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Mohammed Avdol feels slightly out of place.
To be fair, this isn’t a departure from his normal state of being. The son of a Coptic Christian mother and a Nubian father, he had been raised in the margin between faiths, settling in his adolescence into a sort of pan-Abrahamic spirituality. He is less sure of the path to God than most of his peers, but more sure of His existence, because he has the proof of His blessing in Magician’s Red, the spirit that protects him even as it sets him apart from everyone else.
And as if it wasn’t enough of a trial to grow up religiously marginalized in and to be known as a daydreamer, an overly earnest child who often seemed to see things the others couldn’t and who had an uncanny knack for correctly predicting the immediate future, he passed through puberty to find that he was fascinated not by the girls in his neighborhood but by the boys in his class - their square chins and broad shoulders, their deepening voices and well-toned forearms. He doesn’t see his homosexuality as a burden or a trial, but as just another expression of the universal force of love, a reflection of God’s feeling towards mankind. God is love, and love, therefore, is God.
His classmates didn’t share his particular theology, and the rumors of his suspected perversion made him even more of a target for bullying than before. One boy, upset that Avdol’s eyes lingered on him a little too long for his taste, ambushed him after class, and before he could summon Magician’s Red, his face was permanently marked by a kitchen knife, jagged twin wounds that ran down each cheek. He somehow kept his composure enough to knock the boy out rather than to roast him alive.
A late growth spurt gave him some respite from the bullies, and his time in university allowed him to meet like-minded people, other philosophical men who found evidence of same-sex relationships throughout history, and with whom he had a string of romances that were as passionate and poetic as they were brief. After the failure of his most recent one, he had come to the decision that what he really needed at the moment wasn’t love, but just to get fucking laid for once.
And so he finds himself in one of Cairo’s gay nightclubs, feeling awkward as he sips his soda (he doesn’t drink) and watches the other men dance (you couldn’t force him onto the floor at gunpoint). The music is blaring and drowning out any attempt at conversation; he tries for five minutes to shout small talk with a lithe young man in a pink tank top and finally loses him to the dance floor. He is about to leave, chalk up the night as a failed experience, when he catches the eye of the tallest man in the room.
He is older than much of the crowd, although it’s difficult to tell his exact age - his hair is greying and his face has a few wrinkles, but he’s still well built and carries himself like a man in his 30s. He’s American by the look of his clothes - t-shirt and blue jeans, almost as if he’s wearing a costume. His conversation partner is a bored-looking Mediterranean bodybuilder who, when the man meets Avdol’s eyes and grins, takes the opportunity to slink off. Not quite Avdol’s type, but a promising opportunity nonetheless.
He approaches and the man raises his hand in a slight wave.
“Joseph,” he shouts.
“Mohammed,” yells Avdol back, and the man chuckles.
“You’re the fifth Mohammed I’ve met this week.”
“It’s a common name,” he shrugs. “If it helps, you can call me ‘Avdol’.” There were enough Mohammeds in his primary class alone that he answered more readily to his surname.
The man nods and gestures to his ear. “I can barely hear a damn thing in here, why don’t you come back to my hotel for a drink?”
“Thank you,” Avdol shouts, lifting his soda, “but I don’t drink.”
“Or a fuck, whichever.” He grins again, more lewdly this time, and Avdol is so impressed by his boldness that he follows Joseph down the block, to the luxury hotel he’d only seen the outside of before now, and finds himself in a plush room complete with minibar and fruit basket. The encounter feels slightly illicit - gay sex is another marginal area where the act is technically legal, but not widely accepted. Nevertheless, he finds himself getting excited both literally and in the sense of the innuendo.
“You mind?” asks Joseph, pulling a small bottle from the minibar and twirling it around in his one gloved hand. Avdol shakes his head and Joseph mixes himself a rum and coke, pours the rest of the soda in another cup and offers it to his guest.
“What brings you to Cairo?” Avdol asks, accepting the drink. There had been several Europeans in the club, vacationers and students and the odd diplomat, but Joseph seemed particularly out of place.
“Work.” He gives a half shrug. “I’m in real estate, awfully dull, actually. How about you, what do you do?” He takes a swig off his drink and Avdol watches his adam’s apple bob up and down in his surprisingly muscular neck.
“... Fortune telling, actually.” He feels slightly sheepish saying it; his parents are certainly unhappy that this is how he’s using his BA in Middle Eastern History, but he honestly enjoys it. Most of his customers are casual believers and only want to be told that they will find love, money, power, the usual, but he is occasionally able to tap in to the strange power that Magician’s Red grants him, the ability to know which way the fire will burn.
