“Oh Paul, look at those poor guys; it’s heartbreaking.”

“Um?” I looked up from the paper to see what she meant.

“They must have been so scared and desperate to make such a perilous journey.”

It was the BBC news. A group of men in their late teens or early twenties were scrambling off an inflatable boat on a beach.

“From where?”

“What?”

“Perilous journey from where, babe?”

“I don’t know, Paul. France, I suppose, but obviously somewhere in Africa originally.”

“Oh right, yeah. Where is this?”

“It’s here! Right here in Folkestone, that’s our beach.”

“Ok, why have they come here?”

“Paul, I can’t believe you! They’re fleeing, er, civil wars and, um, oppression and, you know, stuff like that. They're obviously desperate and in need of our help. They all look starving; they’re so, er, lean and er…" she tailed off.

The picture zoomed in on one of the guys who stood out amongst his fellow travelers as being the darkest-skinned. When he spotted the camera, he turned and ran. He wore only white nylon basketball shorts, which had turned see-through as he'd splashed through the surf, and they clung to his muscular buttocks as he scampered away.

The camera panned around, and we saw the reporter.

“These are the scenes at Folkestone today. Desperate young men seeking asylum, fleeing persecution and torture in their African homeland, simply because they are gay.”

“I don’t know how we can help, hun.”

“I do.” She grabbed her keys and headed for the door. 

“Sarah, what the fuck? What are you doing?” But it was too late; she was off down the garden and into the street. 

I watched anxiously from the porch. Within 5 minutes she came into view with the guy from the beach at her side. They were deep in conversation, Sarah nodding earnestly and smiling encouragement.

His shorts had dried out on the journey and were no longer sheer, merely slightly translucent, and my eyes were drawn down to his crotch and an outline of something, or was it a shadow? Could that be his…?

“Paul, Paul,” she’d grabbed the man’s hand and brought him running up the path. “Meet Jolu. He’s from DRC.”

“From what?”

"Not what, you fool, where. D-R-C. Democratic Republic of Congo. It’s in Africa.”

“Ok, but why is he…”

Jolu’s face opened wide with a smile as he gently cut in; “Thank you,” his voice had the power and depth of the ocean. “If I could just get some bread, Paul, and maybe a wash?”

Face to face with the man, I knew Sarah was right. This was an issue of humanity, of basic respect and decency. 

“Yes, yes, of course, sorry. Jolu, welcome." I put one hand on his shoulder and held out the other in greeting. “Come in, please. Be our guest. We’re both great supporters of LGBT rights.”

“Of what?” He paused for a moment, looking rather confused.

"L-G-B-T. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans.”

As Jolu stepped across the threshold and brushed past me, I caught the powerful scent of his masculine musk, the inevitable result of three long weeks of travel. 

“Babe, I’ll show Jolu the bathroom. Could you heat up some soup?”

One of the first things we did when we bought the house was to fit a big open-plan wet room with a huge walk-in shower. Sarah and I loved the sensual intimacy of starting each day naked together, cleansing each other's nubile young bodies.

No doubt accustomed to more basic ablutions, Jolu seemed slightly confused.

“Just turn those two dials, I’ll get you a towel.”

I was only gone for a minute and so didn’t bother to knock, but the sight that greeted me on my return stopped me dead in my tracks.

Jolu was standing beneath the cascading water, his taut, lean young body all glistening wet.

His face was a study of concentration. He was looking down. Looking down at his gigantic erection and watching intently as his hand moved with a slow, steady rhythm from the root in his curls right out to the ridge of his huge mushroom head crown.

I watched for a moment, transfixed by his rhythm and then, flustered and blushing, backed away quickly and hurried down to find Sarah. 

She was stirring the soup.

“Are you ok, Paul? You look kinda flushed.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry, I’m fine. It’s just that Jolu, well, he needed to, er, needs to…”

“Needs to wank!” Sarah finished my sentence. “Obviously! Paul, for fuck’s sake, he’s been cooped up in lorries and dinghies for almost a month with not a moment of privacy, so of course he needs some relief. Just leave him too it.”

