Captured

Chapter 18. Dan's first visit part-1.

As winter ends the tourist traffic thins out in Tangier and my office was less busy. During the second half of winter I didn't have to fly the ambassador because the meetings in Ghana stopped for a while, so I had to do touch and goes at the airport. The accountant at the embassy complained about the cost but it was State in D.C. that mandated licensure as a condition of employment. I usually responded to her gripes about the cost by telling her to talk it over with Washington, it was their mandate, not mine. I heard the Ambassador finally had to negotiate with Washington for an increase in funding to afford airplane rental.

Each embassy had a budget and all the salaries and expenses came out of that one check. It was fully legal for the ambassador to pocket any remaining funds at the end of the fiscal year. The amount of money they were paid each year was based on prior year expenses and his ability to negotiate for more. A better ambassador got a bigger check which meant more perks for the employees. So Barcelona probably received triple or more the amount that Rabat received, and Paris France received more than several African embassies combined. To some extent being an ambassador was kind of like being a radio personality: you didn't really get paid much, but the job came with perks. The ambassador could legally solicit money from donors, the money went into his pocket or into the embassy. That was why most embassies also operated charities with names like they were actually helping local people. As an example one might be called The American Embassy Islamic Relief Fund of Rabat.

Then for example they might run a free hot dog cart twice a year on the sidewalk outside the embassy, offering free beef hotdogs to locals (hunger relief). But they billed the charity for 100 times what it actually cost to operate and pocketed the excess funds. The point is there are tons of ways a good ambassador can rake in the bucks, then all they have to do is smuggle the cash into the states.

To smuggle the cash back home they pack thousands of hundred dollar bills inside tightly wrapped bundles that fit in their suitcase then take a train to Barcelona and a military flight to the states. Nobody will inspect his luggage and once he sets foot on US soil that secret cash is off the books and tax free, but it can never be deposited in any financial institution anywhere on the planet. And it can be spent in almost any store anonymously or given as a gift with the condition that it cannot be deposited in any bank. That is what I learned listening to embassy workers in Barcelona. Barcelona had a huge budget.

I also got an email from Dan about his trip, he was planning on Sunday March 1st to Thursday March 5th. He was going to fly the same route as Jen. He'll fly from Houston to Atlanta, then to Madrid. Then he had the choice of flying to Tangier or taking the train to Tarifa and the ferry across. I also suggested I might be able to fly to Madrid in the Cessna 172 and fly us back to Tetouan. Remember, I went to flight school with Dan, but he lost his pilot's license because of his felony convictions and DUI.

Its 350 miles from Madrid to Tetouan, in the 172 that would take about three hours but we could do it on one full tank. That flight would cost me about $900 in US cash to fly him down from Madrid. That cost includes airplane rental and fuel at both ends of the flight. If I fill the tank at Madrid they don't charge to park for an hour on their general aviation tarmac. I emailed the offer to Dan and had to wait for him to consider my gift. He was able to mentally calculate the cost too. I might be able to claim some of the cost as an expense to maintain my license, like one hour of plane rental, but that only lowered my cost by about $130. It was still expensive to pick him up in Madrid but it was faster. I thought Dan would consider it an act of love to spend that much money just to transport him down here when he could just as easily take a commercial jet at a fraction of the cost and time.

Jen told me she was in her fourth semester of Spanish and considered herself fluent enough to talk to fellow employees in the break room in Espanol. I think she was leaning toward actually applying for transfer to their office in Madrid, where they served as customer service for Western Europe (France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, and parts of South America).

She also told me her famous cat died recently, she did not want to get another one until she decided about moving or not. Her cat was nine years old. It really upset her, so it upset me too. I set out a photo of her cat on my coffee table for a while. One day years ago when I visited her in her apartment she had an empty paper sack on the coffee table and when I looked inside, there was her cat hiding inside the bag, so I took her picture and I have that photo still, the cat inside the brown paper bag.

Locally, I did not see it but I heard another tourist got bit on the beach. A couple visiting from Europe were running around playing in shallow water and the guy cut into deeper water and was stomach deep when it happened. He got bit on the thigh and it tried to pull him into deep water but the guy fought back and said he grabbed its gill flaps and pulled as hard as he could and removed chunks of gill and it broke off the attack. The man lived long enough to get to the hospital but died of blood loss and shock. There is still no warning sign on the beach. I guess they believe the empty beach itself serves as sufficient warning. Some local politicians say there is no sign made with a bold enough warning to keep risk takers out of the water. They said if there was a warning sign the amount of shark bites would go up, just like the people that travelled thousands of miles to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. They believed it might become a suicide beach for the depressed people of the world. Fly to Tangier and take a taxi to the beach, strip naked and walk into the water. You don't even need a hotel room or a beach towel, all you need is a plane ticket and cab fare.

I should say for this attack no fish was ever seen, so they do not know for sure that it was a shark, although the bite marks suggested it. They said when the guy struggled to fight back the teeth dug in deeper and cut an artery and that increased his blood loss.

The INR sent me a new box to mount to the outside of my beach facing window. It has a much better, low light camera, and RF sniffer, and they also applied my suggestion and included a broad spectrum microphone to try fingerprinting ships by acoustic patterns. I knew I should have patented my design, but I didn't have the software skills to interpret the data it collected.

The INR's RF sniffer records the radio spectrum locally from below the AM broadcast band to around 5ghz and records a waveform of the entire thing four times per second. They are looking for clandestine signals, I think.

I didn't talk much to Dan in the months before his trip, but when we got to three weeks prior we started to email more often.

BTW, Dan finally settled with his sister and he received his share of the funds from their investments. He received a check from their estate for $1.1mil. So he now has about $2.2mil in the bank, but he still pinches pennies and has not gone wild spending money. He still rents a small apartment and drives a small used Honda Civic. He had more money coming from their estate, it's not over yet. His father made a nice income from the sale of college text books he co-authored. That money should continue to arrive until the end of the decade when his contract with the publisher expires.

