Jonathan's Promise Read online

  By the time the clock struck three, Jonathan was nervously pacing the spa’s reception area. He couldn’t sit still. What am I doing? I’m behaving like a lovesick puppy. Glancing up to the ceiling, he whispered, “Dan, I think I’m in trouble…”

  “Hello, Jonathan. Welcome back. How are you today?” Marc’s gentle touch on his shoulder made Jonathan jump.

  “Me? Yes, uh, yeah, I am good. Thanks. Just lost in thought.”

  “Are you ready for your massage? Follow me.” Marc pointed down the hall, and then led the way to one of the larger treatment rooms, facing aft with a spectacular view of Sint Maarten as the ship gently sailed out into the open Caribbean Sea.

  “Wow,” Jonathan said, impressed, “that’s quite a view.”

  “Yes, it is, which is why we usually leave the curtains and blinds open when a client comes in. But rest assured, I’ll darken the room before your treatment begins. Please have a seat.” Marc pointed to a comfortable armchair in one of the corners, allowing Jonathan to enjoy the view. “I’ll proceed with the feet-washing ritual, if that is acceptable for you?”

  Jonathan simply nodded, his mind elsewhere, and his body on high alert. He was very aroused.

  “You seem distraught today,” Marc observed calmly as he took off Jonathan’s shoes and socks and proceeded with the same cleansing ritual he’d performed on the first day.

  “I’m sorry. It’s not you,” Jonathan responded, before deciding it was a ridiculous thing to say. “Well, that’s not strictly true. It is you.” He tried to keep his voice calm, but Marc seemed worried nonetheless.

  “Did I do something wrong?” The look in the man’s eyes cut Jonathan to the quick and filled his body with yearning to hug him.

  “No, quite the contrary…” he began, unsure of how to say what he felt without breaking the moment and without making Marc feel uncomfortable. “You are so incredibly kind and gentle, and I’m unaccustomed to someone showing affection toward me. It’s like you see something no one but my husband has seen in decades, and he’d known me since I was eighteen. Not even I see it any longer…”

  Marc blushed, and then shot Jonathan one of his dimpled smiles. His eyes lit up again. “It’s true, I do find you quite attractive, but I hope I treat all my clients with the proper respect.” Marc’s cheeks had turned a deep crimson red with his admission. “I hope you understand this is very difficult for me to say, not because I like you, but because I can get in a lot of trouble for it.”

  Jonathan nodded in understanding; cruise lines had very strict rules governing the interaction between passengers and crew.

  Marc continued, “If you were to say anything to my manager, I’d be forced to disembark the ship at the next port. The company does not allow any sort of fraternization between crew members and our guests. Can I count on your discretion?”

  There was a pleading quality to his eyes and voice. All the while, he’d massaged and cleaned Jonathan’s feet, making it extremely difficult for Jonathan to think clearly in his aroused state.

  “Yes,” he began, his voice coarse, “don’t worry about me. My lips are sealed.”

  Marc finished with the foot-cleansing ritual and surprised Jonathan with a gentle kiss. “Thank you. I’ll leave you to disrobe. When you’re ready, please climb onto the table and under the sheet.” Marc turned on a gentle, soft yellowish light, and closed the blinds and the curtains, darkening the room. “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.” He left, but not without gently placing his hand on Jonathan’s shoulders, sending waves of pleasure through the old man’s body. I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle his hands on my skin for an hour.

  Marc left the room, and Jonathan got undressed. In the yellowish dimmed light, he looked at his old body in the mirror, sagging skin, his almost hairless body, the little belly he sported, his once nice pecs hanging like rags, his wrinkled face. He saw the sadness over his body’s decay reflected in his own eyes. How can anyone find this attractive? I certainly don’t!

  He wondered what the handsome young Belgian saw when he looked at him. With his strawberry-blond hair and freckled face, Marc had a youthful appearance, yet Jonathan felt at ease in his company. Perhaps it was simply because Marc was gay, too, but it felt as if, when he looked at Jonathan, he didn’t see the eighty-year-old senior citizen; he saw the twenty-five-year-old that Jonathan still was underneath all the wrinkles, and the weird hairs growing out of the crevices of his nose and ears that made it almost impossible to get to them.

