How does a man who’s new to sex with men seduce another man into having sex with another man?
In at least one case, with ceramics.
My new "boyfriend," Rick (I guess I can now call him that), and his wife Emily, were about to redo their main floor bathroom.
As it happens, their neighbor Eric is a regionally well-known ceramic muralist, renowned for the pool and bath tiles that he crafts. Some are sculpted with subtle shaping and embossing; some are meticulously painted, and some are both.
More to the point, Eric’s wife Tori had recently confided in me (while I was banging her) that Eric had for years harbored a secret crush on Rick. I happened to know that the feeling was mutual. So we connived a plan to get the two of them together, starting with Rick and Emily inviting themselves to Eric and Tori’s house, ostensibly to get some project ideas by viewing the tile work that Eric had installed in their own home.
Proving that she is the most supportive wife on the planet, Emily eagerly signed on to this plan to get her husband laid by another man. Of course, she’d known for years that Rick had the hots for Eric, and being gay herself, she didn’t mind in the slightest.
Per the plan, Emily bailed out just as she and Rick were about to head over to Eric and Tori’s, the story being that a close friend was experiencing an unspecified family emergency. Not at all coincidentally, Tori received a phone call just after Rick arrived, allegedly having to race off and meet a client.
Step One of the plan, then, was complete: getting the men alone together in the house, with both wives detained for hours to come. Or, hopefully, hours to cum. Rick, having just introduced himself to male loving (with me) less than a month before, was confident in his sexuality now but, despite Tori's assurances, was less sure how receptive Eric would be to his advances.
Eric seemed a bit anxious upon greeting Rick at the front door and learning that it would be just the two men together. It didn't help that Rick cracked, "Whoa, the two of us men alone together ... with no women to tell us what not to do? I wonder what could happen?" Rick had used the same jokes with me before we became intimate. Maybe he thought the same strategy would work in seducing Eric. But then again, in my case, it had taken several months before I realized he wasn't joking.
Although usually humbly confident in showing off his work, Eric fumbled his words slightly in talking about his recent jobs as he ushered Rick to the spectacularly decorated main floor shower, featuring lovely tropical scenes meticulously depicted on painted, textured tiles. The lower tiles illustrated coral reefs under the ocean, teeming with fish. Around waist level was the ocean surface, occupied by occasional dolphins, surfers … and, amusingly, a lone shark. The upper tiles showed lush tropical palms, hibiscus, flowers, and birds.
Rick expressed his awe at the beauty of the project, and Eric regained his poise as he started talking about his efforts in more detail, explaining that tropical themes were his most common request, but that he had also done a bathroom with scenery from China for clients who were from there, as well as a Pacific Northwest theme replete with orcas and sea lions playing in the sea, backed by a snow-capped volcano jutting up through a temperate rainforest onshore.
“I guess I can see why people like the tropical themes. That one sounds beautiful ... but not very warm when you’re …” He glanced briefly downward. “… you know, naked, and waiting for the shower to warm up.”
“Speaking of naked,” Eric ventured, flashing an expectant grin, “step closer to the beach.”
Eric indicated a band of tiles at about the five-foot level, above the underwater scenery, illustrating the beach with a variety of sunbathers laying on towels or chaises enjoying tropical cocktails.
These flat-surfaced tiles depicting the beach had an unusual sheen to them. Stepping closer, Rick could see that they gave a now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t effect, the Fresnel lens trick he had seen done with print images, but never with painted images on tile. When viewed from above, which one could only do up close and if of adult height, the scene changed to a nude beach, the sunbathers doffing their suits.
Clever. And sexy.
Still more comfortable flirting with his fellow man than Eric was, Rick grinningly commented, "Boy, that could sure get me warmed up for the shower. Have you done a lot of these?”
“A few with this effect, but no others with nudity. Usually, I do this type of tile to create the illusion of motion, like a fish’s fins appearing to move as you walk across the bathroom. Not many people are as comfortable making bare flesh a permanent part of their home, but we intend to stay here a long time."
“Well, Emily and I are not uncomfortable with nudity." Raising his eyebrows slightly, he added, "We even went to a nude beach last week,” He and Emily had just returned from a trip to Europe, including a visit to a local nude beach.
"Lucky you," Eric deadpanned.
Rick dragged his finger across a tile that had several nude males in a row, their virile bodies depicted with remarkable detail and accuracy. “Very realistic, this one.”
Hesitating, Eric explained, “Well, as anyone who's actually been to a nude beach knows, if you really want to depict it realistically, there have to be a lot more guys than gals in the picture.”
Rick chuckled in acknowledgment, lowering his voice to add, “Yes, there were a lot of men showing off their equipment." With a grin, he added, "And, back in the bushes, using it on each other." He didn't mention that he had been one of those men.
Eric gulped audibly, then nervously stepped out of the shower and away from Rick. “Well, you don’t seem offended by what happens between consenting adults, so you might want to see the upstairs bath.”
Rick followed Eric down the hallway and up the stairs. “Yes, please. To be clear, I don’t think we’d go for nudity on the main floor bath that we’re doing right now. But once that’s finished, we want to redo the owner’s suite bathroom, too, and I think we could spice that one up.” He grinned at Eric with raised eyebrows, pointedly adding, “So please, show me what you can do for me. I don’t think you can offend me.”
Eric asked, “Are you familiar with Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights?”
"Familiar? We just saw it at the Prado last week!” More luridly, he added, “I must admit you are pricking my curiosity.”
“Well, I hope to satisfy you,” replied Eric as they passed through the main bedroom into the fully tiled bath. Although most of the tiles were plain, the design included a wainscot row running all the way around, sculpted in celestial, snake and strawberry themes reminiscent of Bosch.
Rick had never seen anything like this. The bath walls were spectacular in and of themselves, but the pieces de resistance were the double frosted glass doors into the shower, etched to replicate the outer panels of Garden of Earthly Delights. They were a nearly perfect, though monochrome, replication of Bosch’s work.
So blown away was Rick that he stood in silence for a moment, taking it in. He even forgot the flirtation for an instant. “This is absolutely stunning! You did all this?”
Eric nodded, proudly, explaining that this was the first glasswork that he had done, and the first time he had used an etching tool.
“The result is amazing.” More flirtily now, Rick added, "I hope I get to see you explore more new … tools and techniques,"
Not quite able to reply, Eric led Rick through the doors into the actual shower enclosure.
If Rick has been briefly struck speechless by the glass doors themselves, he was stupefied by the masterpiece within: the inner “panels” of the three shower walls - the broad back wall and the narrower end walls - faithfully replicating the themes of the original Garden, in painted tiles. The two men stood in quietly for at least half a minute as Rick took it all in, the only sound their weighted breathing amplified by the tiled walls.
The left panel was fairly close to the original iconic painting, with Adam and Eve gazing hungrily at each other, hands outstretched, in the Garden of Eden. The main difference was the absence of fig leaves, revealing a full natural bush on Eve ... and a full natural boner on Adam.
The center panel, on the other hand, was awash in delights more earthly than Bosch’s lusty imaginings: a group of women lounged nude together, two with their legs wrapped around each other as if scissoring. Another woman had a man’s face between her legs. Men with erections gallivanted around on horses, chasing nude women. And two men cavorted together on top of another horse, showing obvious pleasure at it.
Screened by painted shrubbery, one could observe glimpses of even more explicit sexual activity: several male-female couples in various sexual positions, but also women suckling each other’s breasts or kissing, a man fucking another from behind, a man sucking another man.