When I suggested he should buy a Cessna 172 he told me to blow it out my ass! The way he said that was really funny. He barely said it with a serious tone of voice. Dan repeats another phrase he claims is impossible to say without smiling: Moose Poop. He says you stand in the bathroom and look at yourself in the mirror and say Moose Poop and you are guaranteed to smile.

And Dan accepted my offer of me picking him up at Madrid in a rental 172. He said it sounds like fun. I had to assure him the rental planes were very well maintained, they actually had a couple of them and business jets too, like the Citation I rent. That airport also does maintenance for other people who owned Cessnas around Morocco, Algeria, and southern Spain. It's like a little piece of Kansas in northern Morocco!

I decided not to make any specific plans for Dan's visit, I'd let him decide what we'd do. He also reconfirmed that he was still a bachelor. After he tells a girl he was recently released from prison all of them never call him back, in frustration he said he's giving up dating. He admitted when he tells them he was innocent all along it sounds like a lie, it sounds exactly the same as everyone else that just got out of prison. The difference is he has a piece of paper from the state that confirms his innocence, none of the girls wanted to see it.

I understand he is a very honest guy and that's why he feels compelled to give a full disclosure but maybe he should wait and not do it on the first date. But Dan does not accept dating advice from me.

Three days before his trip I reminded him once he gets off the plane in Madrid to exit the terminal and get a taxi to drive him to the General Aviation terminal. I would page him, `Mister Davis.' When he heard the page he should use the toilet then wait by the tarmac door and watch for the white Cessna 172 with blue horizontal stripes on the tail. Dan said he was bringing one small carry-on, his cell, and computer.

I also asked him to text me as he made progress on his trip to Madrid.

On trip day he texted me at 6:55am Houston time, he was on the way to the airport, he drove there and was going to leave his car in extended parking. At 8:45am he was on the plane waiting for the show to start. At 12:23pm he landed in Atlanta. He had to switch terminals in Atlanta then made it to the correct gate for his flight across the Atlantic, about 7 hours across.

At 1:55 he was in his seat in a Delta Airlines 747 waiting to depart, they just pushed back from the terminal. He said the plane was full and it might take an hour to get off the plane. I told him to text when the plane was about to take off. All he texted me was `ON ACTIVE.'

Atlanta is a huge airport, his flight was departing toward the northeast. Once he texted I got my stuff and used the bathroom and called for a black taxi to drive me to Tetouan.

While Dan was crossing the Atlantic I was pre-flighting the Cessna and making damn sure the tank was 100% full. I'd need most of the runway to get it off the ground too. It'll take a full load of fuel to fly that far. I already contacted Madrid Aviation Services and reserved a spot on the tarmac and a fuel delivery. I'd only be there long enough to fill the wing tanks.

One thing I liked about Madrid was they kept general aviation and cargo to one specific runway. That really shortened wait times and lessened congestion. Madrid is an enormous airport with four very wide and long runways. They can land the Airbus A380 on three of their four runways now.

My time estimate was good, I was within 60 miles of the Madrid airport when Dan texted and said they just touched down in Madrid. I replied: General Aviation Terminal ASAP.

I still got there before him but it's a long taxi from the runway to the terminal, I just parked in an empty spot with tire blocks sitting there, and used the radio to call for the fuel truck. I made a reservation online about eight hours ago.

While I was waiting for the fuel dude Dan texted again he said he just arrived at the General Aviation terminal. I texted back and told him to go potty and come outside when he sees the fuel truck. Ten minutes later I saw a slender man standing outside the terminal doors, he started walking across the tarmac. I could hardly stand the suspense. It's been a long time since we last touched each other.

The truck was filling the tank on the 172 while Daniel walked about 400 feet across the huge concrete tarmac. He walked around the wing on the opposite side as the fuel truck. I walked over and we hugged each other tightly and for a long time too. Both of us cried tears of joy. He told me he loved me with his face pressed into my shoulder and I leaned back and told him I loved him too; we were still brothers as far as I was concerned. Dan wiped his eyes a few times, and then he put his suitcase in back and strapped it down with seat belts. While he was doing that and I watched through the back window the fuel dude finished filling the 172 and rolled the long hose back into the truck and disconnected the ground wire, then he gestured to me that he had the receipt and needed money. I paid him the full amount in Euros and he marked it `paid in full in cash.'

Dan and I pre-flighted the 172 together. He read off the checklist and I did the checks. It was just like we did during flight school. After checks were done Dan got in the passenger seat and put on the headset and put his sunglasses back on. It looked to me like Dan lost a little weight, he looked thin and his cheeks were flatter. His voice was exactly the same. He put on his seatbelt while I got in the pilot's seat and switched-on the airplane.

I called for clearance to taxi to the end of 32L and was told to wait. A huge cargo jet taxied by, it said Cargolux on the side. It was a large white windowless cargo jet of some kind, it was followed by an old propeller cargo plane that looked like 1960s war surplus. It was probably here for repair services. They did a lot of that at this airport.

About five minutes later they took off and we got clearance to taxi and hold short, they had incoming traffic. Dan seemed excited to sit in the front seats of an airplane again. He wanted to listen to the tower too, so I enabled it on his headset. Three cargo jets landed about three minutes apart, we saw their headlights way off to the south forming a line in the sky. When I tried to look again Dan was leaned forward blocking my view out the window with his head so I reached over and gently pressed him against the backrest. He looked down at my hand and chuckled and told me he thought I was rubbing his tit, and then he leaned back so I could see the line of landing lights in the sky to the south too. I mean he can help watch but I still have to see. The line of lights in the sky was long so I lowered my hands and took a deep breath and tried to relax. Looking out the windows over my left shoulder I could see a line of cargo planes had formed behind us so the cargo planes arriving should give us a break soon.

After several minutes of watching the propeller slowly turn we got clearance and rolled onto the `active' with clearance to blastoff immediately. Throttles forward, flaps retracted, everything green on the avionics and we started our roll. The plane felt heavy again with a full load of fuel. Dan said, "Holy smokes this is slow, we got a flat tire?"