  Jonathan had always had a fairly smooth body, and it wasn’t until he’d approached forty that he’d begun to grow hair on his thighs. Then came a few hairs on his hands, and from there it was downhill—nose hair, hair growing on and out of his ears, his eyebrows needing constant attention and whatnot. By the time he’d turned seventy, most of his original body hair, on his legs for instance, had more or less disappeared, leaving him with just the ones he didn’t particularly care for. Luckily, he got to keep most of the hair on his head, as white as it had turned over the years.

  With one last rueful glance in the mirror, Jonathan got up on the massage table—with some difficulty given his stiff muscles—lay, face down, and covered himself as well as he could with the sheet Marc had left.

  After a moment, Marc returned to the room. “Are you feeling comfortable? Please let me know if the temperature is too hot, or too cold, d’accord?” Marc adjusted the sheet so that it properly covered Jonathan’s buttocks and legs. “Now, we didn’t discuss what kind of massage you would like. I can offer a number of different treatments, from sports massage—which goes deep and really loosens your tissue on a deep muscular level—to a more relaxing massage, say a Lomi Lomi, which is a Hawaiian-style massage with long strokes, to re-establish the connections between every part of your body.

  “Or we could go with a traditional-style Swedish massage with various strength levels. I can also offer you an aromatherapy massage, which combines any of our softer styles with scented lotions to relax you or to invigorate you, depending on what you’d like.” While talking about the various choices of massage, Marc had begun to gently rub Jonathan’s back. He moved his arms up the massage table and tucked the hands under the sheet.

  “I’m not sure,” Jonathan said into the coated memory-foam oval doughnut where his head was resting quite comfortably.

  “Do you trust me?” Marc asked.

  “Implicitly.”

  “Okay. I’m glad to hear that. Let’s do a Lomi Lomi then. It’s one of my favorite massages, and you’ll feel like a new man afterward. But I’ll have to remove the sheet to be able to perform the flowing motions. Is that okay with you?”

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  Marc proceeded to remove the sheet and adjusted the air conditioning to increase the temperature by a couple of degrees before getting some heated oil to start to work on Jonathan. Soft warm hands, moist with oil, touched Jonathan’s shoulders and started to move down his back, sliding over his ass and down his right leg. He sighed, quietly, as Marc’s slick palms glided over the skin. The sensation was most pleasurable. With the same slow motion, Marc worked his way up, pausing at the base of Jonathan’s skull to apply gentle pressure before moving down again. He did this a few times, alternating a gentle pressure with a very light touch, repeating the same moves on the left side, sending shivers of pleasure through Jonathan’s body.

  The entire massage of his back, buttocks and legs was a series of long, flowing motions, alternating pressure and feather-like touches, and Jonathan felt completely relaxed, although he knew he’d be in trouble when he turned over. Each touch of his ass assaulted his sexual senses head on, making him dream of those hands doing all kinds of things to his body—things he and Dan had done to each other for so many years but had stopped around the time Dan had reached the age Jonathan was now, as his sexual drive had slowly diminished. They had often teased each other about the decay they’d both witnessed, but still, every night, they’d made sure to share an intimate moment:
a gentle kiss or to spoon for a while.

  Beyond the occasional hand job, sex had become a thing of the past, even if, at that time, Jonathan had still been reasonably young and virile. But even his own sex drive no longer required him to go out and seek out the company of other men, as he’d infrequently done in the years before that. They had always lived in an open relationship, basing their love for each other, and their sixty-year companionship on values like honesty, love and commitment rather than sexual monogamy, or as Dan had once put it, “I don’t mind if you go to the movies with a friend, or play tennis with someone else without me being there. Why would I mind you having sex with someone else?” Sometimes they’d share their adventures with each other, infusing a new sense of eroticism into their marital sex life, but often they wouldn’t. It wasn’t a secret; it just didn’t matter.

