seeing John again and feeling lonelier than I had in years. Finally, I went down to my cabin and stretched out on the bunk, praying the night would quickly pass.

At about three in the morning, I heard a faint knock at my door. I had dozed off. It took a minute or two to collect my senses and get up to open it. No one was there. I looked outside. John was headed back toward the stairs. "Wait!" I cried out in English. He stopped and turned, hesitated, then came back to me. I took his arm and pulled him inside. Breathless at the sight of him, I trembled, for once not knowing what to do.

No smile. Not a nod. Just a searching look into my eyes. His were red, I thought from crying. I was right. As I stared back, tears spilled on to his cheeks and a mournful look crept across his face. He drifted gently to his knees and clasped me around my thighs, burying his head in my groin. I was in boxer shorts. I felt him nuzzle me there. Then, his lips found their goal. He took the head of my penis between his lips. There, he stopped, kneeling motionless for awhile.

My hands came to rest on his dear shoulders. I felt him begin to rise to his feet. I pulled him up and held him in my arms. We stood that way for perhaps ten minutes before his lips brushed my cheeks and he stepped away, reaching behind him to open the door.

Before he did so, he touched my chest above the heart with one hand, and his own chest in the same spot with the other. Then he offered the only word I would ever hear him speak in English: "Love."

He turned and left the room.

I saw the "Four Gospels" one more time, as they disembarked and walked down the gangplank toward the immigration shed. They looked up at me where I stood at the railing and waved good-bye. All went inside except John. He lingered slightly, gazing toward me with misted eyes, then he, too, disappeared, stepping into his new life.