I laughed and said we had a full tank and a ton of lead in his ass cheeks! He reached over and smacked my thigh and we laughed. Just like old times. Then we reached 80mph and lifted off the pavement (normally a 172 can lift off the runway around 60mph). We gained altitude and in just seconds we were 500 feet and climbing. I began my wide turn to the left while climbing a bit slower. During the turn I switched the radio to departure control and checked-in. Dan stared out the window at the massive airport complex. His only comment was "That place is huge."

We finished our u-turn and climbed to 4000ft ASL and leveled off. We switched to regional ATC channel and got clearance for 5000 feet ASL with a heading of 187 degrees. That heading would take us almost over the beach park where Jazzfest happened last year. It took about 90 seconds to get it programmed into the autopilot, then I could let go of the wheel and relax a little. But I always kept one eye on the altimeter, rate of climb, and artificial horizon. I had Dan keep an eye on engine temp and fuel level for me.

I pointed out some towns we flew over. Dan took lots of pictures out the side window. The sky was very clear and visibility was great. He seemed so happy and excited. Dan actually reached over and gave my thigh a squeeze and rubbed my leg and kept his hand there for a while. It got me thinking about his body back in college when we used to wait for each other so we could go down the hall and shower together. I'm sure that kindled more than a few rumors.

I haven't seen his body in a few years but the last time I saw him naked he had a round hole for a belly button, about the width of a cigar. He had flat red round nips about the size of a dollar coin, his boner was nearly seven inches long and cut. He had thin chest muscles and a mostly flat stomach but it was non-muscular, sort of like mine, just flat and hairless. He had pubes growing to his belly button and slightly above it, but his chest was still hairless. I think he used to trim his arm pits too, that started when everyone else in high school was doing it.

About 100 minutes after we left Madrid we could barely see the coast way ahead in the haze, it looked like a dark blue line across the entire horizon. We could barely see The Rock way over to our left through the haze. Our plan was to fly ten minutes south of Tangier International and begin a turn to the left. Tetouan's runway does not sit straight east-west so you have to approach it from the southwest. You fly south of Tangier about ten minutes then begin the turn and you'll line up with the mountain pass and runway 06 easily. I told Dan that we had to turn around on the active runway and keep a close eye on the sky, he could help with that. I called their tower 50 miles out, they said the pattern was wide open at the moment so we began our approach. I told Dan to watch closely because there were several crop dusting services in the area.

When a control tower refers to The Pattern they are referring to the Traffic Pattern, which are virtual roads in the sky, routes airplanes use for taking off, landing, and circling the airport. Each airport has its own unique pattern but they do have things on common. Like when circling the airport waiting for clearance to land all planes fly the same direction around the pattern.

There was a large paved area to turn around at both ends of the runway but for a small plane like the 172 you could turn around on the runway if you first got all the way over to the side. I told him his job was to watch the tires to help me stay on the pavement when we turned around.

At ten miles out we were already lined-up at 3000ft ASL and dropping. We put on some flaps and started to pick up convective turbulence. I reminded him to help me watch for other airplanes. At five miles out the runway was straight ahead and we were down to 1800ft ASL. At that altitude we could start to see individual cars on the streets and people walking across parking lots. At one mile out everything was set, flaps were extended, we had one third of a tank load left, and we were down to 900ft ASL.

At the inner marker we were 150ft and lined up perfectly, there was a small crosswind from the right, Dan said we were clear on his side. I felt the wings kept trying to lift on the right side so there was a bit of work with the ailerons to keep us level. Then suddenly the runway was beneath us and I chirped the tires exactly on the long white marks. Dan took off his headset, looked at me and said, `Show off!' In those final 60 seconds before wheels touch I think my blood pressure must be sky high because I am so scared that a ground gust will grab my wing and flip us over.

We slowed quickly and turned around and taxied back and left the runway and taxied to the terminal and shut it down. Dan blocked the tires while I got out his suitcase. We did the shutdown check list and he took a picture of the avionics panel where it showed the hours and fuel, along with any fault codes. This plane has weird avionics because it's a rental, so it had electronics not normally found in a 172. The only thing we didn't have to do was tie the plane down because after a rental flight they always pulled it in the barn for a once-over with the mechanic: engine oil, tires, and a close visual inspection of the control cables and fuselage, brakes, and the propeller. This 172 is normally rented out maybe three to five times a day, mostly for student pilots. Sometimes a company will hire a pilot to deliver something that has to arrive as fast as possible and ground delivery isn't fast enough.

I paid in cash and got a receipt, Dan went outside (with my cell) and called for a taxi, one was less than a mile away. I got the paperwork and money stuff finished and got in the back seat and we rode over to Tangier. On the ride across the desert Dan commented this was his first time in Morocco, it looked the same as Algeria.

I always think about earthquakes on the ride home because the N5 highway crosses the fault line, all it looks like is a dry creek bed with weeds and rocks.

When you drive westbound on I-10 approaching the Palm Springs area you drive over the San Andreas Fault, it's a bridge on I-10 that crosses what looks like just another dry creek bed of sand, rocks, weeds, and cactus.

We arrived in the circle driveway at my apartment and got out, I paid the driver $50 Euros and we walked inside the lobby. Dan declared "Well I'll be dipped! You live above a KFC! You never told me that!" I asked if he wanted to eat some Condor and he said, `Show-nuff!' so I ordered and we waited near the counter with his suitcase. Both of us got three piece extra crispy dinners with two sides. I got coleslaw twice; he got corn and mashed tayters. He loved to joke that KFC originally meant Kentucky Fried Condor but they quickly ate the condors to near extinction so they switched to chickens.

That old joke usually earned a, "Oh that was so funny I forgot to laugh," retort from me. Back in high school one time we went to a KFC near our high school and one of us said Kentucky Fried Condor and it got stuck in our brains. It's finger lickin good! After the first time I blew him when we repeated that sales line for KCF I'd lick my finger tip like it was the head of his dick, it always made him uncomfortable. Back in high school Dan felt a guy craving dick was somehow gross, but he'd let his GF suck it all she wanted. I told him if dick was that disgusting maybe he should bathe more often and try using soap.