  This time, Jonathan felt different, and not because sensual, or even erotic massages were new to him. He felt a strong emotional bond with Marc, and the young masseur had admitted he felt similarly. It was a concept Jonathan was still struggling with. The idea of being attractive to someone so young was titillating and incredible at the same time.

  While Jonathan’s soul was battling with the idea, his body had long ago surrendered to the ministrations of Marc’s gentle touch, and his cock was standing at full attention, aching underneath his body.

  “Would you please turn over?” Marc asked, interrupting Jonathan’s mental debate.

  “I, uh, yes. I’m sorry…” He didn’t know what to say. “Can you help me?”

  “Sure.”

  Jonathan felt the smile even though he couldn’t see it.

  Marc’s strong hands supported and assisted him as he turned. “Oh, I see what you mean.” Jonathan could now see Marc’s smile, and there was a sparkle in his eyes. “You really are enjoying it.”

  “I’m sorry…I couldn’t help it. It’s been a long time since I’ve been touched like this.”

  Marc helped him ease onto his back, supporting his head and adjusting the headrest at the same time. “Jonathan, please don’t apologize for having a functioning body.” He kissed Jonathan’s forehead.

  Applying more oil to his hands, Marc began to massage Jonathan’s shoulders, again, with long flowing motions from the side of his neck all the way down to his toes. Jonathan couldn’t help but wonder if the touches to his cock were by accident or design, but at every passage, one of Marc’s fingers would gently touch his cock and ball sack, sending shivers of pleasure through his body and making him hornier by the minute.

  Ever professional, Marc continued to massage every inch of Jonathan’s body—a body for which he felt little affection anymore. Gone was the youthful frame that had once attracted Dan and other guys, leaving a tall skeleton, draped in ever-shrinking muscles and sagging skin, that most days gave rise to pain rather than pleasure. But not right now.

  Finally, Marc massaged Jonathan’s head and face, gently applying circular motions to his cheeks and temples, smoothing across his forehead, ears and scalp. When he was done, he leaned over and kissed Jonathan again. “Listen, I’ve already broken more rules than I care to remember with that first kiss. Would you like me to take care of that erection for you?”

  Jonathan blushed and didn’t know what to say. Of course I do, but I can’t ask you to.

  “Please, I’d really like to…”

  “Okay…” was all Jonathan could muster as a response, but he didn’t need to say anything further. Marc kissed him again, this time applying more pressure to Jonathan’s lips.

  Jonathan’s lips parted in response as, for the first time in more than a year, he kissed a man, and for the first time in what seemed an eternity, he kissed someone passionately. His mind was spinning, and he felt dizzy. Eyes closed, he tried to focus on the kiss, yet he also felt how Marc’s right hand tended to his cock, while his left hand gently stroked through his hair. It was glorious, and it didn’t take Jonathan long before he climaxed, still locked in the kiss.

  Marc caressed Jonathan’s torso a moment longer before he broke the seal to clean him up, gently, as if his body were a shrine to be dealt with reverently. Jonathan was spent, literally and emotionally, yet he felt oddly calm and at peace. It had been unlike anything he’d ever experienced before.

  Marc washed Jonathan’s body with warm, moist cloth towels to remove excess oil and dry his skin. He then helped him to sit up and get dressed.

  “Can I ask you something?” Marc asked shyly.

  “Of course.”

  “Would you be very upset if I told you something personal?”

  “No, why would I?”

  “Please don’t judge me, but I think I’m falling in love with you…” Marc averted his eyes to avoid Jonathan’s gaze.

  “Wow. I’m flattered, but… Honestly, Marc. We’ve only just met. You don’t really know anything about me, and you—” Jonathan considered his next words carefully. “You are young, and beautiful—so very attractive—and I… Well, look at me. I’m eighty years old. My body is falling apart at the seams, and I have very few years left in me. What is there to love?”