Joseph smiles his shark’s-tooth grin. “Ha! That’s great” He’s being genuine; Avdol is beginning to suspect that there’s a lot more going on with this man than what’s on the surface, but he is legitimately charmed by the other man’s trade. He brings the rum and coke to his lips again, and that’s when Avdol notices the ring.
“And I see you’re married.” He puts down his soda and prepares to leave - a one night stand is one thing, but actively participating in the breakdown of a partnership is something he wants no part in.
“She knows, she doesn’t mind.” Astonishingly, he’s telling the truth again. There’s nothing in his manner or in the bit of the future Avdol can see that suggests that he’s hiding anything on that front. “As long as she’s the only woman in my life, she doesn’t care how many men I bang.” A lewd grin. “Even likes hearing about it sometimes.” He drains his drink and leaves the cup on the ice tray. “She knew I had a thing for handsome men when we got married.”
Avdol self-consciously touches the scar on his right cheek; people had called him handsome before, but he was still somewhat sensitive about his appearance. Joseph steps closer and stays his hand.
“I like them,” he says, tilting his head toward the scars, “they make you look rugged.” Then, he puts an arm around Avdol and kisses him.
He tastes like cheap liquor and cola, and his beard and mustache are rough, but his lips are full and he definitely knows what he’s doing with his mouth. Avdol surrenders himself to arousal, the feeling that warm honey is flowing through his veins and that his groin is the center of his body in more ways than physical. Joseph, meanwhile, has wasted no time and has moved his hands to Avdol’s ass, the gloved one having a slightly different grip than the other - is it artificial? It doesn’t really matter at this point, what Avdol’s really focused on is the impressively hard bulge pushing against his own growing erection.
Joseph breaks off the kiss and strips off his shirt in one movement on his way to his suitcase. He rummages around and finds a box of condoms and a tube of KY jelly. “Top or bottom?”
“Sorry?”
He holds up a condom in its shiny wrapper. “You wanna fuck, or be fucked?”
“I…” sheepish again. “I’ve never tried either.” Whether because of personal preference, internalized shame, or sheer bad timing, he’s never gotten to that point with any of his boyfriends.
That lewd grin again. “No worries, I’ll walk you through it.”
They move to the bed, shedding clothing as they go. Joseph takes a moment to look Avdol up and down appraisingly, taking in his broad chest, his muscular thighs, his eager cock. “Nice,” he murmurs. He himself is in decent shape for his age, chest hair greying and skin a little less firm, but still an imposing figure.
“Lie face down,” he says, squeezing lube onto the fingers of his ungloved hand. Avdol complies. “Let me know if this is too much.”
He feels a thick digit enter him slowly, it’s an odd sensation, but not an unpleasant one. And the oddness turns to a more pleasant sensation as Joseph gently moves his finger in and out, and in small circles. Another finger, and this time when he pulls back he curls the tips forwards, scraping against a spot inside Avdol that sends a sudden erotic surge through his body. A moan escapes his lips; the fingers extend and curl, extend and curl. A third finger enters, and then the bed dips as Joseph presses himself against the back of Avdol’s thighs, his gloved hand moving under his stomach. Avdol breathes heavily, bracing himself for what’s about to happen.
“Hmm.” Joseph withdraws his fingers. “Actually, get on top of me.” He lays back, unrolling the condom onto his thick cock and applying another handful of lube for good measure. Avdol straddles him, a knee on each side of his hips, hands bracing against his chest. Joseph prompts his ass up with one hand and uses the other to position himself. “Ease back on it, just take as much as you can handle.”
Avdol takes a deep breath and gently lowers himself down, pressing Joseph’s cock a third of the way into himself. He had expected it to ache, but it’s more of a sharp burning sensation that quickly fades to a dull pressure. Joseph hisses through his teeth as Avdol pushes down again, he’s halfway in now and his thighs are tense from holding back the urge to thrust. Slowly, centimeter by centimeter, Avdol lowers himself, until finally Joseph is completely sheathed within him, both of them sweaty and trembling.
“Good?” Avdol gasps, curling his hands around Joseph’s waist, repositioning his center of gravity.