A few minutes later we got in the elevator and rode to the ninth floor and down to the end of the hallway and I unlocked the door, we went inside and he dropped his suitcase on the sofa. I pointed to the bathroom and let him go first. Then it was my turn.

We sat on the sofa and ate our condor and he noticed I didn't own a TV, so he asked me to turn on a local pop station and make some coffee.

I told him I didn't own a TV because everything on it would be in Arabic, I didn't speak Arabic so why bother? I've learned to say basic numbers in Arabic, which is necessary in taxi cabs and dicking over prices with most street peddlers. I also use my fingers to communicate numbers.

After eating I opened the window and showed him the view: Spain, the cargo ships, and the beach. I told him right away the sea had sharks, I saw my 2nd human attack earlier this week. I told him the water was ice cold. By the time we were done eating it was almost 7pm, and it was dark outside. He spent a lot of time staring out the window at the old city walls. I told him it was probably re-built, this was an area that got big earthquakes. He was fascinated by the fortress walls. At night the walls are brightly lit. Dan asked where The Rock was and I said our view here is blocked, even from the roof. "The roof?" he asked.

We went up to the roof where there was a bone chilling wind so we didn't stay long. We went back down to the 9th floor and warmed up with more coffee, so I made two more with my French press, it made two cups at a time, but I had to boil water first in the sauce pan.

I had him scoop-in the grounds while I supervised the sauce pan with two mugs of coffee water. He stood beside me and put his arm over my shoulder and pulled me into him while we waited for the water to boil. I leaned my head into his shoulder and he pulled me into him even tighter. Like we did when we were college roomies I reached down and grabbed his butt cheek and squeezed it a few times, of course he did nothing to stop me.

I offered him some THC-peanuts and he said okay, then I told him you chew em' and he said okay again. I gave him two peanuts coated in crusty green sugar. He asked, "That's it, just two nuts?"

I said yes, and it takes ninety minutes to two hours to kick-in. While we did stuff I told him there was a small boy that went to the roof a lot, he was one of the few children living in the building. He was very dorky looking and wore ugly thick glasses but he was very well behaved. I said I think he liked the roof because it was the only place he could be alone long enough to wank. "You'll probably see him, he's the only kid in the building far as I know."

We sat back down on the sofa and he said he was tired and going to get changed into bed clothes, so I did the same. He went to the bathroom to pee again and got changed. I changed behind the curtain. While he was busy I put a bed sheet and pillow on the sofa, and then draped a blanket over the backrest. He came out in gym shorts and a loose fitting t-shirt. I was dressed in sweat pants and an undershirt. We listened to a pop station from Spain and talked for a while. When I was in the bathroom he checked out my mattress and when I came back he said he'd rather sleep on the bed, so I told him it would be crowded, he said he didn't care.

I turned off lights and chased him off the bed and pulled down the bed spread and top sheet, we both got in and I pulled it over us. I was on my side, he was on his back in the same spot Jen slept a few months ago.

Just to re-establish our friendship I ran my hand over and rubbed his tummy. When my hand first touched him his entire body flinched, I don't think he expected me to do that. Based on his reported dating failures my touch might have been the first positive one for him in a few years.

Like always he never did anything to stop me. I was tempted to reach down his shorts, I was nearly sure he'd let me do anything I wanted. Dan said he just started to feel the THC, it was a lot stronger than smoking a doobie.

Then he started to tell me about prison. I think stroking his belly button triggered memories.

"We used to get high in our cells, a few times a month. My cellmate was from Houston too, he was Mexican and maybe 45 years old. There was an air vent above the toilet. We used to stand on the toilet and exhale into the vent and never got caught. Some of the prison guards sold joints to inmates at really high prices."

"Huh." I said as he told me the story, but I wasn't sure if this was prison talk or the truth.

He told me about the shakedown inspections, they called it `tossing a cell' because they emptied the cell of everything and tossed it out on the day room floor. Even if your shit got broken they didn't care, it got thrown out the door regardless. He said he saw more than one radio get smashed on the concrete floor. Those actions really pissed off the prisoners but there was little they could do. The stupid part was eventually nearly everyone got out of prison. So the guards had to live in fear for the rest of their lives if the inmates could find out where they lived. Most prison guards used a PO Box and had no mail or other deliveries at home to help keep it a secret. The smarter guards refused to talk or interact with the inmates, which was what they were supposed to do.

I noticed his voice was getting more slurry and he sounded really high and very tired too and eventually he just stopped talking and started breathing differently. And then he was sound asleep, or faking it.

I slid my hand up under his shirt to his chest and slid my thumb side to side across his tit. It felt exactly the same as in college, it also felt like he recently shaved his chest. I felt razor stubble around his nips and in the center of his chest. The only reason why Dan would have shaved his chest was because he was going to spend time with me; otherwise he didn't care about hairless nipples. He knew I liked smooth chests and stomachs. My chest is still naturally hairless, when he sees me he will certainly comment that I still look like a boy. But Dan shaved around his nips and belly button for one reason only: to turn me on.

Back when we were in high school he had one and only one hair growing on his entire chest, it sprouted beside his right nipple. That ugly fucking hair grew like crazy, the first time I saw it the hair was like 1.5 inches long and it grew weirdly, like a little black lightning bolt. I told him to cut it off. Dan cried "No way, it took me 19 years to grow it." So that night while he was asleep I took a scissors and snipped it off near the base and after that he realized any hair he trimmed grew back quickly so it was okay. That was when he started trimming all his body hair, except his butt crack because he couldn't see it. I offered to do it for him but he didn't trust me getting that close to his bung hole.

Dan sometimes started to snore lightly, which was how I knew if he was really asleep. When he started doing it I reached down and gently grabbed his dick, but he wasn't hard so I rolled over and went to sleep.