  “Please don’t say that.” Marc pressed his index finger to Jonathan’s lips. “No, I may not know a whole lot about you, but I do know more than you might believe. You are a public figure, after all, and you’re not old. I can see that you have a beautiful, lively soul. So what if your body is worn and frail? It doesn’t matter to me. I’m falling for you, Jonathan Livingston Seagull—your heart, your mind, your soul. They never age.”

  Jonathan was surprised. “A public figure? Me?”

  Marc nodded. “The web is filled with articles about you and your late husband. I even read a piece about how you two met. It’s the most romantic story I’ve ever read. He must’ve been quite a man, your husband.”

  “Yes, he was, the best.” Jonathan’s voice cracked at the mention of Dan.

  “You see—and please don’t hold this against him—” Marc’s eyes were literally pleading with Jonathan “—I’m Carlos’ bunkmate. He’s told me what an amazing person you are, and how differently he is treated by you and your two grandsons, compared to our other suite guests. He likes you very much, and so does every other staff member who’s ever mentioned your name. Already, after just a few days, you’re a celebrity on the Diamond. In the best possible way.”

  “But still, Marc, that is hardly a reason to fall in love with me,” Jonathan admonished, taking a fatherly tone. “You’re still so young—”

  “Please don’t patronize me,” Marc said earnestly. “Tell me you don’t feel anything for me, and this ends here, but don’t let the age be the defining factor. I’ll be forty years old myself next year. I’ve seen a lot of things in my life. I was merely graced with DNA that makes me look younger than I am. Age is but a number, my soul is old, and I would like to get to know you better.”

  “But how?” The question was necessary. Given the strict engagement rules aboard, Jonathan didn’t know how else to shake sense into Marc. Yes, he’d love to get to know him; he yearned to return the touch, to kiss him, to take him into his mouth, and to make love to him, but it was impossible.

  Marc seemed defeated. “I don’t know. Je ne sais pas. Maybe we can continue to meet here, in secret?”

  Jonathan shook his head. “No, Marc, that’s not the answer. I am far too old to let something as important as my potential happiness be a secret to be kept in the shadows, I won’t. If we’re to explore this, if we were to allow this to go any further, I want to shine sunlight on it. This is not something shady, it’s beautiful.”

  And that was the moment Jonathan realized that he, too, had long ago fallen. He was curious about Marc, but he was at a disadvantage. He knew virtually nothing about the young man. He made a decision. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll talk to the captain. I’ll ask for his permission to get to know you.” Marc’s eyes widened in fear. “Don’t worry, I won’t identify you by name until I have an okay. If he makes an exception, w
e’re fine. If he doesn’t, we’ll just have to take it from there.”

  “I’ll quit,” Marc said affirmatively. “It’s just a job.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We still barely know each other. You shouldn’t risk your livelihood over something like this.”

  “Jonathan…this isn’t ‘something like this.’ This is love, the most important human emotion, and if there is any chance for us finding it, don’t you think it’s worth taking the plunge?”

  “You may not even have to. Let me talk to Sverre. I’ll contact you as soon as I can, okay?”

  Marc looked defeated. For the first time since Jonathan had met the man, his shoulders drooped, and the luster in his eyes was gone. Feeling the weight of guilt for his seeming rejection, Jonathan gently took Marc’s head in his hands and looked him straight in the eyes. “It’s going to be okay. Trust me.” And for the first time, he kissed Marc.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 12 - Dilemma

  Sverre had come to Jonathan after receiving word through Carlos that the old man needed to discuss something.

  “Welcome, Sverre, please have a seat!” Jonathan ushered the captain into the cabin’s large living room. The boys had been sent out to give Jonathan some privacy. They, too, had no idea about what was about to transpire between their grandfather and the captain.

  “Can I offer you something to drink? Coffee? Tea?”

  “Just a glass of ice water, please,” Sverre responded. “It’s one of those days.”

  “Oh, I hope nothing serious?”

  “We’ve had reports of theft on board. The worst kind of HR matter to attend to. Please tell me this hasn’t happened to you?” The realization had turned Sverre’s face ashen.

  “Not at all, unless you include stealing your heart as theft…” Jonathan responded enigmatically.