“Fantastic,” he assures his partner, and groans as Avdol picks himself up again slightly and pushes down. “Nghhh, that’s good, keep doing that.” He rolls his hips back and Avdol pulls up again and slowly, they work out a rhythm. Joseph grasps Avdol’s thigh with his gloved hand and uses his other hand, still slick with lube, to make a tight fist around the other man’s throbbing cock, sliding it up and down with each thrust.
Avdol closes his eyes, focusing on the sensation of being filled up inside and enveloped on the outside. The feeling of Joseph’s cock sliding into him, across nerve endings he never knew he had, is intoxicating, and the smooth warmth against his own shaft is almost too much. It’s different from when he’s masturbated or the few times he’s been touched by a boyfriend; this pleasure is spreading out through his entire body, the experience of two people joined and moving as one.
He thrusts harder into Joseph’s hand, involuntarily clenching as he does and causing Joseph to thrust harder himself, which feeds back into the sensation on his erection that he drives forward even more. His face is tingling, his breath is hitching, he grabs under Joseph’s thighs to try to push him in more and suddenly comes, erupting pearly semen all over the two of them.
Joseph pulls his hand away, placing it as a mirror to its twin. “Don’t stop,” he hisses, grasping wildly at Avdol, urging him up and down and slamming into him uncontrollably. Finally, he comes as well with a groaned “oh god” and lets his arms go slack, his breathing slowing towards normal.
***
Avdol returns from the bathroom and Joseph, sprawled lazily across the bed, lifts his head up and looks at him thoughtfully. “Hey, read my palm,” he says, and again, it doesn’t sound as if he’s joking, but genuinely curious.
“All right.” Joseph extends his gloved hand. “I can’t read a mechanical palm, though.”
The older man laughs. “Well spotted! You ruined the joke, though.” He offers his real hand and Avdol places his fingertips on the palm and concentrates.
A blast of images. The future holds five travelers in the desert and one shadowy figure hidden away. Flames. Blood. Usually, Avdol is able to focus on a single scene, but everything’s coming too quickly to understand. He’s tossed back into the past and this is even more confusing - the gods come down from heaven, horrifying battle, fierce grief and heartbreak. A sudden jolt runs through his fingers and up his arm, shocking him, and he instinctively jerks his hand back and calls forth Magician’s Red to smolder behind him.
“Thought so,” says Joseph, shielding his face from the heat. “What’s it look like?”
“What’s what look like?” Avdol asks, still on guard.
“The spirit standing next to you - I can’t see ‘em, but damned if I don’t keep attracting people who have ‘em.”
Avdol relaxes slightly, but lets Magician’s Red stay. “Beautiful,” he explains. “A man with the head of a falcon, wreathed in flames.” When he was younger, he thought of Magician’s Red as a friend or a brother, and would imagine the two of them as heroes in whichever comic book or folk tale he was reading, fighting off evil and protecting the weak. Now, he sees his stand more of an extension of his own body.
Joseph nods. “I guess I should tell you that I’m actually in town for my other job.” He rouses himself and retrieves his briefcase from the desk. “You know the Speedwagon Foundation?”
“Y-es, they do pharmaceuticals? Some sort of medical research?”
“That, and,” Joseph thinks for a moment. “It’s complicated, but they keep track of things that aren’t normally seen. Or believed. Fortune telling, for instance.” He shuffles through the briefcase and pulls out a slim folder containing several pictures of a seaworn coffin and one reproduction of a glass plate photo of a haughty looking man. “This is the only picture we’ve got of him, but you need to watch out for this person. We have reason to believe that he’s after powerful people, and there’s an unusually high concentration of them here.”
“Yes, I’ve seen some.” Avdol thinks to himself about the other people he’s come across with spirits following them - a man in a headwrap who is unusually good at haggling and who is accompanied by a silver-pink figure, an old woman who is always shrouded with a dark mist in which a skull sometimes appears. There’s rumors among the others in the slightly supernatural district where he tells fortunes: a malevolent insect, a sword that possesses the user who wields it. Even with the life he’s led, Avdol has had difficulty believing it all.
“If you see him, run,” continues Joseph. He offers his business card, a slightly awkward gesture as they’re both still nude. “Call me. Hell, call me anyway, we could use your help.” Avdol thanks him and puts the card on the nightstand, reminding himself to pick it up later. “Though, uh… don’t call at home, I don’t want things to get too awkward with the wife. Let’s keep things casual, eh?”
Avdol smiles. “This was fun, but if I can be honest, you’re a little old for me.”
Joseph snorts. “I may be old, but I’ve got it in me for round two. You top this time.”