I wished I knew what he was thinking when he decided not to sleep on the sofa. That's the problem with Dan, it always has been. There are things we cannot discuss because of his stupid hetero-man-rules. But he's like a brother to me and when it comes to intimate touching he is totally in charge. He knows I'd blow him anytime if he walked up and whipped it out, he doesn't even have to say anything, just get it near my mouth and I'll gladly do the work.

For some reason he needs to make things complicated, like he's trying to protect his ego. But with me? I mean we've seen and touched about every square inch of each other's body so why he creates bullshit barriers, I have no idea. He could give me some long bullshit speech about being hetero, then wank in front of me and come on his belly. His entire sex world view is very convoluted, guilt ridden, and contradictory, I told him he talks about sex like a Karen!

I suspect a huge number of men feel the need to constantly prove they're not gay. Being Bi excuses you from that burden. Just be yourself and enjoy life and have lots of sex. Don't worry -- be happy!

At 7am he got out of bed with morning wood in his shorts. He stood and faced me and stretched his body with that schlong in his pants. I complimented his rod and he looked down then reached down his pants to feel it and said he had to go pee. Not to be outdone I reached down my sweatpants and got hard quickly. When I heard the toilet flush I got up and took my turn

After pissing I took a shower and also left the door wide open. From the sofa you cannot see much in the bathroom.

"What're we doin today?" he asked after I got out of the bathroom.

"It's kinda up yours. Anythin you wanna do?" I answered in the same lingo we adopted in high school.

"Hell, I dunno. There ain't no `musement parks here, right?"

"Nope. Tangier's not a destination for thrill seekin teens. It'd be cool if there was a Six Flags over Tangier. As far as I know there are no roller coasters in the entire country of Morocco. Most people walk around the old city and look at the shops and vendors, avoid the gypsies and the Modesty Police."

"What's that?"

"It's kind of a civilian police club that makes sure women are safe and properly veiled and nobody gets disorderly. I'll show you when we get over by the walled city."

"And you said the walled city is a replica, right?" He asked.

"I suspect it is, but nobody knows. There's almost nothing in-print about it. But there's a major fault line near the city, actually it's a little east of here. Those mountains to the south are the Atlas Mountains. They say they're caused by Spain moving south into Africa and pushing up the land, like how India drifted into Asia and pushed up the Himalayas." He had no comment so I kept going.

"All along the north coast of the African continent are old Roman and Egyptian ruins, like Carthage in Tunisia. They toppled from earthquakes. So if all the old structures collapsed, my guess is Tangier collapsed too but got re-built because it was a vital military fortress, and today Morocco displays a standing-intact ancient appearing walled city, it's a major part of what brings tourists here, so they maintain the wall and that's why the ancient city is fully functional, it's a replica of what they built 1200 years ago. I mean everything else that was built back then toppled. It's safe to assume Tangier did too."

"Who built it?"

"The Roman Army supposedly built a walled fortress and had cannons aimed in every direction. They tried to control who entered the Mediterranean. Keep the pirates out, collect taxes, crap like that. It was big business to them and the `Medsea' was the known world to a huge percentage of humanity." Dan got up and walked over to the window and looked across the bay at the walled city and said "If you ignore the overall design, it looks like it was built less than 100 years ago."

"Yes, my idea exactly. I don't know of anything over 1,000 years old that is in such good shape without significant repairs and upgrades."

He walked back to the sofa and sighed loudly, then he asked, "Inside the wall it's basically a small modern city, right?"

"Uh huh." I replied.

"Well if this was an ancient Roman fortress when it was built there were no motor vehicles, no city water, no sewer service, no gas or cable TV. If there was a fire the walls would keep the fire contained and ensure everything inside the walls was burned. If this was a walled military fortress all the civilians would have been kept outside the walls, not the inside."

I interrupted him and said, "The ancient Romans had basic sewer and water, but the water only served the baths, and public fountains. The sewers served the public toilets and maybe the Palace and a few homes fortunate enough to be above the underground sewage tunnels. If you got water like that you have to have some kind of sewer service or the city would flood. If there was a fire they had to use buckets and everyone in town had to come help stop the fire from destroying the entire city, which actually happened to ancient Rome."

I reminded him that there are no aqueduct ruins here so they probably had hand dug water wells and buckets on ropes to lift water to the surface, which means no running water. "To me the city today looks like it was built in the late 1800s, all traces of the military fortress are long gone. Maybe they had public toilets here back then and a crude form of city water. To me this place looks like its 150 years old tops. I think this Tangier was built partially on the ruins of the Roman fortress."

I paused briefly then said, "I bet the original walled fortress was a lot smaller than the walled city is today. And notice how different the walls look as you go around the city. In some places the wall is 30 feet tall and one foot thick, but in others the wall is built like the Great Wall of China."

Dan said we should go look at the photos in the Kasbah Museum, I agreed and reminded him the oldest photographs would be mid 1800s. So those would still be these walls, not the original ones. Maybe there are sketches of the original ones we could compare to the oldest photos.

Dan speculated, "I wonder who sailed into the Med and caused so much shit that caused Rome to build a fortress here?"

"I don't know. But if I had to guess I would guess maybe the Portuguese, or the Dutch, or maybe even the Vikings, it's possible it could have been Africans too."

"How long has this been a desert here?" Dan asked.

I said "...they now think maybe 7-10 thousand years ago it was grasslands like Kansas and Nebraska today. Then the sun changed. They say when the pyramids were built Egypt was not one big sand dune like it is now, it was much greener and the pyramids were surrounded by palm trees and grassy fields where their cattle once grazed."

"What about the Sahara?" Dan asked.

"They're saying now that maybe 10,000 years ago it used to be grasslands all the way across, just like in Asia."