“Yes, right, I did. It’s just that I went to get him a towel and, er, when I came back he'd already, er, started.”

“Oh I see, so you watched him having a wank. Could’ve been worse, Paul, he might have asked you to suck his cock.”

I was silent

“Wait! Did he ask you to suck his cock?”

No, no, for fucks sake, babe, of course not. It’s just that he's rather, um…” I tailed off again.

Sarah turned slowly to face me. “Rather what?”

When she saw I’d gone red, she guessed what I meant.

"Oh, I see! Rather well endowed. Well, you know what they say. What are we talking about, this?” she held her hands out, about eight inches between them. I moved them four inches farther apart. 

“Oh my goodness.” It was her turn to blush. At that moment Jolu let out a deafening roar from upstairs.

We looked at each other, and Sarah burst into giggles. “I think he needed that.”

A few moments later he came down the stairs and appeared at the doorway. Stark naked.

“I washed my shorts in the shower and hung them on the towel rail. Please could I borrow some trousers?”

Sarah’s mouth had fallen open, and her eyes were like saucers as she stared at his cock. While no longer erect, it was still full and swollen with veins standing out on the shaft. “Fuck me,” she whispered it, almost inaudibly. 

A strange buzzing had started in the back of my brain, and after mumbling “Yeah,” I trudged up the stairs to our bedroom to fetch him a pair.

The rest of the evening passed with an unhurried ease; we enjoyed the soup and a bottle of wine as Jolu told of his homeland and the long journey north, before we all went to bed.

Sarah and I were fast asleep when suddenly, in the middle of the night, we were woken by terrible screams, howls of pure anguish, coming from the spare room.

Sarah was up in a flash and out through the door. 

I could hear the sound of low voices for a minute or two, and then she returned and climbed back into bed. “He had a nightmare, Paul, about being sent home and tortured. We have to keep him safe.”

"Yes, of course, babe; we’ll give him sanctuary here." She nuzzled into my shoulder, and we drifted off again, but only for a few minutes before the screaming started up again, this time followed by footsteps on the landing, and then he burst through the door. 

“Sarah, Paul, please help me; I had a terrible dream.”

Jolu filled the doorway, and even in the half-light I could see that he was nude, his long, heavy penis silhouetted between parted thighs.

Sarah was already up and going to him. She was in only her pink G-string knickers, and as her plump butt cheeks clapped together, a buzzing started up in my head again, this time louder than ever and mixed in with a jumble of voices.

"Oh, come here, Jolu, you’re safe with us.” She took him into her arms to give him a hug. Her breasts touched his chest, and his hand drifted down the string sides of her knickers. She turned round to face me.

“Paul, we can’t leave Jolu alone tonight. I’ll take the spare room, he can sleep here with you.”

“Babe! No! Remember why he’s here! You know, the reason he was persecuted back home in DRC?” and I mouthed the word‘gay’.

“Oh shit, yes, sorry, I forgot. Probably not a good idea for you two boys to share a bed.“

I got up. I was naked. They both looked down between my legs, and I was acutely aware of the huge contrast between me and him.

“I’ll take the spare room, babe; look after Jolu. See you both in the morning.” I turned to say goodnight, but the door was already shut.

My dreams blurred the boundary between imagination and reality; a split between the real world and symbolic visions of the knarly, dark trunks of giant redwoods and huge fountains erupting into the sky. The soundtrack to these images was a cacophony of grunts and moans, rabid shrieks and wails. It was impossible to tell if they were cries of agony or ecstasy, nor if they came from inside the house or just inside my head. 

When I awoke, the morning sunlight was streaming through the blinds. From the kitchen came sounds of cooking, and the smell of fresh coffee.

I got up and walked along the landing. Our bedroom door was open. Jolu was spread out on the bed, quite nude, both arms stretched up above his head. His genitals were spread out too. Two heavy plums in their spider-veined sac hung over one hip, and his penis lolled sideways way over the other like a long, black anaconda. Its foreskin was retracted, and his glistening glans rested on a stain on the sheets.