He sat there on the sofa in silence so I kept going. "It's the same thing in central Asia, like Afghanistan and Pakistan. Major branches of the Silk Road passed through there and ran down to India and west to Iran, Iraq, all the Stans, to the Med and down to the Nile River and northeast across Turkey and into Europe. But the weather slowly changed and those grasslands died out too and there was a huge migration of people heading west toward Europe and Africa. They're just beginning to uncover the ruins of vast abandoned cities in that region. It's mostly scientists from Russia doing that work today. It's probably those people who settled the Nile River (and brought a pictographic language from China to Egypt) and others walking west built the Roman and Greek Empires. Remember, it was about that era when humans started to learn about planting seeds to grow crops instead of wandering around in search of food. The world changed slowly back then before books and in some cases before written languages.

Then Dan changed the subject to food. He asked if there was any decent Mexican food in Tangier and I said, "Almost none but there are a couple in the city, I never tried them. But Tex-Mex like we grew up with is almost non-existent here. Taco Hell does not exist in Morocco." Dan laughed because we always avoided that place.

"What's good to eat here?"

"Fish is good, Red Snapper is popular and cheap. Uh, beef is okay but expensive. They sell goat meat in stores, it's actually decent too, and lots of restaurants sell seasoned and smoked goat burgers and meatballs. There is almost no pork in Morocco because it's not halal. But you can go to Spain and buy pork and bring it back. Beer is weird here and so are the rules about when you can buy carry out or drink a beer on tap in the bar. And everyone enforces the rules differently."

Then he asked something really weird (coming from his mouth), "Is gay sex legal here?"

"Same sex marriage does not exist in Morocco and most of Africa and the Middle East. And sodomy is also illegal here, you can get eight years in prison for sodomy. But I gotta be honest about that. To get busted for sodomy in Tangier you'd about have to blow your boyfriend on the sidewalk in front of a police station in broad daylight." We both chuckled. I also said, "So far as I know if you leave Morocco and head east the only other countries where gay is not illegal are South Africa, Taiwan, and Australia. I might partially add Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines."

Dan was quiet briefly then asked what the legal definition of Sodomy was.

"I don't know how it's defined in Morocco. Pero en los Estados Unidos Sodomy is defined as any sexual activity that cannot end in a female pregnancy. Examples would be: oral sex, anal sex, and masturbation. Any where you put your dick except a vagina is probably considered Sodomy. But Morocco is known for being lenient on those rules, or maybe I should say Tangier is known for being lenient. I'm not sure about the rest of the country."

"Do they bust boys for fucking?"

"There are a lot of gays in Tangier, most of `em are over the age of 40. I think the Sodomy laws are mostly intended to keep the Muslims busy making new infant Muslim human resources so they can one day become the biggest religion in the world and tell the Christians to convert or die." I speculated half kidding.

I tried to explain it better to Dan, "So let's say you are a woman legally married to another woman in New York State. You vacation down here but your spouse suddenly dies. Someone has to sign the death certificate as closest relative. They would not accept your marriage claim in Morocco so they might try to contact family with the same name in the USA for consent to ship the body home, you would be considered a close friend and not a spouse." During my explanation Dan seemed to have lost interest so I changed the subject.

"Dan, you gonna take a shower?" I asked.

"Where's the towels?" he asked.

"I set one out on the sink, everything you need but a razor is in the shower."

"Thanks bro, you're the best."

"Whatever." I replied because his compliment sounded totally insincere.

He walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower water. A moment later he stepped out totally naked and asked if he could use my toothbrush and I told him he can use anything in the apartment.

He got in the shower, then I mumbled to myself, "...including my mouth."

While he took his shower I cleaned up from last night. I think we dropped a lot of chicken breading crumbs so I swept the tile floor and wiped down the coffee table and made some coffee too.

Often when Dan and I were together I tried to sound relaxed and friendly, one of the things I did around him was to pronounce coffee as if I was from Boston, so I called it: Kauwfee.

I love Kauwfee. Here in Tangier most of the grocery store coffee came from Africa and it seemed a lot stronger than most of the grocery store coffees sold in the USA. South American coffee is slightly chocolaty, but African beans are slightly fruity.

While he had the bathroom I did a search online for roller coasters in Morocco' and got the result of: there are no roller coasters in Morocco. None-nada. I mumbled to myself, yes, that would be fun in a no-fun zone.' So there's another business idea: amusement park near Tetouan. What about a steel roller coaster in the shallow water near the beach, so the shark threat added to the perception of danger. I assumed there had to be dozens of older roller coasters for sale around the world. Ones that were hot shit brand new in 1990 and were ready to retire and move. I could buy the land and install the coaster over the beach and water and open a park myself. The first Supercoaster in Africa! And I'd to have to market it so it was approved by Imams and was considered Halal. Call it: "Jaws, the Supercoaster!" And the next year we could add some other retro rides for the old folks: Himalaya, Tilt a Whirl, and the Wild Mouse. Throw in a Ferris wheel and a Merry Go Round, and maybe a miniature working steam train line and concession stands and we'd be carrying pounds of cash to the bank and providing jobs to young teens. A 25% return on my investment! It would pay the mortgage and insurance and leave plenty of money each year to buy another big old roller coaster or park ride every year. The biggest problem is I just do not know anything about Muslim culture and I doubt Tangier is the place to learn.

Of course since women are 50% of the humans on Earth, if they were required to veil and cover outdoors a trip on a supercoaster would easily blow them off, can we work out some kind of rule exception for a 40 second roller coaster? I also considered adding a mini golf course, it wouldn't blow covers off women and could be as popular as the supercoaster itself. We could alternate coaster cars, make every other coaster run for women and kids only, then men and boys only on the next run.

I thought what they should erect at the ferry ports were large signs that said "You are entering a designated NO-FUN zone. Fun is not allowed in public, but you may smile and get high."

Twenty minutes later he emerged from the bathroom with a towel around his waist, I made the bed and was on my back on top staring at the ceiling. Dan came over and sat down and asked what I was doing. I glanced at him to see if he cut himself shaving.

"I was thinking about us back in college, all the years we were roomies, how well we got along."

"Ahhh, the good old days." He said and turned around and sat cross legged on the bed facing me, his towel got loose and his crotch became visible and his hair was dripping bath water on my sheets. I rolled on my side and we stayed like that for a while and just talked, he seemed to forget he was naked, his limp dick visible to me the entire time. I kept glancing at his tits and his belly button hole, but it was too dark to see much inside to know if it was full of lint or not. He knows that bothers me. Who knows what he forgot about autism after being in the slammer for two years.

Eventually he got tired of sitting so he fell over on his side facing me, but his body went the other way so his feet were on the pillows and his face was by my knees. He stayed naked but I was dressed, I wished I was naked but it would be too awkward to simply strip off my clothes and get back in bed.

For a while I put my hand down my pants and wiggled my limp dick around. He steered our conversation away from the topic of sex.

After over an hour of chit-chat he spun around and put his head on the pillow, his body relaxed beside me on his back, I turned on my side and stared at his chest. Eventually I got the nerve to tell him his body hasn't changed that much since college.

Then I told him I liked the shape of his chest and his nipples. His tits were red, flat, round, and a bit bigger than a dollar coin (1.25inches across, 3.5cm). He glanced down at his chest and smiled at me. I asked him if his were as sensitive as mine, and he said it depended on the situation, but yes they were sensitive but you had to work them just right otherwise it didn't feel good. I remembered back in college one time he told me if she worked his tits the wrong way she might as well have been rubbing them with a toothbrush.

"Anyone ever work `em just right?"

He said, "Yes, that chick I knew who went to nursing school, she did. Hers worked the same way."

"What did she do?"

She rubbed em gently like they were soft round pleasure buttons. Too many people suck em too hard or grab `em and pull too hard. They like a gentle touch."

I reached over and set my hand on his chest while he watched closely, I never asked permission. But like always he never told me to stop. I set one finger tip on his tit and rubbed it gently side to side, then around in circles and he said circles was the best way, just like that. So I kept going and he watched closely. I told him mine worked almost the exact same way, really gentle, around and around in circles. I told him that was how I rubbed `em when I jerked off.

Then Dan told me rubbing my finger around in circles, my finger kept rubbing over the teat in the middle, that didn't feel good so you have to slide it around without touching the teat, or even simpler take two fingers together and slide them back and forth across it so the teat slides under the space between the fingers, so I'm rubbing the bottom half and top half of his areolas. Dan said the correct pronunciation of that hideous word is: ah REE lah. He said it is not pronounced: air ree OH lah.

"Whatever became of that chick?" I asked. It was kind of awkward rubbing my best friend's nipple in bed, especially knowing he was straight but super horny and probably willing to let me pleasure him any way I wanted, taking advantage of me being bi. Believe me, I usually didn't mind being taken advantage of by Dan.

"Oh you mean Lizzy?" he asked.

"Yah, I think that was her name. The one that went in the navy and to college for nursing, she wanted to be a corpsman aboard the Nimitz."

"Yes Liz. She left same time as us for college and we texted a few times then I never heard from her again. I suppose she went to school and disappeared into the Navy somewhere."

I bet I spent ten to fifteen minutes massaging his right tit (it made my dick get super hard).

"What did her nipples look like?" I asked.

"Her breasts were smaller, like B-cup size, maybe A-cup. I really liked her breasts but I think she wished she had big D-cups. But her nipples were oval and they puffed out like red pleasure domes with a small teat in the middle. Hers were shaped like oval stadium domes, the teats were like half a pencil eraser. They felt like they were full of marshmallow, all squishy and soft. I could spend hours on her tits and she enjoyed every moment." Then he told me Liz said for many women when they breast fed they got some amount of sexual gratification from it because their nipples are wired for pleasure, but it's not a strong sense like our dicks. He said Liz told him men and women have the same number of sensory nerves in their nipples. I told her that lots of men got no pleasure at all from their tits. Liz said that was because they convinced themselves that was true, but the nerves were still there. It might take a little training to fully enjoy nip pleasure.

I told him if my tits were worked properly it actually felt like my dick was being handled too. And then I asked the million dollar question, "Did you get assaulted in jail?"

"Yes, in the shower. Three guys held me against the wall while some big dude fucked me from behind."

"Whatever became of them?" I asked.

"The guy eventually got released and then I was left alone. When I first arrived I thought I was going to be traded like a pack of cigarettes but I think my cellmate protected me a bit, he really didn't even have a dick. I caught glimpses of him in the shower and I think his dick was the size of a thimble, but he was super strong and ugly, but he was a decent guy when it was just the two of us. He just looked scary." Dan went on to say that his butt bled every time he shat for a week after each rape, but he learned not to scream because that only made them fuck him harder.

I slid my hand down to his belly and fingered his belly button and rubbed his slightly hairy stomach.

Then Dan asked me a really stupid question. "You still autistic?"

I said, "It never goes away, so yes I'm still a retard and I'm takin it to the grave. What's your excuse?" I asked sarcastically.

Dan spoke in a dumb hick accent and said "My parents was my excuse, they was so close my pappy called my mammy `Sis.'" I chuckled because of his fake accent, two years in prison seemed to have improved his fake hill jack accent.

"What sucked the most about being in prison?" I asked, and that was when he reached down and gently moved my hand back to his chest.

Dan paused to think briefly, and then he said "I hated living in fear 24 hours a day. I trusted nothing. Even the food could be tainted by evil people in the kitchen. Some of the inmates told me to never eat the mashed potatoes, but I think that was an old prison myth, but it could have been true that the kitchen people liked to wank in the mashed potatoes for extra protein and salt flavor. But they got cameras everywhere so I don't think it's true anymore."

Then the lack of things to do was bad, it was super boring so you had to learn to deal with that. I read about thirty books, some of them twice. And I suppose I learned to hate people, especially the guards. Some of them were as evil as the worst inmates. But I guess the two worst ones are dead now, which seems a fitting end for them, but there were others." He paused then added, "I don't care if the guards sold joints for $12 each, but don't punish inmates for not buying `em."