Sarah’s pink thong was balled up on the floor, and the noises in my head started up with a vengeance.

Downstairs, Sarah was by the stove in the white babydoll nightie that she’d bought for our honeymoon. I kissed the nape of her neck.

“Was Jolu ok last night?”

“Oh fuck, Paul, he was just ama…” she paused and stiffened for a moment. "Yes, he was fine, thanks, hun. I’m just making him breakfast.”

“Sarah!” Jolu had come downstairs, and his deep, bass voice shouted through from the lounge. “Quick, girl, bring me your phone.”

“Finish these eggs, Paul, then butter the toast." She grabbed her phone from the table and ran through to the lounge, bare bottom bouncing as she rushed to comply with his order.

When breakfast was ready, I put it on a tray and went through to serve him. 

Sarah was perched on his lap facing forward, her bare pussy resting on his copious curls. They were both watching TV, where BBC Breakfast was reporting again from the beach.

Jolu was on the phone.  “Temi, my man, you both made it safely—thank fuck for that.”

The camera had zoomed in to show two young Black men walking slowly up the beach. One, like Jolu, wore just nylon shirts and was markedly muscular. The other, quite fat, had a t-shirt on too and was holding a phone to his ear.

“Yeah, man, I’m sorted. Got a hot snowbun…,” Jolu paused and glanced briefly at me. “I mean I’ve found refuge and, er, comfort with a nice English couple. I’ll send the white boy down to meet you,” and he ended the call. 

“Paul, put the food on the table and go down to the beach. That’s my best homie Temi and his friend from back home. Bring them back here, quick.”

“Yes, of course, I’ll go right away. Are they gay too?”

A flash of anger crossed his eyes before they softened and he gave a snort of laughter. “Yeah, that’s right. Now get going.”

A high-pitched and angry conversation took place in my head, but no words could come out of my mouth as I scampered away to the door.

When I got back to the flat with Temi and his friend, whose name was Eli, I could hear the shower running.

“If you two would like to freshen up, then feel free to shower together. You can be yourselves here, free from the fear of persecution.”

Temi gave me a puzzled look as he pushed past me, and Eli asked me, “Are you high?” as they took the stairs two at a time.

I went through to the lounge and sat in silence; silence that is apart from the voices in my head, which were screaming like the hounds of hell.

Whoops and laughter drifted down from the bathroom along with occasional girlish yelps, and a crisp, wet, slapping noise. 

Ten minutes passed before I heard four sets of footsteps cross the landing and go into the room above my head. Into our bedroom.

The strange inner voices told me to look. They told me to watch, and so slowly I went up the stairs.

Sarah was on her hands and knees. Behind her, kneeling, Jolu held her buttocks tightly as he drove his massive meat into her anus; below her, half hidden, was Eli, whose fat cock she had in her cunt. The muscular Temi knelt at the front. He’d pulled her hair up into a bunch, and held it there steady as he fucked her skull.

"Jolu, man, goddamn, you were right. This snowbunny bitch is a hot piece of ass. Oh shit, I’m gonna nut.” He withdrew his cock from Sarah’s throat and did exactly that; jet after jet of his thick cream splashed into her pretty face until she looked like the patsy in a custard pie sketch.

Slowly, I turned and went downstairs, mumbling a repetitive, three-word chant.

The doctor watched carefully as the young man was brought down from the ambulance. He wore a straitjacket and was cuffed to the arms of the wheelchair.

“Okie-dokie, what have we got here?”

“This is Paul Jenkins, Doc. Found in the street near the beach at midday today. He’s nearly catatonic, but won’t stop this nonsense.”

The young man’s eyes were glazed over, and he gently rocked from side to side as he chanted the same words over and over and over again.

“BBC, DRC, L-G-B-T.

BBC, DRC, L-G-B-T.”

“Ok, take him inside, and we’ll put him in the padded cell.”

The ambulance driver wheeled Paul through the stone arch doorway, over which, engraved on the lintel, was one single word:

Asylum