I wiggled closer and ran my hand back down and grabbed his half hard dick and held it firmly, "Give me names and IDs of some kind." He never replied. Then I let go and moved my hand back to his chest. I think he wanted his prison memories to disappear from his brain.

We were quiet for a bit then he asked if I've had any gay encounters in Morocco. I told him yes, a couple but they were minor. Jen's been here twice, she keeps me going, keeps me balanced.

Dan asked if I was going to marry her and I said probably not but you never know for sure. We're both too individual and independent to be good spouses. I doubt she'll ever give birth. I told him I think she is trying to get transferred to the office in Madrid, and then we'll probably see each other more often. She's taking Spanish at night school, and I think the idea of a very different culture really fascinates her. Let me tell you Jen is a very nerdy girl, few people understand that about her because she hides it now.

I looked at my alarm clock it was like 11:10am and we'd spent hours in bed talking and sort of having an intimate day at home. In the past if we did this it was because he wanted a blow job and was teasing me with his naked body just inches away. Dan asked me to do something for him, and I was surprised when he told me to take off my clothes, so I stood up and stripped naked but got back under the sheet. He wanted to see my body again, see how much I changed since the last time we did this. Before I got back in bed I stood beside the bed so he could examine my body briefly, after a few seconds he looked away and I got under the sheets.

Dan asked me how many times I've had his dick in my mouth and I told him I didn't remember. He said he forgets a lot of things but having the Beev in his face wasn't one of them. I think he meant he thought I was lying when I said I didn't remember.

"Didn't you compliment me once when we were really drunk, you said my dick tasted great and you loved it." I smiled and glanced at his eyes then said it sounded like something I said before, but I've slept since then and I really don't keep mental images, I mean after you see them a bunch they all sort of start to look the same.

"Does having me here in bed with you make you horny?" He asked.

I said no, "I've seen your body hundreds if not thousands of times; I've seen you come in the shower more times than I could ever begin to estimate. After a while it becomes just another one."

I paused briefly then sort of took it back. "Don't take that the wrong way, you have a great body and a really nice dick, and I appreciate those things but you're here because you're family, not because I crave sex with you."

"So we're not gonna do anything?"

"I didn't say that, I just mean I'm concerned about you as a brother, that's primarily why you're here. And I wanted to give you a break from Houston."

Dan kind of leaned over and kissed the side of my forehead and whispered, "Just help yourself anytime you want my body. Okay? You don't have to ask any more."

Here I was speaking all honest and emotional and all he could think about was his dick getting sucked. Typical awkward hetero Dan, sometimes he's as subtle and caring as a 20lb sledgehammer, and I'm the one with autism!

I smiled and looked at him and said thanks, but I think that was not the first time he told me to help myself to his flesh. He wiggled around and got on his back beside me, our arms were touching and both of us were naked. He got under the sheets too and closed his eyes and sighed.

I softly told him something I feared might make me start to cry. "To fly up to Madrid and fly you down here cost me a lot of money, I did that because I love you and I feel your pain, and I want you to get better and be happy again. Sucking your dick is a totally separate thing. I want you to be okay again because when you're in pain it hurts me too." My lower lip started to quiver and tremble when I told him that and I'm sure he heard my voice get wonky and knew I got emotional saying it.

I rolled over and kissed his shoulder and slid my hand down to his right hand. With my face pressed into his shoulder I held his right hand for a while. He pulled my hand up onto his belly and laid it out flat on his stomach, it felt like he just shaved his tummy in the shower, which was his way of asking me to blow him without saying the words.

With my hand on his tummy he held his dick at the base and smacked my fingers with it several times and rubbed the head of his growing boner side to side across my thumb. I got up a little and moved over and rested the side of my face on his freshly shaved tummy and he positioned his head against my lips and moved it side to side, so I opened and took him in my mouth. Now we both got what we wanted.

It felt so nice with him in my mouth again, it really satisfied me, just having him in my mouth I felt safe and fulfilled. I closed my eyes and relaxed my body and sighed and wished that moment would last forever. His boner in my mouth sent me to heaven. Having Dan in my mouth felt like we were maximally connected, joined together as one. The fact that he trusted me with his most prized secret possession spoke volumes to me. As far as I knew I was the only person in his entire life that he did this with.

Over time I started rubbing it with my fingertips and about ten minutes later he moaned a few times and came in my mouth. That time I swallowed his milk. He even used some minor hip action to push it a little deeper with each pump of semen. After he was done I cupped his nut sack so he couldn't pull out. I think he feels leaving his dick in my mouth after he comes is a little too gay for his hetero brain so I had to stop him from leaving too quickly. I just wanted to enjoy it a while longer. To me it was intimacy but to him it was another orgasm in some dude's mouth.

His dick gets super super sensitive after he comes so he prefers I not touch it at all during and after his orgasm, but I can hold it motionless in my mouth and the result is the same. A few times in the past he told me I gave him the strongest orgasms he ever had, and all of those were when he came in my mouth and left it there for about fifteen minutes afterward or until it was nearly limp.

I took a drink of water and then we napped for an hour then got up and got dressed as the sun was going down, we walked all the way over to Café Vintage and ordered fish dinners. That was two snapper fillets, tempura battered along with tempura veggies and a salad for each of us. We never ordered alcohol and walked slowly home. I would have held his hand but he never would do that in public and it could be dangerous doing that in Morocco.

When we got back I guessed more was going to happen between us but nothing did, we went to sleep but got up early the next day, his 3rd day in Africa.

One thing I figured out is it seems Dan has really relaxed about gay stuff. Back in college he barely ever touched me, especially if I was naked or barely covered. Now he's asking about gay sex, he's even using the G-word in sentences, and seems to be open about wanting his dick sucked! This is all new for him. Maybe getting fucked in prison changed him but I didn't want to ask unless he brought it up. I'm sure it hurt bad but he's never really talked about it.

Dan's first visit to Tangier continues in the next chapter.

Contact the author: borischenaz mailfence